The first time he tries to climb the drainpipe to her window, he comes away with bloody palms, the gravel landscaping taking its payment for trespassing in the form of ripped jeans. The light that leaks from the front door as her father comes to investigate nearly betrays them, but he winces and scampers into the safer shadows of the shrubbery. "Bloody foxes again," he hears her father say. He'll try again tomorrow. By the end of the month, he's an expert, scaling tall buildings in a single bound. His knock is gentle, a tap nearly imperceptible that signals his presence. She opens her window for him slowly, avoiding the creak of rusty hinges. Together they travel to Never Never Land and when they return, her fingers smooth over the scar on his thenar eminence: the last remnant of his war with the pirates. Before dawn he leaves the way he came, stars leading him home through the fields that separate their houses. The sky feels too large on those nights, like a vast black sea that may swallow him whole if he looks behind him. He outpaces the invisible monsters, keeping just out of reach of their tentacles, making it home as the first tendrils of daylight touch the horizon. He makes a joke of rattling the panes rattle as he shakes the frame, trying to squeeze his fingers into something that can be used as leverage, and her misty shape seems to fly towards him in warning. She laughs her reprimand of the noise. Their fingers touch for a moment too long, each of them pulling away for different reasons. There are scars everywhere you have touched me. Here, his skin burns, then burns again when she hugs him goodbye, cheekbones knocking together as they faire la bise. The first time she comes to his house, she's stood on his front step. His nana answers the door before he can reach it, and she hovers just out of sight when he arrives, pretending to dust a fern. She pushes something into his chest, hard and small. He traps it with his hands, pulling them away slowly, and the item falls into his palms. A book. His book. Her mouth and fists say angry, but her eyes say sad, the salty tear tracks have dried but are still visible beneath red sclera. She recites venomous syllables: "I hope this song will remind you that I'm not half as bad as what you've been told," "I'm sorry," he lies. He meant all of the words he wrote, but never intended to let her see them. Not this song. Not yet. Stupid, careless, forgetful. "Save it," she spits. He can see the tears begin to well again, but willpower is a dam that holds them back. "If we can't be friends, we can't be anything." The monsters catch him as she storms away, back to the car her boyfriend leans against. He straightens his frame as she arrives, and gets in without opening her door, the slams on both sides seeming to echo in the silence. When they devour him, the begin with his lungs. This is how he imagines it must feel to drown, suffocating under the weight of something you can feel but not see. They save his heart for last, etching the memory of her face into it again and again until nothing more is left. The next time he comes to her window, he finds it locked.