Page 17 of On His Mind

I nod.

They both stare at me. “What’s your name?”

“Percy.”

“Percy.” She says it back like she’s testing it. “That’s a good name.”

“Okay.”

Okay.Christ.

There’s a version of this where I saynice to meet you.It’s four syllables. It exists in my mouth, but I can’t get myself to say it, so I say nothing.

“Where are you from?”

“Maine.”

“Oh,” she says, lighting up. “I’ve never been. I bet it’s beautiful.”

I nod, looking at the back door.

They come closer. “What?”

I glance down. Her hand lands on my forearm. I lock. It’s fast, and everything in me goes to stone under her palm. She takes her hand back.

“Sorry,” she says, looking at me. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay.”

“Well. It was nice meeting you, Percy.”

Delaney says, “We’ll see you around.”

“Yeah.”

They go.

This is my chance, so I move my feet. Stanley’s behind me telling another story. I wait for the two guys at the kitchen entrance to drift. They finally move, so I walk through the gap they leave, shoulders in, chin down, eyes on the floor so I don’t accidentally start a conversation. Conversations are how you get asked things. I learned early that questions are almost never free.

I walk past the sink, past a girl sitting up on the counter with her heels hooked in the cabinet handles, and I keep my eyes at knee height and go around her. Past Drew Faulkner — sophomore, defense, met him Tuesday — laughing with one hand braced on the wall above some girl’s head.

There’s a phone on the floor getting kicked. I pick it up and set it on the counter without breaking stride. The back door is right there, but there are people everywhere. I get impatient and keep moving.

Somebody steps into my path, and there’s no time to stop. We hit hard enough that I hear it. Her drink goes straight up between us and comes down across both of us — cold, all down the front of my shirt, all down the front of her dress — and her heel skids on the wet floor and she goes back. My hands are on her before I’ve decided anything. One at her waist, one flat at the base of her spine, and I plant like I’m in the crease, because it’s the only thing my body actually knows how to do — get in front of a thing, stop it, don’t let it past.

She catches my forearm. Her nails go in far enough to bite. And everything shrinks down to about eighteen inches. Her weight coming into my palms. The wet fabric under my hand. Her breath going in fast and stopping. Then she’s got her feet as she catches herself. She looks up at the culprit.Me.Her eyes slice through me, and I release her quickly. She’s shorter than I am by most of a head. Dark hair pinned back off her face, someof it come loose at the temple. She’s in a navy dress. It’s not a party dress. It looks like something professional you’d wear to work. And it’s ruined. It’s got a dark stain going from her collarbone down to below her ribs, spreading while I watch, and there is a piece of ice caught in the fold of the fabric at her waist.

Oh non.

Her face doesn’t do what I expect. There’s no flinch, no laugh, no swearing, nothing thrown wide open for an audience. She just looks at me.

Say something, I tell myself.Say something.

The English isn’t there. I go looking for it, and there’s nothing in my mind. When I’m caught off guard, when I’m stunned, the wrong language comes to the surface. Always.

“Désolé.”

She blinks. Confusion moves behind her eyes.