She's so shy that when her cheeks flush, when she draws her fingers up across her mouth, when she tries to hunch down to make her hair fall into her eyes, Kevin feels an overwhelming rush of guilt. She is forever doing that; he is forever wondering if he should apologize to her for that day he sculpted her into his friend. She'd been watching, pale gray eyes and frightened, when he tripped off the bus. Quietly, she accompanied him to school for his first day in a strange place, guiding him through the school. Soon, they did everything together – rather, he did while she watched.

Now, Lena was watching all the time, at his elbow in the halls, on the bus with him when they rode home. He talked and joked, got noisier than anyone else wanted to tolerate, but she would only blush at his naughtier jokes and keep quiet. She was sheltered. He knew that, and it bothered him like a flea behind his ear would: itching away until he felt it everywhere and wanted to go have a scalding hot bath to burn the sensation away.

He wanted to be the only shelter that she needed.

But he couldn't say a word; the thoughts stuck in his throat and tried to choke him every time he tried to tell her. So the words took their own shelter in his mind, clinging to every other idea that whizzed by. It made for an awful traffic jam and an awful lot of extra baths, as much as Kevin despised the smell of soap and despised even more deeply the smell of wet dog that roiled off his skin in clouds. His mom told him that it was only steam, and would he please slow down on his hot water consumption. He knew better. The steam was that wet-dog smell, which would devour and rule him soon.

He had to find a way to talk to Lena before he burned himself away.

"Hey," he said, loping up alongside her that Monday.

"Hi," Lena said.

Kevin had to pause there, disconcerted, unsure, worried that she couldn't stand him and was his friend because he was new here. He wanted to laugh at himself, and he would've, if she wouldn't think he was laughing at her or about to make a joke. So he opened his mouth and said the exact opposite of what he wanted to.

"Did you do that essay for Mrs. Phelps?" he asked, instead of, "I like you – do you like me?" Even in his head, both questions raised alarms of juvenile stupidity. At least, he told himself, he knew the answer to one.

She nodded, giving him the expected answer, and added, "Yeah, did you?" But Kevin was sure she knew his answer, too.

"Nope!" he said. "When do I ever?"

Considering this, Lena tilted her head back slightly, eyes facing heaven and sparkling under the fluorescent lights that colored her skin paler than usual against her long, white coat. For a moment, her hair abandoned its guard of her face, and she looked like Peace. Kevin wanted her to stay like that until he could run for a camera and capture wisps of her soul in a picture.

He often felt that way with her.

She didn't hold the pose much longer, and turned her eyes to meet his, a soft smile playing over her soft-looking lips. "No," she replied, "you never do." Anyone else saying that, and he would've shrugged it away like an unwanted, cold hand on his shoulder, or like a coat in the heat of summer. Her, however – she made him feel guilty all over.

He would do the next essay, and tell her that he didn't write it for any grade or teacher's surprise-induced heart attack; he wrote it for her. He could tell her, maybe, that he wanted to be the only one to protect her.

The next Monday, sidling up to her outside their locker, Kevin said, "So did you do the essay?"

She didn't look at him, stacking her books neatly on the top shelf, filling the space until the tiniest of cracks remained in empty shadow. Her pale eyes blinked once before she said, "Yeah." She blinked again and a stray eyelash flicked down from its pack and settled, black and faint, on her flushed cheek. "Did you?"

Kevin produced it from behind his back and said, "For you."

Taking the stapled pages as if they were an extravagant, bright bouquet, Lena's lips broke into a grin as she said, "Thank you!"

"Do you like it?" he asked, shuffling his feet and shrugging his coat off to hang it in the locker; he had to reach past her to do this, putting a barrier between them, albeit briefly. She was still wearing hers, but he was positive he felt her radiating warmth; her bright light was that of the sun, smiling on him, and he knew that no matter her answer, he would be content to have seen her beam a genuine ray-of-light smile.