“Well, I told you, at first it was just questions about our labs and some calculus problems”—Oh, now it’s calculus, too, for God’s sake,I think, but don’t interrupt—“and then she was more…I mean…” He stares down at his hands.
“She was more?” I repeat.
Zach sighs, says softly, “You realize you’re just repeating what I’m saying now.”
And since I can’t repeat that, I ask, “Does she know you have a girlfriend?”
“Of course she knows,” he says. “I mean, I told her I did.”
“Well, that’s kind of a bitchy thing to do,” I say. “To text somebody else’s boyfriend.”
Zach sighs again and brings his right foot on top of his bed, even though he’s still wearing his sneakers. “I don’t think she’s trying to be bitchy. She just”—is a bitch—“is going through some family stuff.”
“Zach,” I say, like,Please God, tell me you’re not actually falling for that.“Katy told me in September that Lindsaymissedyou.”
He shrugs without meeting my eye, then continues.
“I told her that her family stuff isn’t any of my business anymore,” he says. “I promise. I just wanted you to know.”
Now he reaches forward and pulls my chair toward him until I’m right in front of him, only a couple of inches between our faces. The smell of smoke hangs between us.
“Pleasechange your last name,” I tell him, and his gray eyes twinkle as he laughs. “Or move to my school.”
He kisses the base of my throat. “Move into myroom.”
He keeps kissing me, but I can’t concentrate, can’t do anything but think of Lindsay and her slutty flower and her curvy body in that black dress, dissecting frogs in a skanky lab coat.
“Stop freaking out,” Zach breathes against my jaw.
“She’s texting you advances!”
“And I’mtellingyou,” he counters, not denying the advances part.
“But she obviously wants you back. How can Inotfreak out?”
He pulls his face away from mine, frowning. “Because you trust me?” he says.
“Of course Ido,” I say, sliding my hand over where his sits on his lap. “But girls like Lindsay…”
“You’ve never even met her,” he points out. “You’ve met me. You knowme.If that’s not enough, then…”
He ends it there.Then.
Then I climb in his lap and kiss him. I do trust Zach.
At least, I want to.
It’s just that I know you don’t date a girl for two years unless you’re crazy about her. OrZachdoesn’t, anyway, because that’s who he is.
And sometimes, at the most random times, like when we’re riding our bikes through town or watching a movie or getting something to eat, her ghost will flit right in between us. Zach will get distant or a little sad or flush a little, and I’ll know it’s because this thing reminds him of her. A lot of things remind him of her.
It’s like the first time we were at Schiavoni’s or the night Zach showed me his homemade movies in his basement and at first he couldn’t find one that didn’t include her.
I wish I could kiss him and make him forget.
I wonder, as his tongue works its way into my mouth, if he wishes that, too.
And even though I am too wrapped up in him to say it, too out of breath to breathe it, I know there’s a word for how I feel about Zach. Even without my permission, it’s there. Even though we haven’t been together all that long.
