He put one hand flat on the top of his hood and pulled it forwards a few inches. Then he rubbed his face like he was washing it with soap. “When did you find out?”
“After grad weekend.”
“Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice sounded small. I felt desperate to hug him, to go lie down in his truck.
“I’m sorry. It’s my parents. I don’t want to go.”
“Don’t then. Don’t go.”
I put my hand on his arm, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Can you come with me?”
The sound he made was sharp. “I don’t think I’m Oxford material.”
I looked down at my toes, curled them into my shoes.
“And you know I’ve got my own things going on. I’ve got the apprenticeship and I’m coaching the senior swim team.” He pulled his hood farther down his face. “I just can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me.”
We were quiet for a few minutes. The light in his parents’ bedroom went out. When HP finally spoke again, his voice was softer.
“Look, it’s good for you to go. You deserve it and . . . and you’ll do well, I’m sure.” He stood up and touched me on the top of the head.
I was fighting back tears, like a kid on the first day of kindergarten.
“So you’ll have a blast. And it’s only eight months. Jolly old England. Next time, tell me the truth, though, hey. And give me a bit of warning.”
“But you don’t get it. I’m only good when you’re around. I don’t know how I’m going to do this.”
“I’ll be here when you get back.” He smiled. “It’s not like I’m leaving town.”
“Could you at least come visit?”
“Maybe. I’d need to save up. But, hey, maybe.” An idea struck him and he brightened. “In the spring when coaching’s done . . .” He counted off commitments on his fingers. “I’m sure my old man would give me a few weeks in April. Will you still be there? We could make it work.” He held out his hand to me. His palm was dry and smooth when I took it.
“Really?” I asked.
“I’ll try. And maybe Ez will come with me.”
“Okay.”
“Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
As we neared my old gray house, I said, “While I’m gone, don’t hang out with my mother.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry. The woman has fangs.”
I laughed out loud, even through my tears. “Thank you,” I said.
I’d never loved him more.
What do you mean it was none of my business?” my mother said in the morning, her steel-cut oatmeal cooling to the side of her. “I was inviting him to stay close to us as a family while you’re gone. Can’t you see it’s going to be hard for him? Or do you only ever think of yourself?”
I slumped forwards on the breakfast bar. “I’m still not sure about going.”
“Angela.” She picked up her spoon and stirred the thick breakfast mush. “Sometimes we all have to do things in life that we find unsavory. Necessary things. I’m sorry you feel so stricken about HP, but I assure you he’ll wait. You’re a Petitjean. Girls like us aren’t a dime a dozen, you know.”
Those seven days until I flew to England, my insides were gripped by an invisible fist. HP and I packed as many lake swims and sunsets into the week as we could, but there was a melancholy to our conversations now. It was as if we’d read the final page of a chapter and could no longer concentrate on any of the words that preceded it.
On my last day in Cove, the phone rang.
“What?” said HP when I picked up.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Sorry, I’m at work at the pool, everyone’s shouting. Meet me at Fu Bar at six.” He hung up with a click.
Even the bartenders at Fu Bar were underage. They all had high-fashion haircuts and wore orange flight suits unzipped to varying degrees. The bar was one of those aircraft hangar places, with aluminum pipe weaving all around the ceiling and hand-cut yam fries on the menu. No two chairs were alike, and all around on chalkboards were pithy quotes from movies. When I walked in at 6:20 p.m., the entire swim team was in the back room playing Ping-Pong and drinking pitchers of foamy pale ale. Ezra waved and strolled over.
“Little Miss Ivy League,” he said, crooking his arm around my neck so that I stumbled forwards. “You were keeping that one quiet.”
“I see you invited the guys. I never knew I was such good friends with them.”
“HP’s over there.” Ezra gestured with his head towards the bar, where HP sat on a tall stool with his back against the counter, facing me. “He’s been drinking since four.”
HP still had his lifeguard whistle around his neck and his red board shorts on. Every so often his flip-flop would slide off the footrest of the stool, pitching him forwards. I headed towards him, and he sat up straighter in his seat and put his glass down, but before I could reach him a Jared-Jayden-Caleb-Kayden cut me off and swerved me towards the Ping-Pong table.
“You can be on my team!” he shouted. I didn’t know his name. “Here, hold the paddle like this . . .” He hugged around me to adjust my grip, and I was hit by a waft of Axe deodorant. “Okay, we’re playing first to twenty-one, you’re on backhands.”
I missed the opening serve because I was looking over my shoulder towards HP.
“Little John! Are you, like, one of those hot girls that suck ass at sports?”
“Allow me,” said HP, arriving alongside the table and bumping the other guy off my team.
I looked up at the clean line of HP’s jaw and the way his hair curled at his neck line.
He blinked hard and lifted his paddle into a kung fu stance. “Bring it.”
I’m not sure how he even connected with the serve, but he blasted it back down the line, won the point and then put his paddle flat on the green of the table.
“Too easy. I need air. Coming?”
He put his arm around me and led us both to the back door of the pub. It felt fun, fluid, like this was the stream I was meant to be in, like I should never leave.
Outside we sat on some empty beer kegs. The brickwork smelled sour and the paving stones beneath our feet were tacky.
HP lifted his shirt and put a flat hand against his stomach. “I need food.”
“You always need food,” I said, chuckling, folding into his side, but he didn’t absorb me. He was steep like a wall.
“Why haven’t you kissed me properly at all this week? Is it because you’re goddamn bullshit leaving? Because that means we should be kissing more, not less.” He stabbed into the air with a determined finger. “Or have you got a fucking thing for Ezra?”
“HP, how drunk are you?”
“Three out of ten. Six, maybe.”
“I couldn’t kiss you properly because I’m sad.”
“That’s lame. You kissed me with your mouth all tight. Like a cat’s ass kissing.” He pointed at his lips, pursed and tense.
“HP!” I shoved him and he stumbled off the keg. “I don’t know how to be.” I smeared my palms on the thighs of my pants. “If I’m excited about going to Oxford, that’s horrible because I’m leaving you. And if I dread Oxford, that’s horrible because I’m going and I should make the most of it. That’s what you always say.”