“Oh, sorry,” she says. Then, in a softer voice, meeting my eyes briefly. “Hi.”
Oh shit. That voice slays me with its sweetness. I’m a dead man walking when she looks down at her shoes in a strangely shy way. And maybe it was the beer lubricating us night, but right now, regrets or no regrets, I want more. Because not only was last night the hottest thing ever, but now my heart is thumping like a jackrabbit for one simple reason that has nothing to do with sex, and has everything to do with how I find it immensely cute that she’s shy right now. I want to swipe my thumb across her lips and tell her not to be embarrassed, because she’s beautiful and sweet and kind and funny and has the biggest heart I’ve ever known, and that no one has ever cared in the way she has. Because she gives a shit about me.
She lets go of my arm. I wish she hadn’t let go. The slightest contact from her is electrifying.
“Hey,” I say, and I’m probably grinning like an idiot too, and damn, I’m glad I brushed my teeth.
“I got bagels,” she says, and thrusts a brown paper bag at me. “Sesame seed. Just-out-of-the-oven from the bagel shop around the corner. Your favorite.”
This girl knows me too well. I reach into the bag as my stomach growls. She laughs first, then I join in. “I guess you’re a mind reader. And these are definitely my favorite. I need to get to work soon. Mind if I eat and run?”
“You can even eat on the run if you want. Don’t let me hold you back,” she says playfully.
“I’ll stay a minute,” I say, though I really want to stay all day and night. Call in sick, curl up with her, watch a movie, kiss her more, touch her everywhere.
She’s in jeans again, like last night, and a black t-shirt with an upside-down monkey on it in pink. She wears her Converse sneakers, and she has two leather bracelets on her wrist. I love it when she dresses like a hipster instead of a schoolgirl.
“You look nice,” I say, but then I want to kick myself, because I really want to tell her she looks hot and sexy and smart and strong and independent and not the least bit like her mother’s daughter. But I’d probably sound like a guy who’s spent way too much time in therapy, and I’ve got to maintain some degree of dude cred.
“Thanks,” she says. “So do you.”
I take a bite, then look down at yesterday’s clothes. “You like the day-old, Harley?” I tease.
“Yeah. And I suppose now I should let you know those are day-old bagels too,” she fires back, but she can’t hide the smirk.
“May I never ever hear you use the adjective day-old to describe a bagel you’ve given me.”
“I’ll have to keep you on your toes then. Always worried about such a horrid breakfast possibility,” she says, leaning against the wall in her entryway as I eat more of the bagel that’s fresh and hot and perfect.
“So what are you doing today?” I ask, and it’s nice to slide right back to the joking, the teasing, the way we are. I don’t know what’s next, but I know I can’t lose her, and right now, I feel like I still have her as a friend. That’s what matters most, I remind myself. Not how much I want to have every inch of her.
“I have to go to my mom’s. Intercept that package from Miranda. Besides, my mom wants me to come by anyway. She wants me to work with her this summer. Be an intern or something for her articles,” she says. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
“You could take summer classes,” I suggest.
“I guess.”
“You said you miss creative writing. You could do that. Go back to the fun stories you want to write. Your animal tales and magic stories and whatnot. Take a writing workshop for real. Because you don’t even like the kind of reporting your mom does.”
She shrugs. “I know. But I need to do something,” she says. I hope she’s not thinking about other ways she can earn money. The ways she was considering last night. But then, it’s not as if one drunken grind on me is enough to make her change her stripes, is it?
“Hey. I have a question, Trey. About last night…”
I stop eating, look at her, and she’s the Harley I’m crazy about. I should just kiss her again. But I don’t know if everything changed last night, or nothing. I don’t know if we’re coming or going. Harley is both my best friend and my biggest fear. I need to put my armor on, protect myself from her. But I don’t know where I left it.
“Yeah?” I raise an eyebrow. Waiting for her question. Hoping she’s going to say she’s done with Cam, done with her past, and she wants me as much as I want her. If she said that, I’d tell her. If she told me I was the only one, I’d chuck all the damn rules, and tell her I think about her all the time, and it’s not obsession, it’s not addiction, it’s something.
Something real.
“You said you had three brothers, Trey. You never told me that before.”
The moment slips out of focus and the room blurs.
That’s not what she’s supposed to say.
That’s not what I’m supposed to hear.
That’s not what anyone’s supposed to know.
Because we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about them.
The floor starts spinning, and my stomach plummets to the ground. There’s a ringing in my ears, and it spreads through my whole head, rattling hard against my skull. I said that? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why the hell would I have said that?
“What do you mean?” I ask in a strangled voice, as if there are rocks in my mouth.
She reaches for me, touches my shoulder, rubs gently. “I asked you about your tattoos.”
I close my eyes, shrug off her touch. No fucking way I said that. This can’t be happening. This moment is a stitch in time, a hiccup. A massive fucking mistake we’re all going to forget in seconds when it’s undone. Because there is no way way I am standing here in yesterday’s clothes with this girl who was with her pimp last night, then with me, and then I told her about the three brothers I never knew. My family that no longer exists. The reason why I became all sorts of fucked up.
I open my eyes, shake my head, adopt a false smile. “That’s crazy,” I say wishing I were an actor so I could pull this off.
She shoots me a worried look. “Crazy? Why?”
“Seriously, Harley. You should not believe the shit I say when I’m drunk.”
Then I grab my phone, check the time, and shake my head. “I gotta jam. I’ll be late and I have ton a of shit to do. I’ll catch up with you later. At the meeting or whatever. Thanks for the bagel. It’s awesome.”
* * *
A breeze blows through Michele’s open window, and it feels like a crime that there’s a gentle, warm wind right now. It should be sleeting, hailing, lashing cold, cruel rain at me, like a punishing.
“He died in my fucking arms. My little brother. He died in my arms. How do I tell her that? How do I say that?”
“Like that,” Michele says in a kind, calm voice. “Just like that.”
I drop my head into my hands. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t fucking relive it,” I mutter. I don’t look up. I don’t want to look up. She’s the only person I’ve told, and it’s hard enough to look at my shrink when I talk about them. But I had to see her. I called in late to work and tracked down Michele for an emergency appointment. “It was so awful. Knowing he wasn’t going to live. My parents letting me hold him. And it wasn’t the first time it happened.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “It’s incredibly hard.”
“And I could never say that to her,” I mumble into my hands because they still cover my face.
“But you’re saying it to me. You’ve told me. You can do this, Trey.”
I raise my face. I bet I look like hell right now. A pathetic man. Boy. Man-boy. I don’t even know. “Because you don’t know me. Because I pay you. Because you have to listen.”
“I want to listen. That’s why I’m a therapist. I want to help.”
“You probably think I’m a loser,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m egging her on or fishing badly for compliments, but maybe it’s because my compass is off, the needle all skittish, pointing this way and that way, and I desperately need to right myself. I need an anchor. I need her to be that right now.
“I don’t. I would never think that. I think you are a bright, sensitive, caring young man, and I want to help you believe in yourself, and feel better about all the possibilities. And I know you want that too. That’s why you called in late to work. That’s why you asked to come in. Because you aren’t willing to settle for less from yourself. You want to grow and learn. And the possibility I want you to consider is what would happen if you told Harley?”
I shake my head, narrow my eyes, and run my hand roughly over my chin. I need to shave. I need to get my act together. “I’d fucking break down and cry. Because I would feel it all over again.” I stab my chest with two fingers, knocking them hard against my sternum. Watching him die, after my other baby brothers had died, it was like two giant hands cracking open my chest, reaching in, and hunting for my heart. “It would be like it’s happening again. And I have done everything I can to move on.”