Chapter 8 #3
“That makes zero sense. How could it be because of you when we barely even spoke in school, and you were always popular? And I was two years behind you! We didn’t even move in the same circles,” Harper said, looking back and forth between him and the road several times as she drove.
“Every male that participated in sports, Freshmen to Seniors, were together in the locker room during practices, no matter what the sport was. And I hated that the guys in the locker room would talk about you.”
“Talk about me? Nobody talked about me…” she said doubtfully.
“They did. How you looked on any particular day. What they wanted to do with you. Who was going to ask you out first. Crap like that. So, I kinda threatened to kick all their asses if they so much as looked in your direction.”
“You did what?!”
“Yeah. And I did it often just to make sure that no one would ask you out.”
“Do you have any idea how miserable my life was because I was home alone when all our friends were out being teenagers?!”
“I’m sorry! It drove me insane listening to them, and even more so when I thought about what might happen if you actually agreed to go out with one of them. And you weren’t alone. Summer was home with you.”
“Let me ask you something, Clay. Did they talk about just me, or were girls in general more a general topic of discussion in the locker room?”
“That’s not the point. When they talked about you in particular, I lost my shit every time. I had to make them stop. And then I added Summer to the same threat.”
“Because it drove you insane when they talked about Summer, too,” she said, shaking her head.
“No. Because I didn’t want you to have to be home alone and I knew Summer was your best friend, so I thought it’d be nice if she stayed home with you.”
Harper looked at him again, then again, before she pressed more firmly on the accelerator, intent on getting them to her home more quickly.
“Harper…”
Harper held up a hand almost in his face to silence him each time he started speaking.
She pulled into her drive way, killed the engine, and just sat there.
Finally she looked over at him. “How could you? You took the entire landscape of our teen years and bashed them to nonexistence without a thought of how it would affect us. You had no right, Clay. If we’d been the only ones, I get it, the protection.
But I have no doubt that it was every girl, all the time, because that’s what happens in locker rooms. And honestly, as I say that, I know that it’s wrong for anyone to be a subject of that kind of conversation anywhere, even a locker room, but are you aware what it did to my confidence that no one even seemed to notice I was alive?
How many times I wondered what was wrong with me.
As my mother tearfully asked, why I was always the odd one out? ”
“I didn’t know any of that,” he answered quietly.
“I even believed that the reason no one would even stand next to me or Summer in the lunch line was because of me. They blackballed her from any kind of social activity because she was my friend and that made her unworthy of inclusion as well. It’s hard enough being an awkward teenage girl, and you made it so much worse than it had to be. ”
“I’m sorry, Harper. I really am. That’s not what I wanted to happen. I just wanted them to…” he stopped talking and seemed to fold in on himself. “I don’t know. I was selfish. There’s no excuse.”
“Why was it so important to you?” she asked. “What could have triggered you to make threats of violence unless they all treated us like we had leprosy?”
He shook his head slowly. “I threatened death.”
“Clay!”
“I was a stupid kid. I had no idea the effect it would have on you. I still didn’t know the extent of it until you just explained it me. But I’ve felt bad about it for years. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t want them coveting you. I couldn’t imagine anyone else touching you, or spending time with you when I couldn’t even spend time with you, and no one but me should have been spending time with you!”
“Are you saying that we’re…”
The front door of Harper’s family home opened and Libby walked out onto the front porch. “Harper, baby, Summer’s on the phone,” Libby called.
“I’ll be right there, Mom,” Harper said.
She sat in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead as her mother went back inside. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Forgive me. Please. I’m not that kid anymore.”
“I know, but damn, Clay. My school years could have been so different.”
“I was selfish, but it was from a place of not wanting anyone else to be with you. I cared about you even then.”
“Then you should have told me.”
“Like you’d have gone out with me. You didn’t acknowledge I was around most of the time.”
“Because I cared about you, too.”
He looked at her. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
“I was an idiot,” he said. “I should have taken the chance. I just knew you’d turn me down.”
Harper sighed. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t exactly tell you I cared either. But I didn’t go around threatening everybody that looked your way.”
“We’re all kinds of screwed up,” Clay said.
Harper started laughing. “You are.”
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Travis said, walking in front of Harper’s car. “Must have gotten a lot done for old man Bigsby today.”
“Yeah, we did,” Harper said through her rolled down windows.
“Must be nice,” Travis said as he walked between the front of Harper’s car and the house, having just checked the gates on the fields of growing trees to be sure they were all secure, before returning inside.
“Dad…” Harper said warningly, shaking her head.
“What? I’m just saying it’s late. You worked for old man Bigsby all day long.
Must be nice having someone devoted to your business other than yourself.
I’m sure it’s a good feeling,” Travis said, glaring at Harper over his shoulder before he stepped through the front door and closed it behind himself.
He didn’t slam it, but it wasn’t closed quietly either.
Harper sighed again, but this time it wasn’t due to physical fatigue, it was more emotional exhaustion.
“I’m sorry he doesn’t get it,” Clay said.