I shouldn’t have kissed her. I knew that as soon as I did it. It’s just that she’d been sitting there looking so adorable, trying to open that damn package of crackers. How could opening a package of crackers look cute? It made no sense.
But it was more than that. Not only is she cute, but let’s face it, she is also hot. And I was stupid for not noticing it earlier. Although I guess I must have noticed it a little bit—I did put that note on her desk, after all. But that note was a throw-away, something I did on the spur of the moment. It’s not like I wanted anything to come of it. If I want a girl, I don’t waste time with cute little notes. That’s what guys who have no game do. That’s what guys who want romance do.
And I’m not that guy.
But now I’ve gone and kissed Harper, and to make it even worse, I did it on the hood of my car after a rainstorm, at a park while we were having a picnic. What the hell was I thinking?
After we kiss, I expect things to be awkward, like it usually is after you kiss a girl for the first time. But it’s not.
We sit. We eat.
Harper asks me questions about my family (which I dodge), about baseball (which I dodge), about school (fine, whatever), and about how I got to be so good at picking out picnic food (completely safe, because I bullshit it and tell her that I’m into watching the Food Network. Which is true, but only because it’s one of the only channels that doesn’t have infomercials on late at night, and so I watch it when I can’t fall asleep.)
I’m having a nice time. Like, a really nice time. The nicest time I can ever remember having with a girl. But as I’m driving her home, I can feel my mood starting to darken.
Yes, I had a nice time with Harper, but that doesn’t erase the million things that happened today that could have set me off. Like seeing Jackson, or the fact that I’m on my way home and I have no idea what I’m going to find there.
“So,” Harper says when I pull into her driveway. She fiddles with the strap of her bag. “I guess . . . I mean, I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow.” She looks at me, and I can see in her eyes that she wants some reassurance. She wants me to tell her that we’ll talk tomorrow, that me kissing her meant something.
But I can’t give her that.
So instead I just say, “See you tomorrow, Harper.”
I watch her walk into the house, until she’s inside safely and has shut the door behind her. I imagine her walking up the stairs, dropping her bag in her room, maybe calling a friend or starting her homework.
It’s all so normal.
And that’s why Harper and I could never work out.
Because she’s normal.
And I’m anything but.
* * *
When I get home, Braden’s sitting on the couch playing video games, and my mom’s in the kitchen baking cupcakes. It’s ten o’clock at night, and my dad’s car is still gone. He’s probably on a bender, although it’s impossible to know exactly where. He could be drinking himself to death in a hotel room, or a bar, or at a casino. Sometimes I wonder if he has a completely different family, like those people you see on the news who go missing and then turn out to have secret lives. Maybe my dad goes to visit his other family, and they all get drunk and watch sports before passing out in front of the TV.
“Hey!” my mom says happily when she sees me. She holds out a spoonful of batter, like it’s normal to be cooking so late at night. “Here,” she says. “Taste this.”
“Mom,” I say, “that stuff is poison.”
She frowns and wrinkles her nose at the bowl. “Penn, if you’re talking about salmonella, I got these eggs fresh from—”
“I’m not talking about salmonella, Mom.” I grab a bottle of water from the fridge, uncap it, and down almost all of it in one gulp. “I’m talking about the fact that there’s tons of hydrogenated fat in there. Plus the dairy alone is filled with hormones.”
My mom smiles and shakes her head, like she’s exasperated with me. “My son the college athlete,” she says proudly. “Always worried about what he puts into his body. Not all of us have to worry about our performance on the baseball field, you know.”
I don’t say anything, but my mood darkens even more. We both know I’m not playing baseball right now, that I probably won’t ever again, and that I definitely won’t be playing for a college.
And with my chances of a baseball scholarship completely dashed, there’s really no way I’m even going to college. Which means I’ll be stuck here, probably working at some shitty job that I hate. But my mom doesn’t like talking about that. If you ask her, she’ll tell you that of course some college is going to take me. She lives in denial—about my shoulder, about my dad, about pretty much everything.
“Well, have fun,” I say. I try to keep the sharpness out of my voice. I don’t blame her for my dad taking off, but I do blame her for not talking about it, and for not confronting him about it, and for not leaving him years ago.
I walk into the living room, where Braden’s zoned out in front of the TV. I can tell just by looking at him that he’s high. His eyes are all red and he’s slumped against the back of the couch. A half-eaten bag of chips is sitting in front of him on the coffee table.
“Yo,” he says, giving me a half salute. He gestures to the other controller. “You want to play?”
I shrug and pick up the controller, and we sit there for a few minutes, blowing things up on the screen. It’s supposed to be mindless. And it is. I’m not thinking about Jackson, or my dad, or baseball.
But what I can’t stop thinking about is Harper.
But instead of getting me excited, all it does is make me angry. What the hell was I thinking, taking her on a picnic? I’m not in any shape to be taking girls on picnics, especially not girls like Harper. She’s too innocent. She works in a dance studio, for God’s sake. She wants to be a choreographer. That sounds so . . . I don’t know. Pure.
My mind is racing, and I don’t realize I’m gripping the controller so hard, until I look down and see the indent the plastic is creating on my hand.
“I need to get out of here,” I say, tossing the controller onto the couch.
“Aww, come on,” Braden says, shooting at my guys on the screen. “I’m just about to kill you.”
I ignore him.
I walk through the kitchen and out the door, and as I do, my mom doesn’t even ask me where I’m going. Instead she just waves and says, “See you later, honey!” like it’s totally normal for her seventeen-year-old son to be leaving at ten at night.
I drive around for a while, not sure where I’m going.
Until, eventually, I end up at the same place I always end up.
Which is no good.
Not for me.
Not for her.
Not for Harper.
Not for anyone.