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“Wait, are you here because—”
“Of a scholarship, yes.”
His face turned scarlet. “That’s not what I meant.”
“For dance.”
He smiled a little. “I remember how much you loved music.”
“Yep, still do.” I waited another beat, then said, “Well, see you around,Henners.”
He gasped and stared at me.
“That’s your nickname, right?”
Another jock ritual was to have ridiculous nicknames. Though I did likeHenners. It had a nice ring to it.
“You remember that?”
“No. Well, not until I heard your friends call you that.”
He grimaced as if recalling the morning interaction. “What else did you hear?”
“Enough,” I replied, and he frowned. “But I’ve…gotta go.”
No way I wanted his sympathy, so I forced my legs to move toward the dining hall.
“Lark?” he called after me.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“You, uh, look good.”
I inhaled sharply because damn him. “You too.”
I noted the hint of a smile before I turned away and continued walking.
I guess Henry Albrecht was in my life again. Sort of. At least from a distance. But now everything was different. We weren’t kids with cancer anymore.
4
HENRY
The followingday in the dining hall, I glanced toward the table where Lark sat by himself, intently studying his phone. I felt guilty, like I should invite him to eat with us, but we didn’t have anything in common, did we? Maybe we never did, except for being two bored, sick kids in the hospital.
Or maybe not. They kept us occupied with activities like movies and animal therapy, yet we somehow always found a way to sit by each other and talk about all sorts of things. So why would it be different now?
Besides, this wasn’t necessarily about our friendship, but about making a freshman feel welcome. I lifted my hand to wave him over when a short guy with brown hair walked toward him and sat down. At least he’d already made a friend.
When Lark smiled at him, my stomach felt all funny.
XOXO.Four little letters that likely meant nothing, but ones I’d clung on to for years for no good reason. Or maybe reasons I didn’t want to admit.
I needed to stop thinking about dumb shit from when we were kids.
But I couldn’t deny he was attractive as hell as an adult.
Lark didn’t make eye contact with me, and that was just as well after our conversation yesterday. He probably thought it was fucking weird that no one knew about my past, not even my best friend, and I had trouble rationalizing it, even to myself.
