Page 34 of The Heartbreak Hotel
Everyone is watching us. I say, “You guys can keep going, I’ll catch up.”
“No, no.” Rashad’s eyebrows are halfway lifted. “We’ll wait.”
Henry clears his throat, and I meet his eyes before looking away and placing one of my hands in his. He holds it lightly—not like that night in the basement, when I needed him to stand. More so, this time, like he’s afraid to get too close.
“This’ll sting,” he says, but I still hiss when the alcohol meets my broken skin. My hand jerks in his grip, and he tightens his hold on me just a little—his fingertips flexing. “Hold still.”
Hold still.What he said to me when I told him the power was out. Everything that happened afterward. I bite my lip, and Henry’s eyes lift from my hands to my mouth. His fingers, gently wiping the pad over the heel of my palm, go still.
Answer Nan’s question, I think. I want to know what he told her—if he’s lost someone, if that flash of rough-edged pain I saw in my kitchen after theDenver Postarticle is what I thought it was: heartbreak. The longer we hold each other’s eyes, the more it feels like he actually might tell me.
But of course he doesn’t, and his eyes flick back down, and I jerk just as violently when he brings the alcohol to my second hand.
“He said hold still,” Mei tells me. I shoot her a look—she stands just behind Henry’s shoulder, grinning. She could have helped me with this. Should have. But it’s Henry dressing my palms in gauze, wrapping them in the tacky bandaging I’ve never used before in my life, finally letting them drop into the space between us.
“Be careful,” he says softly. I meet his eyes and don’t say what I’m thinking—which is that thisdoesfeel dangerous. That it has nothing to do with the wilderness.
“I want ice cream,” Rashadsays the minute we’re back in the parking lot. My wrapped hands are throbbing, and there’s a sheen of sweat on the back of my neck that’s made my hair sticky and unbearable. Even in the crispness of autumn, the sun is unforgiving at elevation—it might as well be summer, for how clammy I feel. “Can we get ice cream?”
“I’d do ice cream,” Bea says, nudging Kim. “Eh?”
“Have you ever seen me turn down ice cream?” Kim asks, retying her ponytail. It’s late afternoon by now—the sun is high and hot across the unshaded lot.
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Nan announces. “But I love a sorbet.”
“Polliwog’s has sorbet,” Mei says, turning to me. “Should we go on the way home?”
“I don’t want to keep Henry,” I say, gesturing in his direction without actually looking at him. It’s unclear to me if the throbbing in my palms is from the scrapes or the ghost of his touch, and I’m afraid to discover what other unhinged feelings I might develop if I spend much longer in his general vicinity. “I’m sure he has things to do, and we’re his ride home.”
What I don’t add is that Polliwog’s is Nate’s spot: the ice cream shop he grew up visiting with his brothers, the one he was so excited to show me that we hadn’t unpacked a single box before he took me there on move-in day for a drippy, double-scoop cone.
“Henry?” Mei asks, turning to him. “This plan appears to depend on you.”
I force myself, finally, to look at him. He’s next to Nan withhis shirtsleeves pushed up, utility jacket long stuffed into his backpack. Behind his dark sunglasses I can’t make out his eyes, which is for the best—I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or not when he says, “I like ice cream.”
Rashad lets out a whoop and makes for Nan’s car.
“Are you sure?” I ask, gesturing one bandaged hand in Henry’s direction. “You don’t just feel pressured to say that?”
Henry’s quiet for a full beat before saying, “No, Louisa, I don’t feel pressured to lie about whether or not I like ice cream.” Then he turns to follow Nan to her car.
“Nicely done.” Mei hooks her arm through mine to drag me behind Bea and Kim. “You okay?”
“Of course,” I say, though even to me, my voice sounds slightly strangled. “Why?”
Her voice is low, nearly a whisper. “You seem a little on edge.”
I let out a gust of breath. “I did eat shit in front of everyone.”
Mei’s lips part, but she hesitates, glancing at me and then ahead, where Bea and Kim are waiting at my parked car.
“Say it,” I tell her.
“You’re being weird about Henry.”
I look at him instinctually, but he’s not paying attention to us; at Nan’s Cadillac, he’s waiting for her to slide in behind the wheel so he can close the door.
“No, I’m not.”
