Summer's Child

Helplessly Hoping

"One, two, three, four, five!" Harry rattled off the change he was counting. He was not going to break into his California fund. He was not.

He'd made a promise to himself, this one he intended to keep.

After breaking silent promises to Jillian, and a big one of silence to himself, he'd keep this important vow to himself, no dipping into the Haight fund for any reason. There  was no chemistry set for him, and he totally ignored the telescope that was in his dad's popular science magazine.

The couch cushion landed with a thud over his shoulder while he scouted for $.30 more. That would give him enough for a burger. He'd driven by and seen Will's truck pulling out of the Dairy Barn on his way home from the library. It struck him as
an opportunity to fix things. He hadn't seen Jillian in a month.

Not properly. He'd seen her with his eyes, like across the hall and sitting eating lunch quietly among the hyena like athletic table. He wouldn't approach her in that environment at all. It was asking for a beating, a physical one, he was already emotionally bruised.

Black and blue, like the time she'd convinced him to try the dock swing, and he'd let go either too soon or too late and one of his legs had caught the wooden planks. There had been splinters as well. Jillian had driven him home and patched him up before they realized. Her accomplishment had seen them jumping up and down and laughing. Well, he was really excited for her, but the bouncing made him grimace. Jillian didn't know how to drive, was afraid to. "Besides, they have streetcars in San Francisco!" Was her line. But she'd done it to save him.

That seemed like a long time ago, and all the contusions were beneath his skin, under his breast bone. Nothing broken but his heart. He could pretend during break that she was busy and not avoiding him. Once school was back in session though, there was no denying anything.

She hadn't looked at him even. And that gutted him absolutely, until one day his eyes lingered over her for longer than he normally allowed.  Jillian caught him, Harry found his intestines on the floor and his heart in their place. He'd expected her to look disgusted. Be disgusted. Especially after her perceived silent treatment, it seemed the only likely conclusion.

She looked like a bird with a broken wing.

That was what she looked like. Hurt. He wasn't sure how he'd hurt her. Harry was sure he was the injured party. The confusion was what fueled his current expedition. The fact was, they had a lifetime of shared worlds between them and he wasn't willing to let a misunderstanding or a new understanding change that.

He'd eat crow, or the burger she served him, and he'd never mention the apparently unfortunate fact that he found her wonderful and beautiful and shamefully sexy if he got to keep her.

Keep her was the wrong. No matter how gilded the cage he put her in, keeping her was like caging a bird. A being meant to fly.

He didn't want to keep her or cage her. But whatever arrangement there was between people that made them come back to each other, like the homing birds who roamed, worked, but came back. "Love?" He questioned out loud. He wanted that with Jillian. He wanted to always be the place she came back to. Where she was safe. If the love looked different than he hoped, he'd accept it.

He would not accept a separation based on nothing. They'd talk it out. Work it out. Be best friends, what the other needed. She didn't talk to him about Will before, and he guessed she needed to. You couldn't talk to your boyfriend about him being your boyfriend. Everybody needed somebody. She was his, he had always been hers. He'd listen to her about Will, not the night time stuff, hopefully. He imagined that would twist him up inside. What if she was doing, that, with Will? Worse, what if she loved him?