Second chances Book 4/6

Chapter 14

The first month was complicated, Harper was not embarrassed to admit. The course program interested him enormously, he had no trouble following, on the contrary, but the downtime was complicated. Ella often poked her head out of his bedroom door to see how he was doing, and she spent time with him in the evenings. He was pretending that everything was fine, of course. He missed his family, no longer seeing Clara-Rose on a daily basis was torture. Although they talk to each other every night, it was different, if before they were about ten meters from each other, now the distance was an open wound. Ella often asked him out for a drink, but he rarely accepted, finding all sorts of excuses, always tapping on his computer. He could see that it saddened her, that she felt repulsed when she was just trying to sympathize, so it was Harper who stormed into her room with an unimaginable excuse.

"Can you check something for me on your computer, I feel like mine is buggy.

— Yeah, what?

— Look at your calendar, is there something weird on today's date?

— Um... yes," Ella replies with a smile, "seeing an appointment scheduled for the evening, while being certain that she never registered it. You're right. It's a bug. I erased it. Bye!" she said with a smile, closing the door to her bedroom before sticking her back to it. Her computer pinged, the date had just reappeared, causing her to giggle.

"No," said Harper behind that door, "it still bugs. Can you help me with that?

— It depends?" she asks as she opens her door, "help you how?

— I have beer, vodka and rum. You accompany me? he whispers in her ear.

"Are you trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me?" she tries, staring him in the eye.

"Just putting the world to rights with a friend, if that's okay with you.

— Okay, bring your beers and your pillow, but don't ever hack into my computer again," she said seriously.

Bringing his pack of beer, Harper leans his pillow against a wall and sits on it, unscrewing a beer which he hands to Ella before pouring one too and holding it out to toast.

"Excuse me for being moody, Ella. You did everything to be nice to me and I treated you like a jerk.

— You have followed your psychology course, it's always that!" replies Ella, taking a sip.

"I find the distance from home difficult, and it's you who paid for it, and you put up with me without saying a word.

— What do you want, I'm a good friend," she said, leaning over to toast. "Are you gonna talk to me about the photographs in your room? Without the make-up and the costume, I recognized... an actress, and a singer that I really like. Is it montages, doubles?

— No. My aunt played Elektra. The other photograph it's not Kate Valentine, but her sister, Cameron. A friend. Here, look," he said, taking out his phone, "her next to Cameron is Uma, she's an engineer at the NASA.

— And her, you are always on photo with her.

— My girlfriend. She sings on Kate's latest album.

— I understand that you miss the house, your girlfriend is beautiful. You live surrounded by interesting people," she said, opening another beer. "Me, there is nothing. I only knew host families before I fell into a good family, but in the end I have no parents. I'm taking my revenge on life here. When I get out, I will write fucking articles and I will line up the Pulitzers like that," she says, snapping her fingers several times.

"Cornell is expensive.

— Yeah, a gift we'll say. A lucky lottery ticket, my host family offers me a future. So I have to do everything not to disappoint them.