The Rule of Thirds

by Chantel Guertin

  “It’s not your party, it’s Dace’s. And you’d be a good host to me.”

  Ben grabs my hand and starts leading me around the side of the house.

  “Hang on, I just have to pee,” I say once we get through the gate to the side of the house. He follows me up the steps, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind as I grab the key and unlock the door, then put the key back under the mat. “Pretend you didn’t just see that. And you have to wait here,” I say, one hand on the doorknob.

  “Why?”

  “Nobody’s allowed in the house. If you have to go to the bathroom, you have to use the poolhouse. I’m sorry, but Dace’ll kill me if I break the rules.”

  “Come on. You can trust me,” he begs, his big blue eyes wide and sad, like a puppy dog.

  I shake my head. He comes closer and nuzzles on my ear, which tickles, even though I bet it’s supposed to feel sexy. I squirm away but I can’t back up since I’m already pressed against the door. I really have to pee.

  “I’ll just be a second.”

  “And I’ll just wait inside the door. Surely it’s not breaking the rule if I’m not doing anything inside the house.”

  “Um . . .” Does his logic make sense? Between the spiked lemonades and my bladder, I can’t focus. I turn the door handle and . . . he’s inside. “Wait here,” I say, pointing at the floor like he’s a dog. But he doesn’t listen. Instead of using the bathroom on the main floor, I race up the stairs, thinking I can get away from him and he’ll stay downstairs, but that’s obviously faulty logic, because he follows me right up the stairs. As I pass Vivian’s room, I see Cole by the bed with Dace. Whoops. I guess she’s breaking our only rule too.

  Dace’s room is two doors down. “You wait here for me.” I say, pushing him inside. I shut the door, thinking he’s at least hidden if Dace comes out, though really, if she finds him in there she’ll probably be more upset with me for letting him in her room at all. I’ll just blame it on the spiked lemonade. And besides, I highly doubt she’s coming out of her mom’s room anytime soon.

  “I missed you,” Ben says as soon as I return to Dace’s room.

  “I was only gone a minute.”

  He shuts the door behind me, pressing me up against it. “It was too long. Too long to be away from a girl I like so much.”

  “You’re so direct.”

  “Isn’t it good to be direct? To be honest?”

  I sneak a peek at the clock on the dresser. It’s nearly 11. If Dylan wasn’t going to come, he should’ve said so.

  Ben grabs my waist and turns me around so we’re facing the mirror on the back of the door. “We look good together,” he says. “Don’t you think?” But it’s clear he’s looking at himself. My reflected image goes red as he nuzzles my ear.

  “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  And before I can say anything, he’s spinning me back around and then his lips are on mine. Again. And I can’t help thinking what Dr. Judy would say.

  “We should go back outside,” I say, taking a step back. He smells like beer.

  “Or we could stay here,” Ben says.

  He pulls me closer. “Come on . . .” he says, trying to lead me over to the bed. To second base. Oh no. I am staying firmly on first base. No more bases are going to be passed today. “I thought you were into me,” he says. It’s almost a whine.

  “I am,” I say. Face it, Pippa. Dylan’s not coming. I try to think clearly: I’m in Dace’s room with a boy who’s totally into me. Who tells me he likes me. Who wants to kiss me. And I like him. Right? And Dr. Judy told me to do what I want this week, without worrying about the outcome.

  I’m just not actually sure I can do that. Or if I want to.

  “I’m not sure if I like you in that way,” I say, then instantly regret it. “I mean, yet.”

  He looks annoyed, then his face softens. “You’re not sure, huh?”

  “It’s just . . . It’s all happening a bit fast. Maybe if we just talked a bit. Tell me more about you. Or . . . Buffalo. Or what your favorite TV show is.”

  “I think if I kiss you some more, you’ll know a lot quicker if you like me or not than if I tell you about my favorite TV show.”

  He leans into me and we’re kissing, just like that. I try to concentrate on the kissing itself, and channeling his tongue inside my mouth rather than all over it. He kisses like Emma’s golden retriever. No, it’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with soft and slobbery kisses. They’re romantic, not rough. That’s nice! Of course it is. But how does Dylan kiss? I bet there’s the perfect amount of roughness, just like his hands.

  Stop thinking about Dylan while kissing Ben!

  “Maybe we should go back outside,” I say, peeling myself away.

  “That bed looks pretty good. We could just lie here and talk,” he says.

  “Nice try . . .” I open the door.

  He sighs, but grabs his satchel and follows me out of Dace’s room and back down the stairs.

  “Walk me out?” he says when we get to the bottom.

  “You’re going?” I’m not really surprised. He mumbles something about a curfew.

  “Oh,” I say, nodding. “Of course, you should go then.” He tells me he’ll text me later, but he doesn’t call me babe and he doesn’t kiss me again, not even on the cheek.

  There’s no use in me staying any longer either. Dylan’s obviously not coming. I don’t know why I even let myself think for a minute he’d actually show up. Back upstairs in Dace’s room I take off my cover-up and pull my white T-shirt and stretchy skirt overtop of my bikini, throw my Tisch hoodie on, then pull my hair into a messy topknot. My flip-flops are at the back door. Dace is out by the pool, standing at the end of a lounge chair. Asher is either trying to undo her bathing suit ties or hang on to them to stay somewhat vertical-ish. Either way, he isn’t succeeding. She swats him away and then throws her arms around me. “Don’t gooooooo.”

  “Be good,” I say.

  I walk around to the side gate and pull it open. Dylan is standing on the other side. My breath catches in my throat.

  “Philadelphia Greene,” he says.

  But there’s movement behind him: Callie.

  Callie?

  “Are we too late?” she says.

  Callie’s wearing a tiny white sundress, blue and white wedges and her hair is in a side-braid. She looks really good.

  “Kind of,” I say, not completely able to hide my disappointment. “I’ve got to be home soon. But go on in—there’s still a bunch of people there.”

  I go to brush past him, but Dylan grabs my arm. “Hey, wait a sec?” Dylan asks, then turns to Callie. “Thanks for the ride. You stay. I’ll just walk home.”

  “You sure?” Callie asks, and Dylan nods.

  “OK. I’m gonna go in for a bit,” she says. She kisses Dylan on the cheek, gives me a smile and then pushes open the gate to the backyard.

  I start walking to the front of the house, and Dylan follows alongside me.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” he says. “How was the party?”

  “Fun, I guess,” I say.

  Dace is able to play it cool better than me. She could be the angriest person alive but you wouldn’t know it unless she wanted you to. In the last three months I’ve probably talked about my feelings more than I ever had in the previous 16 years, and they still remain a mystery to me. I don’t have any control over them. When I know I should be full of emotion, and letting it show, I can’t even muster up a tear, but then when I’d rather just be cool and fun, all I can do is over-obsess.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Dylan asks.

  “Nothing!” I say, and I force a smile. “You know, you didn’t have to come if you already had plans tonight with Callie.”

  “Plans, yes, I guess—I . . . I was playing a show.”

  He invited Callie to a
show I didn’t know he had?

  “How was it?” I steal a look at him to see him running a hand through his hair.

  “I’m really messing this up, aren’t I?” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I didn’t invite you because I figured you were busy with the party. And Callie was already coming to see me play . . .”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Anyway, I’m glad you invited me,” he says.

  “You are?”

  We just look at each other.

  “I have an idea,” he says. “How much time do you have? What’s your curfew?”

  My watch gives me less than half an hour until I have to be home. “Midnight.”

  “We can do it,” Dylan says. “But we have to run.” He starts down the driveway.

  “You’re serious?” His goofy half-run is kind of hilarious. I start jogging behind him. He tells me it’s worth it and I speed up.

  “Flip-flops. Not. Really. Appropriate. Footwear,” I say, panting. He laughs and grabs my hand as we run down the middle of the deserted street. A minute later he slows to a walk, leading me from the lit road down a darkened dirt path between two houses.

  We’re headed toward the ravine, but using an entrance I’ve never taken. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. As though sensing my apprehension, Dylan squeezes my hand tighter. But it’s not the walk that’s making me nervous. The path narrows through the trees so that we have to go single file. “You have to duck a bit,” he says, dropping my hand, and I do, the bottom branches just brushing the top of my head as I follow him down a hill. Eventually the path comes out at a wooden bridge over a creek I never knew existed. I put my hands on the railing and Dylan comes up and stands behind me, placing his arms on the railing beside mine, so that he’s sort of hugging me from behind, without actually wrapping his arms around me.

  “Wait a second, then you’ll see.”

  As though someone flipped a switch, the sky lights up with tiny stars. Only they’re not stars.

  I gasp, wishing I had my camera. “It’s beautiful. What is it?”

  “Fireflies,” Dylan says, his breath warm on my neck. It sends chills up and down, in the best possible way.

  “But aren’t they usually out in the summer?”

  “It’s because it’s so warm. They’ll only live a few days. The energy to light up zaps all their life from them. Sad but beautiful.” Neither of us says anything for a few moments, the only sound the hum of the fireflies’ vibration in the night air.

  “I should get you home,” he says, his breath warm. “Even though I could stand here all night with you. I really like you, Philadelphia Greene.”

  “I like you too,” I whisper, not wanting to break the spell.

  He puts his hands on my waist and turns me around so I’m facing him. Oh, his eyes, the stubble, his dimple . . . On my face I can feel the warmth of his breath. Wrigley’s Spearmint? He brushes a strand of hair away from my face and those beautiful green eyes are getting closer, closer, closer . . .

  “WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?” blasts my phone.

  Oh my god, seriously?

  No, really, seriously?

  Dylan kind of shakes himself. Our eyes meet. Yes, his gaze says, the worst-timed phone call in the history of the world was not a figment of my imagination.

  “WHO? WHO? WHO?” asks my phone, as I walk up the hill to answer it. It’s like my phone is taunting me, asking me if I know. I haven’t even kissed Dylan, but I know the answer to which boy. It couldn’t be any clearer.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 7 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT

  It takes us forever—or at least the entirety of Breakfast Club—to clean up. Dace makes a rule that we can’t talk about the guys until we’re done. Which is pure torture but mostly I think she just doesn’t want to talk, period, because she’s so hungover. A million years later, we put the last garbage bag in the garage, and then set ourselves up with another round of Advil, coffees and bacon and sit on the stools at the breakfast bar.

  “OK now, where to start?” Dace says, and I give her a look. “Yeah, you win. Funeral Boy first.” All Dace knows is that Dylan showed up at the party with Callie but didn’t come in. I recap the 34 glorious minutes we were together.

  “But no kiss?” Dace says.

  “No, no kiss. And then I ran home and that was it. But it was super romantic. Seriously though, in hindsight, why was I so adamant about making curfew?”

  “No clue. But you’re cute,” Dace says. “So . . . Funeral Boy, then?”

  “Hands down. It was perfection.” I sigh. “OK, tell me what happened with you. I witnessed rounds 1 and 2, but am I missing any others?”

  “Rounds 1 and 2 of what?”

  “Cole and Asher.”

  “I didn’t hook up with Cole.” She makes a face. “Actually I barely saw him the whole night. Why—did you see him?”

  I tell her how I saw her—at least I thought I did—with Cole in her mom’s room. It was definitely Cole.

  “You were breaking the rule?” she asks, picking at a slice of bacon.

  “Sorry.”

  “So he was in Viv’s room with a girl?”

  I nod. Dace’s face clouds over, and she takes another swig of coffee. I feel bad about swooning over Dylan; she probably didn’t have the best night with either guy. But she stands up again and shakes it off.

  “Oh well, whatever,” she says, picking up her phone and studying it. “Asher and I did it last night,” she says, as though it’s every day that you have sex for the first time. My mouth literally drops open. Dace taps something into her phone, then puts it back—face down—on the table. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I know she’s not a virgin now and I still am, but somehow, despite being totally hungover, with ashen skin and matted hair, she looks even more glam than ever.

  “And I thought my non-kissing moment was epic.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Pip. It’ll happen for you too, eventually.”

  “So . . . is Asher gonna get to be your boyfriend now?”

  Dace rolls her eyes at me and goes around the breakfast bar to the main counter. “Sex does not equal lifelong commitment. It was no big deal.” She pours herself more coffee from the carafe.

  “Really?”

  “Well, I don’t want to spoil it for you,” she says, moving to fill up my cup but stopping when she realizes I haven’t touched it. “Anyway, it’s indescribable. You’ll need to find out for yourself.” She puts the carafe back on the warmer.

  Fears officially realized: it does change things. This is why I didn’t want one of us to have sex before the other. She’s acting differently already. Like I can’t handle it. Maybe I can’t.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 6 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT

  Dylan: Food Alert! Cherry Blasters playing free outdoor concert tomorrow night at Hanlan’s Field. They’re kinda scruffy hipster. Want to go and test the theory — do ugly guys with food name make good music?

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1 5 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT

  Mom is not thrilled with the idea of me going to a concert on a school night. And she is even less thrilled with the idea of me going to a concert with a guy she’s never heard of. “Mom, don’t worry about it, he’s a nice guy, he got accepted to Harvard!” is my comeback to that one.

  “It’s October, Pippa,” she says, and already I can see this comeback has backfired. “If he was accepted at Harvard, why isn’t he at Harvard?”

  “Mom, just trust me, OK?”

  She makes a couple more protests—she doesn’t like the sound of this, please be careful, she doesn’t want me making a habit of going out on school nights, don’t I have homework to do, blah blah blah. And then: permission granted. I don’t even care that I have to be home by 11. The concert starts at eight and there’s only one opener and Cherry Blasters only have two albums so, yeah,
11. Probably it’ll be over a bit after 10, actually, but I want a bumper in there so that I have some time before I get that blast of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” With a few more Dylan-ward texts the plan’s established: we’re meeting at 6, after my shift at St. Christopher’s.

  Highlights of the day before the night of: lunch is a photo club meeting that sees us going around sharing our Threes photos. I almost think Ben’s not going to show up, but he eventually does, about fifteen minutes into the meeting. He sits at the end of the table, not making eye contact with any of us. When it’s his turn, he flicks through an iPad photo album, and it’s weird. I recognize a couple of the photos from our afternoon in the park—three trees, three logs, three flagpoles I somehow missed. But once again his photos are not quite right. The angles are all off. They lack any sense of composition. They’re nothing like the pictures he showed us last week. Maybe he’s just having an off week?

  I go last, after Gemma. Then there’s a moment where you can feel the room’s tension. “About next week’s theme,” I say, and everybody flicks to everyone else’s gaze. “Any ideas?”

  Nada. Zilch. Zip. Which is what I was kind of hoping. “So,” I say, “what if we just skip the theme this week?”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey agrees. “I’m pretty busy putting my entry together for Vantage Point.”

  As are we all, Jeffrey. As. Are. We. All.

  After school is fun with sick people. I’m back on flower delivery. I guess because I did such a good job last week? Every time I take an elevator I expect Dylan to get on. But no, it’s all uneventful until I pick up a skateboard-shaped cookie, decorated with every type of candy imaginable. The address tag lists a room on the fourth floor, back in the Rehabilitation Ward.

  “Howie?” I say as I knock on the door, guessing the patient’s name based on the icing inscription on the candy skateboard. I push open the door and find a boy, about 11, lying on the bed. The cast that goes ankle to thigh has about a thousand signatures on it. His eyes widen when he sees the edible skateboard.

  “Holy crap, bring that over here,” he says, and I carry it over to the bed. A real skateboard rests against the wall beside the head of his bed. He notices my camera around my neck. “Hey, you take pictures?”