The door opened. A red feeling flushed through Tom.
A nervousness, sharp and overbearing and dark.
"It's past your curfew, boy." Mr. Thatcher said from the doorway.
"I-- I know, sir. I... I wanted to speak with Becky, if I could." Tom said, running a hand through his hair. His words felt tired, sof through this air, even if he was awake now.
He was hoping it would be her.
"She's asleep. As you should be; it's halfway through the night! What do you need to speak to her about?" Judge Thatcher asked. Tom straightened his worn shirt. He hoped Mr. Thatcher couldn't see it well through the night air-- it was an old shirt with a few holes in it.
"We had a misunderstanding."
"Yes, she told me that much, boy. Can't it wait?" Judge Thatcher asked, pulling a hand up to his mouth to cover a yawn.
"Sir, I don't think it can. I can't sleep knowing Becky is upset with me, and so I gotta make it right."
"Mr. Sawyer, you'll have to come back later. Becky's sleeping, and I'm not going to wake her if you're just going to come on in and make her upset."
"But--"
"Now, go back home, and have a word with her during the day when you get the chance. Close the gate when you leave. Good night." Judge Thatcher said.
"Mr. Thatcher--"
"Judge Thatcher."
"I just--"
"Go home, Tom. You're not going to see her tonight." He started to close the door. "If you go on home, I won't bring this up with your Aunt Polly." Judge Thatcher smiled tiredly, stubbornly, stiffly, and closed the big door.
Tom was left in the open air. The star-filled sky above him, the gas lamps lighting his way back home. But he couldn't go back home. Tom knew he wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that Becky thought... Tom sighed. How could Amy ever even say that? He absolutely did not kiss her back. He couldn't even imagine it-- the thought brought a turning to his stomach, his heart. How could he ever betray Becky like that?
Tom didn't want to speak with Amy. He wasn't prepared for that, and he didn't know what he could ever say to fix any of this. He already told Amy he didn't like her.
Walking away from the house, closing the gate behind him, Tom walked. And walked, and just kept going until his legs were tired with sleep and with standing.
And when his legs felt cramped and still and numb with light exhaustion, he sat on the dirt of the road. He saw how the gas lamps shone into his eyes like their own suns.
His exhaled breaths left him empty. He let himself lay down in the dirt and gravel of the road. He let himself stare at the lights, at the shine in their glass. At the fireflies that swarmed. And the air was so quiet, so open out here, that he felt all of the pressure in himself so strongly.
He stared up, past all the bright flickering shining lights of the gas lamps and fireflies, up to the sky. So many stars in the sky, some looking like tack-holes in the sky, others looking like the faint dottings of the freckles on Becky's face. He wished she could see this sky.
There were so many stars, so many constellations he didn't know. There was no room for that in school-- all they taught was the bible, a little math, and a little history.
His hair and his clothes were getting dirty. He didn't care.
It really didn't matterâ no one could even see him, and all that Tom cared about right now was feeling the dirt, feeling the cool air, seeing the stars. Hearing the silence of his own breaths in the abandoned night.
Tom stared at that night, feeling crushed, feeling tired, wanting so badly for Becky that his chest was compressed and he could hardly breathe but sigh in the fresh wide air.
He felt doomed.
And then the drawing of Huck came to his mind.
He couldn'tâno matter how much he wanted to-- resign to lying in the road forever. He couldn't wait for the sun to rise, or for a carriage to come by and kill him, or wait to sink down into the dirt and be suffocated.
He couldn't wait to disappear. For something that would end this feeling and make it better. Tom sighed again, letting it empty him; letting it fill the world in its silence.
He couldn't do all that. Instead, he needed to find a way to fix this.
He got up, hearing only the rustling of his clothes in the quiet, wiping the dirt off of himself. Despite how tired his legs were, his mind was awake. And so he walked again.
Wandering back through town, his shadow jumped and swung like the motion of the clock's pendulum in his house. He rambled around, staring up at the sky and down at his feet.
He took his shoes off, letting himself feel the sharpness and softness of this familiar ground. He thought about Becky, about how she must've been feeling. About Amy, and why in high heaven she would complicate everything so much.
He thought he would wander back on home, sneaking back to his bed and sleeping away this fatigue. But his feet took him past the glow of the streetlamps and past the softness of the dirt.
Soon, with twigs and leaves poking into his feet as he went, he was at the edges of the woods. He kept walking.