My list of colleges changed, my top choices now all in the Southern California area. This upset my mother, who didn’t want me to sideline my life for a boy. But she didn’t understand. His life was my life, and I would go where he was to support him.
My stubbornness caused issues at home, which landed me in house arrest more than once. My punishment became Rory’s. When I was in trouble, he couldn’t come over, and I knew he hated it. We fought sometimes over that, him almost always taking my mother’s side and urging me to go away to college. I relented and sent out applications to my former top schools, but I didn’t plan to go if accepted. My parents could say what they wanted, but this was my life and I chose Rory.
If I wanted to be totally honest, my main reason for staying was that I feared once their band started booking gigs, Rory would have temptations he’d never experienced before. Away at college, I’d be out of sight and out of mind. The thought never crossed my mind that I might meet someone too because I knew it would never happen. I had blinders on. That much was clear just from the interactions I was having at school.
“Hi, Grace,” a girl called to me, walking the opposite way down the hall. I gave her a friendly wave and continued on my way.
A funny thing happened in the transition from junior to senior year—I was no longer a pariah. I’d narrowed down the reason to one of three things. The nepo baby mean girls had graduated, and without their constant badgering, others were allowed to form their own opinions about me. Number two: now that I was no longer in Quinn’s shadow, people could actually seemeand were no longer shying away. But the most likely reason was that falling in love with Rory had changed me. I no longer had to chase adoration because I had it now in the palm of my hand. I was stronger and more confident, and it showed.
Boys surrounded me, and I had more Homecoming invitations than I knew what to do with, but I was never tempted, not once, because I already had the real thing. And it wasn’t just the boys with a newfound interest in me. On the first day of senior year, I found myself the center of attention. My classmates gathered around me like timidly curious woodland creatures. I was invited into all of the relevant friend groups, floating between them as I struggled to build lasting bonds.
Some days, I just didn’t feel like trying, and like my sister before me, I found myself in the library at lunchtime, nibbling on my food and working on homework so I wouldn’t have so much to do when Rory came around.
Every time I lunched in the library, I took a spot at the same table, a few seats down from the only other person sitting there. Her name was a mystery. I’d introduced myself when I’d first sat at her table, but it was immediately clear the girl was painfully shy. She mumbled her name back to me.
Rea?I attempted to clarify. She mumbled again.Shea? Renee? Margaret?Like a trooper, the whisper-girl just kept trying until finally, it was so awkward I just smiled and nodded and saidOhhh, okay,like I knew what she had said.
To this day, I didn’t know what her name was, and we’d reached that point in our relationship where it would be too embarrassing to ask. Despite that, we’d become friends in an odd, comforting way. My friend with no name didn’t dress like the other kids. Instead of trendy labels, she wore baggy pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Her hair was long and dark, often uncombed, and reached all the way to her waist. One day her hair was bright and shiny, and I told her how pretty it was, and she got lost in the layers of bashfulness, her cheeks blooming, but once she thought my attention was diverted, a tiny smile transformed her neutral face.
My phone buzzed on the table, startling both of us. I glanced at the number, didn’t recognize it, and sent it straight to voicemail. My bookish friend smiled at me. I smiled back, and we resumed our work. A minute later, my phone rang again. Same number. I looked up at the girl. Her forehead furrowed as my phone interrupted her work a second time.Oops, my bad, I gestured, then smiled. She grimaced. I sent the call to voicemail.
Packing up at the end of lunch, my phone rang for the third time. Same number. Now I wasn’t sure what to do. As a general rule, I never picked up unknown numbers. If someone I knew was bleeding out and needed my assistance, that person better call me from a number in my contacts or he/she/they would surely die. I checked on my silent seat partner to get her opinion. Her brow was lifted, eyes shifting back and forth between me and the phone as if to say,Are you going to pick that up?
“Should I?”
She mumbled something that I took to mean yes.
“Okay,” I said. Our code seemed to work for us.
I kept my voice low so as not to disturb others. “Hello?”
“Is Rory there?” the female caller asked.
This got my attention, which must have registered on my face because my table partner mirrored my surprised expression. Scooting upright in my chair, questions started whirling. Why was she calling me asking for Rory?
“Who’s this?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She sounded older, seasoned.
“Actually, it does,” I said, already feeling that pinprick jealousy rear up inside me.
Her tone shortened. “Just put him on.”
Mine shortened even more. “How about you give me your name, and I’ll consider it?”
“Look, little girl, I don’t have time for your shit. Tell Rory that Martin and Co. know all about his new Patty, and they’re coming for a chat real soon. Like real soon.”
“I don’t understand any of this.”
“You’re not supposed to because the message isn’t for you.” She was so condescending that I wanted to hang up on her over and over and over. “Just tell him what I said. I’ll wait.”
“I can’t. He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I’m at school.”
