Chapter 107: Essential Checklist
** Harper **
A few hours later, Harper pulled her purple paisley suitcase out of the closet and stared at its empty insides.
The Chickadees game had passed in a blur. Between playing back in her head everything Eli had said outside the lounge and using the limited breaktimes to fill in Chelsea on the upcoming Hawaii trip, Harper paid little attention to what was happening on the field. Thankfully, Chelsea was being a true friend — although her own enthusiasm over the winning game was almost past the boiling point, she didn’t complain about Harper’s distracting lack of spirit, and instead poured out heaps of relationship advice whenever she could afford to peel her eyes off of the bat.
Most of the advice, of course, centered on how to get an iron hold of Eli’s personal attention during the business vacation.
Harper chewed her lips. Truth be told, she had no idea what it’d be like to see Eli again so soon after that dramatic goodbye. The three hours of the baseball game was enough time for her to fully process everything by now, but the more she thought about it, the more uncertain she felt. Eli was never an outwardly emotional person, and for him to suddenly act like that in front of her ...
Conflicting thoughts battled for dominance in her head. On one hand, she couldn’t help but feel awful for the story of his parents that she just learned. It finally made sense, why he was always alone when they were young and why he became so close to her family instead of his own. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard those years must’ve been for him, and she wanted nothing more than to be with him at this moment, to do anything she could to help him take his mind off of those dark memories.
Yet on the other hand, she worried it’d be awkward to talk to him now. Would he try to avoid her, after what seemed like an obvious attempt to push her away and back out of this precariously maintained relationship between them? For some reason she didn’t understand, he seemed to be taking everything way more personally than just a reminder of his family’s past. When he spoke of his father’s other marriage, he wasn’t angry or bitter like she thought he should be. Instead, he seemed ... dejected, and he kept avoiding her eyes as if ashamed. The "playboy" judgment from Vanessa seemed to have hit him particularly hard as well, which was quite unlike him.
Why would he act like that? Was there more to today’s sudden change of events than met the eye?
Harper let out a sigh just as her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
[ Chelsea: Packing yet? Don’t forget the essentials list I made for you. ]
[ Chelsea: And stop sulking, I know that’s what you’re doing. Your man is already doing enough sulking for both of you. ]
An unexpected smile curved Harper’s lips. It was nice to have a cheerful friend like Chelsea at times like this. Remembering the "essentials list" they had discussed earlier at the game, her eyes moved to the drawers holding her summer clothes, where the number one item on the list was sitting right at the top.