“No, in general. Although, I had a good time watching you try to convince Mr. Venzel that we should play with a parachute instead of running the mile.” He shakes his head.
I lift my chin. “Running doesn’t prove anything. The parachute, on the other hand, requires teamwork and collaboration.”
“The parachute is forchildren.”
Waving my hand at him, I effectively dismiss his wrong opinion. “Whatever. You’re only saying that because you’re one of those freaks who exercises for fun.”
“Running distracts me from missing Mia,” he says wistfully, propping his head up on his hand.
I smile, loving how he gushes about her. “That’s actually really sweet.”
Ben spins a sheet of paper on the table. “Seriously, though. You seem down.”
It’s odd having my hidden emotions noticed by someone other than Danny. I anxiously tap my pen against the table.
Ben studies me for a moment. “I was thinking…hanging out in this prison has been fun, but we should take our friendship to the streets. My sister’s having a sleepover tonight, but maybe we can hang out at yours?”
“No.” I swiftly decline on reflex, and the playful glint in Ben’s eyes dims.
“We don’t have to hang out if it’s a bad time, no worries.” He interlaces his fingers behind his head, leaning back slightly in his chair.
I consider lying. Tell him that my dad is on a work trip and I’m not allowed to have friends over or something. But I really don’t want to lie to Ben, so I decide to go with a partial truth.
“Sorry. Um, it’s not that I d-don’t want you t-to come over. It’s just that my mom d-died when I was younger. And my d-dad and I d-don’t really get along. I d-don’t think it’d b-be fun.”
Ben pulls off his glasses and rubs them against the cotton of his Jurassic Park shirt. “No problemo,” he replies lightly, as if I didn’t just stutter my way through a snippet of my tragic life. “We can do something else instead one day. Hey, can I copy your notes? I have Galloway for history, and I can’t even hear him half the time. He’s like the oldest teacher here. When he’s teaching us about the past, sometimes I think he’s just writing down a first-hand account of his memories.”
I chuckle. “Stop, Mr. Galloway is the sweetest man!”
Ben slides his glasses up his nose. “I didn’t say he wasn’t sweet, Grace. I said that he was old. Rumors are he owns an autographed copy of the Bible.”
I start laughing loudly now, earning a stern look from the librarian. I dig around in my backpack for my orange notebook (because history is orange). Handing my notebook to Ben, I think about how maybe it’s Danny that needs to step up in our friendship.
“Can we go to your place tomorrow?” I ask hopefully. It would be nice to go somewhere other than home.
“Sounds good.” Ben throws me an easy grin. “I can’t wait to show you all of my plants in the house.”
Chapter 12
Grace
“So, that’s pretty much the house,” Danny says as we wrap up the tour of the guest room I’ll be staying in tonight. It all looks professionally staged, like no one really lives here. Danny’s personality, all of his wildness, is nowhere to be found. I visualize the energetic boy who spent a whole Sunday redecorating his childhood bedroom, which he was so proud to “reveal” to me.You’re never going to believe the difference, Gracie.
The difference was wall-to-wall, duct-taped superhero posters. I told him so, and he chased me around the room, tackling me to the bed and tickling my ribs until I cried from laughing so hard. Yet another joyful memory tinged with a sadness that doesn’t belong.
God. It’s so bizarre to feel like I lost someone who’s standing right in front of me. I can reach out to touch him, but I’m not sure if his skin would feel the same. And I find myself yearning for when I knew the texture of him.
“I’m rarely here during football season, honestly. I’m almost always at the facility,” he adds.
“Well, it’s beautiful. Thanks for showing me around.” I stand in the doorway of the guest bedroom, waiting for some direction from him as to where we go from here.
He stares at me with amusement dancing in his eyes. “You’re biting the inside of your cheek, Gracie. You haven’t managed to suppress your tell after all these years?”
I give him a small glare, but there’s no bite behind it. “I really do think it’s beautiful. There’s just no ‘you’ in this house.”
His gaze softens. “Hm. And what would ‘me’ look like?”
I could probably come up with a list the length of a pharmacy receipt of qualities that make DannyDanny, but I refuse to get sucked into that right now. I’m only here for one night, and it’s all because of the letter. A letter I haven’t even read.
