As we got older—Grade 11—girls waited for him at the gates and he’d peel off, flapping me a wave as he joined hands with the latest one. He had a constant stream of female fans; I’d often be in the washroom while a huddle of Grade 11s consoled the latest HP casualty as she dabbed her eyes. Shhh, they’d whisper, their eyebrows panicked. That’s her, that’s Little John. Wait till she leaves.
Girls threw themselves at HP’s feet, and he hadn’t figured out who the good ones were yet. I doubt he even cared. By seventeen he was captain of the swim team. He had bright blue eyes and arms like Poseidon. Even Mr. Cameron, the school principal, thought he was cool and high-fived him in the lunchroom. HP called Mr. Cameron “Jerry” or, on some days, “Jer.” When it came to the girls, though, I wished HP would be pickier, and maybe slow down a little on the hand-holding. Like my mom always told me, it’s graceless not to discriminate.
I never understood why HP had chosen me as his friend, or how I’d gotten an all-access pass to him. It was like having a key to the White House. He told me everything he thought and felt and wanted, and I don’t think he told anyone else in the world—not even Ezra, his best buddy. Ezra was a goofball and a jock, and if you told him you even had a feeling about anything he’d probably give you a charley horse and call you a pansy. Sometimes HP painted pictures on thick, fibrous paper and wrote me letters over the top of them, letters about the good things in life—how your skin feels after a day in the ocean; the smell of asphalt before it rains; the way old people’s hands wrap around coffee cups in restaurants. Ezra would have punched HP in the face if he’d found out about those. I kept all of the letters—I still have them.
In the summer after Grade 11, HP and I sat with our backs against the trunk of the old birch tree in his front yard. We met there a lot, often after dinner when I’d walk the block barefoot and call for him at his open front door. His parents rarely shut the door and never locked it. “If anything’s coming for us,” HP’s dad used to say, “it’ll come just as good through a window.”
It was a warm night—August, I think—and the cicadas were screeching. Mrs. Parker came out with pie, but I didn’t want any.
“It’s peach.” HP took a plateful and a fork, hefting off a huge chunk.
“Are you sure, Angela?” HP’s mom was small like a sparrow, with papery-soft skin. She spoke in short sentences and whenever she could, touched HP on the shoulder or head in passing.
“I’m fine, thanks, Mrs. Parker. I just ate.”
“Don’t get cold out here.” She drifted back to the house. “You two. I don’t know.”
HP rolled his eyes. “She thinks we’re soul mates. She said so at dinner. Says she’s never seen two kids more comfortable.” A couple of huge bites and the pie was gone. “I told her to stop being emotional.”
“I like that.” I picked up a leaf and ran its supple edge across my bare knee. “I believe in soul mates, but my mom says there’s no such thing. She says there are tons of people a person could be with, not just one. Believing in a soul mate is like believing in Santa. According to her it’s only ever about timing—who you meet and whether you’re ready. That’s all it is.”
“Downer.”
“Yeah.” I moved my foot so it lined his. “That’s what I said.”
HP shuffled his back against the bark of the tree like a bear scratching. “Actually, you know what? I’m with your mom. There are tons of people a person can be with.” He raised his eyebrows and brushed pie crumbs from his shirt.
“You’re certainly testing the theory.”
“So far not so many soul mates, though. More wing nuts than soul mates, if I’m keeping a tally.”
I flung my leaf at his foot. “That’s because you only date people on the outside.”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t know who any of them are!”
He banged my knee with his knuckles. “How am I supposed to know they’re wingers when I ask them out? It’s like friending someone on Facebook and then realizing they’re nuts when you look at their page. You’ve entered into a contract by then.”
“Delete! Easy.”
“Okay, well, we can be soul mates. I’ll date the wingers and you can be my soul mate.”
“Another healthy plan.”
With my weight against his side I could feel the teenage-boy leanness of him through the fabric of his sweatshirt. I could have straightened back up but didn’t.
“One more year of school.” He sighed. I loved how his brain did that: the leaps were almost visible. “I can’t wait to be done.”
“Are you going to travel?”
We’d talked before about the adventures that were out there—the shark dives in South Africa, the climbing of the Matterhorn. But now our final year was before us, and with the freedom to pick a direction, the world seemed less conquerable. Going places was scarier than talking about them.
“I don’t know. My dad’s on me about getting a trade. He’s offered me an apprenticeship with him as a carpenter.” HP shrugged. “Sounds okay.”
“God, what is it about parents who have only one child? My folks are on me constantly about which school this and what scholarship that. Jeez, it’s like they had a kid just so they could obsess and over-steer and maybe get a second shot at the glory. You know what I’m talking about.”
I felt HP wince and pull at the neck of his hoodie. “My folks aren’t like that. They’re just looking out for me. And the truth is I’m not an only child.” He paused. “I had a brother.”
The volume of the cicadas suddenly increased, or else it was the white noise in my head. I pushed myself up so I could look at him. “You what?”
“He died when I was four.”
I thought of his quiet mother and his dad’s apathy about locking the door. They already knew they couldn’t keep the world out.
“Oh, HP, why didn’t you tell me before? That’s terrible.”
“I don’t talk about it a lot.” He rubbed his eye. “And I don’t want you to, either.”
“No, of course—”
“I was only four. My brother choked at the dinner table right there.” He nodded towards the kitchen window, which was open and amber with light. “I was sitting next to him. He was a year younger than me.”
I must have made a sound then because he faltered and put his arm around me. I could feel his ribs against mine. “I don’t remember a whole lot, just the fear of it. The panic. My dad wasn’t home, just my mom.”
“Christ.”
HP breathed in and out once, lifting me and settling me back against the birch. “You know, life’s not controllable. You do the best you can with the chances you get. And on you go.”
“How didn’t it kill your parents?”
“It did. It devastated them. But they went on. So did I, I guess.”
He knew himself so well. He was miles ahead of me.
“Why didn’t you guys move?”
“Because pain isn’t in houses.” He swallowed hard. “And when something like that happens, it ties you to the house. It’s like a scar you grow into. I can’t explain it.” He picked up a twig and rolled the peeling bark with his thumb. “So I’ll probably take the apprenticeship with my dad, and the high school’s making noise about me coaching their swim team. That sounds all right, too. I don’t know about the travel thing.”