by Megyn Ward
Tess doesn’t say anything back.
When I turn around, she’s standing in the kitchen area, a can of soda in either hand, staring at me. I step away from the window. “Conner and I have been going out for almost a month,” I say, swiping soda out of her hand on my way to the couch.
When I plop down and pop the top, she’s still standing there. Still staring at me.
“I don’t want to talk about my parents, Tess,” I tell her, leaning over to set my soda on the coffee table in front of me. “It was a stupid thing to say, and I shouldn’t have said it.”
Tess chews on her lip for a few seconds, probably debating whether to push the subject or let it go. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders at me. “A month, huh?” she says, throwing herself into her dad’s recliner. “Has he tried to fuck you yet?”
“Tess!” I shout it, eyes so wide it feels like they’re about to pop out of my head.
“What?” She opens her soda and slurps at the foam rushing from the top. “This is Conner Gilroy we’re talking about. He’s kind of a slut.”
I know that. I’ve heard the stories. Rumors.
“Well?” Tess says, swinging the leg hooked over the arm of her chair. “Has he?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head for emphasis when she looks like she doesn’t believe me. “No. He hasn’t even tried to kiss me.”
“Seriously?” she scrunches her face up like she doesn’t understand what I just said. “Are you sure he’s your boyfriend?”
“Yes.” But saying it makes me feel stupid. Makes me doubt… everything.
“But he hasn’t kissed you?”
I shake my head.
Tess looks at me like I just admitted to believing in the Easter Bunny. “What do you guys do then?”
I shrug. “Talk. Read to each other. Hang out.”
“He reads to you?” She sits up straight her chair so she can set her drink down. “Conner Gilroy is your boyfriend and reads to you?”
“Sometimes I read to him,” I say, feeling defensive. It seems ridiculous now. All the time we’ve spent together and the most he’s done is touch my ankle and tease me about my freckles. It makes me feel foolish.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.
I shrug. “You don’t like him,” I say, even though that’s not the reason why. I didn’t tell her because she saying it out loud makes it real. Making it real makes it vulnerable. Makes it matter.
“But I don’t not like him,” she says. “There’s a difference.”
I make a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat, hoping I sound more casual than I feel.
“Wait—did he tell you to keep it quiet?” She sounds like it makes her angry, the thought that Conner wouldn’t want anyone to know about us.
“No,” I tell her, shaking my head. “I’m the one who doesn’t want anyone to know about us.”
“Why?”
“I—” I shrug, taking a drink from the cold can in my hand. “I don’t want Ryan to know,” I say like I actually think Ryan would care. These days, my brother hardly acknowledges my existence. To think he’d care that I’m dating his best friend is ridiculous. Ryan doesn’t care about anything these days, least of all me.
Thirty-three
Conner
June
Ibought Henley a ring from a little shop in Cambridge.Not an engagement ring or even a promise ring, although I suppose it could be used for both. It was an impulse buy. Not something I meant to do. I had an exam on constitutional law and a meeting with one of my professors. Between the two I have about an hour to kill so I kicked around, poking in and out of vintage book shops. A record store. And a place about as big as a broom closet, stuffed with tacky fake Irish shit like faire wind chimes and shamrock tea pots.
That’s when I saw it.
Sterling silver. Nothing fancy.
When she saw me eyeing it, the sales clerk started going on and on about it was handmade in Ireland, and the meaning behind it. Half-listening, I imagined giving it to Henley. Asking her to wear it. Explaining that it could be our secret. No one would know where she got it. She wouldn’t have to tell anyone. But it would be something I could look at, while’s she busy ignoring me in Calculus class or hurrying past me in the halls, and know that she was with me.
Even if no one else does.
So I bought it.
I was going to give it to her that day in the hammock but then Tess showed up. That was a couple of weeks ago and I’m still carrying it around in my pocket, like a chicken shit.
I reason that it’s a big step. That we’ve only been dating a few months. That I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.
What idea is that, Genius? That you can’t stop thinking about her? That she’s the only girl you want to be with? That you’re seventeen years old and you already know that there is no one else for you. That you’re going to love her forever.
Most girls would love to hear that kind of stuff. They’d melt and cry and throw their arms around you if you said those kinds of things to them. It’s been firmly established that Henley is not like other girls.
Like right now, she’s in the kitchen with my mom, baking cookies. I’m in my dad’s study, down the hall, reading and listening to them talk and laugh. I like that she likes spending time with my family. That sometimes, I’ll come home from school and she’ll already be here, hanging out with my mom. Or that if I have a paper due, she’ll still come over to watch the game and yell at the television with my dad while I work on it. I’ve never said she’s my girlfriend and they’ve never asked but I think they know.
I try to keep her as far away from Declan as I can. Sometimes I catch him looking at her. I can tell something about her makes him angry. That he doesn’t like us together and whatever that something is, it goes beyond him not thinking she’s pretty enough or the fact that she’s Ryan’s little sister.
Sometimes, I think he doesn’t like her because she makes me happy.
“What are you reading?”
I look up from my book to find Henley standing in the doorway of the study, a stack of cookies wrapped up in a napkin in her hand. I turn the paperback in my hand, flashing her the faded cover of Gatsby with BOSTON CITY LIBRARY stamped on the back of it.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “That’s my book.”
“We’ve been over this, Hennie,” I say, slipping an old receipt I’m using as a bookmark between its pages. “It’s not your book. It belongs to everyone.”
Now she’s scowling at me to keep from laughing. We do this, pretty much every time she catches me reading it. “Says the guy who stole it from the library.”
“I didn’t steal it.” I set the book on the arm of the chair I’m sitting in. “I borrowed it—that’s how libraries work.”
“Are you ever going to give it back to me?” She shifts around in her shoes. They’re new. My mom bought them for her. She doesn’t know that, though. Mom bought a bunch of stuff—clothes and shoes—and pulled the tags. Ran it all through the wash a few times to wash of the new and stuffed it all in a box. Told her it was a bunch of stuff that belonged to Patrick’s sister that didn’t fit her anymore. Somehow, I’m going to have to figure out how to get her a backpack. One she’ll actually use.
“Probably not.” I scoot across the wide leather seat of the chair I’m in, making room for her “What kind?” I say, glancing at the cookies in her hand.
“Oatmeal butterscotch,” she says. Liberating a cookie from the bundle, she bites it in half.
“They for me?” Oatmeal butterscotch are my favorite and she knows it.
“No,” she says around a mouthful of cookie but she’s lying. They’re for me.
“Can I have one?”
“Can I have my book back?”
“Are you proposing a trade?”
She shrugs and chews.
“Because if you are, you’re doing it wrong,” I cock an eyebrow at her and grin. “You’re not supposed to eat your leverage.”
She
shoves the rest of her cookie into her mouth and I can’t help but laugh. God, she drives me crazy. “Come here, Henley.”
She hesitates, like she’s mentally mapping out escape routes but I don’t say it again and I try not to let her hesitation bother me.
Finally, she crosses the threshold and sinks into the chair next to me. “You can have the rest,” she says, holding out her napkin-wrapped cookies. “I’ve had about a dozen of them.”
I look at her hand, pretending to consider her offer, before I raise my gaze to hers and flash her my dimples. “What do you want for ‘em?”
She flushes instantly at my teasing. “You know what I want,” she says, propping her feet up on the ottoman, next to mine. “I want my book back.”
“Still not your book,” I tell her, trying to sound as casual as possible. I shift on the chair a bit to reach into my pocket while she bites into another cookie. “But I have something else you might be interested in,”
When I pull out the ring and show it to her, her chewing slows to a stop, her wide brown eyes latched onto the center of my palm.
“Before you say you can’t wear it, I’d like you to note that my name is nowhere on it,” I say, still light. Still casual. “Also, it was cheap. There’s a good chance it’ll turn your finger green.” When she doesn’t say anything, I glance down at the cookies clutched in her hand. “How many of those do you have left?”
She swallows so hard I expect her to start coughing on the lump of oatmeal butterscotch lodged in her throat. “Four.”
I shrug, like I’m considering it. “When you factor in time and labor, I’m getting the better end of the deal.”
She’s not buying it. “Conner…” She shakes her head. Finally looks up at me, her brown eyes so dark they look almost black. “I don’t think—”
“It’s a Claddagh—” I lift her right hand from her lap and slip the ring onto her middle finger. “They have their own secret language.” I tighten my fingers around hers, holding her hand. “When you wear it on your right hand, with the point of the heart toward your own, it means you’re committed to someone.”
Jesus, why did I say that out loud?
“Committed?”
“Well, yeah.” I say it to her hand because I don’t want to risk looking up at her. “We’ve already established the fact that we’re dating.”
“We did,” she says. “But dating in itself doesn’t imply…”
She didn’t think it was exclusive. She thinks I’ve been seeing other girls.
I don’t know why it hurts but it does. There have been other girls. More than I like to think about, but that stopped the moment she handed me her calculus notes three months ago. There’s no one else.
I open my mouth to tell her that. That she’s the only one. That there’s never going to be another. Not for me, but she beats me to it.
“Where’s yours?”
“My what?”
“Well, if this is a real thing, then you should have one too, right?” she says, lifting her half-eaten cookie to her mouth. “A commitment isn’t a commitment if it’s one-sided.”
“The shop I bought it in is in Cambridge—we can be there in an hour.” She wants me to wear a ring, I’ll wear a ring. Shit, I’ll tattoo the fucking thing on my forehead if it’ll make her happy.
She studies me and chews, long enough to make me squirm before she shakes her head. “I don’t have any money,” she says, finally settling back in the seat next to me. “And it won’t count unless I buy it for you.”
It’s enough that she wants me to. “Does that mean you’ll wear it?’ I say, brushing my thumb over the top of her middle finger, still trying for light and casual even though I just asked the girl I’m in love with to wear my ring.
She doesn’t answer me but she doesn’t take it off either. “Read to me?” she says, offering me a cookie.
I don’t push her. I just pick up Gatsby and find where I left off. I do as she asks, reading to her out loud. When feel her rest her head on my shoulder, it feels like yes.
Thirty-four
Henley
2017
I help Tess clean up the broken glass and scattered pizza before giving her my phone number. “You owe me,” she says, tipping her chin at the random garbage can we jammed everything into. “For the food.”
“Oh...” I pull my purse open and take out my wallet. “I can give you—”
“I’m kidding… Jesus, are you sure you’re Henley O’Connell?” she says, eyes narrowed on the stack of cash I have in my hand, a funny expression on her face. When I go red in the face and start to stammer, she sighs. “I’ll text you later—we can go for a drink. Catch up.” She angles her gaze up a bit to catch mine. “Okay?” She says it gently, and I realize she’s just as thrown by this whole thing as I am. It’s going to take us time to get back to where we were.
Time I don’t have.
“I’d like that.” I nod, shoving my wallet back into my purse and grin at her, forcing myself to act normal. Feel normal. “My treat.”
“You bet your ass, Orphan Annie,” Tess says, shoving her cell phone into her back pocket while returning my smile. “See you later.”
And then she’s gone, up the steps of my old apartment building, empty-handed. I stand there for a few moments, staring after her. I want to follow her. Ask her what she knows about my dad. What happened to Conner after I left. What happened to her.
Instead, I stay on course.
I walk the rest of the way to the library, and the only thing that’s changed is the fact that Margo, my favorite librarian is a little older. Stepping through the doors, I see the same tables. The same books. The teen reading center is still in the corner of the first floor. I can see the faded tie-dyed bean bag chairs from here.
“Henley O’Connell?” she says when she sees me. Same as everyone else, she looks shell-shocked. Like she can’t quite put it together. Seeing the stunned expression on everyone’s face when they see me makes me uncomfortable. I hadn’t realized how much I’d changed until now.
She recovers quickly, giving me a hug before taking on a tour of the library, even though everything looks the same. She gives me my keys and my swipe card to get into the suite of offices in the back of the building. “This one is yours,” she shows me into an office barely big enough to hold a desk and chair. “I’m putting you in charge of the teen reading program—that won’t be your only duty of course, but—”
I throw my arms around her. Hold her tight. “Thank you,” I tell her. “I won’t let you down.”
“Of course, you won’t.” She laughs, hugging me back. “And just you wait, these next ten weeks are going to fly by. You’ll be ready for your own library in no time at all.”
Ten weeks.
That’s all I have.
Seventy days to fix everything I broke by leaving.
I just pray it’s enough time to make things right.
I take an Uber back to Boylston, listening as my driver points out shops and restaurants. Landmarks and monuments. He thinks I’m a tourist.
I guess I kind of am.
In the lobby of the apartment building, I wave to the concierge assigned to my floor, and he gives me a thin-lipped smile in return. 14C has sat vacant for over almost a decade and now, all of a sudden, up pops a new tenant out of thin air. I’m sure Spencer had someone call ahead and tell them I was coming. Who I am.
That won’t stop the speculation though. Smile planted on my face, I reach out and press the button to call the elevator car, keeping my back turned to the concierge desk, pretending not to hear them whisper about me.
Ladies don’t acknowledge idle gossip.
As soon as the elevator doors slide open, I step in, turning to punch my floor number, thinking about everything I still have to do. Unpack. See about securing a more permanent mode of transportation. Find a grocery store nearby—
A hand appears, and the elevator doors bump into it before sliding open again. I look up, automatically
moving back to the back of the empty car. As soon as the doors open a couple tumbles on the car, barely able to keep their hand to themselves.
As soon as the woman sees me, she straightens herself, pushing the man’s hands off her waist, putting a respectable amount of distance between them. I catch the flash of an engagement ring on her hand and have to beat back the smirk that’s threatening to take over my face. Whoever this guy is, I’d bet everything I have in my purse that he’s not the guy who gave it to her.
“Twelve, please,” she says, in a haughty tone, like I’m beneath her.
I’d recognize it anywhere. Hearing it freezes me in place, but only for a moment. “Of course.” I smile, reaching out to push the button for her floor before looking up and aiming a smile directly into Jessica Renfro’s face.
I also recognize the man she’s with. He’s starting shortstop for the Sox. “We’re getting down to the wire, Ephraim,” I say, shifting my gaze to meet his. “If we don’t win this next series against the Cubbies, we can kiss our pennant goodbye.” As soon as I say it his eyes widen in surprise while Jessica’s narrow. Engagement ring or not, I catch her reaching out and to slip her arm around his waist, staking her claim.
“You’re a Sox fan?” he says, his lips tipped up in an amused smile. I can tell that a lot of other women have used this move on him before—rattling off a few stats or something they heard on Sports Center in hopes of sounding like they gave a shit about baseball. I’d even bet the move was in Jessica’s playbook.
But I didn’t have to pretend.
“Since I was a girl—” I shrug, letting my gaze drift over Jessica for a moment. She’s looking right at me. Like everyone else, she has no idea who I am. “My stepfather used to sneak me into his study after dinner so I could catch the game.” I focus on my memories of Spencer. Sitting in his comfy chair in front of the television while he worked at his desk behind me. I kept a book in my lap, and he kept the remote close-by, just in case my mom popped her head in.