Page 8 of A Fighting Chance

“Yep.” I sigh.

I hear her laughing and look up again. Gentry is attempting a concerned expression. His lips are pressed too hard into a line. He’s trying—and failing—to keep himself from laughing and I don’t know him well enough for this. I remind myself I don’t actually know him at all, which makes it worse.

I point my finger at him. “You. Stop laughing,” I demand.

He holds his hands up in mock innocence.

I remember I don’t like him and it’s easier this time because he’s fully dressed.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Lyla, this is Gentry. Gentry, this is Lyla,” my sister says. She gestures to Gentry and then to me in turn and I growl.

“Oh, we’ve met,” he says, leaning his shoulder back onto the door frame and winking at me.

I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Great!” Harper exclaims, ignorant to the embarrassment I’m now feeling twice over.

The strangeness of the situation, the wink he just gave me.

What is she, blind?

“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” I tell her. “I just want to get dressed.”

Harper nods and turns to walk down the hall, but Gentry lingers for a moment—staring down at me. He doesn’t say anything, so I look around and then back at him, giving him the universal signal for “what the hell do you want?”and he laughs.

“I just want to apologize for last night,” he says, and I’m shocked again because I don’t understand what he’s apologizing for. He must read the confusion because he adds, “I should have locked the door.”

“I barged in on you. There’s no need for you to be sorry,” I say, shaking my head, because there isn’t.

He stands there for a moment longer. I look upside down at him again.

What the hell does he want?

“You’re different than I pictured,” he says.

Of all that’s transpired, this is by far the most confusing thing he’s said to me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, based on what your sister and grandparents have told me,” he says. “I just pictured you differently.”

“I’m sure there are photographs of me around here,” I say, still not entirely sure what he means.

“Sure, there are some, but they’re all old. And besides, I mean like…you as a whole person. Not just the way you look,” he says.

I think about this.

What have my sister and Nan and Paw said to him?

How did they describe me?

Am I different to him in a good or disappointing way?

I have questions but I don’t ask them. I don’t want to care what he thinks.

Because I don’t like him,I remind myself.

So, instead, I shamelessly fish. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I say, attempting to sound indifferent to his comments.

He draws a long breath and stands from his leaning position just as he’d done the night before. “Oh, you definitely don’t.”