When I finished, I noticed Callum stare at me with wide eyes.
“I know it was wrong...,” but before I can finish Callum grabs me and hugs me tightly to him.
“You did that for him?” He whispered into my hair.
“Anybody would have,” I said into his rock hard chest.
“But nobody else did, Harper.”
“Yeah, technically but...”
“No, you’re amazing.”
“I am not!” I scoffed, pushing him off me, but he only pulls me tighter against him. “I’m a heathen according to everyone I know.”
“No, you’re not. You’re all hard shell, bad ass on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside. You’re a freakin’ Tootsie Pop!”
I snort but can’t think of an argument. You cry during Charmin commercials, Harper Bailey. You’re positively lame.
I subtly breathe in the scent of his shirt and have to stop myself from burying my face into his neck. He pulled away and I felt a loss from it, wishing he’d just hold me a little bit longer. It’s been years since someone hugged you, Harper. Callum cupped my cheek with his hand and rubbed his thumb against my jaw bone, smiling in my face like a massive goof. I laughed out loud. Just looking at him makes me laugh.
The washer stopped chugging and we both reluctantly turned to open the lid. Callum reached in and removed the wet clothes, setting them on the edge of the washer. I take pile after pile to the dryer and toss them in. We work in silence and unison as if we’ve done this hundreds of times before together, yet another reason I need to check myself. Already getting attached.
Callum
I’m getting attached. She’s too much for me and I find myself wishing she’d just leave before she breaks my heart. You can’t get attached. Attachment is death for someone like you, Callum. It weighs more to me than it does for regular people. I glanced her direction as she lifted a pile of wet clothes into the dryer. She peeked over her shoulder at me and smiled before turning back and starting the machine. Stay with me, Harper, I find myself silently pleading.
I don’t know what it is about this girl, but it feels like nothing to want to take her on as if I can afford to double my responsibility load and, you know, I think she may have felt the same way. What is wrong with you, dude? You can barely feed and clothe yourself. I’d been at it for a few months longer than her and it was painfully obvious, even if she hadn’t already admitted to it. This was obviously her first night on her own.
I knew it was our pasts that united us. Though, I’ve met others with a similar bond, none had ever believed in me as implicitly as this naive girl. Did you hear how she told you your dreams would become real?
She’d obviously lived through a harsh childhood too but, somehow, remained as trusting as she did. It was refreshing. Refreshing and incredibly dangerous in a city like New York. I knew if didn’t take care of her, she’d be eaten up and spit out, then shoved into a gutter and left for dead.
“Tell me a little about yourself,” I said, desperate to hear her talk.
She pinched her eyebrows with a smirk. “What do you want to know?”
She reached me and I tossed her by the waist onto the machine at her back. God, she weighs nothing. She bit her bottom lip and turned her head, attempting to hide her blush. I really hoped that blush belonged to me. I turned and pushed myself onto the machine next to her.
“Who’s your favorite band? And don’t tell me it’s MilliVanilli or something because I’ll have to kill you right here,” I teased.
She blushed, every inch of her face covered in a rosy hue.
“MilliVanilli? How old are you?” She joshed.
I smiled before clearing my throat. “Um, does ‘Dream On’ mean anything in particular to you?”
“Yeah,” she said, quietly, looking introspective. “It reminds me how fleeting life can be and how those around you can steal you from yourself...if you let them. It reminds me to protect myself.” I wanted to ask her who she needed protection from so I could beat them to a bloody pulp but she distracted me once more with her lovely mouth as it began to speak. “Anyway,” she shrugged, “Enough about that.” She laughed nervously. “Depressing. Um, Barcelona’s my favorite band. Their lyrics are especially meaningful. They’re especially sweet, to me anyway. I mean, their song ‘Please Don’t Go’? I’ve always been a sucker for violins.” She meets my eyes. “Ever heard of them?”
I reach into my back pocket and pull out a flyer. “Oh who? Them?” I ask, nonchalantly, pointing at the name at the top of the flyer.
Harper snatches it from my hand.
“Where did you get this?” She questioned, her voice raising an octave in shock.
“Oh, they’re just touring with my buddy’s band.”
She shook her head in disbelief and swallowed audibly.
"They'll be here in two weeks," I continued. "Why don't you come with me?"
"In two weeks?" She said. "Two weeks?" She repeated.
Commit to knowing me in two weeks, Harper. Don't make me beg.
"I think I would love that."
"You think?" I joked as I exhaled an inward sigh of relief.
Chapter Three
Look What You've Done
Callum
“Tell me why you didn’t apply for college,” I asked her as we walked back to the studio at ten to midnight.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “How do you know I never applied?” She said.
“Well, I just assumed. You told me you weren’t going to school.”
“I did apply, to several schools, actually.”
“And?” I asked, both eyebrows raised, but she didn’t respond. “Don’t leave me in suspense.”
“I got into a few,” she added cryptically, a smile tugging at the side of her mouth.
“I don’t understand. Why aren’t you going to college then?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I can’t go.”
“Why, Harper?”
“Because...,” she sighed, her shoulders drooping in resignation, “because I wouldn’t be able to do it. I don’t think I can do it.” She suddenly steeled herself, standing tall, pushing back her shoulders and raising her head. “It’s too late now anyway. It’s nearly June. There’s no way I could even enroll.”
“How would you even know that Harper? Unless you tried?”
She smiled and ducked her face in her chest, her chin shook back and forth.
“Where were you accepted?” I asked, moving on to the most important part.
“A bunch of state colleges.” She cleared her throat. “NYU.”
I playfully push her as if to say ‘get out’ but she doesn’t expect it and almost toppled over. I reached for her clumsily, caught her by the waist, and brought her into my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured into her ear.
She stared up at me, so beautiful, lips full, eyes bright with excitement. Her sweet breath smelled of the strawberry lips gloss she had a habit, I noticed, of applying every half hour. She was so close I could smell her hair again and I forgot myself, openly inhaling her.
“What are you doing?” She asked, straightening herself from my grasp, cheeks flamed.
“Smelling you,” I stupidly blurt, removing my grip from her small waist.
She bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing and wrinkled her nose. “Wh-what for?” She stammered.
“Because you smell like oranges, pineapples and the ocean. It’s the most unusual scent I’ve ever smelled and it’s addictive,” I confessed. Her face lost its playfulness. “I first smelled you in that lobby, Harper and I wanted to bury my face in your hair then, too.” Harper’s breathing sped up as she studied my face, looking for something but I’m not quite sure what. “Anyway, I’m sorry,” I continued. “It won’t happen again, I apologize.”
I started walking, the embarrassment too much to shoulder and cowardly hide through my false determination to reach the studio. Harper slowly caught up with me and we walked side by side for the majority of the walk in silence.
“So,” I uttered suddenly, nearing the door, trying to make light of what happened, “journalism and NYU, I’ve heard, are a fantastic combination.”
Harper laughed out loud. “It does, one of the best actually.”
“So?”
“So, what?” She shrugged her shoulders.
“So come with me tomorrow morning. I have to get some paperwork done and it will give you the opportunity to pick my advisor's brain.”
She stopped me at the door, her soft hand on my forearm. I instinctively flex to prevent myself from covering her hand with the one resting on the door.
“Why would I do that, Callum?” She asked me earnestly.
“Why wouldn’t you, Harper? What do you have to lose?”
“Absolutely nothing, I guess,” she answered honestly.
I opened the metal door and let her in, walking ahead of her to the studio. Inside, it was slightly warm but not uncomfortable.
“Music?” I asked, walking over to the studio’s soundboard.
“Mmm,” she answered, breaking open the laundry bag and separating our clothes into two piles. The smell of the freshly laundered clothing filled the tiny space with a bursting fragrance.
“Thank you,” she said quietly as I flipped through tracks.
I turned around to face her back. “For what, Harper?”
“For clean laundry, for taking me in, for seeming interested in what I do with my life,” she said, her hands coming to rest on the table in front of her.
“I am interested in what you do with your life.”
She curved her body around to face me. “Why?” She asked bluntly.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, shrugging. “You just feel important to me, for some reason.”
She leaned her backside against the table, seemingly for support. “But you don’t even know me, Callum.” Her bottom lip trembled.
“You’re a kindred spirit,” I offered up, but I say this only to stop from revealing the whole truth. The partial was all I could give her without sounding insane. If I was being candid with her, she’d only find out that I felt something for her that could only be the equivalent of a gravitational pull towards the center of the earth. She was a magnet for me and I was powerless to resist. It was more than a mere attraction.
“I guess we do have eerily similar backgrounds,” she agreed.
“Yeah, look at where we met.”
“Exactly,” she winked.
I picked up one of Charlie’s acoustics and sat on the swivel chair next to the soundboard. I absently began to play a song I wrote months ago. It had a melancholy melody and I’d never really played it for anyone. It wasn’t my intention for Harper to hear it, it was just second nature to pick up Charlie’s guitars and start playing with paying no mind to who’s around. I wasn’t used to anyone else hearing me play except for Charlie and his band.