Ryley shrugged, hoping to avoid a strain of conversation that could only be stressful. She took a couple of rapid sips of her beer.
Cassidy spoke into the silence. “Look, let’s move on. I’m sure there are certain reasons why she doesn’t want to apply. No need to make a big deal.” Cassidy shot her a supportive, all-too-knowing smile as she said this and Ryley felt herself freeze up.
Ryley had talked with David about her grades on their last date, feeling like the distance between them was becoming insurmountable; quite frankly, she had thought it worth it to try to manufacture closeness through vulnerability. David had been shocked but had assured her it was just a stumble and she would get all honors this semester. The way in which Cassidy was looking at her now convinced Ryley that David had unfortunately told her about Ryley’s grades, but Cassidy seemed to have Ryley’s back. She’d make small jabs, little insinuations here and there, but she wouldn’t out Ryley. She kept herself calm and gave Cassidy a small smile as Cassidy maintained eye contact with her.
Ryley took a couple more sips of beer, trying to think of another topic in earnest.
Genie broke the silence. “You should hear Harrison talk about Ryley though. He won’t shut up about how smart she is.” That was not the topic change Ryley wanted.
Olivia said, “Oh, I’ve heard,” with a laugh.
Ryley looked down at the brown patch of grass underneath her, feeling like a fraud and hoping people would just take it as modesty. The silence lingered as none of her friends, no one in her Section, voiced their agreement. Eventually, she looked up to see Mark tentatively nodding his head. David and Cassidy’s too-knowing gaze pierced her more than any words could’ve.
Ryley eventually asked Genie questions about the sports agency for which she worked. Ryley thankfully settled into a topic that had nothing to do with law, relationships, or anything else that would make Ryley think about herself and the ways in which she was coming up short. The others chimed in too with questions, Genie’s life still removed enough from theirs to be uniquely interesting, and allowing them to take a break from thinking about themselves and from comparing themselves to one another.
Olivia seemed to finally have enough when they started talking about Genie’s childhood and said, “Anyway, moving on, let’s go back to Fuck Marry Kill, except with Professor Kilmer, Professor Gold, and Professor Rake.”
Mark started howling with laughter and even Cassidy cracked a smile. Ryley stayed for two more rounds before saying, “Hey, I’m pretty beat. Day drinking really takes it out of me, so I’m going to head back early. Great seeing everyone though!”
Ryley gave them all a cartoonish, overdone smile and then swiveled her body in a circle, waving goodbye to everyone before finally starting to walk away. Ryley took up a brisk pace, trying to wake up her too-drowsy, sunbaked body and run away from all the do differentlys already floating around in her head. She should have looked at David once more before leaving; she could have asked if he wanted to walk back with her, but he had only given her a quick wave goodbye before immediately turning back to Zeke, so enraptured by their stimulating talk about professors. Ryley knew they needed to have another talk, but she didn’t want to lose her boyfriend.
When Genie had first sat down to join them, she had squeezed Ryley’s arm and said, “Harvard should put you all on the brochure; show that you come to Harvard and get it all.”
Cassidy had given Genie a beaming smile and Mark had gotten up and given Genie a sloppy kiss on the cheek, exclaiming about how much he’d missed her, but David and Ryley had just looked at each other and given each other soft, tentative smiles. Both were at least somewhat aware they were perpetuating a lie, but it was a comfortable lie. She didn’t think David wanted to end it either. He too had avoided talking to her about anything directly, seeing if they couldn’t push through. Maybe he still held out hope that she’d open up in the way that he wanted, come through with her second-semester grades, and live up to the image he had in his mind. She, in turn, was waiting on tenterhooks for their connection to click, wanting to feel it every day, and pointing it out to herself every time he did something nice.
As Ryley turned onto JFK Street—Bostonians’ patriotism was unparalleled—she felt an arm loop through hers, and a rather loud, “Hi, will you please slow down? You’re not a horse, you know.” There went her thinking time.
CHAPTER 21
APRIL 2019
“Hey, what’s up?” Ryley asked, inching her arm slightly away so they were not pressed as tightly together. Ryley had not expected Harrison, especially a Harrison who was feeling very cuddly toward her.
“Nothing. I was getting tired, and Genie said she wanted to stay out a bit more. Besides, I wanted to check in on you.”
“I’m good. How’s it going with Genie?”
“Ryley, don’t be—just talk to me. You looked, for lack of a better word, beat-up when Olivia and Genie were joking around about how smart you are. You never used to look like that in high school. Sure, you’d be tight-lipped about your grades even then, but there was always a sense of superiority about you.” He paused and then said, “That air of yours used to drive me absolutely nuts, by the way. That’s why I can tell it’s gone.”
Ryley weighed the pros and cons of confiding in him; her earlier efforts with David hadn’t exactly panned out. Finally, she said, “I thought I’d do better.”
“Have you talked about it with anyone? Met a professor? I’m sure it’s something that can be fixed.”
Ryley wished she could shove him away; of course, he jumped right into big-brother problem-solving mode. Olivia would have just listened—or switched the topic to focus on Ryley’s sexuality in a not-at-all subtle way.
Ryley responded, “Yes, I’ve met with a professor and I’m studying more now. I’ve also started to look at more sample exam answers online to try to figure out what they’re looking for.”
“Got it. Have you talked with any of your friends about this? I’m sure at least some of them didn’t do as well as they would’ve liked.”
“Cassidy and David know.” Ryley veered slightly to the right, creating a bit of distance between the two of them, trailing her fingers along the black cast-iron gate that formed the perimeter to Harvard’s undergraduate campus. Only ten minutes until she was home and could tuck herself into bed.
“Oh. What did they say?” Harrison didn’t try to shift closer, instead keeping to his side of the curb.
“Well, David said he was sure I’d get all Hs this semester. And I didn’t actually speak to Cassidy about my grades. I know David told her based on how she was looking at me though.”
Harrison said nothing for a couple of steps. “Are you going to ask him if he told her?”
“I don’t know.” Ryley sighed. It was one more thing to add to the list, and in a twisted way, it gave her leverage. David had done something wrong and he’d be making up for it without either of them having to say a thing.
“Why on earth wouldn’t you bring it up? That’s a violation of your trust.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s a lot we need to talk about. We just need to get through this rough patch.”
“It’s a rough meadow, not a rough patch.” That jab coming from Harrison was startling. He’d only ever seen them interact two times.
“What? Has Olivia been talking to you?”
“No. I just thought you didn’t look all that comfortable around him at Winter Formal or by the river today, and when I talked about it with Genie, she agreed.”
“Oh, because if Genie, who has only ever met me twice in her life, says so, it’s true. Harrison, every relationship is different. We’re comfortable not having to perform and show everyone how in love we are.” The way you do went unsaid.
“Okay, that was uncalled for. All I’ve ever done is try to look out for you and every time I somehow end up the bad guy.” He was whisper-shouting. Both had given up the pretense of walking and were currently facing off in a truck-staging area. R
yley wouldn’t mind if a truck happened to pull in while they were arguing and ran Harrison over.
“Because you are the bad guy! You’re always trying to shape me and fix me! You did it in high school and you’re doing it now. Can you ever turn it off?” Ryley would let him get one more response in and would then sprint away.
“I was never trying to fix you. Ryley, I told you repeatedly how much I loved you and how wonderful I thought you were. You were so set on fitting to a certain type of image though that I just tried to help you. And I’m sorry you thought I was pushing you to be something other than what you were.”
He paused to see if she had anything to say. She didn’t, shifting her weight onto her back foot as she prepared to pivot. Of course it was still her fault.
He grabbed onto her arm loosely, predicting her normal flee pattern and stopping her before she could do anything. “Ryley, honestly, I’m sorry. I was horrified; I couldn’t deal and I still can’t deal with the idea that I might at all have been involved in making you feel like you had to do that with Josh, so I let the distance build between us. I never spoke to Josh again after you told me what happened, by the way. I told the jazz director not to give him the solo.”
Ryley hadn’t known that, but she didn’t want the easy reconciliation right now. She wanted to blame Harrison; she’d gotten by on blaming Harrison for betraying her and pushing her to fit in and she needed that. If he started taking some of the blame, she would have to acknowledge how much of it was her own fault, and she wasn’t ready for that.
“Thanks for telling me that. I need a bit of time,” she mumbled and began to walk away.
He called out, “Ryley, you don’t have to keep performing for them, for an audience you can no longer even see. You can be yourself.”
But it wasn’t an invisible audience—she could see them. Kyle had been reincarnated as Cassidy, Josh as David, and her other high school brethren found in the faces of her Section. Ryley was on the inside this time, and she wasn’t going to give up her place, no matter how fake she felt.
* * *
Ryley sat on her couch in her usual post-drinking mental loop, unable to escape her compulsive pattern of dissecting and replaying every interaction one by one; looking for a distraction, she decided to pull up the Supergirl clip Olivia had mentioned. Ryley didn’t think it would have too large an impact. She had watched queer TV before, seen the traumatic coming-out scene in a repressive home environment, and had felt fortunate. Her family was liberal, she grew up in California, and being homophobic was a huge faux pas in any social circle she frequented, so if she’d had any queer tendencies, she was sure they would have blossomed by now. There must have been some significance to the clip though, likely to Ryley; Olivia was never anything but intentional with her words.
Ryley played it, curled up comfortably underneath her plush, dusky blue, elephant-patterned blanket. However, as the dialogue on-screen continued, she started to straighten, her shoulders locking up, even as her heart began to pound. The girl wasn’t her and hadn’t had her bad luck with dating guys that ended up only being good on paper.
But.
The emphasis on just wanting to be perfect and not liking dating nor intimacy with men made her dizzy and feel like she was on the verge of passing out. There were still questions and still some attraction to certain men, but seeing a woman in her thirties say lines she’d thought verbatim confused her. The words rang too true for her lived experience thus far—for her experience with David, with Josh, and with the three other men she’d been intimate with in the intervening years.
Just like Alex Danvers in Supergirl, she’d never thought of girls as an option. Indeed, she’d only ever shied away from an errant hand resting on her thigh, thinking her consistent desire to be around certain girls like Olivia was nothing more than wanting the ultimate Timon to her Pumbaa. Olivia must have done it on purpose to push her over the edge, sensing that Ryley was frail and vulnerable, and trying to force Ryley to see that everything about her was tainted with pretend in a manner even more far-reaching than she’d thought previously. She was furious.
Ryley could no longer breathe; her chest was too tight. She put on Jeff Buckley to try to calm herself, but as he reached his crescendo chorus of “Hallelujahs,” her heartbeat ratcheted up in tandem. She tried to force more air into her lungs, taking deep inhales through her nose as she stumbled her way up and walked unsteadily over to the kitchen, drowning a paper towel under the faucet and slapping the wet cloth onto her arms.
She settled back into her couch again only to be overcome by a wave of disorientation with the walls feeling too far and all too close at once. She felt as if she would topple sideways onto the couch at any moment and experienced a turn of nausea within her stomach as her eyes couldn’t focus on anything. Her body seemed to be trying to will itself to unconsciousness, and her mind struggled against the slippery pressure of the black encroaching on her vision even as she fought against succumbing to the feeling. And yet her thoughts fragmented even as she tried to form complete sentences in her head, tracking through the lyrics of an old Hindi mantra to ground herself. Her mom used to sing it to her every night when she was young and she thought she’d forgotten the words, but she whispered the chant to herself now, mumbling the starting line of Jai Shri Krishna Jai Shreeman Narayan.
As she repeated the words again and again, she felt pressure pushing down against her eyes and her forehead, causing her to feel ever dizzier; she could not bring herself to focus on anything, and when she did, her eyes seemed to delude her. Why was she seeing black cracks on the previously pristine white cabinets? What was most frightening was not knowing if what she was undergoing was a panic attack or if her health had finally given out on her. With that thought in mind, that she could be dying, she reached out a shaky hand for her phone, fumbling the lock screen open to call the only person that made sense.
CHAPTER 22
APRIL 2009
Ryley drifted through American Literature, Calculus, and Spanish, readying herself for lunch with Kyle and Josh. She and Kyle hadn’t spoken much since the party though they’d celebrated a recent string of wins together. Although Ryley was most certainly not the next Babe Ruth, she wasn’t half bad. She’d caught a couple of important fly balls and prompted a raucous yes, Ryley! to echo through the stands on a key bunt. But perhaps their loyal fanbase of ten was only so thrilled when she did come through because there really were more than enough times she didn’t. She’d given Carly an inadvertent black eye last game by throwing the ball at her during warm-ups when she thought Carly had been ready for it. Carly had not been. Ryley had been so mortified that Carly had started laughing after she finished cursing Ryley out.
Ryley had her softball gear with her now as she slid her tray onto the table, settling in across from Josh and next to Kyle. They would be leaving for a game as soon as their lunch period was over.
“Ryley!” Kyle shot her a beaming smile; she was positively glowing with health. Kyle’s skin had a nice bronze sheen to it and her dark blond hair was full of highlights. Ryley would appreciate it if she could keep her general sense of well-being to herself. At least Josh’s skin was still a ghostly pale color.
Ryley gave her a smile of hello but busied herself arranging her food on the tray, waiting to see what Kyle wanted before she risked running her mouth.
“So, excited for summer? What are you doing?” Kyle asked.
“I guess I’m excited. I can’t believe it’s almost the end of the year. I’m going to work at a lab during the day and then I decided to join a swim club for fun.”
“Oh, that’s great! It’ll keep you in shape for softball next year!”
Ryley didn’t know if she planned on rejoining the team. She’d not quite gotten the family she’d been promised. She was not one to make hasty decisions, though, so she kept her thoughts of quitting to herself and simply said, “Yeah, I guess it’ll be good.” With her thick black hair, the amount of upkeep swimming would re
quire was mind-numbing. Ryley also intensely disliked individual competition sports, mainly because she was bad at them. Her mom had, however, “lovingly” badgered her into signing up, citing endorphins and Ryley’s unrelenting moodiness.
“What about you both?” Ryley asked.
“Oh, I’m helping out at a softball camp,” Kyle said. That sounded much more normal and fun than Ryley’s summer.
“I’m working at my dad’s company. I want to get some business experience on my resume,” Josh added.
Ryley nodded, even as Kyle elbowed Josh in the side and said, “How very prep school of you.”
Josh gave a half-hearted chuckle and then pushed the spotlight back onto Ryley. “Why did Mr. Weber hold you back?”
“Nothing important.” Ryley knew how competitive everyone was, no matter that Kyle acted light-hearted right now; she wouldn’t be surprised if the softball camp was for recovering drug addicts.
“Look at Ryley playing coy! Who would’ve thought you had it in you.” Although Kyle’s tone was light and airy, her lips were pulled into a smile that effectively bared her teeth.
Ryley moved the topic right along. “So, any fun plans for the weekend?”
“Taylor’s throwing another party, so we’re probably going to go to that.” Kyle looped an arm around Josh as she spoke; Josh beamed. Ryley tugged her sweater to be wrapped more snugly around her body. Kyle continued, “Anyway, Ryley, I’m sad I haven’t seen you around more. Josh said the two of you were friends, so I wanted us to get lunch together instead of always making him hang with my friends.”
“Got it.”
“Actually, I also wanted to ask you something. I saw you talking with Ankur yesterday. You two would make a cute couple.” Kyle smiled winningly.
Ryley gave her a strained smile in return. “No, we’re just friends.” Even that was a stretch; he was just a friend of her brother’s that she had spoken to in passing, but she wouldn’t parse words. The distinction would be lost on her audience.
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