<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">In the time that Volk had been absent Reno was little girl playing big kid. She had gotten pretty skilled at her charade, working for a paycheck, maintaining the house, cooking dinner, and learning to drive the rusty, steel-sided, stick-shift pickup. She had even adopted the habit of tying her hair back- no more pigtails, no more braids. <i>Just like your mother</i>, her father had remarked once, gums stinking of liquor. The thought had made her ill and now all the photographs of mother were tucked away in boxes, dusty memories for the attic mites to nibble away at. In past months Reno tried, with some success, to obscure the visage of childhood in her features. Her eyes were painted dark and she wore lipstick, red as the scars that marred her knees. Perfume stuck to her cheeks and wherever she walked she left the scent of rosewater and magnolias. Her dresses grew ever shorter, and even now, in the clammy cool of the graveyard, the black sheer lace hung above far above her knees where the hem brushed against thigh-high stockings. Little girl not just playing big kid, but <i>woman, </i>though the word felt uncomfortable, like cotton in her mouth. She played the role, went through the motions, but at night she crumpled, the act splintering. At night she lay in the dark, accompanied by guilt and by the grave stare of the ceiling and by searing thoughts of <i>what could have been</i>. At night she trembled in her bed, the one with the headboard still plastered in stickers, hard as she tried to peel them off. At night she washed off the makeup, the perfume, let down her hair. She was no woman when she lay awake in bed. Reno didn't sleep well, anymore. <br/>
<br/>
She couldn't help but wonder what Volk had done in his hiatus. Where he lived- who he was. Which closet he hid his skeletons in. When Reno knew him he had a softer heart, but she also knew it could grow hot and impulsive. He had a face that glowered at the same time it allured and voice that was syrupy sweet but slipped out between the thorns that were his teeth. Reno, in childish naivety, had fallen for him again and again in youth. But she knew better now- she thought she knew better now. She wondered how many Renos he had met and had discarded. <br/>
<br/>
She was the first Reno that he had come back to. Reno may have been snarling at him but somewhere in her she knew it was the softer heart in him that brought him back to Burning Bear.<br/>
<br/>
His words, the blades <i>in </i>his words, stung her. Poor girl was always quick to apologize, always quick to accept guilt. Confrontation made her knees weak. Little Reno, little girl, still afraid of the dark and afraid of being yelled at, staring both her fears in the face. Shadows drew across Volk's eyes, his storm was churning and the thunder rattled her. Her cries warbled- oh baby bird, baby Reno, hollow bones and yet flightless. She knew Volk was the wolf now, had been since he left, but how she longed for him to still be <i>her </i>wolf. <br/>
<br/>
It wasn't fair of her to throw stones at Volk and not expect any back. He had, after all, rolled a boulder through the glass windows that pieced her family, her father, together. But it hurt her anyway. She had hoped that the years of exile had burned in him a sense of regret, but she was afraid that the Volk that broke her was the Volk he was then, and now, and until the end. <br/>
<br/>
<i>I was miserable too.</i><br/>
<br/>
She bit her lip, hard, till the flesh was punctured and the driplets of blood pooled on her tongue. <i>Was he miserable</i>? Was he trapped in a haunted town, was he the caretaker of a father that either cried of drank himself to sleep, was he there when father paled and thinned and succumbed to a disease he had given himself, was he homesick in his own home, was he reminded of an estranged mother every time he looked in the mirror, was he plagued with separation anxiety for someone that didn't exist anymore, was he scared of his own reflection and of photographs, was he abandoned? <br/>
<br/>
<i>I was miserable too</i>. <br/>
<br/>
On the other hand, her heart sunk, subconsciously, at the thought of the boy she once loved existing in agony. <br/>
<br/>
"You want- you want to do something?" Whatever strength in her voice had dissipated, it was wavering now, interrupted by whimpers, cries not out of loss for her father but out of loss for her brother, "Then... then don't be sorry that dad's gone. Be sorry that <i>you're </i>gone, Volk." <br/>
<br/>
He had never apologized.<br/>
<br/>
"I hated you, I missed you, I hated you, and I missed you again- it's killing me, Volk, to both want you dead and want you here-" there wasn't any part of her that wanted him dead, not now, not after seeing him again- it was obvious, but she wouldn't admit it, "can't you just... can't you just say sorry- for once- after all this-"<br/>
<br/>
Baby Reno, baby bird, hollow bones and hollow anger.<br/>
<br/>
"Or- or- at least tell me why it had to happen-"<br/>
<br/>
She stepped closer to him, hands knotted in the lace of her dress, eyes puffy, that dark paint that made her look so broody, so 'mature', dripping down her cheeks in streams. "Are you here for me, Volk? Or are you here for yourself?"<br/>
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"If you're here for yourself- go back, to wherever you came from-" She sighed, exasperated, perhaps giving in- "but if you're here for me-"<br/>
<br/>
She paused, as if unsure about what to say next- and she was-<br/>
<br/>
"-if you're here for me, load up your bike." Her eyes widened, as if she herself was surprised at what she said- she supposed her heart could be impulsive, too. "I'm tired of staring at dad." <br/>
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