Son of a soldier, p.23
Son Of A Soldier, page 23
Hailey glanced over at Jessica, who, it appeared, had no intention of giving them any privacy. “Grant, can we go outside and sit on the porch?”
“Sure,” Grant began, “just hang on and let me get…”
“Here,” Hailey said, reading his mind and shoving her bottle of water at him. “I haven’t even opened it yet. Let’s go.”
“What are the odds of me getting that massage?” Grant grinned as Hailey practically backed him out the front door.
“Not good, not good at all,” Hailey laughed as she closed the door behind her.
There was a long silence between them, yet it wasn’t awkward.
“Hey, Grant?” Hailey said almost shyly as she sat next to him on the front porch swing.
“Yeah?” Grant said, capping his water and sitting it to the side.
“I wrote you ten e-mails,” Hailey gulped, refusing to continue to ignore the fact that she and Grant eventually had to brave the subject of the summer.
“Yeah, I got them,” Grant nodded casually. “By the third one some of the hostility seemed to have faded.”
“So you read them?” Hailey sighed. “I had started to think maybe you weren’t getting them…that maybe I had the e-mail address wrong or something…but you got them…and you chose not to write back?”
“What did I have to say to a girl like you, Hailey?” Grant shrugged. “I figured the sooner you got over me, the better off you’d be.”
“And, what, in any of those letters, gave you the slightest inclination that I was back home pining away for you?” Hailey snapped.
“Come-on,” Grant smiled. “Do you really write not one, not two, but ten letters to someone you’re not thinking about?”
“Ten letters without a response,” Hailey thought aloud. “Wow…that is pretty pathetic when you think about it, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Grant shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I was sad when they stopped coming.”
“Well, I’m sorry that some of them were a little mean, but I was angry about how things ended between us,” Hailey admitted.
“Yeah, I gathered that,” Grant nodded.
“When I wrote the first letter, I was angry about what happened at camp…how things ended between us,” Hailey said. “But…in the second letter…” Hailey looked away, embarrassed.
“What about the second letter?” Grant asked.
“I wasn’t angry in the second letter,” Hailey shook her head confidently.
“Then you should really work on your communication skills,” Grant laughed, “because letter number two was decidedly more damaging to my ego than letter number one.”
Hailey stood. She walked down the porch steps and into the yard, nervously fidgeting with her hands as she walked. “Yeah,” she smiled coyly, “but I wasn’t angry about what happened at camp. I wasn’t angry about getting caught in your room and being made by coaches and counselors to feel like some promiscuous girl that I’m not. I guess I was angry though…angry that you hadn’t replied to my first letter.”
Grant followed Hailey into the yard. “You mean to tell me that you intended me to reply to that first letter?” he exclaimed.
“Duh,” Hailey nodded.
Grant raised his eyebrow. “Well, I’m sorry, Snookums, but I have always been under the apparently misguided impression that, and I quote, ‘I am thankful you and I will never have a reason to speak again,’ meant that a letter from me was the last thing you wanted.”
“Read between the lines, Grant,” Hailey huffed.
“I wrote back,” Grant nodded, staring at the ground.
“What?” Hailey gasped. “I didn’t get it.”
“That’s because I couldn’t bring myself to hit SEND,” Grant shook his head.
Hailey seemed confused. “Why?” she rolled her eyes. “Because your insults were more pointed that mine, more hateful, coldhearted and clever, and you thought your expansive vocabulary and your off-beat sense of humor might crush my poor, little, country girl spirit?”
“Something like that,” Grant lied.
“I have to know… what was I to you, just some hookup?” Hailey practically yelled. When Grant didn’t respond, Hailey shoved him away from her.
“You know,” Grant smiled, “you really have some anger management issues that need to be addressed.”
Hailey hit him again, harder this time.
“Alright, Sweetheart,” Grant said sarcastically. “Hit me again, and I’m gonna ignore the fact that, despite your best efforts to mask it, you’re technically a girl, and I’m gonna start treating you like you’re just one of the guys.”
“You’re all talk,” Hailey rolled her eyes.
“Try me,” Grant shrugged.
Hailey shoved Grant again, popping him upside the head for good measure.
“Okay, you asked for it,” Grant laughed.
Hailey giggled as Grant grabbed her arms, spun her around and pulled her close to him, squeezing her tight. “Whatcha gonna do now, huh?” he smiled.
Hailey raised her eyebrow as she smiled up at him. “If this is how you’d deal with one of the guys, then maybe you’ve got some issues of your own that need to be addressed.”
Grant laughed easily as he and Hailey locked eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Hailey said, wrinkling her nose.
Grant shook his head. “While I am choosing to abstain from physical violence at this point, I reserve the right to look at you any way I so desire.”
“Have it your way,” Hailey smiled, “but if anybody else sees you looking at me that way, you’re gonna have a hard time convincing them that the longing look in your eyes is actually a clever disguise intended to hide the intense repulsion that overcomes you while in my presence.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Grant smiled back.
“No, of course not,” Hailey shook her head.
“Should I pick a fight with you, just to be on the safe side?” Grant suggested.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Hailey agreed. “That way we’re both comfortable.”
“Daddy’s girl!” Grant fired at her.
“Army brat!” Hailey barked back.
“Tomboy!” Grant laughed.
“Pretty Boy,” Hailey said, sticking her tongue out victoriously.
“Hick,” Grant winked.
“Prrrr…” Hailey opened her mouth to fire back at him, but she stopped, blushing.
“Say it, Hailey!” Grant urged with a bump of his hip.
“No,” Hailey giggled, slapping him. “I can’t say that!”
“I set you up for the burn and everything,” Grant shook his head. “All you had to do was take it!”
“I can’t stand you!” Hailey giggled.
“I can’t stand you more!” Grant replied as he stared back at her in awe.
Hailey laughed. “Come-on,” she said, grabbing Grant’s arm, “I have to show you something.” Hailey led Grant around back to the barn. “See those woods?” she pointed.
Grant nodded as he glanced at the brush behind the barn.
“I want to show you something back there,” Hailey said, pulling him along with her. The fall night was illuminated by flood lights on the sides of the old barn.
“Wait,” Grant said, stopping short of the trees. “First, there is something I want to tell you.”
Hailey looked into Grant’s eyes, waiting to hear whatever he had to say.
“You asked me if what we had at camp was just a careless fling,” Grant said in a tone less guarded than Hailey had ever heard him use. “The truth is…I never sent the letter I wrote you because it was so honest it scared me.”
“What did it say?” Hailey asked softly.
Grant thought for a moment. “It said that the two weeks I spent with you were the best of my entire life. It said that I thought about you, and I missed you, and I hoped you would forgive me for disappearing like I did.”
“Why didn’t you want me to know how you really felt?” Hailey sighed.
“Because,” Grant confessed, “I’ve spent my whole life meeting people and losing touch. I know how to pack up and abandon one life for the next…friendships don’t last…relationships are brief…. I can walk away from anyone and not think twice about it, but, Hails, walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and thinking I would never see you again…”
“We could have stayed in touch,” Hailey replied. “That’s what I wanted more than anything…that’s what I expected when we left…I never dreamed I wouldn’t hear from you. You were all I thought about.”
“I know,” Grant nodded, “and I can’t tell you how sorry I am Hailey. It’s just that in my world…you cut ties… people always leave. I knew I had to forget you, even though all I wanted to do was see your face again.”
“Did you forget me?” Hailey asked.
“I tried,” Grant replied.
Hailey smiled. “What happened on our last night wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who snuck into your room. I think that’s why I was so angry…I wasn’t angry at you…I was angry at myself. I was angry at myself for being somewhere I had no business being. I was angry that I compromised what I believed in, hoping you wouldn’t leave thinking I was this snow-white picture of innocence who had no idea what she was getting herself into. I was angry that I got caught…angry that we got in trouble…angry that you were upset with me for that reason.”
“I wasn’t upset with you,” Grant assured her. “It’s just that my natural reaction when confronted has always been to blame somebody else, so that’s what I did; I was wrong to let you take all the blame. I have to start taking responsibility for my own actions and stop blaming others…it’s what I wish I had done that night.”
“If my dad knew about this…” Hailey sighed.
“We were just kissing,” Grant smiled.
“Trust me,” Hailey laughed. “My dad paid a lot of money for me to go to camp and polish my basketball skills, not my make-out skills…he would definitely kill me…and you!”
Grant laughed as he looked toward the woods. “What was it you wanted to show me?” he asked.
Grant followed Hailey through the woods in the dark.
“You can’t tell anyone this is back here,” she said as she made her way past tree branches she seemed to know by heart but Grant struggled to navigate. “It’s my secret spot.”
“Your secret spot?” Grant laughed. “You have a secret spot?”
“There it is,” Hailey pointed.
Grant stared up at the faultily constructed contraption in the tree in front of him. There was a row of wooden pegs nailed into the trunk of the tree, and they led up to a shoddily crafted shack. Its crooked, splintery boards looked as though they could collapse at any time, and Grant found himself pondering how this hangout, this secret spot, had managed to survive wind, rain and snow.
“I don’t know whose tree house it was,” Hailey said as Grant examined the rotting wood, “but ever since I found it when I was playing back here as a kid, it has been my hideout. It’s where I come when I’m mad, sad, confused…so I spent a good bit of time up here last summer.”
Grant touched the bottom rung of the ladder, almost sure it would crumble at his touch.
“Go on up,” Hailey pointed. “There’ll be a flashlight on your right.”
“Hailey!” Grant protested. “If you think I am about to crawl up into this little safety hazard of yours…”
“It’s stronger than it looks,” Hailey promised.
Against what he knew was his better judgment, Grant climbed up the ladder in the dark, crawled into the tree house and felt around for the flashlight. He shinned it on the wall, and a giant grin stretched across his face as he read the words written across the wall in big, bold, red letters: I HATE GRANT COHEN.
“Nice touch!” he called.
“Mature, huh?” Hailey laughed as she started up the ladder.
“I like it,” Grant nodded. “It’s challenging; it’s got personality…just like you.”
Hailey poked her head into the tree house entrance, and Grant helped her inside, praying the secret hideout didn’t collapse under both their weight.
Grant and Hailey sat cross-legged across from one another, and Hailey blinked as Grant playfully shined the flashlight in her face. “Stop it,” she giggled as she lunged for his hand, and they found their lips inches apart.
“What do you say you give me one more chance?” Grant whispered, and Hailey melted at the sound of his voice.
“You look like you want to kiss me,” she gulped.
“Guilty as charged,” Grant whispered as he flipped the switch on the flashlight, dropped it to the floor and took Hailey’s face in his hands as they began to kiss.
Hailey was lying awake, hiding under her covers, shuddering each time a flash of lightning lit up the dark room. Jessica and Emily were sound asleep, despite the rain pounding against the roof, the wind howling across the field, the booming thunder and the striking lightning that illuminated the entire room with a loud pop. Hailey had been scared of lightning all her life, but, in the room where she grew up, there was no window, at least not one that wasn’t covered entirely by a chest of drawers. She eased herself from her bunk and tiptoed out the bedroom door. She crept through the hall and snuck into her old bedroom, easing the door closed behind her. “Grant,” she whispered loudly. She tiptoed over to the bed and shook Grant’s shoulder. “Grant, wake up,” she insisted as she turned on the bedside lamp.
“What?” Grant grumbled.
“You have to trade beds with me,” Hailey whispered.
Grant rolled over and looked up at her. “What are you talking about?” he groaned.
“Grant, I’m scared,” Hailey insisted. “Get up and go sleep in my bed.”
“I just got comfortable; I’m not moving,” Grant insisted.
“I can’t sleep in the other room,” Hailey gulped. “The lightning flashes in the window, and I can’t stand it.”
Grant threw the covers back. “If you’re really scared of the storm, then you can sleep in here with me.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re not wearing any clothes!” Hailey exclaimed as she averted her eyes.
“You’re so dramatic,” Grant rolled his eyes. “I have boxers on…socks even.”
“I can’t sleep in here with you!” Hailey insisted.
“Why not?” Grant shrugged.
“Because,” Hailey gasped. “You’re a boy; I’m a girl, and those are the rules!”
Suddenly, thunder crashed, and Hailey yelped as she jumped into the bed. The wind whistled, and she began to sob. “I’m so embarrassed,” she sighed. “I didn’t want you to know what a big scaredy-cat I am.”
Grant put his arm around Hailey. “If you don’t tell me the things you’re afraid of, how can I protect you from them?”
Hailey reached down and picked up Grant’s t-shirt off the floor. “Will you put this on?” she gulped.
Grant pulled his shirt over his head. “Do you want me to get out of here and leave you alone?”
“No,” Hailey shook her head. “I want you to stay; I feel safer with you next to me. It’s just that it’s you, and it’s me, and I don’t know if I trust myself around you.”
Grant grinned. “Well, it is my birthday,” he winked.
“Gosh!” Hailey said, slapping his chest. “You’re so bad.”
Grant’s mind drifted to the low key celebration that had taken place over dinner. Granny Miller had come over, and, after supper, Nora had put a candle in a Zinger, so everyone could sing Happy Birthday. Nora had deliberately forgone the decorations and fanfare that were her signature because, though she tried to hide it behind her loving smile, she knew that Grant’s eighteenth birthday brought with it the independence he had always wanted. Surely, he would disappear, set out to forge his own path and rarely, if ever, think to call and check in with his mother, and that wasn’t something she was in the mood to celebrate. Granny had managed to be relatively pleasant, even if her persistently curled lip spoke volumes about her disapproval, not only of Nora’s living arrangements but of Grant’s budding friendship with Hailey. So, naturally, Grant had made sure to show Hailey a little extra attention, massaging her shoulders and going as far as feeding her a bite of his cake just for the sheer pleasure of watching Granny squirm.
“What are you thinking?” Hailey asked softly.
“I’m sorry,” Grant said after a moment, “it’s just that my brother and his wife called earlier to wish me a happy birthday, and talking to them really got me feeling rather introspective.”
“And that means?” Hailey drew the words out with a little laugh.
“I’ve been doing a little soul searching I guess you could say,” Grant exhaled.
“Grant, before you say anything,” Hailey sighed, “I’m sorry I wasn’t in the best spirits for your birthday; it’s just that you keep saying…”
“I’m gonna stay,” Grant cut her off.
“Really?” Hailey seemed shocked. “I thought…but…okay…wow…why?”
Grant shrugged, and a coy grin flashed across his face. “Well, there’s this girl…”
Hailey swallowed. “This better not be your idea of a joke!”
“I’m good at taking the easy way out,” Grant admitted. “This time I think I’ll stick around and see what happens.”
“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that,” Hailey smiled.
Grant thought about the money that awaited him and gone were visions of a lavish home in Hyannis Port with its regulation-size, indoor basketball court with a dome ceiling, a complete library with a comprehensive collection of books on everything from political science and military history to Faulkner and Capote, and a silver Camaro parked in the garage. “While I was talking to my brother tonight, something struck me,” he said seriously. “He put his little girl on the phone; she has Autism, and she doesn’t talk or anything, but my sister-in-law said she responded to my voice…she knew it was her Uncle Grant…and she got excited.”
