Sara said, “I don’t get it. You’ve been on the edge of salty all day.”
She was sitting in Henry’s room flipping through a People magazine she found on the kitchen counter before she came up. Outside it was raining hard enough to hear. To Henry the sound was white noise. He just wished it could shut her up too.
“So, you going to tell me what is going on with you or what?”
“Nothing.” Henry said. It was the kind of lie people told casually; the same sort of thing like when girls said they were fine.
“Nothing.” She repeated. She rolled her eyes and tapped her foot against his. Henry was sitting on the edge of the bed caught between laying down and standing up. He’d have chosen the former had Sara not shown up. Now he was leaning the other way.
“Nothing.” He said. “I thought you had soccer today.”
She raised her eyebrows and slowly shifted her vision towards the window before returning her gaze to him.
“What, it’s just a little rain. My team always practiced when it rained.”
“That’s because football coaches are stupid and sadistic. Besides, the field flooded this morning and the rain hasn’t let up since. Coach Winters said they may cancel the games this week. Arizona really doesn’t know how to handle rain.”
Henry shrugged, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to talk to her—he wasn’t ready to tell her. Still, that didn’t stop her from talking to him. “How about you take me out instead? My mom said I could stay out till 10. We could see that new movie that you were talking about. You know, share popcorn.”
“I have to do homework and my mom will kill me if I don’t get these chores handled tonight.”
Sara’s bright face dimmed a little, the corners of her mouth turning into brackets. She said, “Really? You see what I mean about being salty? You’re going to ditch me for homework and chores?”
He shrugged again. Outside thunder rattled the window and lightening left streaks in the air like the ghosts of a camera flash.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sara said. She crossed her arms over her chest in that way that usually made him cringe.
“Nothing, I told you.”
“Yeah. Nothing. Well, it is definitely something. I saw your mom when I came in and she was like the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Yet you’ve been a dumpy dog since first period. Nothing, right?”
He sighed and asked her to leave it alone, which might have been the worst thing he could’ve said, because she stood up then, arms still crossed, and told him that she would.
Henry thought about going after her. He thought about finding some way to explain his distance and his anger all day but it wasn’t anything he could explain—not in a way that made since to anyone else let alone his girlfriend. Today was supposed to be the best day of his life. Yet at the same time he hated everything about it.
He closed the door after she left. He turned off the lights and sat in the darkness listening to the rain steadily assault his window.