Twenty-three

Henley

When I hear tapping on my window, I thinkit’s Ryan, waking me up to let him in. He gets locked out at least three times a week.

Rolling over, I contemplate leaving him out on the fire escape until morning. I know he won’t knock loud enough to wake my dad. You could break the sound barrier next to my dad when he’s passed out and he wouldn’t so much as twitch. My mom isn’t here. I beat her home by about five minutes, long enough to dump my books in my room and change my clothes. She breezed through the door, heading straight for her room where she took a shower and changed her clothes, all while giving me a lecture about the expected behavior of ladies.

“I don’t know why you insist on running the streets, Henley,” she says to me, tilting her head to fasten her earring. I’ve never seen them before. They look like diamonds. They look real. The dress is new too. “Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing.”

She’s not embarrassed by the fact that I run the streets. She’s embarrassed by me. Period. By the fact that I like books and baseball. By the way I look.

Because I don’t look like her.

“I wasn’t running the streets, Mom,” I said to her, watching her from the doorway while she ping-ponged around her room. “I was at the library.”

She gives me a sour look. “The library,” she says, her tone telling me that hanging out in a library is just as bad as running the streets.

“Don’t tell me,” I say dryly. “Ladies aren’t supposed to read, either?”

She stops flitting around her room long enough to land a good, hard slap across my face. “Go to your room,” she says, standing over me. “I don’t want to see your ugly little face for the rest of the night.”

She was gone fifteen minutes later.

He taps again. I should leave him out there. That’s what he gets for always taking off and leaving me to deal with our parents on my own. Angry, I roll over again to face the window.

It’s not Ryan at my window.

It’s Conner.

I know it immediately, even though it’s dark. Even though he and Ryan are similar in height in build. I know because my heart starts banging around inside my chest and I suddenly can’t breathe. After what happened at school today, I was sure he’d never talk to me again.

He stops tapping and waits while I swing my legs over the side of my bed and pad my way across my room to open the window. “It’s 3AM,” I say softly, trying to smash my crazy clown hair flat against my head.

“I know,” he answers in a stage whisper that instantly annoys me.

Giving up on my hair, I fold my arms over my chest and glare at him. “What are you doing here?”

He grins at me and shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.” Holding out his arm, I see something hanging from the end of it. “So, I brought you something.”

“Why?” Caught off guard, I drop my arms.

“Because I’m sorry about today and I want to make up.” He holds what he brought out for me to take.

“What is it?” I say, instantly skeptical.

“A bag full of snakes,” he says, impatiently, pushing what I now see is a backpack into my hands.

Taking it, I back away from the window to lower myself onto the edge of my bed. He brought me a backpack. One of his old ones but practically brand new, compared to mine.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” My voice sounds weird. Tight and scratchy, like someone has me by the throat.

“Come in, Conner,” he says to himself while throwing his legs over my windowsill. “Thanks, Hennie—don’t mind if I do.” He walks into my room, stopping in front of me. “It’s a backpack. You put books in it. Or snakes. Whatever you want.”

“I can’t carry this.” I hold it out to him, showing him the front pocket where his name is written in bold black marker. “It has your name on it.”

“So?” He reaches over and turns on my lamp. There’s no shade on it, and the light is bright, revealing my saggy mattress and particle board dresser. The milk crate I use for a nightstand. My cheap desk with the broken drawer.

“So?” I drop my arm and stand, the sudden movement bringing us much closer than I’m comfortable with. “So, people will see it. They’ll know where I got it. They’ll think—”

“What happened to you?” He isn’t laughing any more. He takes my chin in his hand and turns my face to catch the glare of the lamp. “Who hit you?”

“No one,” I say, trying to push his hand away from my face. “I fell.”

“Bullshit,” he barks at me. “Who?”

“It’s not a big deal,” This time when I push, he lets me go. “I just bruise easy—it’ll be gone by Monday.”

“Who, Henley?”

Something about his tone tells me he’s not going to let it go. I sink back down onto my bed. “My mom.” I put my hands up because I don’t know what he’s going to do or where he’s going to go. “She’s not even here. She came home, showered and left again. I doubt if I’ll even see her again before Sunday.” She’s been doing that a lot lately. Staying gone for long stretches of time.

“Was it because of me?” Conner drops his hand. When it falls against his thigh, it’s clenched into a fist. “Does she know about us?”

Us. The word, hearing the way he says it, so casually like there really is such a thing, makes me angry. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”

“Like what?” He looks genuinely perplexed.

“Us. We,” I hiss up at him. “There is no us. We aren’t friends. You don’t even like me. Not really.”

“Yes, I do,” he says.

“No, you don’t,” I shoot back. “You like girls like Jessica. Pretty girls who trip all over themselves to impress you. You don’t like girls like me, Conner. You need girls like me. You’re using me. There’s a difference.”

“Using you?” the words fall, hard and flat, against my ears. “Using you for what, exactly?”

I shoot up off the bed to stand in front of him again. “Yes. Using me.” I focus on his fist when I say it, the way it clenches and relaxes, beating against his thigh like a heart. I force my eyes to his face and meet his gaze. “You came here to butter me up so I’ll keep tutoring you so you’ll pass calculus and get your precious car.” I lift the backpack and jab at him with it like it’s a weapon. “Nice try, but giving me your backpack was a bit much—maybe you need someone to tutor you in subtlety.”

He swats the backpack out of his face and takes a step toward me. “Seriously?”

“Yes, Conner—seriously.” I drop my hand and shake my head. “And I already told you, I don’t want to tutor you anymore.”

“Okay.” For some reason that makes him laugh. “What will people think if you use my backpack?” he says, switching gears on me so fast I can feel my brain scrambling to catch up.

“You know what they’ll think,” I say, my face flushing red, I can feel the dose of blood color and tighten the bruise on my cheek. “They’ll think… They’ll think you feel sorry for me.”

“Wrong answer,” he says, his tone drawing my gaze to his face. He looks angry. “Try again.”

He’s going to make me say it, just so he can laugh at me. Tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, I shake my head, refusing to be played with.

“What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not—” I say loudly before lowering my voice. “I’m not afraid of anything.” Just because my dad is so drunk he’s practically dead, doesn’t mean our neighbors need to hear me yelling at 3AM.

“Then just say it,” he says, challenging me. “Say you don’t want to carry a backpack with my name on it or people seeing me walk you to class or carrying your books because you’re afraid people will think that I like you. That we’re together.”

“They will,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s exactly what they’ll think.”

“And?” He’s not laughing. He’s just standing there, staring at me like he’s waiting for me to catch up.

“And you don’t want that,” I say, my jaw tight. Throat aching. “You don’t want people to think that, Conner. You don’t.”

He stares at me for a few seconds before turning away from me. I think he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. He picks his way across the cramped room to my desk where he roots around until his finds a piece of paper and a pencil. Stooping over, he starts to write, the tip of the pencil flying across the paper without hesitation.

Just when I’m about to ask him what he’s doing, he stands up straight and tosses the pencil back on my desk. Picking up the paper he comes toward me again.

“Don’t tell me what I like and don’t ever tell me what I want, Henley,” he says softly, all but shoving the piece of paper into my hand. “Because you have no idea.”

I don’t look at the paper in my hands until he’s gone. Out the window, the angry clang of his feet echoing off the metal ladder of the fire escape.

Uncrumpling it, I smooth it out flat across my lap to reveal a mathematical equation. One that’s light years ahead of our simple high school calculus class. I stare at it, try to grasp its meaning but I can’t. It’s nothing but a bunch of numbers and letters and symbols, grouped together in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend.