Just yeah. Nothing more. But that one yeah hinted at more understanding than a whole hour of lunch-table babble with Kaylee’s friends.
That one yeah unburdened me, like maybe I’d finally stumbled upon someone who could accept me as I was. This post-Philly, post-Dad version of me—not some happy, unfettered, whole version that everyone seemed to want. Including Mom.
Maybe here, at last, was someone I could talk to. Only, as luck would have it, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
I fumbled for a suitable conversational topic. Horses came to mind, but I had no idea if he rode or, like Parker, thought they were “smelly giants with big teeth.” No, I needed something he was interested in.
What did I know about him so far? Not much. He was new, he was from San Diego. He smelled a thousand times better than the guy who sat next to me in English. My gaze fell to the book in his lap.
“What’s that about?”
“Ghost in the Shell? The usual. Good guys versus bad. Major Motoko versus the Puppeteer.” He coughed, nudged his backpack with his shoe. “I should probably put it away. The rain…”
Before he closed the book, I peeked at the colorful graphics. I saw a girl with purple hair holding a big gun, standing in front of a weird-looking machine. Interesting, and definitely not the usual sort of thing students carted around with them here.
I pulled my knees to my chest and watched him unzip his bag and stuff the book in.
“Are you a fan of manga?”
I hugged my legs tighter and wondered how to respond. “Don’t think so” was what I settled on. Not a total lie, but not an uncomfortable truth, either. “But I do like to read. Did you bring that with you in the move?” I couldn’t imagine he’d picked it up in Clearwater.
“Yeah. We had a great indie bookstore back in San Diego. They kept a manga collection, special ordered anything they didn’t stock.”
His slow sigh triggered an echoing wistfulness in me. Oddly enough, the knowledge that I wasn’t the only one longing for the past made my loneliness dissipate, just a teensy bit. Even if that longing was only for a bookstore, it served as a reminder. I wasn’t completely alone in this feeling. Hunter had been forced to leave favorite things behind, too.
With one arm still cradling my knees, I pulled the other up to rest against my cheek. To breathe in Dad’s flannel, searching for the minuscule trace of his scent that remained, the smell of sweet, pine-scented cologne. Every day it faded, leaving me terrified of the day the smell would disappear completely and I’d lose that last link.
“Gonna have to trek to Minneapolis to find a decent bookstore.” He paused, then added. “If you ever want to come with…”
“Okay,” I murmured past the giant knot clogging my throat. His kindness, losing Dad; my feelings were all blending together into one big explosive concoction. Who knew which emotion would burst free at any given time?
“Hey. You okay?”
I swallowed hard, nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“That your dad’s shirt?”
I nodded again.
“He died…recently?”
I cleared my throat, forced air into my lungs. All this time, I’d been complaining about how everyone tiptoed around Dad’s death. Only a hypocrite wouldn’t answer.
“Yeah. In a fire.”
I heard his shoes scrape wood as he shifted positions. “Rough. Were you there?”
Supposedly. I sifted through my memory again, seeking flames, smoke, anything. Like every other time, nothing came.
And then I heard a scream. In my head, a girl’s scream.
The sound made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. But the only images to accompany it were those same white walls, a white lab coat. The smell of bleach.
Still no fire.
“I don’t remember.”
I felt his surprise more than saw it, because as soon as the words came tumbling out, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d said that, and yet…instant relief.
The weight of his hand on my shoulder shocked me. “You okay?” he repeated. Softly.
“Yeah. But I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.”
When I peeked up between a few loose strands of hair, I was stunned to see that he wasn’t giving me one of those “what’s her deal?” looks, one of Parker’s specialties. “No problem.”
He closed his eyes. This time, the silence felt companionable. If I could have sat out there for the rest of the day, just feeling normal in someone else’s company for a change, I would have done it in a flash. But after a while, the warning bell stuttered its crazy ring, signaling lunch’s end.
Hunter groaned. He stretched his long arms over his head, an act that pulled his shirt tight across his chest and accentuated the fact that muscles existed there. I felt my cheeks flush and looked at my feet, whereas Kaylee would have squealed. Not that I couldn’t appreciate his physical attractiveness, because apparently I could. A lot.