Something Like Normal(28)

She wants to offer some sort of explanation, but there is nothing she can say that I want to hear.

“I don’t want to talk about this. At all.” I roll toward the wall, listening as she wordlessly cleans up the glass. If she notices the wall, she doesn’t mention it. I pretend I’m asleep until she leaves.





Chapter 7

Harper is wearing a purple halter top thing that sparkles and she did that magic trick girls do to make her wavy hair straight, and as I walk her to my new Jeep I can’t stop staring. It’s not because she’s hot—I mean, she always is. But normally she’s girl-next-door-in-a-neighborhood-where-I-want-to-live hot. Tonight? She’s incredible and I’m glad I wore a button shirt.

“Is this yours?” she asks.

When I woke up this morning I found a note on the counter telling me I am no longer allowed to drive my mom’s Suburban because I’m not covered by their insurance. Which is just my dad’s passive-aggressive way of punishing me. The note also said I need to patch the pinholes in my room before I go back to Lejeune. Like I actually will.

I took a cab up to Palm Beach Boulevard, which is lined with mom and pop–type car dealerships offering the cleanest cars, lowest prices, and onsite financing, and had the driver drop me off at the first place on the strip. I bought a black Jeep from a tired-looking salesman who gave me a couple hundred off the price for paying in cash. It’s nothing special, but it’s a set of wheels.

“Yep,” I say. “I bought it today. Just for you.”

“Shut up.” She laughs and backhands me in the stomach. This is the girl I recognize.

“So, I was thinking, um—movie?” I have no idea what I’m doing. Paige and I didn’t exactly go out on dates. We hooked up. Her house. My house. In the car. On the beach. At parties. With Harper, I’m treading new ground.

“Sounds good.”

“Sorry about the top.” I’d taken the soft cover off the Jeep when I got it home, but now I’m regretting it. “It’ll probably—your hair looks really—good. I mean, not that it doesn’t usually. Jesus, I suck at this.”

“At what?”

“This whole date thing.” I run my hand over my head. “I should have left the top on.”

I’m embarrassed and I’m not sure why. Maybe because she throws me off my game. Maybe because when it comes to Harper Gray, I feel like I have no game.

She leans across the gear box and kisses my cheek. “It’s only hair.”

“Play some music,” I say, starting the engine. Letting Paige choose was always dicey because she has lousy taste. But Harper picks Flogging Molly and soon we’re driving up 41, singing along as if this isn’t a first date, and we get to the movie theater way too quick.

I pull into a parking spot and look over at her. “Your hair is a mess.”

She sticks her tongue out at me, then turns my rearview mirror in her direction and brushes her hair back into place.

“What do you want to see?” she asks as we wait in the ticket line.

“I have no idea what’s even playing,” I say. I don’t remember the last time I saw a movie that wasn’t on the tiny screen of Charlie’s iPod. “I’m up for anything, I guess. Except a chick movie.”

“Action?”

One of the NOW PLAYING posters advertises one about an Army platoon in Iraq and I want to see it. Only I’m afraid of what might happen in the theater. I’m not even sure about seeing an action movie because who knows if the sound of gunshots is going to set me off again? I hate that my options have been reduced to chick flicks and comedies.

“How about this one?” I point to the military film.

Skepticism registers on Harper’s face before she smiles. “Okay.”

It’s good she’s game, but it sucks she’s thinking the same thing I’m thinking. That she even has to think it.

“Popcorn?” I ask, after I buy the tickets.

“Dude.” She looks at me as if I’m out of my mind. “Why would you even need to ask that? Popcorn is a given.”

“One popcorn,” I tell the guy behind the snack counter. “Two Cokes—oh, wait.” I look at Harper. “Coke okay? Or diet?”

“No diet.”

“Candy?”

“Skittles.”

“My favorite.”

Skittles come in some of the MREs and most everyone loves them because they don’t melt in the heat and they aren’t bad luck, like Charms. No one has ever told me why those are bad luck, only that Marine superstition says so.

We pick seats near the middle.

The movie opens with Humvees rolling through the desert, past a small hamlet where a little girl wearing a red hijab waves at them. One of the soldiers waves back and seconds later an airstrike hits the buildings right behind her.

Fuck.

My heart rate spikes.

Fuck.

Why did I think this was a good idea?

Fuck.

I have to get out of here.

“This isn’t going to work.” I stand up and maneuver myself around people’s knees to the end of the row. Down the steps. Out the door. Into the well-lit hallway, where I lean over and try to catch my breath. A few minutes later, Harper comes out of the theater, her arms overflowing with the popcorn, sodas, and candy. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” I say. I take the drinks out of her hands, even though mine are shaking.