“If you’re serious about this girl, and you know you’re serious about her even if it doesn’t last beyond a few months, you should consider leaving the military if it will make it easier to figure out where things are between the two of you,” Dad continues.
“I should?” I would have figured that Dad would tell me not to think about that aspect of it at all.
“If you’re serious — not if it’s just something you’re pinning a lot of promise on that isn’t going to go anywhere. At this point you’ve served your country honorably, and they’re letting you leave if you want to. What’s the harm? But if you don’t think it’s that serious, you need to reenlist and break all ties with her as soon as you can so you can both move on with your lives.”
I nod. It’s actually kind of solid advice, and I’m surprised at the fact that I’m surprised by it.
I chat with Dad a little while longer and we both decide that we’re tired of sitting in the parking lot. I have no idea what’s going on with Harper, but I figure I will find out soon enough once I get back home.
Dad tells me he’s going to go to the store to pick up some bread to make sandwiches of the leftover meat, and I tell him I’m going to head back to the house and see if Mom needs my help with anything.
The whole drive home I’m lost in thought. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I have to make up my mind one way or another.
Harper and I are going to have to talk at some point.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HARPER POLSEN
I’m actually pacing in my room, feeling like some kind of trapped animal, because I know that in less than six hours, the Lewises are going to be under the same roof as me, all three of them. Never in my entire life has the knowledge that Bev, Nolan and Zane will be coming for dinner managed to make me feel anxious, but here I am, dreading it.
“God, I’m pathetic,” I mutter to myself as I jump at the sight of myself in the mirror on my closet door for the third time in twenty minutes. I take a deep breath and try to sort out how I’m feeling, and what I’m going to do.
I have to go back to Brooklyn in less than twenty-four hours. I know that the dinner with the Lewises and my parents and me is going to be tense no matter what. I don’t even know if Zane’s parents know about Mom finding us together, but just from Mom knowing, and probably Dad, too, things are going to be tense, let alone the situation between Zane and me since we fought the day before.
I’d been avoiding him since then, not even stepping foot outside of the house, using the excuse of having to get pre-project work done to keep from having to see Bev or Nolan about anything.
Mom’s been busy getting everything ready for the fancy dinner tonight, and Dad’s been doing whatever it is Dad does to stay out of Mom’s way. I’m not even letting myself look across the yard to Zane’s window, or the Lewises’ driveway.
But obviously if I don’t want the whole evening to go badly, I’m going to have to do something else. We’re going to have to actually talk about the situation, and figure out what the hell we’re going to do about it. But to do that we’re going to have to have some privacy. There’s no way either of us could to go the other one’s house to have the talk. Our usual spot at the dead center between our two parents’ yards isn’t going to work either.
There’s a knock at my door, cutting through my thoughts. For a moment or two I resent the hell out of it, but I know it has to be one of my parents.
“Yeah?”
“Are you busy, sweetie? I could use your help with something in the kitchen,” Mom says.
I consider telling her flat out that I’m too busy, but I decide that after the fight the day before, Mom and I should at least have a chance at mending fences.
When I came back in yesterday, Mom wasn’t interested in rehashing the situation with Zane. She pretended like nothing at all had happened, and brought up a snack to my room in the afternoon and asked me about the project I’m going to be working on when I go back to Brooklyn. Things are still tense between us, but I figure that if I help her in the kitchen for a while, that might help things. I open the door and put on my best smile for my mom.
“Yeah, I can help you for a bit, I should take a break from paperwork anyway,” I say, letting her lead the way from my bedroom to the kitchen.
Mom apparently has decided to make fresh, homemade rolls to go with the dinner she’s serving to celebrate the Lewises’ anniversary, and I get to work with her, taking the slightly sticky dough and forming the lumps into individual rolls.