Eleanor & Grey(12)

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I argued once more.

“If he’s not your boyfriend, who is he?” she asked, her hands still on her hips in that sassy pose.

“He’s Grey.” I sighed, tossing my hands up before walking over to her and lifting her nosey self into my arms. “He’s just Grey.”

“He doesn’t look gray,” Molly remarked. “He looks tan.”

I chuckled. “No, he’s not gray, but he’s Grey. Like…his name is Grey.”

“People’s names can be colors?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“Can I be pink?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, Pink.”

“And you’re Red! Like your face right now.”

Well, that felt fitting.





4





Eleanor





You know those first few minutes after you finished an amazing book?

Those moments when you aren’t quite sure what to do with yourself?

You simply sit there, staring at the last words, unsure how to move on with your life.

How can it be over?

How can those characters just fade to black?

For you, the characters are still imprinted on your soul. Their actions, their dialogue still alive and strong in your mind. Your tears haven’t even dried, and you crave another fix.

I loved that feeling—the bittersweet love story between a person and a novel coming to an end.

That’s what happened to me after I finished Harry Potter.

I didn’t really know what to do with myself. Mom was still recovering from her cold and Dad was off watching TV, so I did the only thing that felt natural: I thought about Greyson.

I was officially a teenage cliché.

Every time I headed over to watch Molly, I grew more and more nervous about the idea that Greyson could’ve been sitting on the porch across the street, three houses down. I knew it was stupid, but on those days, I might’ve started combing my hair a little more, and I might’ve asked Shay for makeup tips.

I might’ve overplucked my eyebrows, too.

Each time Greyson wasn’t there, I let out a sigh of relief but then I felt a little sad.

When Friday came three weeks after our first interaction at Molly’s, my heart raced as he came jogging across the street toward me.

“I’m a Gryffindor,” he declared, waving the book he had gripped in his hand.

I cocked an eyebrow and tugged on the bottom of my cardigan. “What?”

“I said I’m a Gryffindor. I’m pretty sure, at least. It was a tossup between that and Ravenclaw, but then I read some articles online and I’m pretty sure I’m Gryffindor.”

“You read Harry Potter?”

He nodded. “Yup. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but those are long.”

“You…” My heart pounded against my rib cage. “You read all of the books?”

“All five, and now I’m counting down the days until the next one releases.”

Same, Grey, same.

“Why did you read them all?”

“So we’d have something in common. Plus, I wanted you to form a stupid, unrealistic crush on me that goes against everything you stand for.” He began flipping through the book, pointing out a few of his favorite quotes, which he’d highlighted. He talked quickly, going over his likes and dislikes for each of the books. He told me his favorite characters, he told me his pet peeves, and he spoke as if he truly understood what he was talking about.

I was still stuck on the fact that he’d read all five books simply so we would have something in common.

If he were a book character, he’d be the hero.

After he showed me his last highlighted quote, he closed the book and gave me a slight shrug. “So, what are you?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s your Hogwarts House?”

“Oh.” I traced the sidewalk with the toe of my shoe. “I’m a Hufflepuff.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Yeah, most people think it’s the worst house.”

“Hufflepuffs seemed silently strong, and loyal. There’s nothing wrong with loyal and patient people. I think there should be more of that.”

I smiled.

He smiled back and said, “More of that, Ellie.” He tapped his fingers against the spine of his novel. “So, now that we have something in common, does that mean we can hang out?”

“Well, I did make that promise, and as a Hufflepuff, I have to keep my word.”

“All right. So, what are you doing next Tuesday?”

“Um, nothing?”

“Okay, awesome. You want to meet me at my place? I’ll plan something for us to do.”

I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “All right.” Note to self: knees can sweat, too. “Well, I have to get to Molly.”

“All right. I’ll see you Tuesday!”

He headed off, and for a few seconds, I wondered if I was stuck in a dream. I was too afraid to pinch myself, though, because I worried I’d wake up. If this were a dream, I wanted to live in it a little bit longer.





“I like a boy,” I blurted out Sunday afternoon as Mom and I sat in our hidden location at Laurie Lake. We’d been going there as long as I could remember, even sometimes all bundled up in our winter gear to be near the water. If Mom loved one thing, it was the water. She said it was because the water healed her. Her dream was to someday place her feet in the ocean and stand with her arms wide open, but since we were in Illinois and there was no ocean to be found nearby, that dream had to wait a little bit longer.