Page 52 of If You Could See the Sun
There’s no room for me to retreat. The front wheels ram into my right foot, crushing my toes. A white-hot bolt of pain shoots through me, and I have to bite down on my tongue to keep from crying out.
Please let this stop,I pray, not even sure who I’m praying to.Please, please let him get an urgent call, or have to get up to use the bathroom, or let the fire alarm go off sometime soon...
But neither the chair nor Mr. Murphy moves.
“Well, actually...” Henry’s voice floats over from the other side of the room, and I can tell from the pause that he’s trying to stall. He must know I’m still here. We talked about this before, albeit briefly; I would text him once I was safe outside, and if not, he would create a distraction to buy me time. I just hadn’t counted on him to remember.
For a second, I allow myself to hope.
Then I hear his footsteps moving in the opposite direction, and my heart falls. Confusion clouds my mind. What the hell is he—
A crash breaks through my thoughts: the unmistakable sound of flesh slamming into cement, like someone’s body hitting the floor.
Then a gasp—
“Henry?Henry!”
The chair rolls back and in a flash of brown, Mr. Murphy’s shoes disappear from view. I hear him run toward where Henry must have fallen and I don’t think. I just move. Ignoring the pins and needles in my legs, I scramble out from under the desk, almost banging my head against the corner, and sprint for the back door.
In the dark of the corridor, I sink into the shadows, panting, catching snippets of Henry’s conversation with Mr. Murphy as I creep farther away from the classroom.
“...haven’t had much to eat. Don’t worry, this has happened before...”
“...to the school nurse? They might still be in—”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary. Really, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to startle you...”
The night air is cool when I step out. Sweet with the fragrance of begonias blooming in the school gardens. I close my eyes and inhale, hardly daring to believe what I just managed to get away with. What Henry just did. When he talked about creating a distraction, I never would’ve imagined he meantfake fainting.
It’s all so bizarre that a bubble of laughter bursts from my lips, and suddenly my whole body is shaking with hysteria, the much-needed release of tension. I don’t know long I stand there, waiting, light-headed and almost giddy with relief, but soon I hear voices. Henry and Mr. Murphy’s. Some of their words are muffled by the front door, but I can make out Henry’s continued insistence:“I’m fine, I’m fine. I can go see the nurse myself.”
Mr. Murphy must believe him—or maybe he simply knows better than to challenge Henry’s stubbornness—because there’s the squeak of shoes, of heavy footsteps moving away, while another set draws closer.
The door creaks open.
“Well, that was a thoroughly humiliating ordeal.”
I twist around.
Henry is standing behind me, his expression calm, hands in pockets, the collar of his shirt rumpled. A reddish-yellow bruise has started to bloom over the curve of his left cheekbone, a violation of his otherwise perfect skin.
Without thinking, I grab his face in one hand and tilt it up to the moonlight, inspecting the injury. It looks swollen. Painful.
“Holy crap,Henry,” I say, no longer laughing. “You didn’t have to go that far—I mean, I’m grateful, obviously—so grateful—but... Does it—does it hurt?”
He doesn’t answer me, but his eyes widen slightly. Flicker to the point of contact between us, where my hand is still cupping his cheek.
I let my hand drop and step back, mortified.
“Um, sorry. Really don’t know why I just did that...” I shake my head, hard, as if I can somehow shake the awkward moment away too.What is wrong with me?“Do you need a bandage though? Or ice? Or one of those cloth things they tie around...” I trail off when I see the corners of his lips twitch with ill-suppressed amusement. “Is this somehowfunnyto you? Because you could’ve been seriously—”
“I appreciate the concern,” he says. “But I’m honestly fine. I promise. I’ve done this before.”
I stare at him. “What?Why?”
He hesitates, and I can almost see the gears in his mind working, trying to decide how much information he can afford to disclose. Finally, he says, “It was a long time ago...when I was seven or eight. My father had signed me up for violin lessons and I really,reallydid not want to go...”
It takes me a minute to understand what he’s saying, to grasp the sheer absurdity of it. This is truly the last thing I’d expect from Henry Li. “Wait. So you’d fake faint just to get out of violin lessons?”
