My parents weren’t cruel, but they were strict, and they were tired. Sometimes one or both of them had to get a weekend job to fill in the financial gaps if the minivan broke down, or Eloise chipped a tooth, or I got a virus that led to pneumonia, which dovetailed nicely with a need for chest X-rays. By the time I was nine, I might not have known what deductible meant, but I knew it was one of those words trotted out when Mom and Dad were bent over paper bills at the kitchen table, massaging their eyebrows and sighing to themselves.
I also knew that my dad hated when my mom sighed. And that, conversely, my mom hated when my dad sighed. Like both of them were hoping that the other would be fine, wouldn’t need comforting.
All the quiet made me strain for hints and clues until I became an expert in my parents’ moods. Eloise had been out of the house a long time, since the blowup fight when she’d told them she wouldn’t be going to college, and things were a lot better now, but they’d never fully forgiven her, and I didn’t think she’d forgiven them either.
“They’re good parents,” I say. “They came to every single thing I was a part of. In fifth grade, for a talent show, I did this series of ‘magic tricks’ that were actually little science experiments, and you’d think they’d watched me give a lecture at NASA.
“We only ever ate out for special occasions, but that night they took me for ice cream at Big Pauly’s Cone Shop.”
Talking to Wyn like this feels like whispering my secrets into a box and shutting it tight.
A sliver of a grin appears through the dark. “So you’ve always had a sweet tooth.”
“All of us do. We ordered multiple rounds,” I say. “Like we were doing birthday shots.”
We stayed until the place was closed, well after my normal bedtime. One of my most vivid memories was falling asleep against the back seat, feeling so happy, glowy with their pride.
I lived for those rare nights when everything clicked and we were all happy together, when they weren’t worried about anything and could just have fun.
When I won the high school science fair my sophomore year, and Dad and I spent the night making s’mores over the stovetop and binge-watching a documentary on jellyfish. Or when I graduated salutatorian, and the front-office team from Dr. Sherburg’s dental practice threw me a mini party, complete with a truly hideous brain cake Mom had baked. Or when I got the letter about my scholarship to Mattingly, and the three of us stayed up late, poring over the online course catalog.
You, my girl, I remember Mom saying, are going to do great things.
We always knew it, Dad had agreed.
“What about your parents?” I ask Wyn. “They come from ranching families, right? And now they run a furniture repair business? What are they like?”
“Loud.” He doesn’t elaborate.
My first impression of him has proven true: Wyn doesn’t like talking about himself.
But I feel greedy for more of him, the real Wyn, the parts under the smoky-sultry eyes.
“Happy loud,” I say, “or angry loud?”
His smile lights up the dark. “Happy loud.” He pauses. “Plus, my dad’s deaf in one ear but insists on always asking questions from the other room, so sometimes just loud loud. And I’ve got an older sister and a younger one. Michael and Lou. They’re loud loud too. They’d love you.”
“Because I’m loud?”
“Because they’re brilliant like you,” he says. “And also because you laugh like a helicopter.”
Unfortunately, that causes me to prove his point. “Wow. Stop hitting on me.”
“It’s cute,” he adds.
Another full-body flush. “Okay, now you really need to stop flirting with me.”
“You make it sound so easy,” he says.
“I believe in you,” I say.
“And you have no idea how much that means to me,” he replies.
I turn over and bury my face in my pillow, mumbling through a grin, “Good night, Wyn.”
“Sleep tight, Harriet.”
The next night follows the same pattern: We climb into bed. We fall into silence. And then Wyn turns onto his side and asks, “Why brain surgery, specifically?”
And I say, “Maybe I thought it sounded the most impressive. Now I can constantly respond to things with Well, it’s not brain surgery.”
“You don’t need to be any more impressive,” he says. “You’re already . . .” In the corner of my eye, he waves his arms in that huge circle again.
“A freakishly large watermelon,” I say.
He lets out a low laugh, his voice gone all raspy. “So was that it? You chose the hardest, most impressive thing you could think of?”
“You ask a lot of questions, but you don’t like answering them,” I say.
He sits up against the wall, the corner of his mouth curling, dimples sinking. “What do you want to know?”
I sit up. “Why didn’t you want to guess what our friends told me about you?”
He stills. No hand running through his hair, no jogging knee. A very still Wyn Connor is an almost lewdly beautiful thing.
“Because,” he says eventually, “my best guess would be they told you I’m a nice guy who barely got into Mattingly and didn’t get my credits in time to graduate, and honestly might never manage to.”
“They love you,” I say. “They’d never say anything like that.”
“It’s the truth. Parth’s off to law school next year, and I was supposed to be moving to New York with him, but I failed the same gen ed math class for the second time. I’m hanging on by a thread.”
“Who needs math?” I say.
“Mathematicians, probably,” he says.
“Are you planning to become a mathematician?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“That’s good, because they’re all going to be put out of business once this calculator thing catches on. Who cares if you’re bad at math, Wyn?”
His gaze lifts. “Maybe I hoped to make a better first impression than that.”
“No part of me believes,” I say, “that you struggle with first impressions.”
He brushes his thick hair up off his forehead, and it stays there, all except that one strand, of course, which is determined to fall sensually across his eyebrow. “Maybe you make me a little nervous.”
“Yeah, right,” I say, spine tingling.
“Just because you don’t see me grabbing a mop every time you walk into a room doesn’t mean I don’t notice you’re there.”
It feels like a bowling ball has landed in my stomach, a sudden drop. Then come the butterflies.
Blood rerouting, vessels constricting, I tell myself. Meaningless.
“Why?” I ask.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he says, “and please don’t ask me to act it out.”
“You make me a little nervous too,” I admit.
He’s waiting for me to say more, the weight of his focus on me. An ache starts behind my ribs. Like having this small bit of him has transformed all the pieces I can never have into a kind of phantom limb, a pain where there should be more Wyn.
“Why?” he says finally.