Page 3 of Harper

“Me neither,” says Parker, staring up at the ceiling. “I think he likes her. Like, really likes her. I hope he doesn’t get hurt.”

“She seems nice, right?”

She shrugs. “We don’t really know her, Harp. Look what happened with his last girlfriend.”

Ramona. What a nightmare.

“True. But I haven’t seen him this happy in a long time.”

“I guess.”

“Hey. You’re not jealous, are you?” It’s been a while since Parker’s dated anyone. “That Tanner’s found someone?”

“Nope. Not at all,” she says. “You?”

“Nah.”

That “nah” is a bold-faced lie.

I’m jealous.

I’m super jealous.

I don’t begrudge my brother’s happiness. I love Tanner, and so far, I like McKenna. But, like my sister, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a relationship, and seeing my brother fall so fast and hard is giving me feelings.

I miss the rush of falling in love.

I miss the handholding and the kissing.

I miss running my fingers through his stick-straight, surprisingly-soft, jet-black hair.

I miss the way his hot, hard body would—

“’Night, Harp.”

Parker’s voice breaks through my reverie, and I clear my throat.

“Yeah. A-hem. ’N-night, Park.”

A second later my sister is snoring, but my mind has already started dredging up old memories, and I’m helpless to stop them now. I flip onto my side, away from Parker, and close my eyes, welcoming a vision of the face the earth has always turned to me.

Joe.

My first love.

My only, ever love.

Joe Raven.

Growing up in Skagway, there were about 150 kids under the age of eighteen at any given time. Of those 150, about 110 were school-aged, but less than 100 actually enrolled in school, as opposed to being homeschooled, or going away for school. Divide those kids between thirteen grades, and each grade onlyhad seven or eight students, which meant you got to know everyone really well.

I met Joe in third grade when his grandmother, who’d been homeschooling him, passed away. His aunt and local school teacher, Hannah Clearwater, had convinced her sister to enroll Joe, her only son, in public school.

I was almost nine years old the first time I ever saw Joe. I can still picture him with a fresh bowl-cut, standing in the doorway of the third-grade classroom, proudly holding a Monsters, Inc., lunchbox in his brown hand.

I picture him in sixth grade, taller and more filled-out than the other two boys in the grade, standing in the back row, directly behind me, for the class photo.

I picture him in eighth grade, somehow managing to find a red rose in the dead of winter and dropping it on the corner of my desk for Valentine’s Day. There was a card tied to the stem with a piece of twine, and it read: “To Harper. Love, Joe.” My cheeks had turned bright red to the sing-song chorus of Ooooos from my girlfriends, but inside my heart had swelled with pride and delight, just knowing that Joe Raven liked me.

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