Page 36 of Conquering Conner

Eighteen

Henley

School’s been out for two weeks now and I haven’t seen or heard from Conner since. Not since he tried to talk to me in the hallway. I see him sometimes, running the streets with his cousin, Patrick. He spends summers here. Whenever he sees me, he waves. Conner acts like I’m invisible.

I know it’s what I asked him to do. What I told him I wanted. I just didn’t know how much it would hurt if he actually did it.

I still can’t find my ring. I’m beginning to think I’m not meant to. That I’m going to have to accept the fact that Conner and I are over for real.

Laying here, thinking about it, I hear my bedroom door open and I turn over and sit up to find my mother standing in the doorway.

“Get up,” she says, breezing in. “We’re leaving.”

“What?” I look at the clock. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I quit.” She says it like her part-time receptionist job was the equivalent of breaking rocks on a chain gang. “Now, get up.” She reaches for my arm and pulls me out of bed. “Get dressed.” She opens one of my dresser drawers and starts picking through my clothes. “What is this?” She lifts one of the T-shirts Conner’s mother bought me from the drawer, pinching it between her fingers like it’s contaminated.

I take it from her and hold it against my chest. “It’s a shirt,” I say stating the obvious. “Why do I have to get dressed?”

“I told you, we’re leaving.” She slams the drawer closed and takes a look around my room. Something about the away she says it clenches in my gut. “You have ten minutes to pack.”

And then she’s gone.

I don’t know what to do so I grab the backpack Conner gave me and stuff the T-shirt in my hand into it, along with a few pair of shorts and some underwear. And then I spent the next eight minutes looking for my ring.

“Henley!”

My mother screams at me from the living room and even though I don’t want to, even though I need to find it before I leave, I find myself in the hallway, walking toward her, my backpack dragging at the end of my arm.

My mom is standing by the front door, it’s open and she has her hand on the knob, glaring at me like she’s been waiting for me for hours instead of minutes.

My dad is sitting on the couch, haggard face creased from where it was pressed against the couch cushions. “Dad?” I say his name, but he doesn’t look at me.

“For God’s sake, Henley,” my mom, hustles over and grabs me by the arm to drag me out the door.

Somewhere between the first floor and the second, I stop on the stairs, her momentum pulling my arm from her grip. “What about Ryan?”

She doesn’t answer me. She just reconnects with my arm and keeps going. On the bottom floor, I can see a big black car through the window, parked in front of our building. The same car Conner and I saw, the first night the walked me home.

I stop again. “What about Ryan?” I say it louder, pull my arm away when she rolls her eyes and reaches for me again.

Then she slaps me.

“You don’t have a brother.” She grabs my arm again and this time I let her. “Not anymore.”

She drags me into the street and as soon as we’re outside, her grip changes. Her hand slides down my arm to hold my hand. Gentle. Motherly.

When the driver sees us, he pops the trunk and throws my backpack inside. That’s when I realize my mother didn’t pack a thing.

The only thing she took was me.

There are people gathering on the street. A sleek black limousine parking in front of our shitty building is going to draw some notice. Ryan is there. Watching. His face blank like our dad’s. Somehow, I know that if I call out to him, he won’t answer me. “Get in the car, Henley.” Her tone is soft, but I can hear the warning underneath. What will happen if I defy her.

But I don’t.

I can’t leave.

Not until—and then I see him.

Conner.

Bare feet, chest heaving from running the distance between his house and mine. Tess is beside him. Eyes wide. She looks confused. Terrified.

I know how she feels.

“Get in the car.” She nudges me closer and Conner’s entire body jerks toward me, hands clenched, face pale like he’s going to be sick.

I shake my head at him and he stops.

I turn away from him and let my mother push me into the car.

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