‘It wasn’t a summer fling; we were eleven.’ But, no, Gabe still didn’t remember me and I was way too embarrassed and hurt to remind him of our summer camp friendship. And how he’d ended up being the first boy I ever possibly fell in love with. And the one I started comparing other boys to.
‘Do you want me to find out if he’s gay?’
‘I don’t want you to do anything.’ All this was way too much to deal with right now anyway. Ava had only just found out last week that she wasn’t pregnant, and I still had the sword of Natalie hanging over my head. It made work more stressful than it needed to be. Or maybe that was her entire point.
Having Gabe there was bad enough – him not remembering who I was and my damn stomach flipping every time he laughed or smiled. It was distracting!
No, I didn’t want to date Gabe.
That’s a lie – I absolutely wanted to. But not as much as I wanted Natalie’s letter of recommendation. If I wasn’t going to be able to make a high-production-value video to go with my application, a letter from Natalie – a former colleague of the most famous faculty member at La Mère – was the next best thing.
I just needed to keep telling myself that, and soon I wouldn’t even be thinking about Gabe. It was bound to work eventually.
I stopped lying to myself the following Saturday. Amber Gallo – a girl from our class who Ava had been friends with since middle school – was throwing a party, and Ava said she wanted to celebratenotbeing pregnant. And what better way to do that than by drinking shitty beer at a secret house party with no parental supervision?
Since Ava wasn’t pregnant and it was her celebration, I agreed to be designated driver. As I pulled onto Amber’s street, I asked Ava something that had been on my mind for a few days.
‘Have you thought about whether you’d go farther away for school if you had to?’
When I glanced at her, Ava looked deep in thought. Or maybe she was just confused because, yes, this was 100 percent coming out of nowhere. At least to her.
For me, it was part of those rare moments when I wasn’t lying to myself about Gabe. When those little nanoseconds between lies grew into fantasies where we were both in LA. Or New York. It changed depending on the day.
And I knew full well that deciding my future based on a boy was a dumb move – something best saved for teen shows about girls who give up on Harvard to go to Ohio State. I mean, no offense, Ohio State, but Harvard you ain’t.
‘Yeah,’ she finally said. ‘But early decision is binding, so I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere else.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘But say Johns Hopkins had another campus, like in Lo—’ No, she’d see right through me if I said ‘Los Angeles’. ‘Louisiana’.
‘Hard pass on the red states, honey. Purple is difficult enough.’
‘California, then.’ Generic enough. ‘Or Washington State.’
Ava paused. And when she finally did speak, she seemed a little more unsure. ‘I don’t know. Yeah. Probably. I’ve actually been looking into Johns Hopkins’s study abroad programs lately, just to see what they’re like. Sure, going away for one semester is different from four years, but …’
She let her voice trail off. And she seemed to be thinking about something else.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘Wait, why areyouasking this? Are you … thinking of going somewhere other than La Mère?’
‘No! I’m just … wondering. Is all.’
‘Mm-hmm.’ But she still side-eyed me as I parked the car a little ways down the block from Amber’s house.
Around eight – unattractively on time – we rounded the Gallos’ McMansion to the backyard and said our friendly hellos to all the people we had seen sporadically throughout the summer and then every day since starting school last Tuesday.
I spotted Brad Waldorf in the middle of a group by the keg. After I’d seen him and James the other week, he had been even more distant than usual. Which was awkward since we shared European History and biology classes together. But tonight he seemed a little looser, and when he saw me from across the yard he gave me a wave, though it moved no higher than his waist.
Then when Ava and I passed him on the way to the house he tried to shove a can of aforementioned shitty beer into my hand, but I politely waved him away. Ava shot me a knowing look, which I took care to ignore. She’d caught Brad and me making out more than twice in the past year.
Ava and I posed for selfies, danced, and finally, after she went to get another drink, Brad Waldorf approached me.
‘Hey,’ he said. I could tell the beer can in his hand was practically empty when he put it to his lips.
‘How are you?’ I asked. He said he was fine, then went quiet again, as if he wasn’t sure what the next part of our conversation was supposed to be. I looked around the yard, where the other people from our school milled about, along with some guys from Archbishop Murphy. No one was paying attention to us, but Brad still stood in a defensive way. His shoulders were slightly slumped, and his arms looked like they were trying to cradle his chest.
This was also strange because he usually just sent me a text to ask if I wanted to go somewhere and hook up. And it was a little early – that didn’t happen until after eleven most nights.
