Henry
I find Piper at the pool on Monday night after a series of my texts go unanswered.
Her shoes are on the pool deck, splattered with bright yellow. She’s sitting on a lounge chair, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them. She’s got a Delphina book on the chair beside her, its cover featuring a mermaid leaping out of the sea, purple tail arched against the moonlit sky.
She barely acknowledges me.
I take the chair next her, wishing I’d brought a book of my own. I can’t figure her out—why she’s so quiet, why she ignored my texts, why she didn’t check to see if I wanted to come down to the pool with her.
“Am I bugging you?” I ask after a long silence. “Being here?”
She turns to look at me. “Not at all.”
“What happened to your shoes?”
She glares at them. “I spilled mustard.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. It’s been a day.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
She drops her head back against the chair, closing her eyes, freezing me out.
I stew in the silence, racking my brain for something I might’ve said or done to make her mad.
Sometimes I don’t realize when I’ve been insensitive, absent, or just a dumbass.
It used to irritate Whitney when I’d go dark because I was thinking about an upcoming test or an approaching meet.
Only after she’d call me out would it dawn on me that I needed to emerge from my mental burrow and communicate.
“Did I do something wrong?” I finally ask.
Piper’s eyes pop open. She turns to face me, resting her bare feet on the ground, and sets her hand on my arm. “Henry, no. God. You must think I’m such a—”
I don’t let her finish. “I think you’ve had a day. Like you said.”
She grimaces. “Work sucked.”
“Generally? Or did something happen?”
“Something happened,” she admits with obvious reluctance. “Remember that first night at your dad’s restaurant?”
“The coconut shrimp night.”
She gives me a ghost of a smile. “The tartar sauce night. Those guys who were a few tables over from us? I ran into one of them at the park today.”
“The biggest dick, or one of the lesser dicks?”
“The biggest dick. The other two—the lesser dicks—are okay. We’re friends. Or we used to be. Damon isn’t a friend. To make a long story very short, he sucks.”
Anger sparks behind my ribs. I saw how he treated her that night, in front of his buddies and in a restaurant full of people. I didn’t like it. I can only imagine how he acts when there isn’t an audience to mitigate his asshattery.
“I wouldn’t mind hearing the long story,” I tell Piper.
She shakes her head, which doesn’t surprise me. She has her secrets, just I have mine.
“He tried to dredge up a bunch of shit today, is all. Who does that?”
My teeth ache, I’m clenching my jaw with such force. I ease up enough to mutter, “Someone who wants to make you feel small.”
She runs her hand over my arm, scrutinizing my expression. I concentrate on her touch because the wildfire blazing through me feels dangerous.
Who does he think he is, showing up at her job?
Who does he think he is, trying to dim her light?
She says, “You look mad.”
“I am mad.”
“Henry.”
She says my name soothingly, without her usual bravado. She’s soft-eyed and vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen. She doesn’t need my fire. I pull in a breath and take her hand. I trace the peaks and valleys of her knuckles with my forefinger, awed by her soft skin. Her nails are sparkly silver.
“He’s a dirtbag, Piper. Screw him for treating you like shit.”
She gives me a conniving smile. “I dumped sweet tea on him.”
“Good. Fuck that guy.”
I tug on her hand until she leaves her chair for mine.
She squishes in beside me, and I wrap my arms around her.
My anger’s dissolving now that she’s tucked beneath my chin, her breathing paced with mine, and I can’t deny the way my heart triples in size when I think about how I’m the guy she’s chosen to trust.
Being with you makes me feel safe, she said the night we played putt-putt.
Being with her makes me feel lucky, like I’ve stumbled across a cool spring after a grueling desert run.
I kiss the crown of her head, and she buries her face in my T-shirt, hugging me hard.
We stay that way, quiet, late into the night.