Giver / Taker, Chapter Two. The words in my throat.
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It had taken only five minutes of stilted answers and awkward gaps in answers for Toni to stop trying to get them to talk. Harry's eyes had kept cutting at her from the driver's seat, but Hadley slipped an earbud into her ear and turned away as best she could. Her knees dig into the dashboard, but she ignores the discomfort. It was just another moment to add to the growing list of the day. The window fogs in front of her face, and she passes the time by drawing stars through it. Normally, Harry would've groaned at her about leaving marks, but the car remains silent.
When the Porsche finally pulls into the school parking lot, Hadley wretches on the door handle before it is even in park. The hinges and Harry both protest, a harmony of shouting, but she only slams it shut behind her. Flinching, she pulls her shoulders in. Behind her, a second door slams.
"Hads, wait!" Harry calls, stopping her before even trying. She digs her toe into the asphalt below as she waits for him to catch up. Their peers watch silently around them, ripe with curiosity for problems that aren't their own.
When he's close enough, she nods at him. "What's up?"
"I don't think I need to tell you not to talk to anyone about what happened this morning, right?"
The words hit her, laced with offense, sounding closer to her father's than Harry's. She bites back a scoff. Even in knowing that the morning shook them both, she can't stop the ugly twist of her mouth as she answers, "And yet, you are."
The words hit as clearly as she had hoped, because he melts a little. His shoulders lose a bit of the tenseness they've been carrying all morning, and he wipes at his face as if to clear it.
"I'm sorry. I just... I don't know what to think."
"You think I don't get that? You weren't the only one standing there this morning."
"I know that Hads, I do." Pulling her into his chest with one arm around her shoulders, he mumbles, "Trust me, I wish you weren't."
"You can't protect me forever."
All at once, he's Harry again; no one else. Whereas Norman's affection was few and far between, Harry learned a long time ago where to pick up the slack.
"I can sure as hell try." The fingers wrapped around her shoulder tighten for a moment, and then she's released. "But you're right. You're smart enough to know."
"Harry?" In the distance, Toni speed walks to the two siblings, mouth set in a sympathetic grimace and hands carrying more than her own materials. "You forgot your bag, and the first bell is in a few minutes."
"Thanks, T," he acknowledges, taking both the offered bookbag and his girlfriend's into his hands. As their lips connect briefly, Hadley looks away. Toward the entrance of the building, she watches as more bodies press their way into the doors.
