Page 90 of His to Teach
Idon’t sleep at all that night. After I get home from the club—perfectly safe in my cab, thank you very much—I face a worried Emma in the living room.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, jumping up from her perch on the couch. “What happened? Did he find you?”
My eyes narrow at her as I realize exactly what had happened tonight. “Youcalled him?”
She doesn’t look at all abashed. “You’ve been a basket case for days. I didn’t think you should be at the club in that condition.”
I just gape at her, unable to form words. “You know,” I finally manage, throwing my purse and keys down on the table. “It’s one thing for him or Mason to not trust me to take care of myself, but I had no ideayouthought so little of me.”
Emma gasps. “That’s not fair!”
“Yeah,” I mutter, marching down the hall to my room. None of this is fucking fair.
Emma and I never fight, and the sting of that argument stays with me as I toss and turn all night, only overshadowed by bursts of anger at Nate and sharp stabs of pain from how much I miss him, in spite of all the anger.
“You’re a fucking mess, Harper Cain,” I tell myself when I finally give up on sleep around six a.m. I told Mason I would try to go to school today, but I’m not sure if I’m going to make it. After last night, the thought of seeing Nate on campus makes me physically shudder.
I drag myself into the kitchen and head straight to the coffee pot, distracted when I hear a loud beep from my phone, still in the purse I threw on the table last night. Who in the hell would be texting me this early? I dig through the mess in my purse until I find the phone, not really surprised to see several missed messages from Mason. That’s been pretty much par for the course since Nate left.
But I am surprised to see that one of the messages is brand new—the cause of the alert I just heard. It’s five after six in the morning. Mason is always at the gym at this hour, getting his five miles in on the treadmill before work.
Apparently, not today.Are you awake? I’d like to bring you a coffee.
I stare down at my phone, a lump rising in my throat. He skipped work to come check on me yesterday, and now he’s skipping his gym time. That might not be a big deal for some people, but my brother’s schedule is absolutely rigid.
Coffee would be nice,I finally type back.
His response is immediate.Be there in ten.
I go back to my room, pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater. It’s kind of strange, putting so little effort into my appearance before a meeting with my brother. It’s usually something I stress about—wanting to look mature, put together. Someone he can be proud of.
I still want that, in spite of how angry I am. To make him proud. Only now I’m starting to realize it’s a losing battle. In his eyes, I’ll always be the little kid he got stuck with.
Exactly ten minutes after his text, there’s a soft knock on the door. I open it to reveal my older brother, two paper coffee cups in his hands, a bakery bag under his arm.
It’s not the sight of his morning offerings that have my mouth dropping open in surprise. My brother looksawful. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen him so disheveled. Messy hair, red eyes, actual stubble on his chin. Even when our parents died, he never once faltered in his appearance. Probably for me, I realize now. Wanting to present aneverything is fine and under controlfacade for the terrified little sister whose entire world had been upended.
“Can we walk?” he asks, voice way more uncertain than I’m used to hearing from him.
“Sure.”
I grab my coat and follow him outside. It’s been getting chillier, especially at night, and there’s a thin layer of frost covering the grass in front of the apartment building when we step out onto the sidewalk.
There’s a small park a few blocks from the apartment, and we head in that direction without discussion. We’ve met there several times since he moved me into this neighborhood, usually for a quick coffee on his lunch break. Today an awkward tension settles over us as we walk in silence, sipping our coffees.
I have no idea what to say to him. He’s so clearly disappointed in me, and I’m way too exhausted to try to change that. I don’t even know where I would start.
“Do you remember that time Dad drove us to the city for that baseball game?” he blurts out suddenly, and I startle at the broken quiet.
“Yeah,” I say, even though it’s a little fuzzy. Our dad was a huge baseball fan, constantly bemoaning the fact that Charlotte didn’t have an MLB team. He enjoyed watching the AAA team that played in town, but my childhood home was a ways out ofthe city, so he rarely brought me along to see live games. I think I’d only been to the stadium with him once or twice.
We reach the park before we speak again, Mason leading me over to an empty bench by the running trail. “You were so excited to be there,” he says once we’re seated. “You just wanted to look at everything. All the people and the concession stands.” A soft smile tugs up at his lips and his eyes go distant as he remembers. “You were talking a mile a minute the whole time, your eyes all bugged out. You couldn’t sit still at all—it was driving Dad crazy.”
The memory comes a little clearer as he talks. “You took me back out to walk around the concourse,” I remember.
He nods. “I stopped to get us a hot dog and all of a sudden, you were gone.”
“I saw someone selling balloons.”
