One would be avoiding him. Blow off apple picking, stop going to math lab, pretend she doesn’t see him around campus when she sees him around campus. Ghost him.
Another option would be not to avoid him. Go apple picking. Just . . . keep her mouth shut about the whole rape thing. Go about her business and hope she never bumps into Richard and Jenny and Jordan and, wow, Carrie all at the same time. Because that would be beyond awkward, bordering on cataclysmic, actually.
And fairly likely, given what a small campus this is.
So the only option is . . . candor.
As she waits for him outside the union, she feels a little nauseous. She can’t decide whether it’s nerves because this is sort of a date or dread because of what she has to say. Or both.
He pulls up in a battered blue Subaru wagon. Her hands are full (she thought it would be a nice gesture to pick up some good coffee), and he leans over to open her door. It’s warm for an October morning, and he wears a T--shirt and jeans. Old running shoes. As she climbs into the car she thinks he looks tired.
“Good morning, sunshine!” she says, slipping one of the coffees into the cup holder next to him. “I went to the corner store and got us pumpkin lattes.” Is it her imagination, or does he wince?
He pulls away from the curb. “So I have to ask you,” he begins, “are you always this bright--eyed and bushy--tailed in the morning?”
“Morning is the best time of day,” she says, laughing.
He looks stricken. “Oh god,” he replies. “She’s one of those.”
“And this morning,” she continues, “was the first in two weeks that I didn’t wake up with a headache. So watch out, Math Dude.”
Richard smiles, but it seems to require some effort.
“Rough night?” she asks.
“No excuses. It’s my own damn fault,” he says. He wears an embarrassed--with--a--hint--of--wise--ass expression. “Nothing a little fresh air and good company can’t cure.”
Haley feels the warmth spread across her cheeks when he refers to her as good company. Yeah, let’s see how long that lasts.
She’ll wait as long as possible. She deserves a little fun with this boy. Because depending on how he reacts, it may be the last time they speak.
The orchard is part of a family--owned farm twenty minutes from campus. Bright orange, red, and gold flags line a long gravel driveway leading to a big barn spilling children and their parents. A sea of pumpkins, gourds, and mums for sale takes over one side of the lawn; on the other, fields of gnarly trees bend, heavy with apples.
Rows are labeled: Macs, Cortlands, Red Delicious, all the same price. Haley and Richard each grab a grocery store – size paper bag and head out.
The sky is a clear, intense blue. They walk to the far end of the field, passing from shade to sun, away from the exuberant family groups.
“Smells like fall,” Richard says. “Cider. Mown hay.”
“Rotten apples,” Haley says. The ground beneath each tree is littered with them.
Richard laughs. “One woman’s rotten apple is another man’s cider.”
She breathes in deeply, filling her lungs. “Donuts,” she adds. “Something baking.”
“They have fantastic cider donuts here,” Richard says. “And apple pie. They serve it with their own homemade vanilla ice cream.”
Haley stops in her tracks. She breathes deeply again. She can smell the fry oil from the donut maker. Damp, fallen leaves. Manure from the dairy farm next door. It’s a bright morning. And it doesn’t hurt.
“This is so cool,” she says. “The light doesn’t bother me. I don’t have the slightest headache.”
He looks relieved. As if someone has just delivered the good news he’s been waiting for. Before she realizes what’s happening, Richard steps in close, wraps one arm around her shoulders, and continues their walk through the field.
He smells like cotton and soap. And him. His warm guy smell.
Oh god. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything. Don’t wreck this, Haley.
“It’s good to know one of us doesn’t have a splitting headache this morning,” he says.
. . .
Marliese knows where Conundrum House is, so they follow her. The trippy, laughing pack weaves across the dark campus.
They don’t need coats; Tamra’s bottle warms them. They stumble in shoes not meant for walking, their heels a syncopated scrape and click as they pass through a wooded labyrinth of winding sidewalks.
They hear the party before they see it. Distant voices obscured by drumming. Will they ever get there? But then a smudge of light glows behind the trees, they round a corner, and the house—bright, teeming—appears.
. . .
16
Richard
Richard may fall asleep.
That would be nice. A nap, right here, stretched out on the warm, sloping grass, sun lightly toasting his closed eyelids. Dry whisper of the trees. They’re at the quiet end of the orchard, farthest from the barn.
Then Haley says, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Her tone. Not good. He sits up.