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That made it perfect, except for one thing.
This time, someone was already there.
“Hey, you can’t come around here. This is my spot,” the girl announced, jerking her blonde head back the way I’d come.
“I’m sure it’s big enough for both of us.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and observed her.
Winter DeLaurie. I knew her, of course. Hade Harbor High wasn’t big enough that I could avoid knowing about the cheerleader from one of the oldest and richest families in town. Still, we’d never directly spoken.
“It’s really not,” she retorted, watching me lower myself onto a couple of old crates. I’d brought my sketchpad to pass the time. Now, I ignored her and selected a new page in the book.
I felt her hovering after a few minutes.
“What are you drawing?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk?” I reminded her.
She snapped her mouth shut with an audible click and went back to her seat. She folded her arms and stared at the wall in mulish silence. That suited me just fine. I didn’t come to talk, either.
My pencil moved across the page, and I let my mind wander.
“So, I take it you don’t have a parental figure to show off today either?” Winter asked after a few moments of silence.
“What an astute observation,” I drawled in return.
She flushed prettily, though her gaze was fiery. “Well, how am I supposed to know? Maybe you have more than enough parents, but they just don’t like you enough to take time off from work.”
More like my dad didn’t like me enough to be in my life, period. “Isn’t that what therapists call projecting?” I ventured.
Winter jerked like I’d slapped her, her cheeks growing redder. Bullseye. Looked like daddy’s spoiled little princess had a weak spot after all, and it was her infamous family. Interesting.
She shrugged. “You don’t know anything about my family.”
I nodded in agreement. “No, I don’t, and you don’t know anything about mine…but one thing is obvious. We’re here, alone, on Parents’ Day, hiding from forced fun and making heartfelt memories. It’s fucking depressing.”
She blinked at me a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, it is.” Her icy expression had thawed a little. It made her more beautiful. “Do you come here often?” She wondered.
The tension between us dipped a moment.
I cocked my head at her. “Are you hitting on me?”
“What? No!” Her pale cheeks immediately shot through with pink. A blush. A real live, genuine blush. I’d hardly expected such naïve innocence from the girl across from me, but there it was.
“I was just wondering if you always come here,” she trailed off, waving an elegant hand around the graffitied walls and overturned crates that made up the only seating.
“If you’re asking how often I skip out on Parents’ Day, the answer is every damn year. Being one parent short of a set is a lifestyle for me. You?”
She tossed her head, a little line pinching between her caramel eyebrows as she cast her mind back. “My dad came once. It was freshman year. He stayed for about an hour.”
I nodded to her. “Congratulations.”
She blinked at me, and then laughed. It was surprisingly low and throaty. “Thanks.”
After a few moments, I went back to my sketch. Now that I’d seen her laugh, I had more character to add to her picture-perfect profile.
“What are you drawing?” she asked after a little while.
“You.”
