Page 15 of Lessons in Forgiving
Sitting crosslegged in my unmade bed, my eyes batted open to meet hers in the doorway. She assessed me, gaze narrowed. Probably noticed the way I slumped against the wall my bed stood against, and the way my breathing was labored, and that Pip was not calmly napping on my pillow, but pacing the room like she always did when I was on edge.
I was sure Maeve could read me like an open book in the same way I could discern the pattern of her footsteps on our carpeted floors. So, I was sure she picked up on the signs, too. But instead of pointing any of them out, and then taking a guess at the cause of them with scary accuracy, she looked at the wall behind me and said, “We should really paint that in the orange you liked so much.”
I blinked at her, threw a glance at the white behind me. “What orange?”
Maeve’s eyes rolled, and she leaned into the doorframe, arms crossing in front of her chest. “When we went to pick out a ruglast month, we walked past the paints. You pointed to an orange and saidthis would look nice on a wall.”
I did not remember that. At all. But then again, I had just officially changed majors and there wasn’t enough space in my head to remember much else.
With a groan, I fell into my white sheets. “I did something,” I confessed, voice whiny. I might cry.
I could hear Maeve shift around the room, but I could not see her. My eyes were squeezed shut tightly.
“I know, honey,” she cooed, previous amusement blown out of her voice. Gentle concern had replaced it, matched the way she scooted onto the bed beside me. “What is it?”
My head only shook, burying myself deeper into the mattress. I blindly pointed to the laptop at the foot of the bed. In the silence that followed, she probably read the email.
The email that had literally changed the course of my entire life. A reply to a form I’d desperately filled out the week before when it had been midnight and I’d been struggling with programming languages I had not expected to be on the syllabus. After our first test, on which I’d gotten a C-.
The first C- in my entire life.
Which was when I’d realized I was struggling. Very clearly.
I had not struggled to write that Change of Major essay. At one in the morning, I’d sent it off and expected to never hear from them again.
I’d applied to the college paper about a month ago, as some kind of balance for the endless numbers I’d been dealing with in most of my classes. Also because I’d missed writing. I hadn’t realized how much I would, but after doing it almost every single day when I was in high school, it had been missing. Helping out at theHall Beck Postfixed that. Writing about the weather and taking a stab at horoscopes had been so much fun, the onlyreason I went back to the library to study was for the evenings on which Henry would join me.
Fast forward to now, where Imajoredin journalism.
I groaned once more.
“Paula!” Maeve gasped, and I think for the first time, I’d taken her by surprise. “Holy shit. I’m so proud of you.”
Not the words I’d expected from her.
Slowly, my head emerged from the depths of pillow and blanket and whatever else I’d buried myself in to look at her.Reallylook at her. Hoping, or expecting, to find a trace of humor or ridicule in her expression, but I came up empty. Her pink lips pulled up, and her freckled arms were around me before I could try to find anything that was suspicious about her reaction.
Then, I almost smiled myself becauseHoly Shit, Ididthat!but then she asked, still giddy, “What did your parents say?”
I stiffened. And she understood immediately.
“Oh my God. You didn’t tell them.”
Henry insisted that he was not surprised. Not about what I thought had been my spur-of-the-moment decision to change majors. Not about the fact I hadn’t told my parents, either.
When I’d gone to see him after their home game the next day, I’d gotten there just as Dylan McCarthy Williams delivered HBU’s winning shot into the other net.
I’d like to say I’d watched the rest of the game intently, but really, I was watching Henry. My eyes followed him when he had possession, and probably more so when he did not. Because it meant he might look back at me, too.
Twenty minutes later, when I surprised him outside their locker room and told him about what I’d done in a fit of rambling and excitement and fear, he only smiled.
The corner of his lip curled just slightly, and his gaze flicked down and back up my frame in what could’ve been silent praise.Not for my outfit—wide blue jeans, graphic tee, a black oversized leather jacket… definitely nothing to write home about—but perhaps for me?
Which was when he’d said it. “I’m not surprised.”
I couldn’t help the amused snort, head shaking as I walked beside him, honestly not quite sure where we were going. “Are you not?” I asked teasingly at how sure he sounded.
I could feel his green eyes on me, the way he studied my profile without a sense of shame in it. Like I might be the world cup final in the second half, and he couldn’t bear the thought of accidentally missing something.
