“What?” I asked self-consciously.
He smirked. “You’re having an internal struggle, aren’t you?”
“No. What? How would you know?”
He let out a laugh. And as though he’d hoped not to, he cleared his throat and frowned. “Well, don’t stress too hard over it. I just came in here because I didn’t want to leave you hanging and to tell you this…can’t happen.”
My face fell. He was turning me down?
You’ve got to be kidding me.
As he moved to the door, my hand flew up almost as if a demon possessed me to keep the damn thing shut. “Wait.”
He inhaled deeply and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
Think Harper. You’re about to blow your only shot in five years with Troy Hartman. Make a damn move.
Fine. Here’s to hoping you still have a heart.
I moved away from the door and raced into the large handicap stall, wiping at my eyes. The tears were fake, but the smell in here could easily had made them very real.
“Okay fine. This was clearly a stupid idea. Just…go.”
He didn’t say anything, but I also hadn’t heard the door open. “I—I can’t leave you alone here,” he said from the other side of the stall.
“It should be easy for you to leave me wherever the hell you wanted,” I started. “Do you know I cried for weeks over you?” I sniffled and heard a heavy sigh in response.
“I—I know. I’m sorry.”
“Oh please. You don’t care. Clearly it hasn’t affected you one bit.”
“No. Harper.” His voice dropped and he cleared his throat again. “It was the worst thing I’d ever…it shouldn’t have…” I heard his head bang against the door to my locked stall. “Gosh I’m sorry.”
He actually sounded like he meant it.
I snapped out of it and went on. “It doesn’t matter. You probably think I’m pathetic for…well…all this.”
“I don’t know where you were going with this but I never thought you were pathetic, Harper.”
There was silence while I wondered what to do next. To say next. Until…I didn’t have to.
“You—you were the most beautiful girl in East Brooklyn High. Since the day I saw you struggling with your locker on the first day of senior year. I know you carried all your books for the first week of school because you couldn’t get that damn thing open. And I wanted to offer to carry them for you.”
I frowned and a smile cracked my lips. The first real one I’d had all day.
“But something about the new girl is always scary. You wonder where she’s from, if she had a huge boyfriend back home who could crush you—I waited too long, I guess.”
I opened the stall door tentatively and looked up at him. His eyes startled me. He seemed hurt for me, like he’d wanted to stop my pain even back then.
If only he knew my pain had nothing to do with him. With that in my mind again, I shook off whatever the hell he was making me feel pressed on with words that felt so wrong, it hurt to say. “We would have been amazing that night.”
He cocked his head as if I hadn’t been listening. “Harper.”
I pulled him into the stall. “We could be amazing tonight. I’ve learned a thing or two about what men like.” I stripped off his shirt and leaned into him. He smelled like Irish spring rather than someone who’d just played a hockey game.
“Harper.”
My name rolled off his lips like a thirsty man begging for water. Gruff and desperate.
