"One, two, three, four, five!" Harry rattled off the change he was counting. He was not going to break into his California fund. He was not.

He'd made a promise to himself, this one he intended to keep.

After breaking silent promises to Jillian, and a big one of silence to himself, he'd keep this important vow to himself, no dipping into the Haight fund for any reason. There  was no chemistry set for him, and he totally ignored the telescope that was in his dad's popular science magazine.

The couch cushion landed with a thud over his shoulder while he scouted for $.30 more. That would give him enough for a burger. He'd driven by and seen Will's truck pulling out of the Dairy Barn on his way home from the library. It struck him as
an opportunity to fix things. He hadn't seen Jillian in a month.

Not properly. He'd seen her with his eyes, like across the hall and sitting eating lunch quietly among the hyena like athletic table. He wouldn't approach her in that environment at all. It was asking for a beating, a physical one, he was already emotionally bruised.

Black and blue, like the time she'd convinced him to try the dock swing, and he'd let go either too soon or too late and one of his legs had caught the wooden planks. There had been splinters as well. Jillian had driven him home and patched him up before they realized. Her accomplishment had seen them jumping up and down and laughing. Well, he was really excited for her, but the bouncing made him grimace. Jillian didn't know how to drive, was afraid to. "Besides, they have streetcars in San Francisco!" Was her line. But she'd done it to save him.

That seemed like a long time ago, and all the contusions were beneath his skin, under his breast bone. Nothing broken but his heart. He could pretend during break that she was busy and not avoiding him. Once school was back in session though, there was no denying anything.

She hadn't looked at him even. And that gutted him absolutely, until one day his eyes lingered over her for longer than he normally allowed.  Jillian caught him, Harry found his intestines on the floor and his heart in their place. He'd expected her to look disgusted. Be disgusted. Especially after her perceived silent treatment, it seemed the only likely conclusion.

She looked like a bird with a broken wing.

That was what she looked like. Hurt. He wasn't sure how he'd hurt her. Harry was sure he was the injured party. The confusion was what fueled his current expedition. The fact was, they had a lifetime of shared worlds between them and he wasn't willing to let a misunderstanding or a new understanding change that.

He'd eat crow, or the burger she served him, and he'd never mention the apparently unfortunate fact that he found her wonderful and beautiful and shamefully sexy if he got to keep her.

Keep her was the wrong. No matter how gilded the cage he put her in, keeping her was like caging a bird. A being meant to fly.

He didn't want to keep her or cage her. But whatever arrangement there was between people that made them come back to each other, like the homing birds who roamed, worked, but came back. "Love?" He questioned out loud. He wanted that with Jillian. He wanted to always be the place she came back to. Where she was safe. If the love looked different than he hoped, he'd accept it.

He would not accept a separation based on nothing. They'd talk it out. Work it out. Be best friends, what the other needed. She didn't talk to him about Will before, and he guessed she needed to. You couldn't talk to your boyfriend about him being your boyfriend. Everybody needed somebody. She was his, he had always been hers. He'd listen to her about Will, not the night time stuff, hopefully. He imagined that would twist him up inside. What if she was doing, that, with Will? Worse, what if she loved him? 

Those fears had been enough to keep him alone and sad, but realizing Jillian was sad too was a sight he couldn't walk past. Unwelcome knowledge was better than tripping over a wordless goodbye.

No wordless goodbyes, just unspoken support and comfortable silence and daily diatribes, like usual. So he would go eat a crow burger and try to fix it.

"Yes!" He crowed when he found the last quarter and got in his truck. He put on the radio and nearly clicked it off when Van Morrison came on. He loved Van Morrison, it was like poetry. He'd been explaining it to Jillian in the summer and she'd gotten really into it. Astral Weeks had been their lakeside soundtrack. Sweet Thing was written about Jillian, he was sure, just not how. If only he could be dynamite.

He hadn't listened since before Winter Formal, when the bluesy folk rock had promised him he could be born again, baptized in her love. He was gonna tell her, he'd decided to their soundtrack, then he'd chickened out or lost his chance when she'd been swept away. She'd flown their safe little coop, become sweet on someone else. That hurt.

But, instead of letting himself shy away from feeling what he felt for her, he listened to the music. Love was love, and he knew she loved him, or she wouldn't have looked so sad Monday in the lunchroom. He may love her different, but he could love her however she needed. He'd make a damn good job of trying.

His palms were sweating so bad he wiped them on his trousers when they nearly slipped off the steering wheel as he turned into the Dairy Barn. Will's truck was still missing, which was good. He had no idea what Will was really like. Except for a braggart who told his friends things they shouldn't know about nice girls' bodies. Harry would hold that against him more if he hadn't heard so many other guys talking like that. So many he suspected of lying, he decided that Will probably was too.

Harry still didn't want to know him, or be his friend, like Jillian would insist and want to start right away if Will was at ye olde dairy haus.

It was good he wasn't. He still felt like punching him.

Harry wiped his hands one more time and walked straight in. To get this done, then back on track and in line, he'd be a man of action.

It was quiet. The dinner rush was long over, now it was the odd person in for ice cream and the crew cleaning. Harry did his homework while she cleaned lots of nights, so he could take her home. He knew the rhythms as well as if he worked there.

She was dancing with a broom like she was atop a cloud. She was spinning and he wondered if she took flight if the roof would open for her too. He bet it would.

He didn't want to startle her. "Jillian" his voice croaked out. He hadn't spoken much since his meeting with the guidance counselor.

The broom hit the floor with a clatter. He watched it fall and bounce three times before it came to a standstill. All that potential energy converted to sound and fury. Well, so much for his good intentions.

By the time his eyes made their way off the floor, Jillian was holding her elbow with one arm while the other hand was worrying the blonde ends of her hair. She looked scared.  Which would be confusing if he didn't know that was her common response when there was a disagreement, a learned response.

He didn't think of their current estrangement as a disagreement so much as a misunderstanding. That's what he'd practiced in the mirror telling her. How he wasn't an option, not if she didn't want him to be.

"Harry, what are you doing here?" She scanned the parking lot quickly.

"I had a craving for a burger the way you make it." She always slathered on the ketchup for him. It was very un-English of him, but he loved the American condiment in heavy doses. Plus. "thought you might need a ride home,  all the way home." He shrugged but wanted to bite off his own tongue. It was best not to bring up that conversation. Well, he was here to bring it up, but in a way to make up, not make Jillian feel defensive about Will.

Because she liked him.

She liked Will and felt it was important enough to say it out loud. Which Harry knew to be significant.

Her face changed a smidgeon and he wondered if she'd shut down on him, or give him a serrated comment and then return to ignoring him. He drew in a breath to prepare for the slice.

She must have caught it, his brace. She sighed and shook her head minutely. "What are you really doing here?"

No bullshit, his Jillian, his best friend. How honest should he be? "I miss you." He flashed his hands, ready for the rap he deserved on his knuckles.

She sighed, then Hermouth quirked. "I miss you too. I don't like not seeing you everyday, and so much has happened, but I'm not sure it's real because I haven't told you."

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. And I have big news too." He was grinning. Could practically feel his dimples. She missed him too. Had things to share, because even her boyfriend knowing didn't make them feel real. He assumed Will knew them her life happenings. Unless they were about him. Harry's stomach twisted, because the news might be about Will, her being in love with Will. He was gonna have to make his innards cast iron to hear about that. But it was better than the last month without hearing her laugh.

She shook her hair and it danced. "I shouldn't have just left like that and not talked to you. When you didn't come after me, or talk to me, I thought you were mad."

"I wasn't angry with you. I was ashamed. Why would I be angry with you?" He couldn't think of a time he was mad at her. Maybe when she broke his magnifying glass when they were 9?

Jillian just shrugged. Did anger need an explanation? "I mean, we never talked about, that, is, like that. I was afraid..." she trailed off. "Never mind. You don't get mad. Not at me, for being honest. I don't know why I forgot why you're my favorite person." Her smile was silly.

He usually countered. "I'm your favorite creature, and you know it." They were 12 when she'd dubbed him her favorite person, 'Only person?' 'Fine. Creature.'  Echoed in his ear

He thought they'd just watched 'the creature from the black lagoon' that day. The reference was topical. There was more to the exchange, which Jillian filled in a moment later.

"I'd still like you, even if you looked like that- and still wore your glasses!" His dimples deepened at the old tease. They had so many inside jokes.

"Jillian?" Sandra Tucker, the girl who campaigned to get softball added at their high school and lost, who now managed the dairy barn, continued. "You planning on finishing this floor or flirting with your back up boyfriend?"

Harry didn't need any of Jillian's slicing words, that appellation cut him to the bone.

"No, I'll finish. Sorry." But her brow was furrowed and her cheeks flushed. If he didn't know her better, he'd guess embarrassed. But he did, she was mad.

Harry sat outside and thought about Sandra's wrong idea. Is that what everybody thought? That he was the guy she'd been with until she got somebody better and now he was still hanging around like the most pathetic person, creature, imaginable? He was singing 'Helplessly Hoping' when she brought him out the leftover fries from the pan. She huffed when she put it down but managed a smiler. Her hair was flyaway and he could smell her sweat, but the red cheeks were still anger.

"I'm ready soon. I have to take out the trash. I hate when I'm on Patio." Subtext: I hate Sandra right now.

He nodded. When he looked up and they connected eyes, hers turned down at the end, soft like the rabbit jacket she'd loved so when her daddy brought it home for her. She'd burned it when he left. Harry had helped, but he remembered petting it with her. And her back when she cried the last time she'd pulled it over her shoulders, though it only came to her elbows by them, then ripped it off, the seams giving further as it flung into the flames.

He cut off whatever sweet thing she was going to placate him with. "Yeah, I'm sure the toilet cleaning and taking out the trash plus double sweep and mop makes it everyone's favorite assignment."

She'd bit her lip. And he saw resolve. He'd wanted to talk, but not about Sandra. Or how being a backup instead of partner felt. She was feeling sorry for him. He was pathetic.

Thankfullly, "Jillian!" Came from the door.

The face Jillian made right then, and when she saw Sandra drop the big black bag on the pavement, right where it could rip easily and give her 20 more minutes work, could kill. Sandra had erased the admiration Jillian'd had for the girl who strove for small town equality. She may have been socially aware, but she was also a bitchy boss.

He was sitting in his truck with the radio on loud when he saw her pulling out her ponytail and walking towards him. He was happy 'Hey Jude' was on and 'Hello, I Love You' had ended when her butt thudded into the leather. She was a slight thing, but all her frustration hit the bench seat with force.

"Rough night?" He mused.

"Rough month." She leaned her head toward him and slid close so she could put her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah." He agreed and put the truck in reverse. His fingertips caught her shoulder when he extended it over the seat to check his path. She shuddered. He felt it when his arm went around her. He pulled it down her back and avoided touching her like she was sharp or on fire. He held the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and hoped she didn't notice under the stop lights.

With her this close, the maneuver was uncomfortable.

"Sorry." He said low.

"Don't be."

They'd never been stuck with uncomfortable silences. Long stretches of air went unfilled between them, they never felt so tight. 

Harry decided to break it just before they reached the fork. Her place or his? "Do you want to go straight home?"

She shook her head.

"Mine?" He made the turn and chanced a glance.

She was biting her lip worriedly. "Can we just drive?"

He had a test in the morning. "Yeah, let's drive."

It felt hard, until they sang 'Don't Worry Baby' and she hooked her arm through his. Harry clasped a hand over hers and drove to the lake. The edges were frozen, would be another month at least before you could walk on it , but the truck was warm and they were thawing.

"Oh! Dick moved out!" She suddenly said right after the last note. "Mom even told him his name was perfect for him and slammed the door."

"That's good!" He turned toward her with high eyebrows.

"Yeah, except I had to pay the rent this month. But it was easier because Will's parents spoil him. So I hadn't spent any of my paychecks." She sighed and flounced her shoulders against the back seat and threw her hands out before looking at him.

Harry winced, he'd hoped she'd been a moment to late with the glance, or that it was dark enough to cover for him. There was a gap between them now, so she could talk with her hands with all the space she needed to gesticulate and he needed to breathe.

"Buts it's so much better. Well, my mom was a mess for the first week, but then it got better!" She gleed up at him and he couldn't help but smile.

How much of a mess he wondered. Just passed out and raging, or like that time he had to help Jillian take her to the shower and turn on the cold full blast? She'd cried all the way through it. But when her mom came round, her eyes had turned to green glass, all emotion and wet reflected away.

He didn't help her dry her mom out this time, and he'd seen Will drop her at the Kellerman's recently. Jillian had done it alone, so he figured this heartbreak called for beer, not whiskey. It wasn't good, nor as bad as it could be. It just was.

That's what she'd told him before, when he'd tried to get her to talk about it a couple years ago. 'Does it make you mad?' He'd prompted a day to late.

'What?' She'd looked up from the paper she was supposed to be writing and he was allegedly helping her with. She'd slept over the previous night. Her eyes were red when she arrived and he'd tried to ask all the questions he'd had since her dad left the house and black eyes behind him. He'd started with the most important one.

'You okay?' He'd finally got out while he pulled her through the window. It was too chilly to ride, but her very cold cheeks against his told him she had along the dark streets and in her too thin sweater. They may have been cooler for the wet there. He had to check.

'It's nothing. Just too quiet.'

'Quiet where?'

"Everywhere. Except my head.' She'd taken off his sweatshirt to reveal flannel pajamas. It was obvious there were not so many places to shop in town . He was wearing the same ones. They may have been the Christmas present his dad had got for both of them. His pants were too short now. Hers strained at the third button down.  'Can we sleep?' She's called his attention back

He nodded, and stopped asking questions when she may have answered. Was he being a bad friend? Or was he being a good friend? "It's better now?" He asked on his back and felt her hand search for his in the small space between them. Twin beds weren't meant for two, it's why he knew he'd move to the floor when she nodded off. Safer there.

"It's always better now." And he didn't push, because he was happy he was her safe place.

Did he push now? Maybe because he let her not say everything it may have been better to say before it was to late. That's why they were in their current predicament. What he didn't say, what she didn't. Harry let her off the hook. Because she didn't want to talk and because the things he thought he knew but had not had confirmed already haunted him.

But they'd just started talking again. Now, asking now would muck everything up. Maybe send her away. And they had other things, more prescient things to discuss or ignore. Their current issues: his hard on and soft heart for her. Her rejection of both.

What happened now? They missed each other. She missed him. It counted for something.

"Are we better?" He heard himself say, like if he said it louder it would crack the ice.

Her face pinched and he waited for whatever that face, he couldn't remember ever seeing that one, meant.

Suddenly, Jillian turned to him on the bench seat and pushed his glasses up onto his head and gripped his shoulders.

Oh god, was she going to kiss him? He'd never been kissed, well that one time under the mistletoe. But they were twelve and he didn't count it. He just remembered it. Could still feel it in his dreams.

She leaned in and looked in his eyes and his fell closed without his permisssion.

"Please look at me. I know you can see this close." She cocked her head and smiled. He was glad he'd opened his eye to see it. "Does that make you farsighted or nearsighted? I always mix those up."

He could feel her breath.

"I'm nearsighted. I can see better up close." He swallowed, "Like your face right now."

"Harry, I want you to look at me." She breathed. "I love you."

Oh god. He'd put that on a record if he could. Spin it round for the rest of eternity. "I love you too!" Bubbled out, a geyser. All the pressure, years of feelings and history and hope. They loved each other. His heart raced, he was buoyed up to the top by all their force. He forgot universal laws though. What goes up..... He was grinning, but she'd gone back to biting her lip. If he wasn't so selfishly elated, he might have noticed.

"Harry," her voice was gentle. Like the flap of a wing. "I love you, and I want to be with you forever, and live with you and dance in golden gate park with flowers in our hair."

"Yeah, yeah, me too!" God this was exciting, even the beginning of the free fall. Could he take the leap and tell her his plans? That was relevant news. They could. He'd been accepted. Even had a back up place. He was about to jump when he remembered the bottom.

"So we can't, it's not, there can't, not that kind of love. It ruins..." She trailed off. "There can't be any romance between us." Her voice was sure, but the needle skipped repeatedly while she was trying to get it out, like a scratch over the very surface of their song.

"What?" He didn't understand. How could there be forever if there was no romance?

"Look, I know what all the movies say, I've seen them too. But look around you, and think. That stuff, it may feel far out for a minute, maybe 15, or a couple years like your parents. But it doesn't last. When you mess it up with kissing and screwing." She sighed. "It doesn't last. People get stupid and then they get mean. Men especially. And if I've learned anything watching my mom, the easiest way to make a guy split is to sleep with him, or depend on him. I'd die if you cut out on me Harry."

"But I'd never, I wouldn't.." but he was caught up in what she was saying. Her reasoning. Did that mean she was or was not with Will? "So you're willing to risk it with Will?" He really had no brakes on his mouth when he was all worked up. His thoughts just sped out, from his broken heart into broken pleas.

"I'm not, we haven't." She shook her head. And he felt such relief. Though why he couldn't say. He had no ownership of her virginity, just jealousy. "I'm making him wait."

"So he won't leave?"

She nodded. "Will's not important, well, he is, but he's not forever, Harry." She looked up at him and the moon shone off the whites of her eyes. Pleading and hope and resignation.

Jillian hugged him then, and it wasn't the kiss he hurtle toward the sky for, but the tumble down, well he just became part of the cycle again. The Jillian one, where she got his hopes up and he felt so high on her, her love, and then crashed down when it wasn't what he hoped. But stayed right by her, to be sucked under and pushed up and crashed down again. Helplessly, he hoped her way gave them
Both what they wanted. Or something like it. He wanted to be forever.

"Okay." He heard himself agree to whatever she wanted.

"Okay?" She smiled and pressed her forehead together. "Far out! That means we get to be one, that we don't ever have to be alone! I won't leave you and you won't leave me. Promise?"

"Promise." He agreed and she hugged him up and like to crawl not just into his lap, but all the way into his heart. Like they were one person. And he didn't feel so alone. But Will made for an uncomfortable third. One he knew would hurt an confuse him as long as he was around.

After him? Who else would make them a triangle?

He may have been a big square, but he just wanted it to be the two of them, for each other, only.

He hoped, helplessly.