Piper
I stomp Henry in putt-putt.
He doesn’t seem to care.
We walk back to the Towers. It’s late, and the main drag’s dead, save for a few tourist-laden rideshares. The sky is clear and blue- black, scattered with stars. As stir-crazy as I so often feel in this town, I’ll miss its nights when I move to one of the faraway states I daydream about.
Tati loved Boston, with its green spaces and vibrant arts scene and universities, but she had to have been sad about leaving Sugar Bay.
Waves crashing against white sand. Incomparable sunsets.
Hole-in-the-wall cafés and custom T-shirt shops and an exciting influx of tourists come spring.
Would she have visited if Mom and Dad were still alive, fulfilling the roles she’s been forced to assume?
Would she have come back to see me, her little sister, not her annoying charge?
“What’re you thinking about?” Henry asks as we meander toward the Towers.
“The ass-whooping I just handed you.”
“Ha ha,” he deadpans. “For a girl who’s celebrating, you look pretty pensive.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, even though I’d like to tell him that I’m thinking of my parents, the stars and the ocean, my sister.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing.” His tone sounds almost indifferent, but I know this is how he demonstrates patience, and it works.
“I was thinking about Sugar Bay,” I admit. “How as much as I want to leave one day, I’ll miss it.”
“It’s a great town.”
“Yeah. Full of memories.”
He gives me a sweet smile. “I can’t even imagine.”
It’s not until we’re standing in front of my door in the west tower that he speaks again. He props his shoulder against the wall, and I match his posture, standing closer than I have in all the days since we reunited.
“Remember when we met? The first time?”
I blink, sleepy yet thrumming with energy. “Yes.”
“You were crying.”
Three years later, the memory makes me blush. “I remember.”
“I didn’t ask why.”
“Because you were polite.”
“Because I was chickenshit. I didn’t want to send you running.” He smiles wryly. “I don’t think you’ll run tonight.”
This is getting deep, but he’s right.
I shake my head; I’m not going anywhere.
“Then I’m gonna to ask. Were you crying because of your parents?”
I sift through my memories, trying to figure out how to explain that night in a way that’ll make sense to Henry, a boy who’s got a living mom and dad, two people who’d step into traffic for him.
“Kind of. And because of my sister. She and I’d fought earlier that night, and I felt very alone.
If Tati, who’d lost our parents too, couldn’t understand what I was going through, then how could anyone? You know?”
He drops his voice to a whisper. “Yeah. I think I do.”
“You’ve felt sadness like that?”
“Not in the same way, but sadness, yeah.”
I smile up at him. “Turned out to be a good night, though. Being with you made the heavy stuff seem lighter. By the time we said goodbye, I felt a lot less alone.”
“And then I vanished,” he says, his low pitch betraying his regret.
“Well, yeah. That sucked. Except…” I hesitate, trying to decide how forthcoming I want to be.
This moment feels special, like we’re in a bubble of truth.
Like there’s no way I’ll say the wrong thing.
And so I forge ahead. “Except you never really vanished. I thought about you a lot afterward. That night turned out to be everything I needed. You were everything I needed.”
He smiles with charming conceit. “You’re referring to my mad kissing skills, aren’t you?”
I lift a brow. “You were my first.”
His smile becomes sincere. “You were my first too.”
“I thought I was hallucinating when I saw you at the pool the second time.”
“Jesus, same! I was sure you were a mirage.”
He shuffles forward, extending a hand toward me. He leaves his palm open in the air between us, letting me choose whether we take things further.
Should we?
When he disappeared three years ago, I was inconsolable.
That week was the first time I snuck onto Marine Conservation Park property after hours, an act of pure desperation.
The pool no longer felt like a refuge, the childhood house I’d made a million memories in belonged to a new family, and there was a gaping hole in my heart, one that had been momentarily patched by a boy who’d then left without explanation.
Yet another person whose presence I couldn’t depend on.
When I finally accepted that Henry was gone for real, I wanted nothing more than comfort, than to feel the unconditional love of my parents.
The only place their spirits endured was the park.
That night, I sat on the pavement beside their memorial medallion in the quiet darkness, weeping.
I’m confident that Henry won’t vanish again, but I’ve got other concerns. Saying yes to more than friendship with him is entirely different from saying yes to a night of fun with a tourist boy or a tipsy kiss with one of the guys from my school. Saying yes to Henry involves trust and vulnerability.
Saying yes to Henry means handing over my heart.
Thanks to Damon, I know all about the wrong sort of boy. The sort of boy who takes, who demands, who hurts. Henry isn’t that sort of boy.
I’d be crazy not to see where he and I can go together.
I slip my hand into his. It feels good—nowhere near as scary as I expected.
“That kiss,” he says, swinging our linked hands between us. “How’d it measure up?”
“It’s the kiss to which I’ve compared every one since.”
He lets out a laugh so hearty I worry he’ll disturb the neighbors.
“I mean it,” I tell him. “Dry a girl’s tears, make her swoon with talk of science and history and politics, spend forever at her side watching a turtle nest, then kiss her on the beach as the sun comes up? Perfect.”
He tugs me gently toward him. His warmth encircles me, his eyes taking on a new vibrancy, brown flashing with starbursts of gold. My heart pounds, excitement and anticipation spinning into joy. This moment reminds me of sandy toes, a sherbet sunrise, a whirlwind night with Henry.
He wants to kiss me again. His expression broadcasts his longing.
Fear that has nothing to do with him lingers in my body, pinching at my muscles, scratching at the back of my neck.
But tonight, fear is overshadowed by need.
A need to know whether Henry and I can stir up the same electricity we created when we were fourteen.
Even more than that, a need to reclaim the control I used to have over my body, its impulses and its responses.
I take another step closer, laying my hand against his chest, atop his drumming heart.
He’s a friend who doesn’t look at me like I’m a disappointment or a challenge or a bother. He’s nostalgia and newness, simultaneously a haven and an escape.
I want to kiss him too.