by Jen Klein
“What path?” Oliver turns to look at me. The morning sun is brilliant behind him, blazing his white-blond hair into a halo, and just like that, I’m speechless again. Oliver leans closer. He stares directly into my eyes. “What different path did you want to jump to?”
I swallow. “I didn’t…I just knew this one was wrong.”
Oliver gazes at me for a long, long moment. I go warm inside and he finally pulls away, settling back against the window. “You did the right thing.”
“I did?”
“Not the part where you didn’t tell me. That sucked. I mean breaking up with Itch.” He pulls his keys out of the ignition and twists in his seat so he can retrieve his backpack from the floor behind him. “It would be worse to stay with someone because of convenience or because senior year is halfway over or something. That would be worse.”
Before I can answer, he opens his door and swings out of it. “So you’re forgiven,” he says. “But from now on—”
“No secrets.” I cut him off. “Promise.”
“Good,” Oliver says, and slams the door.
• • •
Ainsley is standing in front of my locker when I arrive to switch out one science book for another. Her eyes are extra sparkly against her light brown skin. “Dude!” she says, wrapping an arm around me. “You are at the center of some very epic drama. What happened with you and Itch? Did he cheat on you with Zoe?”
Oh, good. Now I get to deal with this.
“Did someone tell you that?” I ask to buy time, twirling the combination dial.
“Several someones.”
“Well, they’re wrong.” I pull away from her so I can open the door and toss my environmental science textbook inside. “Itch didn’t cheat on me. I broke up with him and then he started dating Zoe. Completely legit and no big deal. It was all a misunderstanding. Oliver shouldn’t have punched him.”
I turn to find that Ainsley has a startled look on her face. Her eyes lock on mine and her brows slowly move toward each other. “What?”
Whoops.
I didn’t tell Oliver I had broken up with Itch, and Oliver didn’t tell Ainsley he had punched him. She heard about the breakup from someone else (or, rather, several someones), but it hadn’t gotten back to her yet that her boyfriend had roughed up my ex-boyfriend, probably because how do you tell someone that?
Suddenly, it’s really awkward up in here.
“Oliver hit Itch?”
“Uh, yeah?” It comes out of my mouth like a question. “Oliver saw him kissing Zoe and thought he was cheating on me. From what you’re saying, it sounds like he wasn’t the only one who thought that, but I guess Oliver got a little…overly zealous.”
Ainsley doesn’t say anything. She studies me, like she’s trying to figure something out. If she succeeds, I hope she’ll let me in on it. “Why didn’t Oliver know you broke up with him? You’re with him every single morning.”
Ah, the million-dollar question.
“Oliver and I don’t get personal.”
It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s not completely a lie, either. How are you supposed to tell someone you’ve pledged a friendship of honesty with her boyfriend? It’s on the up-and-up…but somehow, it doesn’t sound like it.
How did this get so complicated?
Ainsley keeps staring at me, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. There’s a long pause, during which I can’t help wondering if she has any inclination toward violence. After all, her boyfriend did just throw a punch. Maybe they were brought together by their shared love of physical savagery?
Ainsley makes a move toward me and I flinch backward, but she’s fast. In a second, her arms are around me. “You poor thing,” she whispers into my ear. “It’s so embarrassing.”
Embarrassing? I think other words are more appropriate, but I’m not about to quibble over semantics. I just go with it. “So embarrassing.”
“I mean, Zoe Smith.” Ainsley says it with a shudder. “You know she only passed chem last year because she let Mr. Welch look at her tits.”
I try to imagine Zoe doing such a thing. She’s artsy and quirky, but an exhibitionist? I don’t know.
“Don’t worry,” says Ainsley. “You’re way prettier than her.”
Where I fall on the beauty scale in relation to Zoe is actually the least of my worries, but given the weirdness of this whole situation, I’m willing to let Ainsley think that’s where my concerns lie. “Really? You think so?”
“Totally,” Ainsley assures me.
“Awesome,” I say, even though this conversation is anything but awesome.
• • •
I manage to catch Oliver alone as he’s going into the cafeteria for lunch. “Heads up. Ainsley was a little surprised to find out about the whole Itch debacle. You might want to tell her that you have a thing about cheaters or something….What?”
Oliver is grinning at me. “It’s all good, Rafferty. Ainsley is into knights in shining armor or something. She thinks it was chivalrous.” He sees my look. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to make it a thing, where I go around hitting people. I’m just saying that in this one scenario, this one time…it ended up just fine.”
“Except for the part where Itch got a fat lip for no reason.”
At least Oliver has the good sense to look uncomfortable. “Right, except for that,” he says.
God, I can’t wait to get out of here.
I meet Shaun at his locker after homeroom. He gives me a dead rose and I give him a burnt heart-shaped cookie, and then we hold hands on the way to AP English. No one even looks at us funny. “Are you sure you can’t just be straight?” I ask him. “It would make everything easier.”
“It would.” Shaun’s tone is more earnest than usual, making me wonder what’s going on with him.
“How’s Kirk?”
“Fine, I guess.” Shaun heaves a long, deep sigh. “But I wish he was here and we didn’t have to be long-distance. We could go to a movie or do our homework together or make out on the bleachers or whatever people do when they live in the same place.”
“Making out on the bleachers isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You’re either too hot or too cold, and someone is always at an uncomfortable angle.”
“It’s got to be better than this.” Shaun pulls me to a halt. He reaches for my other hand, and as kids flow around us in the hallway, he closes his eyes. “Nope.” He shakes his head. “Not good.”
“What are you doing?”
“Close your eyes.”
I oblige, because it’s Shaun. “Now what?”
“Pick someone. Someone like Itch, from your past. Or someone else. Whoever, just as long as it’s someone you know. Try to picture him.”
I imagine Shaun. “You look cute today. Nice shirt.”
Shaun squeezes my hands. “Come on, someone who makes your heart go whammo.”
Oliver rises behind my lids. He’s grinning so I can see the top row of his teeth. His eyes are crinkling straight at me and he’s happy—so happy it makes the corners of my mouth tug upward in response.
“Got someone?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” says Shaun. “Can you see the person? Like really see him?”
My imagined Oliver’s grin widens. He leans toward me and suddenly I can do more than picture the way he looks. I can smell the clean, soapy scent of him; I can hear his laugh the way it sounds when it rings out in the behemoth. “Yes,” I whisper. Shaun doesn’t answer, so I open my eyes.
He’s looking at me with sadness written all over his face. He gives me a smile that is rueful and agonized and heartbreaking all at once. “When I close my eyes, I can’t see Kirk anymore,” Shaun says. “I used to be able to picture him so clearly. There was this hallway downstairs in the main building where we met at Rutgers. The first time we kissed, it was in a corner down there, under one of those crappy fluorescent lights that make everyone look terrible. Everyone except Kirk. Even under that flickering, greenish
light, he still looked like a Greek god. That’s what I could always picture, what he looked like under those lights.”
“But technology,” I say. Because it’s Shaun, he understands.
“It makes it worse. We talk on our phones or our computers and it’s supposed to be better, it’s supposed to connect us, except now when I close my eyes, all I can see is the tech version of Kirk. He’s pixelated or blurry or frozen because the connection has died.” Shaun sighs again and my heart hurts for him. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe our connection has died.”
“You’re such a poet,” I tell him, and his eyes snap to mine. Then he grins really big, because he gets it—that I’m defusing, I’m softening, I’m making it better the only way I know how.
“You’re such an asshole,” he tells me.
“I love you,” I say, and hug him hard.
“I love you, too.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Shaun.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, June.”
• • •
After lunch, I’m trudging toward Spanish III when everything goes dark red. Someone has covered my eyes with their hands. I spin, which puts me right in the circle of Oliver’s arms, and I’m looking up at him. We both immediately break apart, stepping backward. “What are you doing?” My tone sounds belligerent, which is the opposite of how I feel.
“I have a present for you.”
Color rises up my chest and past my collarbones, making me feel the unholy triumvirate of flushed, pissed (at myself), and embarrassed. “Oh, really?” It’s supposed to come out nonchalant, but…
But it doesn’t.
Oliver reaches under his jacket and I see that his left side is bulky because he’s got something hidden there. “I made it myself.”
My blush deepens, and I try to distract from it with a glare. “Why?”
He laughs. “You’re so dependable.” He pulls out the thing that’s been in his jacket, and presents it to me with a flourish. I accept it and…stare.
“It’s a pillow,” I say.
Oliver laughs again. “Your powers of perception are overwhelming.”
“Thank you?” I am honestly not sure what I am supposed to do with a pillow that might be made out of felt and is definitely turquoise on one side and hot pink on the other. Also, one corner is truncated, like someone lopped it off and sewed it back together.
“It’s for the mornings,” Oliver explains. “Because you think my car is too big and you’re never quite comfortable. You can sit on it.”
What Oliver has just given me is—by a long shot—the most awkward gift I have ever been given, but that’s not why I feel awkward. I feel awkward because it is a gift. All I can manage to do is accept the pillow and mumble some gratitude. “Thanks.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Oliver says, and he doesn’t look at all awkward. He just looks happy.
Damn it all to hell, Oliver is more than good-looking.
He’s beautiful.
Mom and I are getting ready to start a game of Scrabble. It was her idea, I suspect because she’s feeling guilty about forbidding me to move in with Dad next year. I got turned down for financial aid at all of my New York college choices, but I thought we could still swing it if I lived with him. But Mom says his apartment is small and the neighborhood is sketchy. When I talked to Dad about it, he said he would love to have me, but he wouldn’t do it against Mom’s wishes. Thus—since Mom has been putting money into Michigan’s prepaid tuition program for a while now—it looks like I’m heading to U of M next year.
It’s not my first choice, but I guess it won’t be terrible. Darbs is going to Eastern, so I’ll still be able to hang with her, and Shaun will be only three hours away at Ohio State. He claims that we will be locked in a heated football rivalry that may break our friendship.
Oliver hasn’t made a final decision yet, and I’m kind of glad about that. Ever since Valentine’s Day, I’ve found myself being just a little more careful around him, taking extra caution not to cross any lines.
And caring what he does with himself next year—that kind of feels like crossing a line.
For Mother-Daughter Bonding Night, Mom is making hot apple cider. She adds spices to the steaming pot while I set a bag of popcorn in the microwave. I’ve just pressed the start button when the home phone rings. “I got it,” says Mom, so I assume she’s expecting a call from Cash.
As she heads into the living room, I watch the digital numbers on the microwave count down and I wonder if Shaun is talking to Kirk yet. Shaun said he wanted to discuss the “quality of the relationship” tonight, whatever that means. As I’m rewarded with the first pops from the bag, Mom answers the phone in the other room. “Hello?” she says in that questioning way that you do when you honestly don’t know who is on the other end.
Landlines.
I still assume it’s Cash until Mom says, “What?” and I hear something heavy slam down, like maybe she dropped a book. My stomach dips and I have a sudden terrible image of my father dead in New York, either run over by a taxi or shot with a wayward bullet. If it happened, this is absolutely the way I’d find out.
I step away from the microwave so I can hear better. Mom’s voice has scaled up an octave and she’s saying things like “Are you freaking kidding me?” and “Calm down, I’ll be right there!”…so at least it doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Dad.
The microwave beeps as Mom rushes back into the kitchen. She turns off the burner under the apple cider and looks at me. “Honey, I’m so sorry but I have to cancel on our game.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Friend drama.” She comes close and gives me a hard kiss on the forehead before scooping her keys off the counter. “Back soon,” she says, and flies out.
I hear the front door open and close and then the sound of her car driving away into the night.
So that’s weird.
I clean up the kitchen and head upstairs. After I shower, I huddle in my bed, lights off and phone on. I’ve just finished a turn against Oliver with my “Marauding Medusa” when I hear faint sounds from outside. I jump up and go to my bedroom window. I can see my mother’s car in the snowy driveway. She’s getting out of the driver’s side as someone else exits from the other door. It takes me a moment to realize it’s Marley.
Oliver’s mother.
I hurry back to bed and listen to the sounds below. The front door opens and closes. There are whispers as two sets of feet plod up the wooden stairs. They go past my room to my mother’s, and then one turns back. A second later, the knob twists and my door opens a crack. Mom’s face appears. “Honey?”
I raise my head as if I’m not completely awake. “Hi,” I say in my sleepiest voice.
“Just wanted to tell you good night. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I murmur, and settle back into my pillows long enough for Mom to close the door. The second she’s gone, I hop up and crack it so I can eavesdrop.
Down the hallway, Marley is weeping. Mom is saying she’s going to be okay and she’s going to sleep here tonight. “I didn’t win after all,” Marley says between sobs. “I got the booby prize. It’s worse than losing.”
“Shhh,” my mother says. “It’s going to be okay.”
And then Mom’s door closes, so I can’t hear anything else.
• • •
I’m perched on a kitchen stool, eating an orange-rhubarb muffin, when Marley shuffles in. She’s wearing my mom’s robe and her messy topknot is secured with the tortoise-shell clip I gave Mom for Christmas a few years ago. Her shadowed, bloodshot eyes meet mine and immediately water up. “Hannah said I could hide upstairs until you left, too, but I need coffee.” I point to the coffeemaker—which Mom thoughtfully left on—and Marley pours some into the mug waiting for her on the counter.
“Your mom is the best.”
“She’s not bad,” I agree.
“I need a favor.” I know what it will be before she says it. “Don’t tell
Oliver I’m here.”
It rubs me the wrong way. Oliver and I made that honesty pledge, and especially given the Itch-pocalypse, I don’t want to betray it. “He might notice that you’re not at home,” I tell his mom.
“I’ve already worked that out with Bryant,” she says. “This isn’t Oliver’s business—”
But it’s mine?
“—and I don’t want to worry him.”
Okay, that actually makes sense. I can imagine Oliver’s freak-out if he knew his mom had a weeping sleepover—a weepover, if you will—with my mom. Besides, she’s a parent, which means she outranks me in a significant way.
“I won’t tell him.”
“Thanks,” says Marley.
• • •
Oliver has just taken a bite of toast when I clamber aboard, so he only waves at me with the crust before cranking up our playlist and pulling onto the road. The Ramones beat harsh and fast, and it’s the perfect thing to propel us toward school, toward Regular Life, to let the triviality of here and now fade away, trampled by the drums.
When Oliver finishes eating, he turns down the music so we can hear each other. It’s the way things are these days. The music means less, and talking to Oliver means more.
“In case you’re wondering, my mom has a headache,” he tells me. I have a flash of panic—does he know she’s at my house?—before making the connection. It helps that he’s brandishing his crumpled napkin at me. “She didn’t come down to make breakfast, so I had to fend for myself.”
“You have the worst life.”
“I know, champagne problems. That’s what my dad would say. Speaking of which, guess what.”
“What?” I say on autopilot.
“I talked to my dad. He at least acted like it was okay.”
Wait. Oliver does know what’s going on with his parents?