Chapter 16 Harper
Harper
Mom held up her phone. “Say cheese.”
“Cheese!” Dash said, and pointed his neon pistols at her.
I stood beside him, not quite as enthusiastic.
“Come on, Harper,” Mom said. “One smile.”
She was on her best behavior, fulfilling her promise to take Dash trick-or-treating, and had been home early the rest of the week. Sober too, as far as I could tell.
I managed a half smile. As soon as the photo was taken, I knelt beside Dash.
“You remember what I told you?”
His head bobbed under his cowboy hat. “If I see any Smarties, grab ’em.”
“My hero.”
Smarties were, in my opinion, the most underrated candy. Luckily my little brother seemed to agree with the rest of the world that they sucked and saved all of them for me.
I stood up and smoothed my suffragette dress.
I had to admit, I was pretty proud of my handiwork—I’d put in a lot of hours making it last year and it had paid off.
I looked like I stepped out of the 1880s.
Long, icy green, it was fitted at the waist, with billowy sleeves and a sash with the suffragette colors: purple, green, and white.
A pin on the bodice read Votes for Women!
“You look so beautiful, Harper,” Mom said.
“Thanks.”
Her mouth tilted at my lackluster tone. “Really?”
“I said, thanks. I have to go. I’m meeting Xander at eight.”
“Bye, Harper!” Dash called, waving his little hand.
“Bye, buddy. Have fun. Have the best time.” I looked to Mom. “Don’t wait up.”
***
“Wow, great costume,” Xander said, meeting me at the Bennington Farm parking lot. “Very authentic.”
“Thanks, you too.”
Xander wore a brown suit and old-fashioned hat—like a scientist from the Manhattan Project. He’d told me he was dressed in honor of his father, Russell Ford, who’d been a physicist of some renown back in Baltimore but was currently battling dementia at their home in the Bend.
My “date” looked very handsome, but my heart ached, wishing that I was on a different boy’s arm as we entered the festival fairgrounds.
This is easier and right now I need easy.
At least with Xander, no one would give me shit. After Mom’s little revelation the other night, I felt like I was made of blown glass. One more hit and I was going to shatter into a million pieces.
Bennington Farm look to be less like a farm and more like an elegant estate where people held big weddings or parties.
The huge backyard had been turned into a Halloween playground.
The walks were strewn with hay, and pyramids of pumpkins artfully lined the walkways.
Strings of lights glittered between booths of food and drink, and the air was laced with the scents of popcorn and cotton candy.
In the center was a dance floor with a DJ on one side and a professional photographer on the other.
Tables draped in black ringed the dance floor, each with pretend candles flickering in little orange bowls.
Had I been in any sort of a good mood, I might’ve been impressed.
Enchanted, even. No dance back at PS120’s gym could compare to this.
But I couldn’t help but feel the students at CHA—Richie and Bender alike—paid for this opulence with more than just money.
“Hey, you two.” Dean Yearwood waved and joined us. “Wow, Harper, stunning!”
“Thanks. Love the costume, Ferris,” I said. I recognized the jacket and leopard-print sweater vest immediately.
“Thank you.” Dean smoothed his eyebrows à la Ferris Bueller. “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”
We laughed while Xander stared at us, confused. Dean rolled his eyes and threw his arm around his shoulders. “We have got to get this boy caught up. But first…snacks.”
The three of us headed toward the food area, Dean chatting, while Xander and I both scanned the crowds, searching for someone else beside the person we came with.
His gaze landed on Emery, glowing pink and gold as Barbie.
Dean and I exchanged knowing glances. Xander and Emery were in love—it was only a matter of time before they stopped pretending otherwise.
Hypocrite much?
My roaming eye found Orion, and my stupid heart tripped. He wore a dark suit with a red kerchief in the breast pocket and a fedora. Ridiculously handsome as a 1920s gangster. Unfair. Criminal, really.
“He’s a damn bandit…”
“Say something, Harp?” Dean asked, following my gaze.
“No, nothing.”
I looked away quickly but not quickly enough. Dean smiled in a way that made me feel as if my chest cavity were transparent.
“We should dance,” he said. “Let’s dance. Xander?”
“No, I…I don’t dance,” he said, his eyes still glued to Emery, who was on the dance floor with Tucker Hill draped all over her. They looked to be having an argument.
“You mean to tell me you’re going to leave this beautiful woman completely unattended? Your loss.” Dean held out his hand to me. “Madame.”
Why not? It was a party. I could be depressed and stressed out the other twenty hours in the day.
The song was a fast one but immediately slowed as soon as Dean and I hit the floor. Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” wafted over us.
“Is this okay?” Dean asked, his hands on my waist, mine around his neck. “Don’t want to make anyone jealous.”
“Xander and I are here as friends.”
“I wasn’t talking about Xander.”
Dean jerked his head subtly to his left. I looked to my right and saw Orion watching us from his table of Richies. A tingle of electricity zipped down my spine at the heat in his eyes. I looked away, my cheeks burning.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Dean raised a brow and gave me a gentle smirk. “He asked about you, you know. Right around the time you asked about him. Subtle, you guys are not.”
I started to protest, but what was the use? Besides, talking about him was like breathing again after a deep dive into a turbulent ocean.
“I can’t,” I said, my eyes stinging. “I want to, and I think he wants to, but…”
Dean’s face lit up. “Really? That’s great! What are you waiting for?”
“Will you keep it down?” I glanced around at the other couples. “My home life is about to implode, and this school… Jesus, this school.”
“I know it,” Dean said. “The pressure is a lot, but you gotta hope it’s worth it in the end.
Remember Shawshank Redemption? Andy crawls through that tunnel of shit to his freedom.
We just have to keep crawling until we get to the good stuff.
” He leaned in. “But Harper, that guy over there? He’s good stuff.
More than good. He’s one of the greats.”
Now my vision blurred, and my heart ached with a longing so fierce, it stole my breath.
“It feels impossible, Dean. For so many reasons.”
“Such as?”
“For starters, I’ve been told to keep my grubby Bender hands to myself,” I said. “It’s humiliating. The old me back in Pittsburgh would’ve scoffed at the elitist bullshit, but here… It’s been nonstop, and I hate how small I feel.”
Dean’s face was a mask of empathy. “I get it. But it doesn’t have to be anyone’s business but yours and his.”
He tilted his chin, indicating I should look where he looked—to the white swan of the black and white pair from The Black Swan, sitting at the Richie table. Sierra Hart was her name, if I remembered correctly.
She found his gaze, and for the smallest instant, her eyes lit up under all her makeup. Pure joy, if I ever saw it. And Dean’s face… Now I really wanted to cry. He looked so happy.
“Protect your happiness, Harper,” he said. “Guard it with your life. It might not be a perfect situation, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Or, even better, say fuck it—say fuck them—and just be happy.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?” I asked gently. “With her?”
He smiled sadly. “She’s not ready for that.”
“Why not? You’re so popular—”
The music swelled at the song’s chorus and got loud. Dean leaned in to me.
“I don’t live in a house. I live in a trailer at the very end of the Bend,” he said. “My dad is on disability after he was injured at work. My mom works two jobs.” Dean’s gaze found Sierra again and then came back to me, his smile resigned. “Some bridges are too far.”
The song ended, and the DJ announced that the costume contest was about to begin and to please clear the dance floor.
“But enough of my sob story.” Dean put on a confident Ferris Bueller grin and tugged the collar of his jacket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a trophy to win.” He started to go, then turned. “Hey, Harper?”
“Yeah?”
“One of the greats.”
“Hey, Dean,” I called back. “So are you.”
“Aw, shucks.” He hunched his shoulders, touched, and went to line up with the other hopefuls.
I wandered away from the festivities, listening as the crowd noise grew loud and quiet over and over, like someone messing with the volume on a speaker.
I found a relatively secluded spot and leaned against a wooden crate.
The late October night was cold and getting colder as winter came on, but the sky was clear and glittered with a thousand stars, like diamonds.
The constellation, Orion, was stark and obvious in the night sky.
Et tu, universe?
“We’re missing it,” said a voice.
That voice. That smooth British tenor that sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach as if I were any other girl with a crush on a boy instead of the one who had to grow up too fast and be the adult in her house. If I just closed my eyes, I could pretend I was that girl and have the fairy tale…
I turned and braced myself for Orion.
Ha. Good luck with that.
He stood in the light from one of the many old-fashioned streetlamps that dotted the farm.
It bathed him in a golden light, and up close, him in that suit…
It was dark blue with white pinstripes, and tailored to his lean, athletic body.
The scarlet kerchief was a red rose blooming out of his breast pocket, and the fedora cut angular shadows on his jaw bone.
“What are we missing?” I said. “Orion…?”
His dark-eyed gaze was soaking me in. “Sorry, I just… You are so incredibly beautiful.”