Leah on the Offbeat

by Becky Albertalli

  Anna rolls her eyes. “Okay, do you even realize how ridiculous you’re being? It’s senior year. There are two months left of school. Ever. And you guys have been friends since middle school. You’re going to throw that away? Are you that fucking stubborn?”

  “Don’t you dare act like this is my fault.”

  “God, just stop.” Anna sighs. “Leah, she knows she messed up. She was upset. She said something stupid. Can you please just let her apologize?”

  “Abby’s the one she should be apologizing to.”

  “Well, you’re the one who’s upset about this.”

  “You think Abby’s not upset?” My cheeks are suddenly burning. I can’t even say her name without blushing.

  “Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that. How does Abby even know what Morgan said?” Anna asks, eyes narrowing.

  “Are you asking if I told her?”

  Anna shrugs.

  “Oh my God. That’s seriously what you’re focusing on right now?”

  “Leah, don’t do this.” She sighs. “Can you just talk to Morgan. Please?” Her voice softens. “I’m really sick of being in the middle.”

  “Then stop putting yourself in the middle.”

  “Can you just stop? Okay? I just want things to be normal. We don’t have a lot of time left.”

  I look at her, and suddenly I’m eleven years old. A freckly mess of a sixth grader with no friends. Literally none. I’d go to school, come home, and watch TV with Mom. I’d spend lunch periods reading manga in the bathroom. It was right after my dad left, so my mom was always angry or weepy, and the thing about Morgan and Anna is that they were the first people here to give a shit about me. They were my friends even before I knew Simon and Nick existed. So maybe I’m an asshole. Maybe I’m overreacting.

  I swear to God, someone tied a knot in my stomach.

  Anna shakes her head slowly. “Like, what’s next? Are you going to find a reason to hate me? And Nick? What about Simon? Are you going to shut us all out because you can’t deal with saying good-bye?”

  “Okay, that’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  “Is it?”

  “This isn’t about me,” I snap. “Morgan said something racist. And she didn’t apologize to Abby. So, that’s it. We’re done here.”

  I turn on my heel and storm out of Starbucks, leaving Anna standing in front of the counter with her mouth hanging open.

  22

  SIMON TEXTS ME BEFORE I even get to my car. Can you come to Waffle House? Like right now?

  I write back immediately. Eerily perfect timing. Just stepping out of Starbucks. I almost wonder if he knew. Waffle House is so close, I could actually walk there.

  Oh awesome—we’re in the back, come find us!

  My stomach drops. Us?

  Me and Nick, he replies.

  Fuck. Fuckstravaganza.

  God, the thought of facing Nick right now. I don’t even know how I’ll look him in the eye. What if he just knows? What if he can read it on my face? Guess what, Nick! Guess what I did! With your ex-girlfriend! Who you’re still in love with!

  Like, this isn’t some minor fuckup. This is a straight-up friend felony.

  I stare at the screen of my phone, wondering how I can possibly wriggle out of this. Maybe now’s the time for one of those fictional diarrhea attacks Simon’s so strangely fond of.

  Or not. I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to face Nick eventually.

  I can be there in five, I write back.

  You’re the best, Simon writes.

  It’s so warm and breezy out that I think I actually will walk. Might as well leave my car in the gentlemen’s club parking lot. Wouldn’t be the first time a car parked there for hours.

  When I get there, they’re slumped on opposite sides of a booth, picking at a single shared waffle. It’s a sad fucking scene. “Hey,” I say, sliding in next to Simon.

  Nick perks up. “Hey! Welcome back. How was your road trip?”

  My heart twists when he says it. Maybe one day the phrase road trip won’t remind me of Abby. I tuck my legs up, cross-legged on the seat, and press my lips together. “It was good.”

  “Good.” He nods quickly. “Hey, so, I was wondering . . .”

  “Here we go,” Simon murmurs.

  A waitress appears, and I order a waffle and a black coffee. All business. But as soon as she leaves, Nick launches right in. “How was Abby? Like, was she sort of okay, or—I mean, I don’t know. Was she acting weird?”

  Shit.

  “She seemed . . .”

  “Like, was she crying?”

  “Um. A little bit?”

  I mean, it’s true. She cried a little bit. Right after I called her out. Which was right after she kissed me.

  “Whoa. Okay.” Nick’s eyes widen. “That’s . . . okay, good to know.”

  I leap frantically toward a subject change. “So, how was your trip?”

  “It was great,” Simon says. There’s this catch in his voice.

  But before I can ask him what’s wrong, Nick’s off and running again. “I just miss her, you know? Like, we haven’t talked for a week. I keep almost calling her. It’s completely automatic. I just. Ugh.” He rubs his forehead. “This was a mistake, right? We shouldn’t have broken up.”

  “Well,” Simon says carefully. “She broke up with you.”

  It’s like Nick doesn’t even hear him. “I should have fought for her.” His voice quivers. “She was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I just let her go. What was I thinking?”

  Simon shoots me a glance.

  “I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I say finally.

  “I just didn’t fight hard enough.” He shakes his head. “I should have applied to Georgia.”

  “But you love Tufts,” Simon says uncertainly.

  “I love Abby.”

  I feel almost dizzy. I can’t quite line my thoughts up. All I know is this: Nick loves Abby. I kissed Abby. And if he knew, I don’t think he’d ever be okay. He would never recover.

  “Wait.” He peers at me suddenly. “Did she hook up with someone?”

  “What?”

  “She did, didn’t she?”

  “Nick.” Simon sighs.

  “Just tell me.” He leans forward. “Who was it—some frat bro?”

  “Um.”

  “Fuck. I knew it.” He leans back in the booth. “Shit. I can’t believe this.”

  I swear to God, I might die. My stomach’s twisting in twenty directions. I don’t think I could speak if I tried.

  “Come on.” Simon turns to me. “Abby wouldn’t do that. She didn’t hook up with a frat boy. Right, Leah?”

  I nod slowly.

  “See? Everything’s going to be fine.” Simon leans his chin onto his hand. “It’s just been a confusing week.”

  “Oh?” I say.

  Simon sits there, nodding, while Nick stares vacantly into space.

  “Simon?”

  “Mmhmm?”

  I don’t know what to do with Simon when he gets like this. Sometimes I get the vibe he wants me to read his mind. Like he’s sitting there, trying to pour his thoughts directly into my brain, so he won’t have to say them out loud.

  I point my fork at him. “Hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Spit it out.”

  He does this quiet laugh. “Okay.” I hear him swallow. “I think I fell in love with a school,” he says finally.

  “Okay.”

  “And it’s not NYU.”

  “Right. I got that.” I pause, setting my fork down. “What school?”

  “Haverford. It’s really tiny.”

  “That’s near Philly, right?”

  He nods and bites his lip.

  “But Bram’s going to be in New York,” Nick chimes in.

  Simon sighs. “Yup.”

  “Ah.”

  Simon fidgets with the sugar packets.

  “Have you talked to Bram?” I ask.

  “Nope.”

/>   “You should do that.”

  “I know.” He pauses. “Or not. I don’t know. NYU was awesome, too. I’m being ridiculous, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m needlessly complicating things.”

  “Yup,” says Nick.

  “Well, not necessarily.” I shrug. “What’s so great about Haverford?”

  “Ugh. I don’t know.” Simon full-on grimaces. You’d think I’d asked him to speak fondly about calculus. “I just liked it.”

  “You just liked it.”

  “I’m going to pee,” Nick says, standing abruptly. “Hold that thought.”

  But Simon turns to face me. “You wouldn’t believe how many gay people go there. We kept running into them. Like, this one girl hosts a Pride bingo night every Thursday in her dorm room. I could literally go there and only be friends with gay people.”

  “Nice.”

  “I keep imagining what it would be like to have actual gay friends.”

  My heart twists when he says it. It’s hard to explain. The guys think I’m straight, and I feel super weird about that. But also relieved. It’s fucked up.

  “I think I’d like that,” he adds.

  “But you know they have gay people in New York,” I say. “Like, I’m pretty sure NYU is mega gay.”

  “I know, but those are hipster gay people. I need the nerdy gays.”

  “And Haverford has the nerdy gays?”

  “It’s like ninety-nine percent nerds there. That’s an actual statistic.”

  I bite back a smile. “I think you found your people.”

  Simon groans softly and covers his face. “It’s just . . . like I felt something when I was there. Like, I got to the campus and it just felt right. It felt like it chose me. You know what I mean?”

  The question catches me off guard, and I let my mind drift back to the past few days. Funny how the campus tour already feels so hazy. I mostly just remember the look on Abby’s face when she said maybe I’m not actually straight. I mean, she didn’t seem so straight when she kissed me.

  “I don’t know,” I say finally. “I think it’s different. Like, I already knew I’d be going to Georgia. I wasn’t looking for that kind of moment.”

  “I wasn’t looking for it either,” he mutters. “Like, what am I doing? Everything was perfect, and I just had to fuck it all up.”

  “You didn’t fuck anything up, Simon.” My coffee and waffle arrive all at once. I start in with the syrup—a tiny drop in each square. “Like, what’s the worst-case scenario?”

  He blinks. “We break up.”

  “Do you want to break up?”

  He looks at me like I’ve smacked him in the face. “Are you kidding? No!”

  “Does Bram?”

  “No. Of course not. No.”

  “Then what am I missing?” I ask, taking a bite of waffle. “You guys will be fine.”

  “This is ridiculous. I should go to NYU. That’s the plan. I don’t know why this is even a question.” Simon shakes his head quickly. “I should go to NYU, right?”

  “Sure. Unless you like nerdy gay wonderland better.”

  He groans. “You’re no help.”

  “I mean, how far is Philly from New York?”

  “Like an hour and a half by train,” he says immediately. Clearly, he’s researched this. “A little shorter if I take the Acela.”

  “That’s not that bad, Simon.”

  “I know. But.” He frowns. “It’s still long distance.”

  “And you don’t want to be in a long-distance relationship.”

  “I mean, I don’t mind it, in theory. I just don’t know if they ever work.”

  “Tons of people make them work.”

  “Yeah, but look at Nick and Abby.” He gestures vaguely toward the bathroom. “That’s a freaking mess.”

  My heart almost stops. People need to warn me if they’re going to mention her out of nowhere like that. Especially if they’re going to talk about her and Nick being a freaking mess.

  But Jesus Christ. I need to stop. I stab my waffle with my fork and shove it into my mouth. This is absurd. Literally absurd. As if Abby Suso, real-life Disney princess, is going to run straight into my arms. Even if she did, I couldn’t do that to Nick. Not that she would. I mean, she’s not even really bi.

  But she’s questioning things. I make her question things.

  “Are you . . . okay?” Simon asks, peering nervously through his glasses.

  “What?” I whip my head up. “I’m fine. Why? Are you okay?”

  “Okay, you’re acting super weird.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He raises his eyebrows. We stare each other down.

  “You’re acting weird,” I mutter, looking away finally.

  “I know.” He covers his face. “I just need to think about this.”

  “I think you should talk to Bram. When are you seeing him?”

  “Not until the game tomorrow.”

  “The soccer game?”

  Simon nods.

  “Then talk to him right afterward.”

  He sighs. “I don’t know.”

  “Simon. You’ll feel better, I swear.”

  That’s right, Simon. Be totally open and tell him everything that’s bothering you. Okay? You should definitely take my advice, because I’m just so fucking good at all this sharing and caring stuff myself. Feelings. I rule at them.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. But you have to come with me to the game and psych me up for it.”

  “You guys are coming to the game?” Nick says, reappearing at the end of the booth. “Sweet.”

  “Um.” I glance at Simon. “I guess so.”

  “Yes. Good. That’s good.” Simon nods quickly. Then he stuffs a bunch of waffle into his mouth, cheeks puffing out like a hamster.

  23

  SATURDAY’S GAME IS IN THE soccer field behind the auxiliary gym. I spot Simon as soon as I get there, brooding in the stands.

  I scoot up next to him. “How are you feeling?”

  “I don’t want to tell him,” he blurts.

  Okay, I seriously don’t get couples. I’m sorry, but all this moping over an hour on the Acela? It’s not ideal, I get that, but Simon’s acting like it’s apocalyptical.

  He sighs. “It’s just. I’m kind of freaking out. This is literally why Nick and Abby broke up, you know?”

  “This is different.”

  “But how? How is it different?” He looks at me, almost beseechingly.

  “It’s so different.” My thoughts are spinning in all directions. I need to cool my jets and focus. “It’s not even close to the same situation, Simon. Nick’s going to be in Boston.”

  “It just sucks,” Simon says, staring straight ahead. I follow his gaze, taking in the freshly mowed fields and soccer goals and boys. So many boys. There are literally hundreds of boys at this school, and even more at the University of Georgia. It would be so easy to fall for one of them.

  Easier—and much safer—than falling for Abby Suso.

  “Is Nick okay?” I ask after a moment.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Simon says. And then he grabs my hand and squeezes it. And it’s weird how perfect it feels, holding hands with Simon. Not a hint of romance. It just feels like home. “Now he’s saying he wants to keep things normal,” Simon says. “Like, he doesn’t want us to change the plans for prom or anything.”

  “Oh God. Prom,” I say. It’s in a week. Literally one week from today. “I forgot about that.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re not . . . still going together?”

  Simon shakes his head. “They’re both still going to dinner and the dance, but now they’re going stag.”

  “Going stag. Do people still say that?”

  He laughs. “I don’t know.”

  I turn to watch the field in time to see Nick kick the shit out of the ball, so forcefully I almost wince. His face is bright red, eyes burning with an intensity I’ve never seen before.
The coach nods from the sidelines, clapping slowly.

  I turn to Simon, eyebrows raised. “Are we sure he’s okay?”

  “This is not good,” Simon murmurs. But a minute later, the corners of his lips tug upward. His Bram face. And sure enough, Bram’s on the field, grinning up at Simon as he runs.

  “EYE ON THE BALL, GREENFELD,” the coach yells. “AND LAUGHLIN. FOCUS. GODDAMMIT.” I look up to see Garrett waving at me frantically with both arms.

  “Hello, Garrett,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. Simon laughs. I have to admit, I like the feeling of being pursued, even if it’s only Garrett. It just feels nice. And maybe nice is kind of refreshing. Abby Suso makes me feel all kinds of things, but nice isn’t one of them.

  Stop. Thinking. About. Abby. Jesus Christ.

  “This is just so weird.” Simon sighs.

  And it is.

  I mean, here’s a surprise: I have an actual date to prom, and Abby Suso’s going alone.

  I don’t know if I should text her.

  I mean, it’s not like we’re fighting. And it doesn’t have to be weird. It was just a kiss. And I’m sure it only happened because she was tipsy. I should just send her something friendly and casual, because we’re casual friends who send casual texts. It’s just that every time I try to type something, my brain shuts down completely. I can’t even type “hello” to this girl without bursting into flames.

  I’m pretty sure this is the kind of crush you can die from.

  I try to distract myself by stalking my own Tumblr, scrolling through my posts in reverse order. The further back I go, the shittier my drawings get—proportions all wrong, messed-up shading. I guess I should be glad I’ve improved, but I feel weirdly embarrassed about the older work. I wish I had the kind of talent that emerged fully formed. I don’t like people seeing me in progress. It’s like stepping off a stage and finding out your underwear was showing. Not that my metaphorical underwear is particularly well hidden now. I still see flaws in my work, everywhere I look. It’s exhausting and mortifying and almost unbearable.

  Except.

  Okay.

  I have yet another message from an anon, asking if I take commissions. i like your art so much, im so in love with it, it says.

  So in love, they’d pay me for it. They’re asking to pay me for it. I think of the drum kit I don’t have. The car we couldn’t afford to fix. I think of my two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar prom dress.