HALLE
WHEN HENRY ASKED IF I wanted to grab lunch with him after class, it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t feel cool enough walking through the art building.
The same way Grayson stole all the athletic genes, Mom saved all the artistic genes for Maisie. Sure, I can string a sentence together—sometimes—and read a 1ve-hundred-page romantasy book in a day, but as I take in the creations around me, it doesn’t quite feel the same.
Following the directions Henry gave me, I 1nd the sculpture studio easily, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m slightly disappointed to 1nd him already sitting there with his bag ready to go. He looks up from his cell phone as I approach, smiling in a way that makes me believe he’s truly happy to see me.
“I was hoping you were still with your professor so I could 1nd your work,” I say, pouting playfully as he stands, throwing his bag over his shoulder.
He puts his arm across my shoulder in the super friendly way we are with each other. That super friendly way that doesn’t make me question my entire existence one bit. “You’re sixty seconds too late, Cap. I just 1nished.”
He’s using his arm to guide me toward the exit. “Are you really not going to let me look? I’m mad that you won’t show me your work.”
“Aw,” he says, but there’s nothing sympathetic about his tone. “You’re going to have a really tough time being mad forever, huh?”
I’m still being guided away like the puppet I am when it comes to this man’s hands. “I’ve never wanted to see something so bad in my life.”
“I draw for you all the time.”
“You draw on me all the time. Or draw me all the time. It isn’t the same—I already know what I look like.”
He sighs, but again, there’s nothing about his tone or demeanor that makes me think he’s not 1nding this really fun. “Art is personal to me. I don’t show anyone voluntarily, so it isn’t you. But if you want to 1ght about it, I don’t see you oIering to let me read your book.”
Damn it. He’s smiling so big because he knows he’s got me right where he wants me. “That’s because it’s less book and more chaotic ramblings of a woman who daydreams too much and spends her time 1nding the perfect playlist when she should be writing. Anyway, don’t distract me when we’re talking about you.”
“But I love distracting you.” Henry holds the door to the hallway open for me, and walking through it feels like defeat. I do it anyway, but only because I’m considering the potential implications of me breaking into the sculpture studio later. “Stop scheming, Halle.”
“I’m not!”
“You are. You get pouty when you’re plotting. You do it when you’re working on your book. Where do you want to go for lunch?” he asks, pressing the button for the elevator.
“I’m not talking to you until you agree to tell me what you’re working on.” “You underestimate how much I like the quiet.” My mouth opens to argue
back, but I’ve got nothing. Pressing the button for the ground Roor, Henry pushes my mouth closed with his knuckle. “My project is to re-create a popular sculpture in my own style using inRuences from a diIerent art period. My piece is a reimagined Renaissance sculpture, using inRuences from Harlem Renaissance artists like Augusta Savage. My version is much smaller than the original and I’m using clay. Happy now?”
“If your goal was to make me want to see it even more, you won. Is that all the detail I’m getting? Not even which sculpture you’re reimagining?”
“Not even. I don’t trust you not to go looking for it. And I always win, Halle.” The elevator doors open and he ushers me out, wise, since I really want to go back upstairs. “Now what do you want for lunch?”
The idea of Henry creating something so special and me never getting to see it makes me sad, but I understand not wanting people to see something you’ve created. He’s waiting for my answer, and all I can think of is him tirelessly working to make something beautiful.
“Something I can use my hands on. You’ve inspired me.”
“I have a suggestion, but it will need both hands.” He holds the door to the courtyard open and I duck under his arm. Looking back at him over my shoulder, I watch as the door closes behind him. His expression slips into something slightly scandalized, but mainly amused. I love how happy he is after time in the studio versus a classroom. “Burgers, Halle. I know that look; get your mind out of the gutter. Let’s go to Blaise’s.”
“My mind wasn’t in the gutter.” It so was, and the butterRies in my stomach
agree. “Fine, let’s go. But you can’t judge me if it doesn’t 1t in my mouth.”
For the 1rst time in the two months we’ve been friends, I’ve caught him oI guard. The look on his face is… enjoyable.
“Touché.”
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT BLAISE’S earlier, it was closed for maintenance, so we went to a diIerent place close to school.
Fifteen minutes into a debate with Aurora about the book we were analyzing for our class, my phone started buzzing with messages from Henry about him feeling sick. The messages continued throughout the afternoon with increasing levels of self-pity until he 1nished at hockey practice, went home for his overnight bag, and turned up on my doorstep.
I haven’t seen Henry sick before, but I’m quickly discovering that it turns him into a massive baby. Looking over to where he’s sprawled across the length of my couch, I see Joy is happily purring on his lap as he scratches behind her ears. The two of them have become the best of friends, and it’s getting increasingly more di cult not to be jealous.
“Do you need anything? I’m helping Gigi with her homework soon.” The last thing I need is for him to walk shirtless behind my laptop.
“Attention. Sympathy. A cure,” he says, his deep voice monotone as he lists his requirements. “A do-over where I didn’t eat a suspicious-smelling hamburger.”
“Feeling real good about the chicken burger you called boring right about now. I can oIer you freezer homemade chicken soup and at best a half- sympathetic pat on the back.” He scowls at me. “No, seriously. I’m sorry you don’t feel great. I promise to give you all the attention and sympathy when I’m done.”
“Thanks. I’m good. I had chicken soup already and yours won’t be as good as mine.”
“Where did you get chicken soup?” I ask, powering up my laptop and not even bothering to defend the integrity of my soup. Henry stretches his arms up; the ripped muscles of his stomach Rex as he reaches above his head. He twists, Ru ng up the cushions before rolling onto his side and repositioning Joy next to his chest on the couch so they’re both looking at me.
“My mom dropped it oI on her way to work when I called her looking for attention, sympathy, and a cure.”
“You are so spoiled.” He smiles like he knows it. “What does your mom do?
What’s her name? So I don’t confuse your moms.”
“Yasmine. She’s a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, but she volunteers at a nonpro1t in her free time, so she was heading there to do a few hours at the clinic when she dropped oI my soup.”
I want to know every little thing about him, and I don’t think he realizes how much. “What does the nonpro1t do?”
“Advocate for Black women who need medical support. They’re disproportionately impacted by medical negligence or insu cient care, and are more likely to go undiagnosed because of institutional racism.”
He looks like he’s about to stop explaining, but I imagine it’s the information-hungry look on my face that encourages him to continue.
“She volunteers in the clinic for people who aren’t being listened to by their own doctor or because they don’t have access to a doctor. And sometimes she does talks about racial bias in the medical industry at hospital events. Mama is
also a doctor and she used to volunteer at the clinic with her, but not that much now that she’s teaching.”
“She sounds amazing, Henry. They both do. Where does your mama teach?
What’s she called?”
He looks at me like I just asked him for the winning lottery numbers. “Maple Hills. She’s called Maria. Do you not already know this?”
“Clearly not,” I say, rolling my eyes playfully. “What made her start teaching?”
He yawns, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, and I swear he’s doing it because he knows how interested I am. “College was rough for her at 1rst because her parents stopped talking to her. She says she had no queer professors that proved to her success was waiting. She wants the people who need that to be able to get it from her. Great career, wife, kid, etcetera.”
“Were you ever tempted to follow in their footsteps and go into medicine, too? Or was it always art for you?”
“Mom went to med school because both of my grandparents were doctors, and it was important to her to carry on their legacy by helping her community. Her parents had her when they were older so she’s an only child, too. Mama went to med school because she wanted a job that paid her enough to never have to ask her homophobic parents for 1nancial support, and she wanted to help people. I never had those kinds of pressures, so I’ve always followed my passions, which are sports and art.”
“I love hearing about your family,” I admit honestly. “I could listen to you talk about yourself all day.”
He smiles but buries his head into Joy to hide it. Lifting his head, he brushes her white hair oI the bridge of his nose and leans against his hand. “Did you have to wait until I’m sick before quizzing me on my life?”
“I need you incapacitated so you sit still long enough to quiz you. One last question because Gigi is going to call me any minute. Why art? I know you’re talented, but why not a sports major or something?”
Henry’s quiet while he thinks, and I say a tiny prayer that Gigi doesn’t call before I get my answer. “It’s always been a way to say the things I didn’t know how to. Especially when I was younger and I wasn’t as talkative as I am now.
Don’t raise your eyebrow at me; this is my version of talkative. Art tells a story; it can change people’s minds or rea rm their beliefs. I’ve spent my life worrying about saying the wrong thing. I can’t get art wrong.”
The video call ringtone starts to sound out of my laptop and I’ve never had the urge to throw it at a wall quite like I do now. “I lied! I have so many questions,” I say, how frantic I suddenly feel clear in my tone.
“You ran out of time, Cap,” he says, lying back on the cushions. “And I’m very sick, so I’m going to take a nap until you’re done.”
“This isn’t over,” I say, pushing my hair behind my ears and positioning my laptop on the arm of my chair.
“I look forward to round two,” he says, shutting his eyes.
I click accept, and Gigi 1lls my screen. “You took your time.”
“Hello to you, too,” I say back, watching her move through our house. “You’re giving me motion sickness. What’s happening?”
The framed pictures lining the staircase come into view as she descends the stairs. “Your mom wants to talk to you. Can you convince her to let me get a belly button piercing?”
“Uh, no. Is that even legal?”
Gigi sits down on the stairs, leaning into the laptop camera. “With consent from a legal guardian. Please, Halle. I really want one. All my friends have them, it isn’t fair.”
“There’s no way in hell she’s going to give you permission. You should get your mom to take you when she gets home.”
Gi sighs dramatically in the calculated way she does to try to make me feel bad about not helping with her latest scheme. “I already asked her when she called, and she said no.”
This child. “And you think my mom is going to go against your mom why,
exactly?”
“Because you’re so persuasive, Hallebear. If you really wanted to you would help me!” Grayson is so lucky that I never put him through this. “Please, please, please. I’ll never ask you for anything ever again.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be delivering me to my mom for something?”
Gigi rolls her eyes, standing from the stairs again, and even through the unsophisticated laptop speaker, I can hear how hard she’s stomping. I can hear the TV and Maisie talking to her dad as Gigi walks through the house before I’m shoved into my unsuspecting mother’s path while she appears to be in the kitchen.
“Oof,” she says. “I’ll bring it up to you when I’m done, Gi.”
I don’t even get a see you later before she—I imagine—storms oI. “Hi, Mom.”
Mom puts Gigi’s laptop on the kitchen table and there’s a stab of longing when I realize I’m not going to be home for a while. “Hi, honey. Can you believe that girl wants me to go against Lucia and take her to get her belly button pierced?”
“I can believe that, yeah. What’s up? I have a lot to do tonight and I haven’t looked at her homework yet.”
Mom launches into a recap of Maisie’s dance recital, which apparently is not the thing she wanted to speak to me about, before moving on to how nice it would be if Grayson was traded to a West Coast team. She keeps going and going, so much so that she doesn’t even hear Henry’s loud yawn. “Anyway, Gianna has decided she does want to go to college, and she wants to go on some college tours with her friends. Can you 1nd some time to go with her? She said she wants a college in California since that’s where her mom will be settling when she gets home. A girls’ trip sounds fun! Right?”
When Grayson and I both went oI to college, Gianna always said she wasn’t going, even as a little kid. She said she wanted to learn how to look after plants, so our conversations switched to trade schools whenever she’d ask. Everything was good until we realized she hated school because she didn’t have the support she needed, and she incorrectly thought working with plants wouldn’t need much studying.
“It’s far too early for her to be doing college tours, Mom. She’s barely a sophomore. Why can’t she wait until next year?” I say.
“I know, honey. But I don’t want to discourage her. Her new friends are talking about college and it’s got her excited, and if that’s what she wants, I don’t want her to think we’re not supporting her.”
I feel bad for my mom because she’s trying her best to be a good stepparent. I know she worries a lot about doing the wrong thing, and about Lucia thinking that she treats Gigi diIerent from her own children or is less supportive of her goals. “I can, but could we have this talk again after spring break? I could talk to her while we’re on vacation and we can go from there.”
“Sure! Thank you, Hallebear. I’ll let you get back to your study session.”
When I’m back in the familiar surroundings of Gigi’s bedroom, she appears to have gotten over her earlier tantrum. “Well? Did you get her to change her mind?”
Why she’s so intent on piercing herself I’ll never know. “I’m working on it, kid.”
“You are such a bad liar,” she says, rolling her eyes.
When I 1nally close my laptop, both my own work and Gigi’s work now complete, my head feels like it’s melting. Henry, still claiming to be unwell but also claiming to be hungry, gives me a long list of things he wants when I place an order for takeout to be delivered.
“Do you need attention, sympathy, and a cure?” Henry asks, peeping at me from beneath the forearm he lays across his eyes.
Rubbing my tired eyes with my palms, I nod. “Yes.”
“Come join our pity party,” he says, putting Joy on his chest and shu ing to the edge to create a gap between him and the back couch cushions.
There’s no graceful way for me to get into that space, and when I try, Henry pulls me down onto him so I’m half in the gap and half on him. I’m forever wondering when this level of contact became the norm for us, but I’m scared that if I ask him it’ll stop.
“Why is Joy in the pity party?” I ask, reaching to run my hand down her back. “She’s an empath,” he says.
“Is that so? I’ve had an empath cat this whole time and didn’t know.”
“Uh-huh. The fact you didn’t know is another reason she should live with me,” he mumbles, resting his chin on the top of my head. My mouth opens to argue back, but he quickly interrupts. “I don’t want to hear about Robbie’s alleged allergy.”
“Why do you like her so much? I mean, I love her because she’s my cat, but why do you like her so much?”
“Question time is over,” he says, tucking a stray strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Please, Henry. One more. You promised me round two.”
The three of us lie together on the couch in the quiet of my house. I begin to think maybe he’s ignoring me, or he’s fallen asleep, but then he holds Joy to his chest as he rolls onto his side so we’re almost face to face.
She hates her new spot between us and runs oI, settling in her seat on the back of the couch cushions, leaving the two of us stomach to stomach, my nose level with his chin. He looks down as I look up, watching his mouth as he wets his bottom lip with his tongue. “Because she’s sweet, and I like her funny little personality. I love when she’s aIectionate, and I love that she lets me hold her as much as I want to. She makes me feel calm and I like that she likes me, too.”
“She’s a very good cat like that,” I whisper, because talking loud feels like too much with how close we are.
“She is,” he whispers back.
There’s a moment when our breathing synchronizes and our eyes meet that I think maybe Henry Turner would be an experience I wouldn’t survive. That having him talk about me the way he talks about Joy could devastate me beyond repair.
But then the doorbell rings, letting us know our food has arrived. And I remember that there’s never been a long list of complimentary adjectives that follow when people talk about me anyway.
