Page 114 of On His Mind

I walk the whole way back, not wanting to fuck it up.

Chapter 38

Penelope

It’sFridaymorning,andI am standing in my kitchen smiling at a kettle, at the memory of a boy in my room last night with his hands careful in my hair like I’d come apart if he did it wrong, and I cannot stop replaying the whole night. I’ve tried. I did my workout, I’ve made tea, and I even sat down at the drafting table, but the smile just keeps coming back. I keep having to press my lips together to make it stop, and it doesn’t.

This isn’t like me. I’ve never felt this way before. My whole body’s lit, humming, which is ridiculous. There’s a part of me watching the rest of me with genuine alarm, because I don’t recognize her, this giddy girl in my body. I don’t know how to make her behave, but even if I did, I’m not sure I would want to.

My phone buzzes on the counter, and I snatch it into my palm before another moment passes.

Percy: Good morning.

My smile widens. I feel it in my cheeks. A month ago I’d have bet my life he’d never be the one to send the first text of the day, and here it is, sitting at the top of the screen with his name on it. I tap away.

Me: Good morning. Did you sleep?

Percy: A little. I’m leaving soon.

Percy: I keep thinking about last night.

I sit down on the couch and let the butterflies fill my stomach instead of resisting them. I press my lips together again as if that would stop the blush in my face. And on the fifth time reading his text, I understand that the withholding, the discipline, the wall — it’s down, and what’s on the other side of it is a man who thinks about me and now tells me so. All that patience, all that learning to want nothing out loud, and the reward is a text on a Friday morning that says he can’t stop thinking about me either.

Me: Me too.

I carry the phone into the day. I usually put it face down and answer things when it’s convenient for me. I watched Ivory live and die by hers since I’ve known her, and today I’ve got it in my hand at my internship, in my lap, face up on the desk beside the Halvorsen sheets, and I keep glancing at it between drawings.

Renata’s got me on the setback problem — the north elevation, the way the upper floors have to step to keep light in the units below. Renata looks at my markup and grunts, which I’m used to now. Today, I don’t read into it. I get back to work and check my phone.

Percy:Wear a coat out. It’s cold today.

I have to bite the inside of my cheek, so I don’t grin at the drafting table like a crazy person.

When I get home, I finally text back.

Me:Good luck at your game tonight.

Percy:I’ll be on the bench.

That’s the last text from him for the night.

Saturday is excruciatingly long in a way I’ve never noticed before. He’s unreachable for most of it, and I watch my phone like a hawk anyway. This is new and ridiculous. I have spent my life being very good at being alone. I like my own company, and I don’t reach for people. And here I am, drawing at my table, and the drawing keeps drifting. I keep thinking about him on a bus, in a hotel, in a room I can’t picture, and I miss him.

I draw. I go for a walk. I reorganize the shelf in the living room. I don’t know how anyone can be in a relationship. He’s not here, and it’s a physical ache.

Gianna makes us all watch the stream at her place Saturday night.

I sit on her couch and watch a hockey game on a laptop with the sound low and the picture bad, and for the first time in my life, I am watching a sporting event on purpose, for a reason. And nobody can ever know this reason. The camera catches the bench once, and I see him. My heart takes flight, but I hide it. I didn’t know being into an athlete would make me feel so — proud. Even if he’s just on the bench.

“Why do they show the bench?” Mara mocks. “They’re not even playing.”

“Backups are important,” Gianna says.

Lucy and I laugh at the face Gianna makes to mock her.

This is the first time it chafes. Sitting on Gianna’s couch with this enormous, ridiculous, luminous feeling, and not one person in the room can know. I’ve got a man on that screen, and I can’t say his name. Gianna is one degree from him, she lives half her week in his house, and I have to sit here, not tell her, and let the joy stay locked in my chest where it presses against everything.

They lose, and Gianna’s furious about it. I gather my things to leave, and my phone stays quiet the whole ride home because he’s still on the ice, or in a room, or on a bus.