27
Perspectives
April stumbled into her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed, drawing her knees close to her chest and burying her face against them. She needed Boo, but he was playing in the yard and she couldn’t bring herself to go back downstairs for anything. Her body shook with silent sobs, but tears wouldn’t come. Screams might.
She tried to take deeper breaths, to get control. She wasn’t succeeding.
“April?”
April’s body went still at the sound of Lars’s voice, then his footsteps as he came to sit beside her on the bed. She was curled up with her back to the door, her hair pulled loose from its braid spilling over her face. Lars brushed it back gently but she kept her forehead tight against her knees.
“It was bad?” he guessed.
“It was Charley,” April said and the tears came at
