“It’s going to be hard.” My laugh is bleak.
“What’s the other option?” Henry asks.
I can’t answer that.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want,” I say, voice breaking.
“Tell me.”
“I want you to be my boyfriend.”
He takes my hand, squeezes it. “I want to try.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to force you to … be public … if you don’t want to, or if you’re not ready. I don’t want to pressure you—”
“You’re not. Let’s try. We can take it slow— I need time, but … but I know I’ll come around. Let’s try,” he repeats.
“I want to,” I whisper. “I … I can wait for you. But it would be more than that — we’d be committed, exclusive …”
“We’ve already been exclusive for months,” Henry says.
I stare at him.
“Ask me the last time I kissed a girl. The last time I touched anybody. November,” he answers before I can say anything.
It’s true, of course, it is, and I’ve known it this whole time. I name my own last time. “July. I win.”
His face crumbles with joy. “So. Do you … agree?”
I can’t believe this is happening. “I do.”
I feel so ridiculously happy that I’m half afraid of it disappearing in a moment. But I ignore that fear because it feels too good to revel in this ecstasy, especially after so many days of sadness and despair and loneliness.
Out on the balcony, the autumn breeze is crisp and smells of lawn. The boys and I came out to get photos, and as soon as we finished, we found ourselves entangled in a conversation with Tiana, Alison and Sana. I stay for a moment, watching the girls smile extra wide at Henry and me, desperation and guilt painting every laugh and joke. Henry’s attempting to be civil as he weathers their sucking up. He told me he talked to them himself, a few days after that fateful Monday. Eve convinced them with reason, but Henry had terrified them, shamed them with their behaviour.
I’m not as polite and stand there for ten seconds before excusing myself and walking to the other side of the balcony, leaning over the railing. The light from the building paints the garden beds yellow and silver. Beyond that, the park is still.
There are soft footsteps behind me. I know who it is before she arrives by my side.
“Hello.” Eve leans over the balcony too.
“Hello, stranger.” One of her curls is tangled, and I fix it.
“You’re happy tonight,” she says.
I glance over at Henry, and inside. Ruby dances with a group of girls. “You are too.”
“It feels too easy to be true.”
“You deserve it,” I say.
“You do too.” Her eyes run over the silhouettes of distant trees. She swallows, and I know she’s going to say something serious. We’ve grown so close in such a short time. “We didn’t have time to talk about the fight in detail.”
My body goes still. “No.”
“Do you … forgive me?”
