It was strange and good, being around this family: how easy they were with each other, how they made each other laugh. Ryan loved his parents, obviously, and it wasn’t like they never spent any time together, but even back when things between his mom and dad had been friendly as they ever were, they certainly hadn’t had a weekly game night. It should have been corny—itwascorny—but it was also... nice?
Michelle took off pretty soon after they were finished,and Ryan meant to follow—he needed to go by Remy’s party for at least a little while, or he’d never hear the end of it on Monday—but he found himself stalling, sorting the money back into the bank and carrying a couple of dirty glasses into the kitchen. When he made a move to put them in the dishwasher, Gabby looked at him like she thought he was about to try and steal their fancy silverware. “Okay, enough,” she said, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. “Real talk. Why are you actually here?”
“Why am I—?” Ryan broke off, looking at her for a moment. Her eyes were very, very blue. He thought about telling her the truth, about explaining it to her: his dad and the van and the waitress, that he’d wanted to be somewhere solid and safe-feeling and something about the way Gabby was holding herself this afternoon in the school parking lot made her house seem like a good bet. She seemed like the kind of person who would understand that, and he was surprised to realize that he actually wanted to say it, but just as he was opening his mouth Celia came into the kitchen with a stack of tiny appetizer plates, stopping in the doorway with her head tilted to the side.
“Sorry,” she said, eyes cutting back and forth between them. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Gabby took a giant step back like Ryan was radioactive. “You’re not, Celia, Jesus,” she said irritably. “We’re just talking.”
Celia did not look convinced. “Okay,” she said, settingthe plates in the sink and backing away with her hands up. “Whatever you say.”
Gabby waited until Celia was gone, then turned back to him. “So?” she prodded. “Are you gonna answer me or what?”
Ryan shrugged. “I really like Monopoly,” he lied.
Gabby heaved out a noisy sigh, like she’d expected about as much from him. “Whatever,” she said. “Don’t you have a party to be at?”
Ryan considered that. “I do, actually,” he admitted after a moment. “You wanna come?”
GABBY
“Really?” Celia asked ten minutes later as Gabby shrugged into her jacket, Ryan’s friends waiting in their SUV outside. “You’re going to a party?”
“Can you stop?” Gabby asked sharply, eyes cutting to Ryan. She didn’t want him to know what a weirdo she was any more than he already knew it, and she didn’t want to think about why.
“Sorry,” Celia said. Then, to Ryan, in a voice like she was explaining a terrible illness: “Gabby just doesn’t usually like parties that much, is all.”
“I already told him that,” Gabby said, although the look on Ryan’s face clearly indicated he had no recollection of theevent—just like he apparently had no recollection of most of last Saturday night, which was a blessing. The more Gabby thought about it, the surer she was that the memory lapse on his part was for the best. So she’d had a little crush on him for five minutes before she realized what an idiotic proposition that was on her part. Who cared? No harm, no foul.
She’d fully intended to tell him to go screw when he’d asked her to go to this party. After all, there was no effing way. She could just imagine the baffled looks on people’s faces when they walked in, everybody wondering what on earth somebody like her was doing there with Ryan McCullough, like maybe he was part of some outreach program that paired popular kids with socially inept shut-ins. On top of which, it probably wasn’t even a real invitation—after all, why would he want her hanging around when he was with his actual friends? She was weird. She was awkward. She played Monopoly with her family every Friday night, for Pete’s sake. Gabby knew herself well enough to know she was nobody’s idea of a fun time.
But: “I mean it,” Ryan had said, leaning comfortably against the counter in her parents’ kitchen, that dumb earnest expression on his face like he was sincerely interested in having her around. He was stupidly, annoyingly good-looking. It made Gabby want to knee him in the nuts. “It’ll be a good time.”
She opened her mouth again to say she couldn’t. She opened her mouth to tell him he should leave. She could feelherself starting to get anxious just thinking about it, heart skipping like a stone across a pond, but then she’d remembered how he’d talked to her last weekend in her bedroom. How he’d looked at her like she wasn’t odd at all.
“Sure,” Gabby said, before she could talk herself back out of it. “I can tag along.”
Now her mom pulled her into the stairwell, reaching out and tucking Gabby’s hair behind her ears. “Hey. You want me to say you can’t go?”
That wasexactlywhat Gabby wanted, actually; she’d used her mom as a fall guy a million times before, starting back when she was seven and didn’t want to go to Lily Jackson’s trampoline party. But this felt different, for some reason. Being withRyanfelt different.
“No,” she said, surprising herself. “It’s okay.”
And itwasokay, she thought, sitting sandwiched in the middle of the backseat of some upperclassman’s SUV, Ryan on her left side and a kid from her biology class on her right. Rihanna blared on the stereo; the autumn wind ruffled Gabby’s hair through the open window as they pulled up to a tidy-looking Cape Cod–style house on the corner. This was normal; this was what peopledid. Totally, totally fine.
She made it almost all the way up to the front door before the panic hit.
Gabby closed her eyes for a moment, though she knew she was powerless to stop it. All she could do was hang on. She’d been anxious as long as she could remember; she’dbeen having panic attacks since she was eleven, when Kristina found her curled into a hysterical ball underneath her bed. Sometimes, like now, Gabby knew why they were happening. Other times they came on for what felt like no reason, halfway through math class or in the middle of the night. They always started the same way: her heart skittering in her chest like she’d been electrocuted, her armpits prickling damply with sweat. In another second she was going to be gasping for air like a hooked fish, and she did not notnotwant to be walking into a stranger’s party when that happened.
She made herself slow her walk as her heart thumped and her throat constricted, dropping back to the rear of the group stealthily enough that Ryan and the rest of his friends wouldn’t notice. She was an expert at this, the ninja exit. Celia would pick her up, maybe. Celia would make fun of her, but Celia would pick her up.
Ryan’s friends crushed through the front door of the house, loud and rowdy. Ryan held it open behind him, then did an actual double take as he realized Gabby was still standing at the bottom of the stoop.
“Hey,” he said, coming back down a step, “are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, totally.” Gabby nodded. God, the only thing worse than having a panic attack was trying to have one in secret while someone else was watching. It was like trying to go to the bathroom without making any noise. “I’m good.”
“Are you sure? You kind of look like you’re going to hurl.” Ryan came all the way back down, putting his hand on her arm. Gabby flinched and he pulled it right back. “Sorry,” he said.
