2010

“Hey kid—you gonna get out or did we just drive out here, so you can stare at the place?”

I aim a sidelong glance at the back of his head rather than meet his stare in the rearview mirror. He’s right. We’ve been sitting here at the foot of the driveway long enough to draw suspicion. A cab parked outside a building in Fenway barely gets a glance. A cab parked in front of a mansion in Manhattan gets the cops called.

All I’m doing by sitting here is drawing attention and delaying the inevitable.

I poke the second hundred-dollar bill through the hole in the partition and watch it drop onto the seat in front of me. “I’ve got your medallion number memorize.” I finally meet his gaze in the mirror, saying it in a conversational tone. “If you try to bounce on me, you’ll regret it.”

“That a fact?” I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that’s exactly what he was planning.

“It is.” I smirk at him. People are always underestimating me. “You’ll have to fake your own death and move to a non-extraditable country to get out from under the mountain of shit I’ll bury you under. I hear Moldova is nice.”

I watch his dark caterpillar eyebrows shoot up, disappearing into his hairline. “You threatin’ me, kid?”

“I’ve given you two-hundred dollars and we’ve reached an agreement.” I find the door handle and give it a jerk. “I’m simply telling you what’ll happen if you chose not to honor it.”

“You’re a real charmer,” he says, finally shifting into park.

“I’m also someone you don’t want to fuck with so just sit here and earn your money.” I step out of the cab and shut the door before he can answer me.

I half expect him to take off on me despite the threat, but he doesn’t. Whether it’s because I scared him enough to stay or he had no intention of ditching me in the first place, I don’t know. I also don’t care.

Climbing the steps, I raise my fist to knock but before I can, the door opens in front of me. Henley’s mother is right in front of me, like she’s been standing here, waiting for me. She is not happy to see me.

“What do you want?”

“Hello, Mrs. O’Connell,” I say, my tone as polite and courteous as I can manage. “Is Henley home? I’d like to speak with her.”

I’m sure she’s about to slam the door in my face. Tell me to leave her daughter alone. Instead, she moves aside, opening the door wide enough for me to pass through.

“Come in,” she says, sweeping me in with a wave of her hand before shutting it behind me. Before I can say anything else, she starts walking toward the back of the house. Leaving me no chance but to follow. “We may as well get this over with.”

She leads me into a spacious kitchen where a pair of uniformed maids are bustling around. The entire back wall is made of glass, offering a pretty spectacular view of a small garden and the East River behind it.

It’s not the river I’m looking at though, it’s Henley. All I can see is the back of her head, her wild, bright red hair pulled into one of those loose braids she always wears to tame it. She’s wearing a school uniform, legs bare under a knee-length plaid skirt, the sleeve of her crisp white shirt rolled up. I can see the cluster of freckles—the one that looks like Mickey Mouse—from here.

She isn’t alone.

Beside me, Henley’s mother starts to talk. “I’ve known about you and my daughter for quite some time, Conner.” I can hear it in her voice, how happy she is that I’m here. That she can show me this. “While she claimed to be at the library, she was with you, doing god knows what.”

I think about the hammock. Her feet propped on my chest while I count the freckles on her ankle.

Sitting on the floor of my room, her head on my shoulder while I read to her.

The wide leather chair in my dad’s den, her wide eyes aimed up at me when I gave her my ring.

Beyond the window, I watch the guy sitting next to Henley flick a quick look at the window, his gaze landing on me before he drops a casual hand on her bare knee, his thumb sweeping along the inside of it while he says something to her and gives her a besotted grin. I can hear her laughing from here. He flicks another glance at me before leaning over and kissing her. As soon as he puts his mouth on her, I feel my gut clench. My lungs seize and sputter in my chest. My heart stops, mid-thump.

He’s kissing her.

He’s kissing Henley.

And it takes every shred of self-control I have to keep myself from charging through the door and ripping his fucking head off.

“His name is Jeremy Bradford. His father is James Bradford, of Bradford Energy. They’ve been dating for nearly seven months…” she keeps talking but I tune her out.

Seven months.

Henley moved on from me before she even had time to unpack her bags.

For some reason, I look down and find a young girl of about ten staring up at me from the kitchen table, a plate of raw vegetables and a glass of water in front of her. She looks like someone just kicked her puppy through the uprights.

I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the roll of cherry Lifesavers I bought at the train station.

They’re Henley’s favorite.

I offer them to her and wink, even though I’m having a hard time keeping it together. The little girl swipes the candy out of my hand before I can blink, jumping up from her seat at the table to run out of the room before her contraband candy can be discovered and confiscated.

“… better than you in almost every way.” Henley’s mother finally stops talking, turning toward me with what I think is supposed to be a sympathetic smile. “I know you have feelings for her, Conner—though I can’t for the life of me understand what you saw in her.”

What I saw in her? Like who she is now is lightyears away from the girl I knew. Like the girl I’m looking at now is a complete stranger. Like the girl she is now is somehow better.

“I don’t have feelings for her. I love her.”

I don’t even realize I said it out loud until I hear her mother laugh at me.

“Love her? Don’t be childish.” She pats my arm. Her fingers feel like claws. When I shift away from her and out of her grasp she gives me an irritated eye roll. “It’s time to set that aside and think about what’s best for you both. Move on.”

Set it aside? Move on. I want to ask her if she’s serious. If she even knows what she’s saying. Understands what she’s asking me to do. Instead, I state the obvious. “You’re not going to let me talk to her.” I’m not asking but she answers me anyway.

“What would that accomplish?” She gives me what I’m sure she thinks is a sympathetic smile. “She’s happier without you—surely you can see that.”

The bitch of it is, I can.

I can see it.

Fingers still gripped around the wrapped package I’ve been holding since I left my house six hours ago, I turn away from the window and see myself out.

I’m halfway down the driveway when I hear him.

“Hey.”

I turn around hands gripped around the gift I brought for Henley. It seems stupid now. Living in a place like this, she probably has a million books more than she could ever read in a lifetime.

“You’re Conner Gilroy.” He doesn’t offer his hand and it’s a good thing because I’d probably rip his arm off and beat him to death with it if he did. “I’m Jeremy.”

“I heard.”

He’s better than you in almost every way.

He leans away from me, a puzzled look on his face, like he’s not used to being talked to this way and he’s not sure how to react. His confusion doesn’t last long. “You don’t belong here, Gilroy, and she doesn’t belong to you. Not anymore.”

It bothers me that this asshole is talking about Henley like she’s a thing. Like he owns her.

That she’d let him kiss her.

I don’t say anything. I can’t. If I open my mouth I’m going to start screaming and I’m never going to stop.

So I do the only thing I can.

I just nod and walk away.