Thirty-two

Henley

2009

May

“So?”

I look at Tess, walking beside me before aiming my gaze down the sidewalk. “So, what?” I say, even though I know what she’s asking.

“Don’t you dare, so what me, Henley O’Connell,” she hisses at me, stopping in her tracks to jab her finger into my ribs. “I saw what I saw. How long have you and Conner Gilroy been—”

“Stop.” I slap my hand over her mouth before she can say it. I don’t know why. There’s no one around to hear her. The stretch of sidewalk between her dad’s garage and Conner’s house is deserted. Maybe because if she says it out loud—that Conner is my boyfriend—I’ll realize how stupid it sounds. That there’s no way it can actually be real. No way he could actually want to be with me.

She slaps my hands away. “Then spill,” she says, lifting her finger from my ribs to stick it in my face. “Tell me what’s going on—and how long it’s been going on for. Now.”

“Can we go back to your house first?” I look around like there are people lurking in the bushes. “Please—I’ll tell you everything, just not here, okay?”

She glares at me for a moment before shrugging. “Fine,” she says, continuing down the sidewalk, without looking to see if I’m going to follow her.

Walking up to her father’s garage, I can see her dad in his coveralls, using the hydraulic lift to hoist a car into the air, cigarette between his fingers. When he sees us, he hits stop on the control to cut the noise.

“I need that tune-up on the Ford done by tonight,” he says, setting the control down to reach into his back pocket to pull out an old blue bandana. “Owner’s coming first thing tomorrow to pick it up.”

“I’ll get it done, Dad,” Tess says, not stopping on her way across the stained concrete, pulling me along after her.

Her dad opens his mouth but then closes it without a sound, pushing it flat against whatever he was going to say. “Okay,” he says instead, nodding his head while rubbing his hands clean with his bandana. “Hey, Henley.”

“Hi, Mr. C,” I manage to get out while Tess is dragging me up the stairs to their apartment. As soon as she slams the door shut, I hear the hydraulic lift start back up. Crossing the small living room, I stand in front of the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that look over the garage. I can see Tess’s dad, bandana stuffed back into his pocket. Cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Eyes squinted against the smoke.

“You should be nicer to your dad,” I say without turning around. It’s just the two of them. Tess’s mom died when she was little.

“He’s a pain in my ass,” she grumbles behind me. I can hear her jerk the fridge open. Rummage around inside. “I can’t even take a few hours to be a real girl without him bitching at me about something.”

“He’s sober,” I say, watching the way Tess’s dad stubs out his cigarette on his boot heel. He tosses it into an old coffee can on his workbench before getting back to work. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do anything but work. “He works hard, and he loves you.”

Tess doesn’t say anything back.

When I turn around, she’s standing in the kitchen area, a can of soda in either hand, staring at me. I step away from the window. “Conner and I have been going out for almost a month,” I say, swiping soda out of her hand on my way to the couch.

When I plop down and pop the top, she’s still standing there. Still staring at me.

“I don’t want to talk about my parents, Tess,” I tell her, leaning over to set my soda on the coffee table in front of me. “It was a stupid thing to say, and I shouldn’t have said it.”

Tess chews on her lip for a few seconds, probably debating whether to push the subject or let it go. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders at me. “A month, huh?” she says, throwing herself into her dad’s recliner. “Has he tried to fuck you yet?”

“Tess!” I shout it, eyes so wide it feels like they’re about to pop out of my head.

“What?” She opens her soda and slurps at the foam rushing from the top. “This is Conner Gilroy we’re talking about. He’s kind of a slut.”

I know that. I’ve heard the stories. Rumors.

“Well?” Tess says, swinging the leg hooked over the arm of her chair. “Has he?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head for emphasis when she looks like she doesn’t believe me. “No. He hasn’t even tried to kiss me.”

“Seriously?” she scrunches her face up like she doesn’t understand what I just said. “Are you sure he’s your boyfriend?”

“Yes.” But saying it makes me feel stupid. Makes me doubt… everything.

“But he hasn’t kissed you?”

I shake my head.

Tess looks at me like I just admitted to believing in the Easter Bunny. “What do you guys do then?”

I shrug. “Talk. Read to each other. Hang out.”

“He reads to you?” She sits up straight her chair so she can set her drink down. “Conner Gilroy is your boyfriend and reads to you?”

“Sometimes I read to him,” I say, feeling defensive. It seems ridiculous now. All the time we’ve spent together and the most he’s done is touch my ankle and tease me about my freckles. It makes me feel foolish.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.

I shrug. “You don’t like him,” I say, even though that’s not the reason why. I didn’t tell her because she saying it out loud makes it real. Making it real makes it vulnerable. Makes it matter.

“But I don’t not like him,” she says. “There’s a difference.”

I make a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat, hoping I sound more casual than I feel.

“Wait—did he tell you to keep it quiet?” She sounds like it makes her angry, the thought that Conner wouldn’t want anyone to know about us.

“No,” I tell her, shaking my head. “I’m the one who doesn’t want anyone to know about us.”

“Why?”

“I—” I shrug, taking a drink from the cold can in my hand. “I don’t want Ryan to know,” I say like I actually think Ryan would care. These days, my brother hardly acknowledges my existence. To think he’d care that I’m dating his best friend is ridiculous. Ryan doesn’t care about anything these days, least of all me.