Leigh Wells drops her phone into her lap and crosses her arms. Huffs. Never in her life did she expect to hate the sound of Christmas music.
Her eyes scan the ceiling of gate C42 in the heart of the Atlanta airport, hunting—like a hangry hawk, she feels—for the source of what’s usually one of her favorite holiday tunes: Pentatonix’s “White Winter Hymnal.”
When she spots the speaker, she growls. Like … aloud. The white-haired, white-skinned woman sitting next to Leigh shoots her some serious side-eye before swiftly gathering her belongings and relocating to a different seat.
Leigh can’t help but growl, though. It’s Christmas friggin Eve and she’s trapped in an airport. And that’s after getting trapped at the super snooty boarding school she attends in western Massachusetts for three days of an already too-short winter break. A massive snowstorm had the whole school locked down, and Leigh narrowly escaped this morning—just to get re-stuck. Again, due to snow. In Atlanta. Where it’s supposed to be warmer and these types of things aren’t supposed to happen.
Maybe she jinxed herself. Her personal preference would’ve been to slide a hundred miles west from school to Boston—home. In truth, she really doesn’t want to reach her final destination. Who wants to spend Christmas in hot/sunny Palm Beach, Florida?
Still though: When the voice came over the loudspeaker to announce that “All flights into and out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport” (which, according to a sign she saw, is the “busiest airport in the world”) “have been grounded due to accumulating ice and snow here in Atlanta,” a sour taste filled Leigh’s mouth and she immediately wanted to throw something.
Now the Christmas music sounds like violence-filled noise and she feels personally attacked by the onslaught of wreaths and holly and Christmas trees and twinkling lights strung up friggin everywhere.
On top of all THAT, precisely thirteen minutes after the grounding announcement, her phone buzzed. And THAT, as she’s told her best friend, Niecey, was the final straw, busting Leigh’s hump all to pieces.
Frankly, it shouldn’t be that big a deal, getting an innocuous pair of text messages from Harper Kemp. Yeah, it’s been three years since the girls have seen each other, and yeah, they’re about to inhabit the same space in Palm Beach for a solid seven days, nine hours, and thirty-two minutes—Leigh did the math the minute Mama and Daddy smacked her with the news that they’d be spending Christmas through New Year’s Day at the home of Janice and Kwame Kemp, their best friends from college.
But it clearly is a big deal if Leigh’s heart is racing the way it does just before she reads a new piece of poetry at an open mic night. Like some part of her soul is about to be on display and people can throw whatever they want at it.
Which is so dumb. They’re texts.
Right?
Leigh taps back over to the messages from a number with no name attached.
Leigh would’ve known it was Harper Kemp without the second message—ten minutes before she got the messages, she was on the phone with Mama, who’d let her know Oh hey, sweetheart, Harper’s stuck in Atlanta too. Her flight was earlier than yours but also got canceled. I gave Janice your number to pass along to Harper, so she’ll probably reach out. Maybe the two of you can wait things out together.
And even without that Leigh would’ve known.
There’s only one Harper.
And now it’s been twenty-seven minutes since Harper sent Leigh those messages.
Leigh takes a deep breath …
(She has no clue why she’s lying.)
Crap.
Leigh switches back over to Niecey:
Except that’s a question Leigh doesn’t really know how to answer.
Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. Leigh could tell Niecey about how the last time Leigh and Harper saw each other—joint family cruise to the Bahamas the summer before ninth grade—things got weird on the last day.
Well, at least for Leigh they did.
She and Harper had been at the on-boat pool together (still so weird to think about: a pool on a vessel in the middle of the ocean), and it was time to go get ready for the final dinner of the trip.
Which was fine. They’d been in the water for a solid three hours at that point and Leigh’s fingers and toes were all gross and pruney. Also, her hair—typically big and curly, but presently crispy as burnt rotini noodles—was gonna give Mama a conniption, because Leigh hadn’t worn her swim cap like she was supposed to.
It was truly time to get out.
Except Harper did first.
And when she did, Leigh noticed.
It was the stomach that caught her attention. Harper’s stomach was smooth and brown, the color of roasted almonds, faintly lined with muscles that flexed beneath her skin as she pushed herself out of the pool and stood upright.
Then the legs.
Long. Lean. Again with the flexing muscles.
And Leigh felt super weird about it, but the addition of dripping water to those otherwise regular ol’ body parts …
Well.
It was confusing.
And the weirdest part was no matter how hard she tried—and she really did try—Leigh couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away.
She eventually heard her name in Mama’s voice. And when Leigh’s eyes snapped up to Harper’s face, Harper’s furrowed brow and narrowed eyes made it crystal clear she’d caught Leigh staring.
In that exact moment, Mama walked up wagging her finger and fussing, and Leigh had never been more grateful. Harper took it as her cue to exit with nothing more than an “Uhh, see ya!” And Leigh pretty much hid in the cabin for the rest of the cruise.
Barring the awkward wave they exchanged as the Wellses and Kemps went their separate ways upon getting off the boat, that was the last time the girls had seen each other.
And maybe Harper doesn’t even remember, Leigh tells herself. She and Harper were having a great time together on that cruise before the whole thing, and they’ve each been through seven semesters of high school since, so maybe the incident got blotted out of Harper’s memory by a combination of elapsed time and new experiences.
Leigh reads back through Harper’s texts. They seem pretty innocuous. Distinctly not laced with uncomfortable recollections of being ogled by another girl …
Leigh is probably overthinking this.
Right?
She lays her phone facedown in her lap and lets her gaze drift out the window. The snow is really coming down now. It’s actually kinda pretty.
Maybe this is exactly what Leigh needed: to get grounded. Literally and otherwise. The past couple of months have been … trying. The breakup with Jabari definitely took a toll—largely because “Lebari,” as everyone referred to them, was considered the premier senior couple at the Evanscroft School of Northampton, MA. So for the first few weeks, it seemed like the entire school was grieving. For the first week, in fact, every time Leigh came back to her dorm, there was a new pile of sympathy gifts: flowers, expensive candy, stuffed animals. There was even a Louis Vuitton clutch with a flask hidden inside on day three.
Interestingly enough though, the breakup itself wasn’t the main thing on Leigh’s mind.
That’s what she hasn’t mustered up the courage to tell Niecey: the real reason “Lebari” fell apart.
Because while Harper was the first girl Leigh ever noticed in that way, she certainly isn’t the last.
Nor the most recent.
And frankly, Leigh doesn’t know what to do with that. Everyone thinks there’s some big, ugly secret behind the breakup, but in truth, Leigh just … stopped being interested in Jabari.
Actually that’s not quite true. It’s more like Leigh started to realize she’d never been into him in the first place. And that only happened because of Zuri, a transfer student from Kenya who was by far the most beautiful girl Leigh had ever seen. Leigh’s mind would go blank and her palms would get sweaty whenever Zuri was in the same room. And when Leigh started thinking—and dreaming—about Zuri in ways she’d never thought about Jabari …
Yeah.
She tried to hold on, Leigh did. Went so far as to sometimes* (*always) shut her eyes whenever it was possible to take a moment and imagine that Jabari was Zuri whenever she was with him (even/especially when they were making out).
He eventually noticed something was off.
They parted amicably.
And while Leigh knows no one would take issue with her liking girls, the whole thing—the completely undeniable shift—was disorienting.
So disorienting, Leigh hasn’t even been able to tell her best-friend-since-ninth-grade the truth.
One thing Niecey’s right about though: Leigh is about to spend a week with Harper Kemp, and there’s no way she’ll be able to avoid her the whole time.
So …
Which triggers a different set of memories for Leigh—of all the stuff she and Harper did before the pool incident: the Hide-and-Seek and I Spy and talking to each other in code over the walkie-talkies Harper’s dad gave them.
And then she’s got it.
After grabbing all her stuff, Leigh leaves the gate area in a rush. She heads toward the escalator that will take her down to the “Plane Train”—Atlanta airport’s mode of transportation between the six concourses that house all the flight gates for people who don’t want/aren’t able to walk.
Three stops to concourse T, then out and up the escalator.
As soon as she’s at the top, Leigh pulls her phone out and takes a deep breath. Taps to the right set of messages.
(Leigh gulps and takes another deep breath.)
(Leigh’s not entirely sure what to do with that, but …)
(Leigh is blown away right now.)
It takes Leigh all of thirty seconds to figure out the first clue.
“Wait, you’re really doing it?!” comes Niecey’s voice over Leigh’s headphones. As soon as Harper said yes to Leigh’s game proposal, Leigh tapped away from messages to call her best friend.
“Yeah,” Leigh replies. “You thought I was joking?”
“I mean … ish? I knew you were semi-serious cuz I know how busybody-esque you get when you’re all panicked … but I didn’t expect you to take my advice. You literally never do.”
“Well, if we’re being honest, Niece, your advice is pretty trash most of the time.”
“Hey now!”
“You know I’m right.” Leigh looks around for a terminal landmark of some sort to include in the rhyming text hint she’s planning to send to Harper as soon as she gets back down to Plane Train level. “Remember that time you suggested I pour maple syrup in Kennedy Moscovich’s gym bag because you claimed she was flirting with Jabari?”
“Whatever. I know what I saw.”
“Still.” Leigh’s eyes alight on a currency exchange booth located across the main concourse from the clue she’s chosen: a family of six, including a fat baby, all decked out in matching flannel shirts, dog-piled on the floor near the back wall of gate area T6. She smiles.
“So what exactly are you doing?” Niecey asks
“Well, it’s sort of an I Spy meets Hide-and-Seek scavenger hunt?”
“So extra, Leigh.”
“Shut it. So I’m going through the terminals looking for stuff I can send her a ‘hint’ about, and then she has to go find the thing and text me a picture of it.”
“That actually sounds kinda fun.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“What’s the endgame though?”
Leigh steps onto the escalator, and as she descends, she gets smacked with a wave of shaky nerves. She’d told Harper to stay put until she receives the first set of instructions, but what if Harper didn’t listen and is headed this way and they run into each other before Leigh’s ready—
“Leigh? You there?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here.”
“So … endgame? You plan to send her on a wild-goose chase for how long exactly?”
“It’s not a wild-goose chase.”
“Oh it isn’t?”
Leigh huffs. “Look, I need to stall until we’ve gotten reacquainted by text.” Which definitely wasn’t Leigh’s initial intention (run away for as long as possible was), but she guesses it makes sense now that she’s said it aloud. “Obviously I’ll have to actually see her here at the airport eventually, I just … need a little time.”
“Hmm,” Niecey replies. “You still haven’t told me what the deal is with this girl, and I’m not buying that we haven’t seen each other in years nonsense. BUT, I’m interested in hearing how this whole game thing goes, so I’ll let you slide. For now.”
Leigh walks past the train platform and into the long tunnel with moving sidewalks that leads from the T-gates to concourse A. She smiles. There’s something very freeing about not getting on the train. About moving at her own pace and actually taking the time to absorb her surroundings.
When was the last time she’d done that?
“I gotta go,” she tells Niecey as she spots what she’s instantly knows will be the second clue.
“Yeah, okay,” Niecey says. “Keep me posted.”
(That makes Leigh smile.)
(Leigh’s sure glad her skin is brown because her cheeks would be rosy right now otherwise.)
Leigh smiles again.
By the time Leigh’s phone buzzes again, she’s on her way back down to the between-concourse tunnels after figuring out what clue number three will be. (She’s really proud of this one, and is almost sure it will make Harper smile … something she didn’t realize she cared about until this moment).
When she opens the text, there’s a photo of the flannel family: Dad is awake now and reading a book, but the cute, fat baby—whom Harper digitally circled in the picture—is still sound asleep, mouth wide, on the mom’s chest.
(Well, that was unexpected …)
Leigh switches over to the little poem she wrote for clue two, then copies and pastes it in the text box:
Leigh smiles—which feels nice—and approaches the walking tunnel between concourses A and B. She hears the sounds first: birds twittering and frogs croaking, crickets creaking and rain falling. When she sees the tunnel, she stops.
It’s like a jungle. Inside the airport.
The ceiling is covered in what look like metal sheets, cut to resemble a tree canopy. Said sheets are backlit by different shades of green, blue, and purple light. There are also blinking yellow lights that simulate the appearance of fireflies, and lights that “splash” on the floor to mimic raindrops.
Leigh is mesmerized.
And then her phone buzzes.
The message contains a picture of a sculpture featuring four children in the thick of play: Three are lined up and bent at the waist with their hands on their knees, and the fourth is using his hands to launch himself up and over the middle kid’s back.
They’re full on bantering, as Niecey would put it. Which is surprising to Leigh. It generally takes her a solid few weeks of interacting with someone to drop her guard.
And yet.
She steps onto the moving sidewalk that will carry her through the jungle. Decides to take a video, and focuses the camera on the illuminated ceiling.
Her phone buzzes again, and she almost drops it.
(Leigh really did forget about the game for a minute.)
Leigh steps off the conveyor, pauses to jot down the next hint, and then shoots up the escalator steps, two at a time, into concourse B. Harper’s moving too fast. Maybe Leigh should’ve done more than one clue in each concourse …
Jabari hadn’t been interested in Leigh’s writing. At all. He wasn’t a jerk about it or anything, just … indifferent. And Leigh said it didn’t bother her. Yeah, poetry was her passion, but she wrote for herself, so if he wasn’t interested, who cared, right? It wasn’t about him.
Except now, with Harper complimenting her little rhymes—that yes, she has been trying to kick up a notch since you certainly know how to turn a phrase—Leigh wonders if maybe it did bother her that Jabari couldn’t have cared less about the thing that was most important to her.
As a matter of fact, something about being away from the overwhelming whiteness of campus—from the buildings to the linens to the snow to the students and faculty—and surrounded by people of other races here in the Atlanta airport is making Leigh realize that perhaps a lot of things she says don’t bother her actually do.
She stops to look out one of the wide windows. All is still outside except for the snow, which is coming down with force in fat, clumped flakes.
She pulls her phone from her pocket.
There’s a pause and then:
A video appears in the message thread. Leigh’s still got her headphones on, so the minute she hits play, a smooth, rich voice—makes her think of chocolate fondue—fills her ears and shoots a tingle down her arms and legs.
“I like what you did with the word simply,” the voice says as the sign for Simply Books comes into view. “You’re clever, Miss Leigh. Real clever.”
Leigh grins.
The video pans around the little airport bookstore, and the voice continues: “This place is cute! OH, yo, have you read this yet?” Zooms in on a book spine: Exit West. “It’s SO GOOD, Leigh. Matter of fact, I’m buying it for you.” A brown hand appears and pulls the book from the shelf. “Moving on, then,” the voice goes on. “Time to find this clue. Hmmmm …” The video moves around the store for about thirty seconds with Harper saying, “Nope. Not here,” and then lands on someone up in a red apron on a ladder stocking books on the uppermost shelves.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Harper says. “Could you tell me where to find the book To Kill a Mockingbird?”
“Hey, that’s cheating!” Leigh says. Aloud. In concourse B.
Heads turn. (Oops.)
Leigh shifts her attention back to the video and picks up her pace. Gotta get downstairs to find the next clue.
She watches the bookseller lead Harper to a table in the back corner where To Kill a Mockingbird is on display with a bunch of other “Classics.” That same brown hand from before lifts the book from the table and holds it up in for the camera.
“Wham bam,” the voice says.
And then the video cuts off.
On her way down the escalator, Leigh spots a young man headed up, his arm draped over the shoulders of a blonde girl. He looks so much like Jabari—same deep brown skin the color of coffee beans, same cleft chin, same prep-swag style: plaid button-down, puffer vest, nice slacks, Air Jordans (which works somehow)—for a second, she can’t breathe.
He lifts his chin at her in greeting as they pass each other (whoops … was she staring?) and Leigh gets slammed with some of the intense emotion she fights to suppress at school, but doesn’t have it in her to keep in check now.
While the whole school “grieved” over the end of #Lebari, it didn’t take long for Jabari to pop up on social media in photos with different girls who’d definitely wanted him while he was with her—and clearly weren’t that sad about him being available again.
It was the strangest thing: No, she wasn’t actually into him, but that didn’t make it sting any less to see him with other girls. Not because she wanted him back. That wasn’t it at all. It was more the fact that … well, nobody else at that school seemed to want her. Jabari was treated like a celebrated warrior returned from a brutal yet victorious battle, but Leigh was just some piteous castaway.
At least with Jabari she felt like she was a part of something. There were a lot of things they connected on, being two of only six black kids in their graduating class (Niecey was the third, Zuri the fourth, and the other two were a set of identical twins who through four years of high school really only seemed to interact with each other). When she and Jabari were together, Leigh’s guard—that thing inside her that lowered her sensitivity and raised the armor that helped her cope when surrounded by people with more power than she had, but who were oblivious to the differences in their experiences—would fall away of its own accord.
Jabari just got it. Even more so than Niecey, who didn’t come from a ton of money like Leigh and Jabari did. She didn’t get that “being rich” doesn’t really make being a token more comfortable. Matter of fact, if Leigh had a dollar for every kid who’d assumed she was there on scholarship, she’d be well on her way to covering a year’s worth of her own tuition.
Her phone buzzes.
And then again, this time from Niecey (speak of the devil):
Leigh responds to Niecey first.
She takes a deep breath before responding to Harper.
Leigh steps into the tunnel between concourses B and C and is suddenly immersed in a history of Atlanta. She strolls slowly, taking in the timeline and reading some of the plaques. Being from up north, her knowledge of “Southern” history is cursory at best. Limited to what’s in her textbooks. Seeing pictures of Civil War history and freed slaves, segregated lunch counters and Civil Rights marches, makes things real in a way Leigh’s never experienced. And maybe it’s just because she’s wide open right now, but this visual representation of her people’s history makes her feel grounded—connected—to something much bigger and more powerful than she.
After finding the next clue—a photo of the city post–Great Atlanta Fire of 1917—Leigh heads up the escalator into concourse C and drops down into a seat at the first gate she sees.
Her phone buzzes.
From Harper.
It makes Leigh smile.
(Was that a hint? Maybe Harper does remember … Or maybe Leigh’s overthinking again. This secrecy thing is exhausting.)
Leigh smiles harder than she has in quite some time but doesn’t respond. Just slides down in the chair and exhales. As her eyes roam the space around gate C22, she notices things she’s sure she’d normally miss: a businessman furiously typing away on an iPad with an attachable keyboard; a mom pacing back and forth as she bounces a baby in her arms; two little black girls playing a hand game like the ones Leigh used to play with her cousins; a pair of ladies huddled in a corner, giggling over a magazine …
Her eyes stick there.
One woman is brown-skinned, with her hair cut so low, she’s almost bald, and the other is lighter, with big curly hair. And there’s a vibe, a rhythm, between them that makes it clear they’re more than friends. It’s in the way they smile at each other and brush hands and lean in so close, there’s no doubt they can each smell what the other ate for dinner.
Leigh has no idea what they’re looking at, but suddenly buzz-cut lady’s mouth drops open and she swats curly lady on the arm with the back of her hand. Curly lady throws her head back in laughter while buzz-cut lady pouts, then curly lady leans over to whisper something in buzz-cut lady’s ear—something that turns buzz-cut lady’s scowl into a smile.
They kiss, and Leigh quickly looks away.
Her phone buzzes, and it startles her so bad, she leaps to her feet.
Which draws the attention of the lady couple. Buzz-cut lady smiles at Leigh … and warmth spreads through Leigh’s chest like she’s just taken a big gulp of hot cocoa. She feels … seen.
In a good way.
She smiles back and heads up the concourse in search of the next clue.
The message attached to the photo of the digital sky in the middle of the airport jungle makes Leigh laugh aloud:
Because Leigh finds she’s certainly ready to give it. As a matter of fact, there’s a part of her that’s ready for this game to end so she can see Harper. Not that she fully understands why.
Which … is a good question. On the one hand, Leigh’s ready to see Harper. Make herself the final clue and be done with it. (But is that too presumptuous?)
What she really wants to do is sit down with Harper and just tell her everything: how wildly alone she feels at school (and not just because of the race thing); how intensely attracted she is to Zuri (though she would never tell her); how she thinks she might like girls and how much that scares her because one area of overt marginalization is quite enough, thank you very much.
She just wants to unload. Get it all out.
Maybe she will just plop down at one of these gates and make herself the next clue.
But could she really say everything she wants to Harper’s face?
What does Harper’s face even look like now?
Leigh honestly should know. There’s no doubt Harper Kemp’s on “social media,” as adults like to put it. In fact, Leigh thought about looking up Harper the moment Mama and Daddy told Leigh about Christmas in Florida.
But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not with the breakup and the questions and the Zuri thing. At that point, seeing the first girl Leigh ever noticed noticed would’ve been waaaay too much.
But what about now?
Her phone buzzes.
And then the picture. Of the bearded bartender double-fisting goblets of beer with the biggest, brightest smile on his face.
Leigh almost can’t take it.
Leigh’s not ready.
She rushes back toward the center of the concourse—hurriedly picking the weakest/wackest clue yet—and flies down the concourse C escalator in hopes of disappearing into the tunnel that leads to concourse D before Harper sends her the next picture. Leigh’s sure it won’t take very long.
A photo comes through of the plaque in the Walk Through Atlanta History exhibit that details the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917.
When Leigh lifts her eyes, she’s reached the tunnel.
And it’s empty.
No art. No cool lights. No history exhibit.
Just moving sidewalks lining bare concrete walls that glow a sickly off-white from the fluorescent ceiling lights.
Part of her is so disappointed she doesn’t even want to walk through it.
Except Harper’s catching up to her.
She jets through and up into concourse D.
(Leigh pretends the Scooby-Doo reference doesn’t make her stomach somersault in the most delightful way possible. She and Harper watched a lot of Scooby-Doo after kid-curfew on that cruise. Does Harper remember, or was that random?)
A photo of the infamous (according to Leigh’s hyper-bougie, “pour-over only” drinking parents at least) green Starbucks siren appears beneath Harper’s previous message.
Leigh sighs.
Leigh looks all around and catches sight of something twinkling in the light. Many things twinkling.
A Swarovski store.
Leigh smiles the biggest smile she’s smiled all day.
On day three of the cruise, she and Harper bought matching charm bracelets from a Swarovski store in the ship’s shopping atrium.
And Leigh’s never taken hers off.
She tugs her sleeve back and reaches for her wrist as her brain tries to pull together a hint—maybe she’ll stand across from the store and have something in there that’ll make Harper turn around and see her—
Her arm is bare.
The bracelet is gone.
There’s a “…” and then a photo of a silver bracelet with six charms dangling from it—attached to a key ring with four keys and two other keychains—appears on Leigh’s phone screen.
Which is precisely where Leigh needs to go. Definitely not ready to see Harper now, so …
Leigh retraces her steps back into to the tunnels—spending the entirety of the escalator ride down leaning over the railing so she can check the side going up for any flashes of silver or sparkles of crystal.
She walks back along the lifeless tunnel, eyes scanning, searching, watching.
Nothing.
Onto the escalator that will return her to concourse C. Again leaning over to examine the opposite side.
Zilch.
Back along the path to Starbucks—though Harper totally just traced this way so it’s probably pointless—then Leigh busts a U-turn and makes a beeline for her original gate: C42.
She keeps her eyes peeled the whole walk there, which merely adds to her anxiety: The fact that no planes are taking off or landing seems to have officially caused an increase in the amount of activity within the airport—people coming, going, sitting, standing. There’s a group with instruments out jamming and another group dancing. Kids running around. People talking, laughing, gathering in the concourse restaurants, drinking. Christmas lights and giant ornaments and holiday cheer despite everyone being stuck.
If Leigh did drop her bracelet on the way to start hunting down clues, chances are it’s long gone now. How could it not be with this much activity going on?
She reaches the gate. Looks around the area where she was sitting.
Nothing.
Goes to the counter to ask if anyone turned a bracelet in.
Nope.
Leigh returns to her original seat and takes a deep breath. Pulls out her phone.
Leigh bites her tongue.
Leigh doesn’t respond immediately. She can’t. In truth, she’s never really thought about why she always kept the bracelet on. It was always just … there.
But it’s a good question. Why was it so special to Leigh? Why is she so wrecked at the thought of losing it? No, she doesn’t think it’s because of Harper—but she also can’t say with complete certainty that Harper has nothing to do with it.
There’s no denying that cruise, and the discovery of Harper’s … Harperness, were formative for Leigh in some way. That something shifted back then and despite three years of trying to keep it suppressed, it’s obviously blossomed in some way. Expanded where other things—like Leigh’s interest in guys—has contracted.
The bracelet marked a new beginning.
But how to tell Niecey that?
Here goes …
Leigh switches over to Harper’s messages.
Leigh sighs.
There’s a part of her deep down that knows it’s a lost cause.
A part that wants Harper to give it up and come find her.
And another part that doesn’t want that at all.
That feels too open.
Too vulnerable.
She just told two people something that literally changes the entire trajectory of her life. Is she ready to look one of them in the face?
Leigh slouches down in the seat, closes her eyes, and lets her head fall back.
It’s all so … much.
What will her parents say?
And people at school?
“Excuse me, Miss?”
Leigh startles and jerks upright.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. You just, umm …” The person—a girl—unslings her backpack and squats down to riffle around inside it. “Sorry, one sec. I had it right here …”
As the girl searches, Leigh takes her in: She seems tall, though Leigh can’t be sure with her squatting now. Slim, but clearly athletic if the strong shoulders are any indication. Brown skin. Shoulder-length dreadlocks. Gray beanie. Kinda tomboyish.
“Aha!” she says.
And she pulls out Leigh’s bracelet.
“This fell out of your bag when you left the gate area a while back,” she says. “Been waiting for you to return so I could give it to you.”
“Oh my god!” Leigh takes the bracelet and holds it up to the light. “I can’t even believe it,” she whispers.
She immediately grabs her phone to text Harper:
A ping noise sounds, followed closely by a second one.
The girl in front of Leigh pulls a phone out of her pocket and begins to tap out a message.
Which is when Leigh finally looks at her face.
Leigh’s phone buzzes in her hand.
New message from Harper.
Leigh’s head snaps up.
The girl—definitely, definitely Harper—is still tapping away on her phone.
Another buzz.
(Leigh wants to respond, but her thumbs are frozen.)
When Leigh looks up this time, Harper’s staring at her.
Smiling.
Leigh smiles back.
Then picks up her phone.
No text response, but Leigh can tell from the way Harper looks shyly away that she’s … pleased.
Harper snorts and finally stuffs her phone in her pocket. “Still telling them wack behind jokes, I see,” she says, extending a hand.
Leigh swats it away and gets to her feet. “Umm excuse you, my jokes are not wack.”
“Oh yes they are,” Harper says as Leigh settles her backpack on her shoulders and the girls fall into synchronized step (and right back into their fourteen-year-old-girl rapport). “Remember that pirate one you told me when we were hiding in that one corridor on the cruise ship, determined to sneak into the engine room—”
“Which was locked down tighter than—”
“Bellatrix Lestrange’s Gringotts vault,” the girls finish together before exploding into laughter.
“Bro, what were we even thinking?” Harper says, shaking her head.
Leigh has tears streaming down her face she’s laughing so hard. “I mean … were we thinking?”
“Probably not. Though I’m pretty sure the whole thing was your idea.”
“Likely.” Leigh wipes her face. Looking around, there’s no denying the twinkling lights seem brighter and the decorations more vibrant. She glances out one of the massive windows, and the snowflakes are so thick, they look like bizarrely lightweight sugar cubes … but despite knowing that means they’re likely not getting out anytime soon, she can’t help but marvel at the wonder that is nature in this moment.
She looks at Harper in profile and her heart does a little tap dance.
Leigh clears her throat and turns away. “I’ll have you know that pirate joke has made me quite the hit at rich, drunken white kid parties. Ahem … What, I ask you, is a pirate’s favorite letter?”
“Oh god, here we go …”
(Leigh can practically hear Harper’s eyes rolling.)
“You’d think R-rrrr … but a pirate’s first love is the C!”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“Don’t forget Abraham.”
“I’m dead.” And Harper busts up in another spurt of laughter.
“Hmph. Calling me wack. Though fine, the engine room break-in was a fairly wack idea.”
“And my dumb self went right along with it.”
“Sure did.”
“I’ll be honest with you, though,” Harper says, “if you would’ve suggested we try to scale that weird red-and-blue tail-looking thing on the top deck to take our stand as cruise ship conquerors, I would’ve immediately tried to figure out the physics. You had ya girl wrapped.”
Leigh has no clue how to respond to that.
“Also: where are we even going?” Harper looks around.
Leigh starts laughing again. “If I recall correctly, you pulled me out of my seat and started walking.”
“I … can’t argue with that,” Harper says. “Okay, stop.” And she puts a hand on Leigh’s shoulder.
So they do. In the middle of the concourse atrium.
There’s a lady playing an electric violin—“Let It Snow” with a little hip hoppish flair—and people continue to flow around them. Normally, this would make Leigh cringe, being in a position that makes her so conspicuous. But right now? With Harper Kemp beside her and so much life and breath and happy holiday magic pulsating around them? Well, she’s in no rush to move.
Move they do, though:
“I’ve got it!” Harper says. And she grabs Leigh’s hand and pulls her toward the escalators.
Who-knows-how-many IHOP pancakes (they had an unlimited thing going on) and a trip back through the security checkpoint (they had to exit to get to the airport IHOP) later, Leigh and Harper pop into a concourse T souvenir shop to buy tacky and overpriced Atlanta fleece blankets and those bizarre, though surprisingly effective, U-shaped neck pillows.
Then they head down into the airport jungle.
“This is fine, right?” Leigh says, dropping her backpack against one of the walls and plopping down beside it, crisscross-applesauce.
Harper follows suit, propping her bag against the wall and stretching out to lean her shoulders back against it. She tucks her neck pillow into place. “We stuck here, so might as well kick it where we want to, right?”
“Fair point.” Leigh relaxes back herself and stares up at the faux-forest canopy above them. “It really is beautiful down here, huh?”
Harper doesn’t respond, and when Leigh looks down to find out why, Harper is staring. At Leigh.
Grinning.
Leigh gulps and tries to tuck a strand of her massive hair behind her ear.
“It’s really good to see you, man,” Harper says. “I can’t even tell you the number of times I almost followed you on Insta and Snap, but stopped myself.”
This surprises Leigh. “Really?”
“Yeah. I umm …” Harper shifts her gaze away. “Well on the cruise, you kinda ghosted after that day at the pool, so like—I dunno. I guess I was worried I’d been overzealous with my crush or something. That it’d wigged you out.”
“Wait, for real?”
“Uhh … yeah. I basically followed you around like a puppy from the moment we boarded the ship. I didn’t wanna seem like a creep online—even though I did wanna see you.”
Leigh is floored. “When did you know?” she asks before she can catch herself.
“Huh?”
Leigh takes a deep breath. “When did you know you … liked girls?”
“Oh, pretty much always.” Harper waves the awkwardness of the question away. “When we’d role-play in kindergarten, I wouldn’t participate unless I was allowed to be the second mom. And I just knew I was gonna marry this red-haired, freckled black girl in my class named Imani. I had our babies’ names picked out and everything.”
“Wow.”
“Can I say something?”
“Of course.”
Harper sits up and shifts so she can look Leigh in the eye.
And now their knees are touching.
(Leigh thinks she might be dying.)
“Just want you to know I’m here for you, Leigh-ski.”
Leigh is officially dead now. That’s what Harper used to call her back in the day.
Leigh gulps. “Okay.”
“Any questions, comments, concerns, you let me know.”
“What are you, a flight attendant?”
Both girls laugh and the tension breaks.
“I really do appreciate that, Harper. It’s admittedly a lot. This … shift.”
“It is.”
“My turn to tell you something now,” Leigh goes on.
Harper smiles (and Leigh’s stomach swoops like the flock of birds on the digital jungle sky). “I’m listening.”
“So the whole cruise thing—” Is she really about to say this? “Well the reason I ghosted, as you so aptly put it, is because I … uhh … well, let’s just say you’re the first girl I ever noticed. In that way.”
Harper’s drops her chin, but Leigh can tell she’s smiling.
“And like, I thought you noticed me … noticing you. And maybe weren’t okay with it?”
“Ah.”
“I was embarrassed,” Leigh goes on.
Harper’s eyes lift and lock onto Leigh’s again—
And then someone shouts “Merry Christmas to all!” jolting both of them out of what was a certifiable Moment. They look up just as a skinny guy in an oversized Santa suit steps onto the moving sidewalk, waving like he’s Miss America.
“Bro, I can’t,” Harper says, and they both collapse into sidesplitting laughter.
They talk.
And talk.
And laugh.
And talk.
The snow stops (or so they hear from passersby).
Touching knees become melded sides become Harper’s arm around Leigh’s shoulders and Leigh’s cheek against Harper’s clavicle.
Hands find their way together.
More talking. Laughing. Smiling. Reminiscing.
Learning.
Growing.
(Re)Connecting.
Eyes meet.
Time slows.
Noses touch.
Lips collide.
As Leigh steps out of the plane-to-gate tunnel into Palm Beach International airport, Harper Kemp smiles at her and steps forward with her hand extended. The two girls weren’t able get on the same flight out of Atlanta once the ground stop was lifted, but now here they are. Together again.
Their fingers entwine.
“I missed you, Leigh-ski,” Harper says, kissing Leigh on the cheek.
Leigh giggles.
As they make their way toward baggage claim to meet both sets of parents, Leigh’s heart speeds up. She knows Harper is out to her folks (“Though I’ve never brought a girl home. Til now, hadn’t met one worth bringing.”)—which likely means Leigh’s parents also know Harper’s gay. But Leigh’d be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous about what Tisha and David Wells will say/think about their daughter’s … new status.
“I have a joke,” Harper says.
And Leigh smiles and exhales. Gives Harper’s hand a little squeeze of appreciation.
Harper squeezes back. “You ready?”
“Hit me.”
“What did the fish say when he swam into the concrete wall?”
“Mmmm …”
“DAM!”
Leigh snorts.
The exit doors loom large.
“Wait,” and Leigh stops walking. Harper jolts back, and Leigh looks down at their interlinked fingers.
Harper turns to face Leigh. Lifts Leigh’s chin with her free hand and looks straight into Leigh’s brown eyes. “You sure about this?” And Harper lifts their linked hands. “You know we can keep it between us for now. Walk out as old homies. The parents don’t need to know at this point.”
Leigh’s eyes trace over Harper’s face. She takes the whole glorious package in. “I want them to know, Harp.”
“Yeah?” (And there’s that smile Leigh loves so, so much.)
“Yeah. This is the happiest I’ve been in a long time. It’s a little scary, yeah. But … it’s good. We’re good. You’re good.”
“You think I’m good, huh?” Harper’s eyes drop to Leigh’s lips.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Dope.” Another smile. “So you ready?”
Leigh looks at the automatic doors that will release her and Harper into the world. As a … thing. A pair.
A couple?
A couple.
She doesn’t speak. Just pulls Harper to the holly-trimmed exit and through the doors.
(The parents are thrilled, by the way.)