“He only cooks from it on Fridays,” Gabby said. “Which means we’ve got about twenty years before he gets through all of it.”
“People with long-term goals and projects live longer,” her father informed her. “Let’s play.”
It was a quicker-moving game than Ryan usually thought of Monopoly as being, all of them playing with the ruthless efficiency of people who did this a lot. Gabby trounced them all from the outset, buying up all the railroads and utilities and building hotels on all three green properties. “Do you have, like, a strategy for Monopoly?” Ryan asked finally.
“Gabby has a strategy for most things,” the little sister piped up. She’d been watching him carefully, Ryan noticed, all big eyes and intelligent expression behind her giant glasses. All five Harts had that look, actually, like when they weren’t playing board games maybe they sat around the living room discussing the themes of the various works of literature they were reading. It made Ryan, who could not remember the last time he’d read a book that wasn’t for school, feel a little nervous.
“So Ryan,” Mr. Hart said as he scooped the Free Parking money off the board and set about organizing it into neat piles in front of him, “how are you liking high school so far?”
Gabby groaned. “Please don’t interrogate him.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan said, reaching for another devil on horseback. He’d never eaten a date before; they tasted kind of like fruit snacks, but better. “I like it a lot, actually. It’s a lot bigger than my old school, so I’ve met a lot of new people so far.”
“Did you go to Colson Middle?” Mrs. Hart asked.
“No ma’am,” Ryan said without explaining the reason, which was that his dad thought the hockey coach at Colson Middle was a buffoon so his parents had sent him to a Catholic school they 100 percent couldn’t afford, TUITION PAST DUE notices stacking up on the kitchen table. It had been a relief to get out of there. “I went to Saint Thomas Aquinas.”
Mrs. Hart nodded. “I have some clients who send their kids there,” she told him. “But they were a bit younger than you.”
“My wife owns an interior design business,” Mr. Hart explained, smiling at her over the coffee table. Ryan could tell that the Harts were the kind of parents who kissed each other in public. “She did this whole house, actually.”
“Not my room,” Kristina piped up. “I did my own room, really. The color is Lavender Secrets.”
“And there you have it,” Gabby said, voice dripping with faux-brightness. “Now you know everything about us.”
“Well, not everything,” Mr. Hart pointed out, not missing a beat. “He hasn’t seen your baby pictures. I could whip those out, if you’re so inclined, or—”
“Oh, you people are hilarious,” Gabby said, but she was smiling. Ryan liked her around her family, he realized; she was more relaxed than she’d been outside school earlier, cross-legged on the rug and leaning against the arm of the sofa, tilting her head back a bit while Celia played idly with her hair.
“Do you guys have any classes together?” Mrs. Hart asked, reaching for her wineglass. Ryan and Gabby didn’t, but he and Michelle shared fifth-period Algebra I, which led to a long discussion of Mr. DiBenedetto’s chronic, audible flatulence.
“It was like that when I had him too,” Celia said, leaning forward to roll the dice. Kristina moved the Scottie dog around the board on her behalf. “Like a freaking foghorn every time he went up to the whiteboard.”
“Honestly, Celia,” Mrs. Hart said, clearly trying not to laugh and mostly failing. “That’s terrible.”
“It was terrible!” Celia agreed as Kristina reached one hand inside her sweatshirt, letting out a noisy armpit fart that Ryan found truly impressive.
“Nice work,” he told her admiringly. Kristina beamed.
It was strange and good, being around this family: how easy they were with each other, how they made each other laugh. Ryan loved his parents, obviously, and it wasn’t like they never spent any time together, but even back when things between his mom and dad had been friendly as they ever were, they certainly hadn’t had a weekly game night. It should have been corny—it was corny—but it was also . . . nice?
Michelle took off pretty soon after they were finished, and Ryan meant to follow—he needed to go by Remy’s party for at least a little while, or he’d never hear the end of it on Monday—but he found himself stalling, sorting the money back into the bank and carrying a couple of dirty glasses into the kitchen. When he made a move to put them in the dishwasher, Gabby looked at him like she thought he was about to try and steal their fancy silverware. “Okay, enough,” she said, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. “Real talk. Why are you actually here?”
“Why am I—?” Ryan broke off, looking at her for a moment. Her eyes were very, very blue. He thought about telling her the truth, about explaining it to her: his dad and the van and the waitress, that he’d wanted to be somewhere solid and safe-feeling and something about the way Gabby was holding herself this afternoon in the school parking lot made her house seem like a good bet. She seemed like the kind of person who would understand that, and he was surprised to realize that he actually wanted to say it, but just as he was opening his mouth Celia came into the kitchen with a stack of tiny appetizer plates, stopping in the doorway with her head tilted to the side.
“Sorry,” she said, eyes cutting back and forth between them. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Gabby took a giant step back like Ryan was radioactive. “You’re not, Celia, Jesus,” she said irritably. “We’re just talking.”
Celia did not look convinced. “Okay,” she said, setting the plates in the sink and backing away with her hands up. “Whatever you say.”
Gabby waited until Celia was gone, then turned back to him. “So?” she prodded. “Are you gonna answer me or what?”
Ryan shrugged. “I really like Monopoly,” he lied.
Gabby heaved out a noisy sigh, like she’d expected about as much from him. “Whatever,” she said. “Don’t you have a party to be at?”
Ryan considered that. “I do, actually,” he admitted after a moment. “You wanna come?”
GABBY
“Really?” Celia asked ten minutes later as Gabby shrugged into her jacket, Ryan’s friends waiting in their SUV outside. “You’re going to a party?”
“Can you stop?” Gabby asked sharply, eyes cutting to Ryan. She didn’t want him to know what a weirdo she was any more than he already knew it, and she didn’t want to think about why.
“Sorry,” Celia said. Then, to Ryan, in a voice like she was explaining a terrible illness: “Gabby just doesn’t usually like parties that much, is all.”
“I already told him that,” Gabby said, although the look on Ryan’s face clearly indicated he had no recollection of the event—just like he apparently had no recollection of most of last Saturday night, which was a blessing. The more Gabby thought about it, the surer she was that the memory lapse on his part was for the best. So she’d had a little crush on him for five minutes before she realized what an idiotic proposition that was on her part. Who cared? No harm, no foul.
She’d fully intended to tell him to go screw when he’d asked her to go to this party. After all, there was no effing way. She could just imagine the baffled looks on people’s faces when they walked in, everybody wondering what on earth somebody like her was doing there with Ryan McCullough, like maybe he was part of some outreach program that paired popular kids with socially inept shut-ins. On top of which, it probably wasn’t even a real invitation—after all, why would he want her hanging around when he was with his actual friends? She was weird. She was awkward. She played Monopoly with her family every Friday night, for Pete’s sake. Gabby knew herself well enough to know she was nobody’s idea of a fun time.
But: “I mean it,” Ryan had said, leaning comfortably against the counter in her parents’ kitchen, that dumb earnest expression on his face like he was sincerely interested in havi
ng her around. He was stupidly, annoyingly good-looking. It made Gabby want to knee him in the nuts. “It’ll be a good time.”
She opened her mouth again to say she couldn’t. She opened her mouth to tell him he should leave. She could feel herself starting to get anxious just thinking about it, heart skipping like a stone across a pond, but then she’d remembered how he’d talked to her last weekend in her bedroom. How he’d looked at her like she wasn’t odd at all.
“Sure,” Gabby said, before she could talk herself back out of it. “I can tag along.”
Now her mom pulled her into the stairwell, reaching out and tucking Gabby’s hair behind her ears. “Hey. You want me to say you can’t go?”
That was exactly what Gabby wanted, actually; she’d used her mom as a fall guy a million times before, starting back when she was seven and didn’t want to go to Lily Jackson’s trampoline party. But this felt different, for some reason. Being with Ryan felt different.
“No,” she said, surprising herself. “It’s okay.”
And it was okay, she thought, sitting sandwiched in the middle of the backseat of some upperclassman’s SUV, Ryan on her left side and a kid from her biology class on her right. Rihanna blared on the stereo; the autumn wind ruffled Gabby’s hair through the open window as they pulled up to a tidy-looking Cape Cod–style house on the corner. This was normal; this was what people did. Totally, totally fine.
She made it almost all the way up to the front door before the panic hit.
Gabby closed her eyes for a moment, though she knew she was powerless to stop it. All she could do was hang on. She’d been anxious as long as she could remember; she’d been having panic attacks since she was eleven, when Kristina found her curled into a hysterical ball underneath her bed. Sometimes, like now, Gabby knew why they were happening. Other times they came on for what felt like no reason, halfway through math class or in the middle of the night. They always started the same way: her heart skittering in her chest like she’d been electrocuted, her armpits prickling damply with sweat. In another second she was going to be gasping for air like a hooked fish, and she did not not not want to be walking into a stranger’s party when that happened.
She made herself slow her walk as her heart thumped and her throat constricted, dropping back to the rear of the group stealthily enough that Ryan and the rest of his friends wouldn’t notice. She was an expert at this, the ninja exit. Celia would pick her up, maybe. Celia would make fun of her, but Celia would pick her up.
Ryan’s friends crushed through the front door of the house, loud and rowdy. Ryan held it open behind him, then did an actual double take as he realized Gabby was still standing at the bottom of the stoop.
“Hey,” he said, coming back down a step, “are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, totally.” Gabby nodded. God, the only thing worse than having a panic attack was trying to have one in secret while someone else was watching. It was like trying to go to the bathroom without making any noise. “I’m good.”
“Are you sure? You kind of look like you’re going to hurl.” Ryan came all the way back down, putting his hand on her arm. Gabby flinched and he pulled it right back. “Sorry,” he said.
Gabby shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said. “I just need a minute.” A minute, sure. A minute for her breath to stop coming in gross, ragged gasps like she’d just run a marathon with no training; a minute for the golem sitting on her chest to relax his grip around her heart.
Ryan looked at her. “Wow,” he said, sounding almost conversational. “Your sister was like, not fucking around, huh?”
God, she could not believe this was happening right now. “No, Ryan,” she said tightly. “She was not fucking around.”
Ryan nodded. “Okay,” he said. “What usually helps?”
Gabby curled her hand around the skinny trunk of a freshly planted tree on the front lawn. “You wanna know, like, what I do when I’m having a panicker?”
“Yeah,” he said, “if that’s what’s happening to you now.”
Gabby could hear the party from inside the house, music and somebody laughing shrilly. She wished he would just go in there and leave her alone. “Stop,” she said. She didn’t trust this tree to be holding her weight. Wouldn’t that be perfect, if on top of everything she ripped these people’s brand-new sapling out by the roots like the Incredible Hulk in front of the cutest boy at Colson. “This is embarrassing.”
“Why is it embarrassing?” Ryan asked, sitting down on the bottom step. “It’s like, an illness, right? You wouldn’t be embarrassed if you were having an asthma attack.”
Gabby hesitated. She appreciated the sentiment—she thought it was surprisingly evolved of him, actually—but she didn’t know how to explain to him that this wasn’t like an asthma attack, not really. If she had asthma, nobody would make her do triathlons to build her character. But going to parties, joining clubs, calling for pizza—people always thought she should be trying a little harder to do stuff like that.
Ryan stretched his long legs out in front of him, casual. “Do you see a doctor about it?” he asked.
Oh, god, here they went. “No,” Gabby said, crossing her arms and wiping her clammy hands on the sleeves of her jacket. She wanted to make herself small enough that nobody would be able to look at her. She wanted to run all the way home. “I can handle it myself.”
“Really?” Ryan asked. “Because, no offense, but it doesn’t really seem like you’re handling it super great right now.”
Gabby’s eyes narrowed. “Because you know me so well, right?”
“Not at all,” Ryan said. “I’m just a casual observer.”
“You should mind your own business, then.” In fact Gabby had seen a therapist, for three long months when she was twelve, a guy with a gray goatee named Dr. Steiner, who asked her annoying, redundant questions while he let her win at checkers. Gabby had not been impressed. Now whenever she thought about trying again, it just felt like so much work. Having to go in there every week and talk about her stupid emotions. Having to explain herself to somebody new.
“My dad left,” Ryan announced out of nowhere.
Gabby blinked. “Huh?” Then, realizing abruptly what a rude response that was, she said, “I’m sorry.” She blinked again, letting go of the tree and standing upright, taking a step toward him. “Like, today?”
Ryan shook his head. “A week or so ago. The night I met you, actually. He came and picked his stuff up today, though.”
“I’m sorry,” Gabby said again. She had no idea why he was telling her this in the middle of her panic attack—jocks were exactly as self-absorbed as she’d always figured they were, maybe—but she was interested in spite of herself. She sat down next to him on the stoop, trying again to swallow down the wad of panic stuffed like a gym sock in her throat. “Did you know it was going to happen, or—”
“See, that’s the thing,” Ryan said. “You’d think I would have, right? Because they fought literally all the time. But actually I sort of—” He broke off with a shrug.
“Didn’t see it coming?” Gabby supplied.
“I did not see it coming,” Ryan admitted. “I know it’s probably better in the long run, for my mom at least. But it still sucks a massive wang, Gabby, I will tell you.” He shrugged again. “Thanks for letting me borrow your normal family tonight, is I guess what I’m saying.”
Gabby snorted. “They’re not normal,” she assured him, glancing down and picking at a loose thread in the seam of her jeans. “I think I’m pretty solid evidence of that.”
“Whatever,” Ryan said, and it sounded like he meant it. “Everybody’s got something, right?” When she looked up he was smiling at her, lopsided. She wished she didn’t like his smile so much. “You feeling any better now?” he asked.
Gabby hesitated, realizing with no small amount of surprise that she was. He had, in fact, successfully distracted her out of her panic attack. It wasn’t a thing a lot of people knew how to accomplish, and she doubte
d he’d done it on purpose or even with any awareness that that’s what he was doing, but there it was.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I am. I mean, not better like I want to go into your party? But better like I’m not going to suffocate and die.”
Ryan nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Do you want me to—” He broke off as the door opened and a giant dude with a crew cut ambled out through it, beer in hand. “Hey, McCullough,” he said, looking at Gabby with an expression that wasn’t quite a leer. “Who’s your lady?”
Ryan didn’t move at all, sprawled casual and content across the stoop, but Gabby watched as something in his expression changed in a way that made her think of goalies putting on a thousand layers of protective gear. She felt her heart trip again, anxiety spiking, but Ryan’s grin, when it came, was calm as the surface of a lake.
“Don’t be a dick,” he said, tilting his chin in her direction. “This is my friend Gabby.”
NUMBER 8
THE NEAR MISS
SOPHOMORE YEAR, SPRING
RYAN
Halfway through his third Mountain Dew at Langham Lanes on a gray Wednesday afternoon in March, Ryan watched as Gabby hurled a purple bowling ball down the shiny hardwood and knocked down all ten pins.
“Suck it, McCullough,” she said cheerfully, thrusting her arms into the air.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ryan said, but he laughed as she did a dorky little victory dance, her name flashing on the screen above their heads. Gabby’s parents had signed her up for a peewee bowling league when she was in kindergarten and refused to play any other kind of organized sport, which Ryan found hysterical, but it also meant she walloped him soundly every single time they came here. And they came here a lot.
Not that Ryan was complaining. He liked it at the bowling alley, the brightly-colored stain-resistant ’80s-patterned carpet and the wheezy rattle of the ball return, the old lady at the shoe rental desk who had their sizes memorized. He suspected Gabby liked it because there was no chance of running into anyone he knew. From the very beginning, their friendship had taken place separately from the rest of Ryan’s life, away from everything—and everyone—else. And that was exactly how Gabby seemed to want it.
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