Page 50 of Break Point
I’m rushing back to my room when I bump into Henry as I climb the stairs two at a time. I almost lose my balance, but he catches my waist and pulls me against him to prevent me from falling back to a certain death. But that doesn’t happen because, once again, his grip is firm and steadying.
“What’s wrong?” Henry’s breath is hot against my neck. I swallow hard. His broad chest is warm, and his biceps are taut under my hands. “Why are you crying?”
He smells like shampoo and soap and crisp, citrusy aftershave, and … he’s too late. My mom knows when to strike. She knows Henry’s got my back whenever he’s present and so she went for the low blow in his absence. She wouldn’t have said what she said in front of him, and I wouldn’t be left feeling like a piece of trash because of it.
“I’m not crying,” I lie, releasing my hold from his arms and grabbingonto the handrail, trying to regain my balance. “I’m fine. You can let go of me now.”
“Bells!” Henry calls as I walk around him to get to the second floor. I can hear his footsteps nearing behind me as I angrily brush away the tears from my face. “Come on, talk to me.” He catches my arm when I open my bedroom door. “Tell me what happened.”
“The fact that you need to ask confirms how rusty you are from all that time you spent in Chicago.” I shrug off his grasp and flee into my room.
He follows me inside and shuts the door behind him with a soft click. I sit on my bed, lock my gaze with his, and shake my head at him. His eyes analyze me like I’m an impossible equation messily scribbled on a blackboard waiting to be solved. I can see his pupils getting fat as they adjust to my bedroom’s low luminosity.
“You were myfirstline of defense.” I keep shaking my head, sadness, exhaustion, and disappointment washing over me. Henry squats, catching my hand between his. I pull it away, but he goes after my elbows as if trying to ground me and prevent me from escaping. There’s nothing I can do to fight that firm grip of his and the fact that deep down, I want him to comfort me. “And you … you left!”
“Shit, I’m sorry, Bells,” he says, concern clouding over his features. “It was my mom. She wanted to hear how China went.”
That’s not what I meant!
“Youleftme!” Angry tears pour down my cheeks again. I can taste the bitterness when they reach my mouth.
I know Henry’s gone through a lot and that my mommy issues and dealing with the unbearable anger I still harbor against him might not compare to his emotional distress. But he followed me into my room, and I have no shame in making this about me.
Henry has no idea what his absence for the last five years did to me, or about what I suspect it will continue to do when his time as my provisional coach comes to an end.
“You will leave again as soon as you gather enough money for college, right?”
His head bows as if weighed down by an unexpected blow of disappointment.
“You’ll never forgive me, will you?”
“No!” I spit out the lie when all I truly want is to forgive and forget this ever happened.
Why wouldn’t I forgive him when none of it was his fault? Henry did what he thought best at the time. Yet, there’s a genuine pain anchoring me, and it’s not allowing me to move on past the hurt as quickly as I thought I would after talking to him and listening to what he had to say. And I know he knows, but my emotions are all over the place, and I’m well aware of it.
Henry snorts with a smile that reeks of playful annoyance, running his hands through his dark hair, messing it up.
“College is in my plans,” he says in his deep, velvety voice that I’m still getting used to. “But what if I apply for it here in New York?” He stares at me, waiting patiently for my reaction, his fingers alternating between drumming my elbows and applying soft pressure around them.
“You should stick to your plan. I don’t need you doing me any favors, Henry. If you want to stay, fine. But don’t do it for me.”
“I could stay,” he says, enunciating every word with delicate care. “I want to.”
I narrow my eyes at him, and his mouth twitches. He used to do that whenever he got nervous, especially when we got in trouble and had to lie our way out of whatever mischief we got involved in while growing up together.
He’s hiding something.
“Why are you really here, Henry?” I challenge him. “Why the sudden change of plans? You should be playing tennis, not going to college.” Or both, at least, but not just the latter.
He shuts me up by parting my legs with his knee to make space for him to kneel in front of me, squeezing my elbows harder. I can feel my breathing stopping and a hot, tingling sensation stirring up in my belly. It makes me lose focus on our conversation. Henry is so tall that even on his knees, his gaze is almost level with mine as I sit on the edge of the bed. All I can do is stare back at him with my mouth slightly parted. My eyes betray me as they scan his face and stop when they reach his lips.
Crap, crap, crap.
I look away. But it’s Henry. It’s just Henry. I’ve been this close to him,if not even closer, in the past. We’ve had countless sleepovers growing up and licked the same popsicle melting under the harsh sun on the many summers we spent together when he lived in Jersey, for Christ’s sake.
“Bells …” The tone in his voice is pleading to the point of sounding painful. “Take a good look at me.” His big body is pressed against my legs, and I can see his chest rising and falling, and it’s doing something to me, to have him this close, looking like this, looking atmeand using his new stupid grown-up voice.
God, I hate him.
