Harp's Song (3 page)

“Yeah, um, thanks. You look really cute too,” I say. I feel heat creep up my chest and neck. I’m really not used to this much attention and am silently cursing myself for not wearing a tank top under this damn sweater.

Emma and I are about the same size and she looks cute, like she always does. Tonight she’s wearing skinny jeans, tall black boots and a black blazer over a purple tank top. She is the typical pretty girl that always gets attention with her sparkling blue eyes, blonde hair and fair skin, all of which she shares with Ethan. They are as close to identical as fraternal twins can get, except that Ethan’s hair is a chestnut brown, but I think that makes his blue eyes stand out more.

“Hey Emma, Katie,” Connor says. “You guys wanna watch me whip Harp’s butt in the next game?”

“Nah,” Emma says, “I think we’re gonna go outside by the fire pit for a little while. Catchya later!” As Emma starts walking out, I notice Katie is still standing, staring at Connor all googly-eyed.

“Katie, come on!” Emma yells from the doors. Katie blushes and runs over to meet her.

I look at Connor and laugh while shaking my head.

“What?” he smirks.

“You—that’s what.”

“I can’t help that I’m ridiculously handsome, and therefore can’t be held responsible for the actions of the opposite sex.”

“Full of yourself much?” I ask while rolling my eyes.

“Hey, you guys want to play teams?” Justin Turner asks interrupting us.

He is standing with a kid I don’t recognize, so I turn to Connor to grab the cue out of his hand.

“Yeah, man, let’s go,” Connor replies. “Eight ball good with everyone?”

“Sounds good to me,” Justin agrees. “You ready?” he says to the guy I don’t recognize and who is now looking at me.

“Yep, I’m good. I’m Vincent, Justin’s cousin.”

After he introduces himself I can see the resemblance between the cousins. Both have dark hair and dark eyes but Vincent has really dark olive skin, while Justin is quite a bit paler. Both are about the same build and height, but you can see the difference of their personalities in their clothes.

Justin is wearing loose fitting jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes while Vincent is wearing jeans and a black leather jacket over a white V-neck. He is definitely rocking the bad boy thing and to be honest, it works on him. He looks older than Justin and I wonder if he is even still in high school, but if he isn’t I don’t know why he’d want to come to a silly high school party.

Connor breaks my thought process, “You wanna break, Harp?” he asks.

I shake my head no and blush—again—while looking down. I can hear Justin and his cousin whispering about me, and laughing that I probably don’t know anything about pool, and how easy this game is going to be. So I gladly let Connor break, and take the unwanted attention away from me. He sinks three balls, two stripes and one solid, so we call stripes. Justin goes next and sinks the first solid but misses the second one. Now that I’m up, I am really cursing myself for wearing this sweater, because once I lean over the pool table, I know those guys are going to be staring straight down my chest.
Crap.

I sigh and walk over to make my shot and just as predicted, when I lean over to get it lined up, I peak up and see Justin and Vincent standing directly across from me, staring straight down my cleavage.

God, teenage boys are so predictable.

I reposition myself and take the shot sinking it, plus my next one. When Vincent goes to take his shot, he walks around the table assessing his next move—which is pretty clear to me—and should be an easy shot for him. He has a good set up to sink his ball that is on the other side of the table, but he keeps stalking toward me. When he gets to where I am, he walks behind me brushing his shoulder against my back and leans in.

“Thanks for the sweet set up.” He says and then he grabs my ass.

OMG. Seriously. Did he just do that?

I look over to Connor for some help, but he has his back turned talking to one of the other baseball players. By the time I realize Connor isn’t paying attention, Vincent has already moved to the other side of the table and is taking his shot. He makes the next two shots but not the third.

Good, maybe this game will be over soon.

“Nice shot man,” Connor acknowledges.

Oh, now he’s paying attention.

Connor looks at the table and makes the next two shots. Now, it’s Justin’s turn and he misses.

“You got this Harp,” Connor encourages.

I nod my head and I look at my options. I notice I’m biting my lower lip when I hear Vincent tell Justin how he’d like to bite my lip before seeing them go down …
gross
… I stop listening.

He is such a pig.

I look back to Connor and he gives me an encouraging smile. I just want to get this game over with. I ready my shot and easily make it, and then I call the eight ball. When that goes in, I feel so relieved.
Thank God
. Vincent, on the other hand, looks furious.

“This is bullshit,” he loudly tells Justin and Connor who are talking.

“What do you mean?” Connor says turning to him.

“I mean, you guys made us think she couldn’t play. This was supposed to be an easy win.”

“Listen, man, we never told you she couldn’t play. That’s your own damn fault for assuming that she would suck at pool. But the truth is she’s good—really good actually.”

“I bet she is,” Vincent sneers.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Connor approaches Vincent and faces him in a protective stance, with his shoulders puffed up and arms crossed over his menacing chest. If that isn’t enough, he’s staring at him with a murderous look in his eyes.

I don’t know what to do. I think about how freaking cliché this whole thing is. Connor looks like he is ready to deck the guy, and the last thing I need is to be the catalyst for a stupid fight between guys at a high school party. I’ve never seen Connor like this before and it is kind of scary. The situation between them is now drawing an audience, so I walk over to Connor and stand in front of him. With my back to Vincent, I put my hands on Connor’s defined arms.

“Connor, let’s go outside, ok? It was just a game and it doesn’t really matter who won or lost. It’s not important and he’s trying to get you riled up. Just let it go, alright?”

Connor finally breaks his stare down with Vincent to look at me. Sighing, he takes my hand as he walks us toward the open doors. Unfortunately, we don’t get very far before Vincent taunts us again.

“You gonna let your girl make you look like a pussy, huh?” He says loudly and chuckles. “You are whipped, man. I get it—she’s hot with that rack, and man, her ass was tight when I grabbed it, but really? You gonna let her call all the shots bro?”

Without warning, and faster than I can process, Connor is in front of Vincent landing a punch to his face. After falling to the ground, he punches him a few more times before Josh and Ethan pull him off. Both guys are as athletically built as Connor, but they don’t reach his six feet, three inches height, and struggle to keep him back from hitting Vincent again.

Justin is leaning over Vincent when Ethan says, “Get him out of my house Justin. You can come back, but I never want to see him here again. You got me?”

Justin shakes his head and apologizes to us before having a few guys help him take his cousin to his car. I feel bad for Justin. He’s a nice kid, and the complete opposite of Vincent.

I must look like a deer in headlights because after Connor goes upstairs to clean up, I turn and see Emma standing next to me holding my hand. I turn back to Ethan who is looking at me with a worried expression on his face.

He puts his hands on my arms, “Harp, are you ok?”

I blink a few times and take the bottle of water Emma is handing me. I take a few sips before Ethan pulls me into his side, and starts walking me to one of the empty couches near the fire pit. Thankfully, it’s dark out and people are already over the drama from a few minutes ago, so they aren’t paying attention to any of us.

I’m in a little bit of shock. So, when I sit down, I focus on the flames from the fire pit. Just as I follow one flame up, it disappears and I find a new one to focus on. And for some reason, probably because it’s one of my happiest memories, I start thinking about last summer when I went on vacation with Connor.

Connor, his Mom and brother drive to the Gulf of Florida to meet his Dad for three to four weeks every summer. After the first summer Connor and I were apart, he started asking me to go with him, but I always stayed behind. I had money from babysitting, but I saved all of that for my music expenses, and things like dinner with Connor. I really didn’t have the money to go to Florida and I knew my mom would laugh at me if I asked her. I always told Connor that my mom said no, and backed that up with the fact that I needed to practice too. Plus, I was sure my cello wouldn’t fit in his mom’s mini-van along with all their other stuff. He never gave up trying to get me to go with him though, and after a particularly upsetting night with my mom, he was determined to get me out of my house and away from her.

My mom had come home late, about four hours after happy hour had ended. She was so drunk she couldn’t even get her key in the door. I was up late studying, because I had practiced during the time she was gone—something I always did since she hated the God-awful noise coming from ‘that thing’.

I heard her laugh and fumble with her key as I got to the front door. I thought about leaving her out there to figure it out on her own, but the wrath I would face later wasn’t worth it. She would definitely blame me for being unable to get into the house, even though it wasn’t my fault.

“Oh, it’s you,” she spat as I opened the door, she started to stumble into the house and toward her bedroom, “at least you’re good for something around here.”

I locked the front door and went back to my bedroom. To my surprise, I found her sitting on my bed.

“You are such a nerd, studying on a Friday night by yourself in your room. You’re a pathetic loser with no friends,” she said matter-of-factly.

I just stood there. I was shocked to find her in my room because she liked to pretend I didn’t exist as much as possible. By the time I was six, I was doing my own laundry, mainly washing it by hand in the sink until I could figure out the machines. I made my own food, things like cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cereal. I did as much as I could on my own so there was no need for her to have to deal with me.

I was also shocked because honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in my room. In these situations, I figured the less I said, the quicker she would leave and it would be over.

So, I stood in the doorway and watched my own mother sit on my bed, and spew venom at me for the umpteenth time in my life. She always liked to tell me how much of a disappointment I was and how much she hated me—which was the primary reason I stayed out of her way. I never understood why she hated me so much, but the less she saw me, the less she spoke to me, and that was a good thing. A few times in my life, she lashed out at me physically, and even though that hadn’t happened in a while, I remembered every time it did—those memories and that pain were seared in my brain.

“You know I can’t stand the sight of you, right?” she slurred at me with eyes half-open. “You ruined my life!”

I was momentarily startled when instead of walking by me, she lashed out and her palm connected with my face, hard, whipping it to the side and into the doorframe.

“You are pathetic,” she reminded me as she continued down the short hallway to her bedroom. I was stunned, standing in the doorway, holding my hand to my face where she had slapped me. Once I heard her snoring, I went to the bathroom to take care of the cut. Blood had started to trickle down my face and a knot was popping out on my head. Crap. It wasn’t high enough to hide with my bangs.

Sighing, I cleaned the cut above my eyebrow and put a Band-Aid over it. I filled a baggie with ice from the freezer before going back to my room. Lying in bed with the ice on my head, I reminded myself that I would not let her get to me.

I told myself then and again tonight, that I was better than the life I was forced to live in now. A life that I was going to get out of, and a life that would enable me to be done with her for good—no looking back. After my ritual pep talk, I closed up my emotional wounds trying not to cry because she wasn’t worth it. Nevertheless, the overwhelming sadness crushing me couldn’t go ignored. I caved to the unshed tears welling in my eyes, and let them fall down my face while my heart ached until I fell asleep.

I woke up early the next morning—sunlight just starting to filter through my windows—and reached for my head. It was throbbing from the impact with the doorframe. I felt tired and sore from the hours I had laid in bed shaking and sobbing. I gingerly got up, and took inventory of my face. I popped some Advil before checking on my mom who, thankfully, was still sleeping.

I went to the kitchen, picked up the phone and called Connor.

“Harp?” Connor answered groggily.

“Yeah, hi, sorry to wake you up, but I need a favor. Can you come get me?”