Page 6

Six

Jade

While Reed talks to Chelsea and Hannah, I tell them I’m going to take a walk. Chelsea and Hannah give me the same look that everyone who knew Henry and me as a couple does. It’s not necessarily a pitying look, but there’s definitely a “we feel bad for how things turned out” aspect to it.

I think most people were on one of two sides watching our relationship unfold—either they thought it was young love that would fizzle out when we got to the real world, or they thought we were destined to go the distance. As if maybe fate had interceded all those years ago and sent my mom back to Chicago to run into the guy who was the best man at her wedding and fall for him. Him having such a close relationship with the boy he mentored, and Henry and I becoming fast friends before Reed and Mom ever married.

I used to think that once too. I’m not sure what I believe now. But one thing is for sure—one of the happiest times of my life was when I was sixteen, and Henry confessed his feelings for me.

We had just gotten back from him signing his commitment to Minnesota. My mom and Reed had a big cake for him, and we celebrated his accomplishment. His grandparents had left, and I was helping him set up the couch in the basement since Reed was taking him to a camp the next day.

The twins had just been born, so Mom and Reed were busy getting them settled for the night. Up until that point, Henry and I were just friends. But I think if my mom hadn’t been going on only a few hours of sleep a night for months, she probably would have stayed up to make sure I went to my bedroom that night.

“Want to watch a movie?” Henry asked after we put the sheets and comforter on the couch. He had grown so much in the few years before then that I wondered how comfortable it would be for him down there.

“Oh… sure.”

Henry was so busy with hockey that our friendship had shifted a little. I’d met Eloise freshman year, and we became instant friends. Henry had found new friends in his teammates, and most of them attended different schools, so he rarely hung out with the kids from our school. Lately, I’d felt him withdrawing even more, and I had no idea where we stood.

“If you have plans…”

I shook my head. “No. I just… can we talk?”

He blew out a breath, facing me with one leg bent up and his back along the arm of the couch. Henry had come into his own. I’d been a witness to him changing from a little boy with blond hair and glasses to a scrawny middle schooler to a muscular and fit teenager. His boyish cuteness had settled into him being handsome, and his body had filled out. He towered over me now. I’d tried to push away those teenage hormones that saw him as the hot guy and not just Henry, my friend, but eventually I had to admit that I had a crush on my best friend.

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked, as if he didn’t feel this space between us.

“Us?”

“Oh.” He looked down and fiddled with the hem of his khakis.

“Things feel different,” I said.

He nodded, but his eyes never rose to meet mine. My gut soured that maybe there was more to the change in our relationship than just finding different interests. Did he not want to be as close with me anymore?

“I know,” he said.

“What is it?”

I pressed like I usually did, never giving Henry the time he always needed to think. He wasn’t like me. I was terribly impatient, and he was the most patient person I’d ever met. I tried to sit back and give him time to consider his response, but the longer the silence stretched between us, the more suffocated I felt by it.

“Henry?” My voice held a note of desperation.

His fingers stopped folding the leg of his pants, and his head lifted. His eyes were sad and apologetic. My stomach twisted with worry.

“What?” I chewed on my bottom lip.

“I’m not sure how to tell you this.”

“What is it? Are you okay? Is it your grandparents?” I feared he’d been going through something, and because we’d been distant lately, he didn’t feel as if he could come to me.

“No…” He shook his head again. “Everyone is fine.”

I glanced at Minnesota that was splashed across the T-shirt. “Do you not want to go?”

“To Minnesota?” he asked as if he didn’t understand my question.

Maybe he had another school he’d wanted to hold out for? He and Reed were always talking about his offers, when or if they’d come. They went on school visits and talked to coaches. I’d assumed Henry hadn’t made his decision to attend there without it being his number one, but maybe I was wrong.

“No. I think it’s a great fit for me,” he said.

“Then what is it?” The anxiety in my body kept building the longer he kept me in the dark. I wasn’t good with guessing games, and I just wanted him to tell me what the problem between us was.

“Just give me a second,” he said, clearly growing annoyed with my constant need for instant gratification while he had the ability to almost always stay centered.

“I’ve given you about five.”

“Jesus, Jade.” He stood from the couch and walked behind it, running his fingers along the felt of the pool table.

“You’re scaring me. I don’t understand what’s wrong.” I followed him because that was just me. I’m still that way now. Act first and think later. I stood on the opposite side of the pool table.

His head rocked back, and he stared at the ceiling. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. My fingers tapped the edge of the table, and when he finally lowered his head, his eyes fell to my fingers.

“Oh my god, Henry. Tell me.” My voice rose, and although we were three stories down from the twins, I worried I could have woken them.

“I like you,” he blurted, and his fingers wrapped around the edge of the pool table until his knuckles turned white.

“That’s it? You like me?” It wasn’t until I processed the last five minutes that I connected the dots, but by then, Henry was already glaring at me.

“You know what I mean, Jade. I like you.” He repeated it slower, his gaze meeting mine.

“You like me?”

“How many times do I need to say it?” There was a bite to his tone that I’d learned over the years was fear. Henry only became short when he feared what the repercussions might be.

“As more than a friend?”

“Jade.” He groaned.

“Okay, I just wanted to clarify. Jeez.”

“Yes, as more than a friend.”

“Well, you took forever to tell me.”

He tilted his head.

I wasn’t always the easiest to get along with. Around that time, I’d had so many outbursts with my mom and sometimes Reed, only to feel guilty afterward and unable to understand why I’d gotten so mad in the first place.

“So?” he asked.

“So what?” I was still wrapping my head around what he’d said.

Henry liked me as more than a friend.

“What do you think about that?” His fingers loosened, and he stepped to the corner of the table, waiting for my reaction.

“How long have you felt that way?” I bit my lip and stepped to the corner, leaving the width of the pool table between us. One of us had to make what felt like a long trek to the other side of the pool table or we’d have to meet halfway.

“For a while.”

“And is that why you haven’t wanted to hang out as much?” It wasn’t his fault alone. It was both of us, but I felt it more from him, which I chalked up to his hockey schedule.

“I wanted to hang out, but I didn’t want to mess up and lose you.”

“Oh.” He had been staying away because he liked me.

“I have to know what you’re thinking right now.” He walked midway down the pool table, and I suspected he wasn’t going to put himself out there anymore until I gave him an answer. I would have to close the distance.

“I’m thinking that…” I turned the corner of the pool table, my pointer finger running along the felt edge. “You should have told me sooner.” I met him in the middle, and my fingers covered his. “Because I like you too.”

“As more than a friend?” His eyebrows rose and a smirk emerged on his gorgeous face.

“Yes, Henry, as more than a friend.”

“Just want to be sure.” He locked his fingers through mine and stared into my eyes. Had I never realized how transparent his blue eyes were? “Can I kiss you?”

I loved that he didn’t ask me again how I felt. He took my word for what it was without second-guessing. It showed how confident he was that I would never lie to him to save his feelings. And him being unsure about telling me was only because he didn’t want to lose me, and that made all those complicated feelings that had grown inside me about what compartment to put him in settle. I didn’t have to choose if he was my friend or my boyfriend. He could be both.

“You better.” I smiled.

He chuckled, and his face lowered, his lips pressing to mine. Butterflies erupted in my belly. His free hand molded to my hip, and his tongue slid across the seam of my lips. I opened for him, giving myself over. A noise floated up his throat, but all I focused on was the way I stepped closer, and our bodies pressed together.

He was only the third boy I had kissed, and none of the others were anything like this. None of them made me hunger and want other things like Henry did. Suddenly, I couldn’t get close enough, losing myself in a flood of emotions and physical reactions I didn’t know how to handle.

His tongue stroked mine, and although I felt the kiss in every fiber of my body, it wasn’t anything like we perfected over the years that followed. It was hesitant and sloppy. There was a haze of insecurity that lingered around our movements. At the same time, it was the most perfect kiss. It was us discovering and exploring each other, which is what we’d done our entire friendship, just in a different way. The expectation of what would happen after made me giddy.

He ended the kiss and stared down at me. “I was so scared.”

I laughed, and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in for a hug. And I remember thinking it was the best place ever—in Henry’s arms.

I touch my lips, the memory of our kiss so real that I wish there was a way for me to experience it all over again. But most of all, I wonder what he kisses like now. How many other girls or women have gotten to experience what it feels like to have Henry love you.

“Mom’s out of surgery.” Reed’s voice draws my attention to where he stands near the waiting room doors opening to the hallway.

I blink out of my haze of memories and smile at him. “Great. Everything good?”

He holds the door open for me, and I walk through. “Guess we’ll find out. And hey, you’ve got an interview Wednesday.”

“You work fast,” I say, walking to where a nurse is waiting for us before another set of doors.

“Not in everything.” He chuckles.

“Ew, keep your kinky stuff to yourself.”

We follow the nurse to go see Mom, but I can’t stop recalling that night and how everything changed between Henry and me so fast after that.