Nope. It could never happen. Not that Aiden would be into it anyway. He would surely deem it “too high school.”
“I don’t think we’re going,” I told Cicily.
“Uh, yes we are,” Jo said.
I shook my head. “I can’t bring Aiden to that.” Cicily’s eyes sparked with interest. I imagined a crow pecking them out.
“So what? You’ll go with me.” Jo pulled out her wallet. “Two, please,” she said, and I clamped my mouth shut until the transaction was over, to avoid further feeding the gossip troll.
We stepped into the lunchroom, and Cicily and Shana scampered away. “Since when are you all gung-ho about spring formal?” I asked. We hadn’t gone since freshman year.
Jo looked at me sternly. “It’s the end of our senior year. We’ve got this and maybe prom and that’s it—we’ll never go to another stupid high school dance again.” She waved a ticket in my face. I took it. Normal on the outside. It was easier not to fight it.
“Happy early birthday,” she said. “Prepare to dance like everyone’s watching.”
Twenty-Five
THE INSTANT THE INTERCOM SOUNDED OUR RELEASE, I flipped my history notebook shut and bolted from my desk, ready to leave the school day far behind. This week already seemed endless and it was still only Monday.
Jo smirked at me from her desk, two rows behind mine. “You’re like Pavlov’s dog,” she said as she stood.
“Meaning?”
“The final bell rings and you immediately start salivating, like, Aiden time!” She stretched her arms above her head and a peek of midriff appeared. I reached out and poked it.
“Would you prefer to linger here a while longer?” I offered. But I wasn’t mad. She was right. I was walking out of the classroom and down the hall with Jo, but my heart and mind were already in his arms.
When I got to the parking lot, Aiden was waiting. “Can we go to the lake?” I said instead of hello. “I want coffee and fresh air and to leave this place forever.”
He delivered a kiss along with my helmet. “Your wish is my command.”
Soon the caffeine was coursing through me, pushing the antsyness out my pores, as we walked with our backs to the wind and our fingers laced together. “Alex taught me a new one last night,” he said.
“Oh yeah? Let’s hear it.”
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Etch.”
“Etch who?” I asked and nodded, anticipating the punch line.
“Gesundheit,” he supplied. His smile was bashful. “Alex delivers it better.” But I loved that he saved up goofy jokes for me.
We stopped to watch a cluster of ducklings—so fuzzy and awkward, they must have been freshly hatched—as they tumbled into the water and after their mother, who sailed straight ahead without looking back. One veered inches from the group, thrown off course by a wave, and peeped frantically as it kicked and flapped its way back into line where it belonged. I wanted to laugh but I could feel how intently Aiden was watching them, and it shifted something inside me. He took everything so seriously, my Aiden, even those silly little ducks. I had never known anyone like him.
His hand caressed my side and I turned to kiss him. He tasted like coffee and springtime and him-ness. Delicious. “What’s this?” he asked, pulling the dance ticket from my pocket.
I explained about Jo, the formal, and Cicily’s lunchtime ambush with Shelly or Sheri or Shirlee. Aiden frowned at the slip of paper, and my stomach sank with the feeling I had done something wrong. “So you’re going without me?” he said.
I looked up in surprise. “You want to go to a high school dance?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I’d prefer if you weren’t trying to hide it from me.”
My mouth dropped open involuntarily, before the words sputtered out of me. “I wasn’t hiding it. This only happened a few hours ago and I really didn’t think you’d want to go.”
“Well, I don’t want you going with somebody else.”
I laughed. “I’m going with Jo.”
His face pinched tight. “Sure, and there won’t be other guys there. Just a big empty dance floor for you and your lesbian friend.”
I held still as the truth spread through me, cold, brittle, and sharp. “You don’t trust me,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
He shrugged.
Panic crashed through the ice that had formed in my veins and replaced it with hot desperation. I grabbed his hand. “Aiden,” I pleaded.
He pulled away. “I trust you,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I trust every guy who comes near you. And you haven’t exactly been—” He threw his hands up, tossing whatever it was into the air, unsaid.
“What? I haven’t been what?” I felt as frantic and off course as that little lost duckling, but I tried to keep my body calm.
“Never mind.” He looked away.
“No, tell me. Please. Whatever it is, I want to hear it,” I said, even though my lungs were thick with fear. Aiden’s sullenness was like a brick wall dropped between us, but I would do whatever it took to smash through it and get back to him. Whatever I’d done wrong, I needed to set it right.
His sigh was part exasperation, part defeat. “Honest with me. You haven’t exactly been honest with me.” I stared at him with total incomprehension. “There wasn’t any blood,” he said.
I shook my head, still not getting it.
“On the sheets. When we had sex the first time. It’s okay you weren’t a virgin; I just wish you’d told me the truth.”
My head swirled with confusion. I heard the accusation but had no idea how to process it, or how to prove it wrong. “I was a virgin.” It rang hollow even in my own ears. “Aiden, you were my first.”
He grimaced. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “And I did bleed. Not all over the sheets, but after, when I was wiping. There was blood on the . . .” My cheeks were hot with shame, even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. Why didn’t he believe me? “I use tampons, and I’ve—” I stopped short of describing how Tyson’s fingers had once slid inside me. I’d never regretted any of the things I’d done with my ex, even though I regretted some of the ways he’d treated me, but for the first time, I wished we hadn’t. “I swear I’ve never slept with anyone else.”
“Okay, I believe you,” he said. “Let’s forget it.”
The lump of defeat felt heavy in my throat. I swallowed hard and wished I could pull Aiden back to me.
“I would love to go to the dance with you,” I tried. “I just worry that my parents—”
Aiden yanked his arm back so suddenly and so fast, my muscles seized in a wince, certain he was going to hit me. Instead, his half-full coffee cup hurtled past my ear and slammed into a tree trunk, exploding like the shock and fear inside me.
“Fuck your parents. No, seriously, fuck them. Are we going to hide from them forever? Is that your plan? You’re going to keep me a secret for the rest of our lives? Or until you get sick of me and move on?”
“No,” I whispered, held frozen by his anger, like a deer in the headlights of an accelerating semi—frightened and mesmerized, both. I’d had no idea he was upset about this. If I’d known, I never would have mentioned it.
“Are you ashamed of me? Is that it?” I shook my head but he wasn’t waiting for an answer. “They don’t own you,” he said. “You’re almost eighteen years old. Let me talk to them. Let them see how good we are together. And if they don’t like it, screw them. You’ll pack up your stuff and move in with me. We don’t have to sneak around like this. They can’t stop us.”
“You want me to move in with you?” I felt three steps behind.
“Yeah.” Aiden took my hand. “My dad won’t mind—my family loves you.” I’d still only talked to Aiden’s father a few times in passing, but that was as irrelevant as how many card games I’d played with Kendra and Alex, or how often they took turns braiding my hair. This had n
othing to do with his family or mine. It wasn’t even about us. My hesitations had to do with me.
I’d pictured myself staying at his apartment semi-regularly on weekends, once college had started and I was officially on my own. I’d even imagined us living there together next summer, two coffee mugs in the drying rack, my stack of books nestled beside his. But it was impossible to think of us doing that now. “I can’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I’m in high school.”
“So what?” He walked backward, pulling me with him, his face almost giddy now. “You’ll still graduate. Then we’ll get married and I’ll follow you to college, or you’ll defer for a while and figure out how to transfer here.” He cupped my face, his touch gentle. “I want to be with you. I’ll move the world to make it happen. You don’t have to decide now, just promise me you’ll think about it.”
He smiled in a way that made me want to say yes to everything, though I wasn’t even sure what he’d asked, or that any of it was what I wanted. Aiden was my future; I was certain of that. But I wasn’t ready to upend everything else I had planned. I wasn’t ready to get married or give up Geneseo. I didn’t want to be a freshman living off-campus with a husband. That idea seemed preposterous. But since I loved him, why not? What was my problem? I did want to make him happy, and I knew he would do anything for me.
It was too much too soon, but even thinking that felt disloyal.
I closed my eyes and let him kiss away my confusion. The storm had blown over, but I still felt the wreckage from the winds.
Twenty-Six
MY PHONE BUZZED FRIDAY MORNING, TWO MINUTES before the alarm, with a wakeup text from Aiden. Happy birthday babe. I love you
Babe. I’d always hated when Ty called me that. It felt so generic, like I was one in a series of interchangeable girlfriends, not even worth assigning my own pet name to. Which I guess in Tyson’s case had been true. Even at our most involved, I’d been incidental to him. He hadn’t been central in my life, either.
Aiden, of course, was the opposite. He had made me his everything, right from the start. I loved that. I wanted that. But ever since Monday afternoon at the lake, I felt the weight of it in a different way. For a moment, just a flash, that babe felt almost suffocating. I shook it off. I love you too. Can’t wait to see you
I flopped against my pillow and stared at the ceiling, still stickered with the burst of five glow-in-the-dark stars I had begged to affix there when I was six because my brother was getting constellations on his ceiling and I’d wanted to be just like him.
I was eighteen years old. It was the first day of my adult life and I was lying in a twin bed, gazing at the faded, peeling remnants of my childhood. Time to get up.
My phone buzzed again. You look like a monkey and you smell like one too. Total coincidence that it’s also your birthday
Speaking of my brother. What are you doing up so early? I typed back. It was 5:32 a.m. in Chicago, where he’d escaped to on full scholarship. Don’t college kids sleep until noon?
Haven’t gone to bed yet. Don’t tell Mom
God, I couldn’t wait for that freedom to be mine.
Check your email. I sent you some tunes for getting older to. And tell Rufus happy birthday from me too
☺ Will do
Rooey and I technically did not share a birthday—he was a shelter dog who’d been picked up as a stray, so we didn’t know when he was born—but when I went downstairs for breakfast he had a giant floppy ribbon tied to his collar, just like the one he had worn when we’d gotten him eight years before.
“There she is,” Dad said, looking up from his hand-brain. He put down the phone and lit a candle he’d stuck in the top of a blueberry muffin. “I’ll spare you the singing.” He shook out the match.
I moved around the counter to hug him. “Thanks, Dad.”
Mom bustled in as I blew out the flame. “Happy birthday.” She kissed my cheek as she breezed past, toward the almost-whistling teakettle. “Half day today, right?” She eyed the clock on the microwave and reached for her travel mug. “Better open your present and move fast or you’ll miss it.”
I took a seat on the kitchen stool beside Dad’s and pinched a bite from the muffin. Not as tasty as Jo’s baking but not bad for store-bought. Beside my plate was a white box with a blue gift bow and an envelope on top. Dad had written on the envelope, With great power comes great responsibility. We trust you’ll use it wisely. Happy 18th birthday. Love, Mom and Dad. I tore open the flap and unfolded the paper inside. It was a voter registration form.
“Haha. Thanks,” I said. Dad looked exceptionally pleased with himself.
I stuck the gift bow to my forehead and lifted the top off the box. My parents had stopped using wrapping paper on presents around the time I’d stopped believing in Santa—i.e., when Kyle had discovered the truth at school and promptly ruined it for me, too. “We kept the receipt so you can exchange it,” Mom said as I pulled down the zipper on the navy, white, and gray Geneseo hoodie and pushed my arms through the sleeves. It was cozy, soft, and just the slightest bit oversize.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Mom picked up her purse and headed toward her coat. “Have a good day. Put your plate in the dishwasher before you go, please.”
“But what should I do with my juice glass?” I muttered while the front door closed behind her.
My father shot me a warning look. “That’s enough.”
I would never be an adult in my parents’ house.
When I got to school, Jo did not spare me the singing. She met me at the entrance and delivered a full-blown serenade on the walk to my locker, which she had draped with purple streamers and stuffed with yellow balloons. I pulled out the balloons and tapped them into the air, one by one, watching them bounce and float their way down the hall from one kid to the next in a spontaneous game of Keep It Up. One ricocheted off OJ, who stomped away in a cloud of annoyance. “Sorry,” I called after her.
“It’s your birthday? Happy birthday!” Cicily squealed, coming up behind me and attacking with a hug. “That’s so special that it falls on Good Friday and Easter weekend.”
“Um, yeah.” Easter this Sunday meant a day off from the Sugar Shack, but since I’d be spending it riding in the car with my parents and eating hard-boiled eggs and canned pineapple at my grandparents’ house, while deflecting Gran’s encouragements to “at least try a little bite” of the ham, I would maybe rather be at work. But at least today’s early dismissal meant I could see Aiden as soon as he finished his shift, and I’d have time for a birthday milkshake and fries with Jo at the diner in between.
Or so I thought. But when the final bell rang at twelve thirty, releasing us into the world, we stepped into the bright sun of the afternoon, arm in arm, and seconds later, the world went dark.
“Hey!” I yelped, swatting at the cloth that had been dropped over my eyes, but my assailant was already securing the blindfold in place.
“Happy birthday, Bumble Bee,” Eric said as he took my other arm. “I am pleased to inform you that you are being kidnapped.” Jo whooped and they stepped forward, pulling me with them.
“Haha, very funny, you guys.” I tried to yank my arms free.
“Nope, no struggling,” Jo said. “Only cooperative prisoners get their arms back.”
“Is this really necessary?” We lurched in what I assumed to be the direction of the senior lot. If I looked straight down, I could see a narrow strip of ground at my feet, but it hurt my eyes and didn’t really tell me much.
“No, but isn’t it fun?” she crowed. There was nothing I could do but go along with it.
“Halt!” Eric jolted us to a stop and dropped my arm. I heard the jingle of keys and the click of the Wildebeest unlocking. “Watch her head.”
Jo slipped my bag off my shoulders and guided me into the car with her hand on top of my skull, like cops do to handcuffed perps on TV. Even though I’d been climbi
ng in and out of cars my entire life, it was surprisingly difficult to do so blindfolded. “Birthday girls get shotgun,” she said. She leaned across me to fasten the seat belt. “And no peeking.”
The door clanked shut beside me. I heard the click of Eric’s seat belt, and the Wildebeest purred to life. Music shot out through the speakers and he quickly turned it down. I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat in this car, which I used to catch a ride in most days of the week. Strange. “It’s nice of you to play chauffeur for Jo’s schemes,” I said.
Outside the car, Jo laughed and shouted, “No, a polynomial ring! But with unicorns!” at someone across the parking lot. I wondered if it was Sydney.
“Actually, this was my idea,” Eric said.
“Oh.” I settled back in my seat. Usually Jo took the front and I leaned forward from the backseat to hear them over the music. It was kind of cozy up here. “Where are we going?”
I felt Eric smile. “If I told you, what would be the point of the blindfold?”
The passenger door opened and shut behind me, and Jo cried, “Let’s go!” She put her hands on my shoulders and I felt her bopping to the music as Eric backed us out of the parking space and accelerated toward whatever was next. “I know you don’t love surprises, Betts, but you’re gonna like this one.”
“As long as I’m back by two fifteen.”
“Nope, no can do,” she said. I tensed. “Relax, I just texted him—from your phone, which I am confiscating for the remainder of this outing.” My heart raced with panic and I tried to protest, but Jo talked over me. “We’ll drop you off at his place by six. And I already asked your mom if you could spend the night at our house, so what you should be saying is, ‘Thank you, Jo, you are the best,’ because now you can hump all night like birthday bunnies and no one will be the wiser.”
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