Nine

 

Conner

 

We should’ve stayed upstairs.

After my weird freak-out, I practically flew down the back stair that fed into the kitchen. I don’t know what happened. Why I got so mad. I just know I didn’t like hearing her talk about herself that way. Not so much the words she used but her tone. Accepting. Direct. Like the fact that I’d never be into her was just that. A fact. One everyone knew.

Everyone but me.

By the time she caught up, I had her backpack yanked open and was digging through it.

“Wait—”

When I look up, she’s rushing across the kitchen, her face screwed up and bright red. I immediately jerk my hands free. “I was just getting your calculus book,” I explain, remembering the way she reacted the last time I reached into her backpack. “I forgot mine at school.”

“No, it’s not that,” she says, pulling it toward her, across the table. “The zipper is broke.” Her head is bent over, examining it carefully. “If you don’t open it just right, it takes forever to get it back together.”

“Oh…” Shit. “I’m sorry,” I say, reaching for it. “Here, let me see if I can—”

“No,” she says, jerking it out of my grasp. “It’s fine.” She drops the backpack on the floor and sits down. “I’ll fix it later. Let’s just get started.”

I sit down across from her, watching while she opens her book and retrieves her binder and pencils. She’s all business. There’s no ridiculous hair flipping or going out of her way to find reasons to touch me. Every movement has a purpose. Everything about her has meaning. Reason.

I like it.

I like her.

A lot.

She looks up and catches me staring.

“What?” She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Do I have something on my face?” It’s the same thing I said to her at the library yesterday, and it makes me laugh.

“Just a bunch of freckles,” I say, reaching out on impulse to tug at the end of her bright orange braid.

She goes beet red in the space of a second and swats my hand away. I let go, leaning back in my seat with a grin, still looking at her.

Clearing her throat, she looks down at her open textbook, tapping her pencil against the page. “Can we work now, please?”

Work. Right.

I drop the grin and sit up in my seat. “Yes.”

“Okay.” She falters for a moment like she didn’t expect me to be wrangled so easily. “What do you need help with?”

I push back the smile that tugs at my mouth. “All of it.”

“Seriously?” She scowls at me when I nod. “How did you end up in AP Calculus?”

I give her a shrug. I’ve lied enough. I don’t want to dig myself in any deeper.

Within minutes she’s reviewing today’s lesson, explaining formulas and equations.

She’s a good teacher. Patient. Thorough. Explains stuff to me over and over when I pretend not to understand. Answers every dumb question I ask without so much as a sigh or an eye roll.

Everything’s going fine until my mom decides to be nosey. She comes in and starts digging around in the fridge, pulling stuff out to make dinner, even though dinner isn’t until seven and it’s barely 4:30 in the afternoon.

Pretending is harder with her around. Every time I ask Henley a question, my mom makes a noise like she’s trying to keep herself from laughing. I glare at her over the top of Henley’s head, and she shrugs, giving me an innocent, what did I do? kind of look.

Finally, it’s five o’clock, and I can’t take it anymore. I shut Henley’s textbook, pushing it toward her. “You probably have to go now,” I say. Tomorrow, we’re meeting at the library.

“Oh,” she sits back in her seat and nods. “I—” She looks at the table, chewing on her bottom lip before looking straight at me. “Can we go back up to your room?”

I freeze. Like a deer, caught in someone’s headlights.

Before I can say something stupid, Henley lifts her gaze and settles it over my shoulder. “Just for a few minutes.” She blushes. Not her usual bright red flush, but a soft pink that colors her cheeks and throat. “There’s this book I was looking at and I…”

My mom pipes up behind me. “Of course,” she says because she has absolutely no idea what’s going on in my brain right now. “Conner, take Henley on up to your room.” My mom drops her hand on my shoulder. “I’ll come get you when dinner's ready.”

“Alright,” I say, barely managing to get the word out before she’s out of her seat and bolting up the back stairs.

As soon as she’s gone, my mom lets go of my shoulder. “Conner,” she says in a quiet tone. “What are you up to?”

I stand, shoving the chair into the table. “Nothing,” I say, the defensive edge in my voice calling me a liar. “I’m not up to anything.”

“Are you sure,” she grabs me by my arm, holding me in place when I try to walk away. “Because pretending you need a tutor for anything looks like something.”

“I’m just trying to help her, Mom. That’s it,” I say, looking her in the eye. It’s the first time I can ever remember lying to her. “You know how her family is—she doesn’t even have a pair of shoes that fit.”

What am I supposed to say? That I like her. That I like her so much that I don’t know how to talk to her. Be around her. With other girls, it’s easy. I can smile and say whatever I want because none of it matters. None of them matter.

Not like Henley.

My mom digs her fingers into my arm. She knows how I am about girls. Goes through them like tissue is a term frequently used to describe my dating behavior and she doesn’t believe me for a second.

“Conner Jonathan Gilroy, don’t you hurt that girl.” She shakes her head at me. “She’s got it hard enough without having you—”

“I won’t,” I say, and I mean it.

Hurting Henley is the last thing I want to do.