“Oh. Sorry. I thought it would be helpful if I... pretended this was the actual situation.”
“Right. Sure. Let’s try again.”
I took a breath and forced a smile. “Hi, Isaac.”
“Hi.” Instead of smiling, Tyler looked almost austere.
“Welcome to Golden Doors.” Questions. Casual touch. “Um—is this your first time on Nantucket?”
“Yeah.”
I leaned forward, trying to radiate warmth, joy. “Why don’t I show you where to put your bags. This way.” I touched his arm. I didn’t think I could touchIsaac’sarm, but I could at least practice the motion on Tyler.
Tyler stared down at my hand. “I’ll put them away later, thanks.”
I scowled. “You have to play along. The triplets say the first rule of improv is to always say yes.”
“Maybe this guy won’t be friendly.”
I hadn’t even considered that. Surely Isaac would befriendly—he always had been before. But I’d never flirted with him before. I fell backward onto the ice. “Then what do I do?”
“Just be who you are. That should be enough.”
“Well, it hasn’t been so far,” I snapped.
“Then maybe he’s not the right person for you,” Tyler shot back.
I pressed my lips together, feeling jumbled up and almost like crying. Isaac was the right person—wasn’t he? I thought he might be like me, reserved on the outside but only until you got to know him. But if he didn’t like me—if the people I liked never liked me in return—it seemed like the problem lay withme, not them. In which case, I couldn’t just be me. I had to change.
“Sorry,” Tyler said abruptly. “I didn’t mean... I’m sure he’ll like you.”
“Whatever.”
“But... you don’tneedto make this guy like you, you know. The world won’t end if you give this a pass.”
“Right, I know.” I looked down at the ice, the foggy white of the frozen surface, the thin lines and strange bumps. “But I can’t always give things a pass. I can’t avoid whatever scares me. Maybe it’s...” How to explain this? I took a deep breath. “Okay. When I do something, when I want to learn something, I practice endlessly. So I know this situation seems weird, but it’s how I do things.” I looked up to find Tyler’s intense, relentless gaze on me, so searing I shifted nervously. “What?”
“I wish this could just be fun for you.”
“Afterward will be fun, the actual relationship. I just have to get there.” I sighed. “How did you get so good at this? At flirting, at people, at getting everyone to like you?”
His mouth twisted briefly. “I decided to be.”
“What?” I tilted my head, confused.
He looked up at me briefly, his eyes darker blue than the sky. “I was bullied pretty badly in middle school.”
The words were so unexpected, it took a moment to parse them. “Really?”
“Yup.” His mouth flattened. “I was quiet and dressed badly and had bad skin and my hair was very fine and it lay flat and greasy.”
I tried to picture any of those things but found them impossible to see in the easygoing, perfect, popular boy before me. “Hard to believe.”
“Believe it.”
I’d never really been bullied; people might not care to get to know me, but they definitely wanted to hang out, especially in public. I found school lonely and stifling, but not... bad. Or bad in a different way. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“Yes.” He gave me a tight-lipped smile. “It really sucked. Then I went to high school with a different group of people. And I didn’t want to be bullied anymore, so I decided to be popular.”
