I know I said I was almost out of un-spoiler-y FELL teasers, but I guess I keep finding more. Here's the scene right after Birch invites Harley inside her apartment since he has nowhere else to go. The picture is the door of Birch's apartment building).
***
The oven timer beeps, breaking silence. I slide off the countertop to check the pizza.
Hands hugging a mug of hot water, Harley’s standing in the middle of the kitchen with dry socks, one of my over-sized shirts, and sweatpants. He could look ridiculous, since the sweatpants bob around his ankles, but somehow he pulls the outfit off with style. The too-small t-shirt helps. Although he’s skinny, he has a hot bod: definitely a six-pack and probably a really tan chest judging from his face. The loyal friend in me wants to call Ivy and brag/boast/rave about this boy, but knowing Ivy she’d kick him out and never let me ride the bus alone again.
A wallop of hot air rushes out of the oven when I open the door. The frozen pizza is crispy and golden now, pepperoni crunchy and cheese stringy. I lift it out, bang it onto the stovetop.
“You like pizza, right?”
Harley shrugs. “I’ll eat anything.”
“Should I cook another one?”
He looks at the linoleum floor, smiles, shrugs again. “Maybe. Yeah.”
Then silence swallows us up again as the pizza cools. I suppose there isn’t much to say. There’s more to wonder: what am I doing? What is he thinking? Why am I not afraid? I’m not; not really, at least. Whatever happened last night, he didn’t forget about me: he saved my life. And unlike Emery or Nolan, Harley keeps his hands off the pizza, feet off the couch, hands out of the fridge. I sneak one glance at him before going for a knife to cut the pizza, and he’s peeking at me out of the corner of his eye. That makes my heart jump up in my chest. He doesn’t look away when our eyes catch.
“What will your parents think?” he says.
They won't...need to know.”
So Harley picks up a slice. His eyes close. Mouth opens. And he devours. Inhales the whole pizza in probably four minutes without stopping to breathe. Emery and Nolan do this all the time, but with them it’s just because they’re boys. With Harley, it’s because he’s desperate. I stick another pizza in the oven.
“Thank you,” he says when he’s done. He sags against the counter and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. But his eyes jerk around the room, asking for more.
“The other one’ll be out in —”
But a smell singes the kitchen, faint and hot, and stops my words in my mouth. My eyes zip to the oven. I stumble back against the counter, adrenaline starting to explode in my brain and shoot into my limbs.
Run run —
“Harley,” I say, pressing one hand to my forehead. It’s sweaty.
Get out —
“Harley, the oven —”
Harley turns toward the oven, sees the smoke, grabs a hot pad and wrenches open the door. Smoke billows into the kitchen in cottony clouds, curls around the stove and reaches for the cupboards. I shrink back against the counter.
Get low, get out, call 911 —
Harley’s saying something as he closes the oven door. “No fire —” He waves the hot pad in the air and the smoke wafts toward me. I drop to the ground, hand over my mouth.
“Not toward me —”
“There’s no fire.” Harley throws the hot pad on the counter, turns around. “Birch?”
“Put it out.”
“There’s no fire.”
“Close the door.”
“It’s closed.”
“Get the smoke out — turn on the fan — I can’t breathe —”
Harley kneels next to me. His toes wriggle in his socks as he looks at me, crouched with his arms around his knees. “There’s no smoke.”
“There was smoke.”
“Yeah. It’s gone now.”
I rub my hand across my face, tangle it in my hair. The adrenaline seeps out of my pores and leaves me drained, shaky, nauseous. Like a fall leaf clinging to a tree.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I scoot away from him, get to my feet. He follows slower, eyebrows pinched together into an almost-unibrow.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m — never mind. Get the pizza out when the timer goes off.” Without looking at him again, I slip out of the kitchen. I don’t know what happened, what screw jiggled loose in my head after the fire, or what I can do to fix it. I can’t stop my reactions. There’s nothing to do except obey my screaming brain and duck and cover. And now Harley thinks I’m — crazy. In my room, I close the door and sag against it. My head’s throbbing and my face is all wet. I swipe at my tears. He’ll probably leave — and his leaving would be for the best. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with Mom, Ivy, and my conscious, since all three are urging me, no, Bee, this is stupid.
Then someone knocks on the door, one-two-three-four. “Birch?” It’s Harley. His voice is soft, like he’s whispering to a child, trying to comfort her and coax her out of hiding.
I sniff and swallow a few times. “What?”
“I’m — going to go now.”
My eyes snap open. On the floor, in the line of light showing beneath the door, I can see the shadows of his feet — he’s put his hiking boots back on.
“But thank you for the dinner. I — I won’t forget that.”
I hug my arms to my chest, new tears rolling down my cheeks. He won’t come back. But I want to know what could happen if he stayed, if we — I fling open the door. “Wait. Don’t go.”
Already halfway down the hall, Harley glances back. “I should,” he says, looking at the floor.
“I’m sorry about what happened in the kitchen.”
Harley’s eyes jump up to me. “It’s not because of that. I just shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s cold and rainy out there.”
Harley smiles a little. “I’m used to that.”
“Can I convince you to stay?”
“Why do you want me here?”
I swallow. “Because you have nowhere else to go.”
“I have the doorway.”
Why is this boy so stubborn? I almost stomp my foot. “No.”
“What?”
“I won’t let you sleep in that doorway,” I say. I swear a smile crinkles around his eyes. He combs one hand through his hair, sticking it straight up. It looks golden in the hall light. “It’s dark and wet and cold and you might get arrested. Or attacked.”
“I’m almost convinced,” he says, that smile hanging around his eyes and touching his mouth.
Then the front door rattles. Mom.
I love Prince Edward Island. I would love to live there. I would love to be Anne of Green Gables -- not only because she's witty and spunky, fiery-tongued and mistake/disaster-prone and imaginative -- but because she has Gilbert Blythe. Not Edward or Sam or even Gale, but this gentle and persistent (handsome) boy named Gilbert, who has loved her as long as he can remember.
