“Why does sex have to be the only thing that matters? Why does it have to automatically change four years of—”
“Because itdoes!”
“You’re being an infant,” she said. “You’re being exactly the kind of person you hate when people think you are.”
The unfairness of it was staggering. “I’m telling you I want to try to be with you, Gabby. I’m telling you I’ve wanted that for a long time. And if you don’t want it then that’s fine, I can’t do anything about that, but you don’t get to call me an asshole on top of it.”
“I’m not calling you an asshole!” Gabby said. “And I’m not saying I don’t want it, even.”
“Then whatareyou saying?”
“I’m saying I’mscared.”
“Great,” Ryan snapped. “Something new and different for you, then.”
Right away he knew that was the wrong way to handleit; sure enough, Gabby’s eyes flashed. “That was mean,” she said. “You know what, that was a low blow, and now Iamcalling you an asshole, and I’m leaving.” She grabbed her bag from where she’d dropped it on the floor on their way in here, swiped her car keys with a rattle off his desk. “I’ll see you later, Ryan.”
“Gabby—” Ryan broke off, baffled by how fast this had gone pear-shaped on him. He wanted to grab his words right out of the air. But it was too late now; they were in this. He’d meant it. There was no turning back. “Fine,” he said, blowing a breath out. “Go, then.”
Gabby went.
NUMBER 9
THE BEGINNING
FRESHMAN YEAR, FALL
RYAN
Coach Harkin kept them late again on Friday afternoon, so it was after five by the time the van dropped them back at school. Ryan showered up and shoved his hockey gear into his locker, then slung his backpack over one shoulder and ambled down the bleachy-smelling hallway out into the parking lot. It was colder than it had been this morning, Halloween coming, the oak trees on the lawn of the high school shedding their papery brown leaves in heaving gusts. The sun was already starting to set, and Ryan frowned a bit at the sky as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his varsity jacket. It creeped him out, when it got dark early like this. A lot of stuff had kind of creeped him out the last few days, truth be told.
Don’t be such a wuss, Ryan scolded himself, shaking his head like maybe he could knock the thoughts of last nightloose that way. His dad had come down to get the last of his stuff from the house, loading his favorite chair and the bedroom TV and his own ancient hockey gear into a beat-up van he’d borrowed from his friend Skippy. Things had started off civilly enough between his parents—after all, what did they have left to fight about at this point?—but pretty soon they were at it again, first over some odds and ends from the kitchen that Ryan was pretty sure neither of them actually wanted, then over the waitress Ryan was pretty sure they didn’t think he knew about, and then, finally, about money. Always money, in the end.
The sky had been a deep black by the time his dad finally backed the van out of the driveway, with a slap on Ryan’s shoulder and a promise to call and figure out a time for him to come visit, which Ryan knew from experience might or might not actually happen. He tried not to think about the fact that his dad had never once suggested Ryan come with him to Schenectady. Not that he’d have wanted to go, necessarily, or that his mom would have let him in a million years. But it would have been nice to be asked.
Now the gym door slammed open behind him: Remy Dolan, who was a sophomore and Ryan’s Colson Cavaliers Big Brother, ambled out of it, along with a couple of other guys from the team. “My house tonight, McCullough!” Remy yelled, bumping into Ryan hard on purpose before heading for his own car. Ryan winced. He liked partying with those guys—he liked partying, period—but he hadn’trealized when he made varsity that it was going to mean drinking until he blacked out every Friday and Saturday night, plus one particularly ugly Thursday after which he’d woken up with a giant dick drawn on his face. It could have been worse, he reasoned—he was the only freshman on the team, so a certain amount of hazing was probably inevitable, and so far they hadn’t beat him up or made him do anything weird with farm animals—but still. He wastired.
Ryan lifted his hand in a wave as Dolan and the others drove off in Dolan’s brand-new Explorer, then dug his phone out to see if his mom was close, so that he could run down the block to meet her on the corner instead of having her drive all the way up to school. It made Ryan feel like shit every single time he did this, but the last thing he wanted was for one of his teammates to catch him getting into the passenger seat of her bright red minivan: old and dinged and dog-smelling, with the logo of her grooming business, Pampered Paws, emblazoned on the side.
His mom hadn’t texted yet, but Ryan was about to head down the block anyway when the side door of the building creaked open and somebody else came out: that girl Gabby, from the party last weekend. He hadn’t seen her at all since he’d bailed out of her house at top speed on Sunday morning, which seemed strange now that Ryan thought about it: their high school wasn’t huge, maybe six hundred people total. Still, he guessed he hadn’t exactly been looking.
He looked now, though: she was wearing jeans and a pairof gray Converse, hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket and blond hair tucked into a wispy ponytail at the crown of her head. She was sort of pretty, in a quiet kind of way, and Ryan wondered why he hadn’t noticed that at the party. Probably because he had been very, very drunk.
“Hey,” Ryan said, lifting his hand in a wave and smiling at her. “Long time no see.”
Gabby did not smile back. “Hey,” she said. Her cheeks were very pink. “What’s up.”
“Just waiting for a ride,” he explained. “How’s your week been?”
“Fine,” Gabby said, keeping space for the Holy Spirit between them. She looked suspicious, like she thought it was possible he was about to throw a soda in her face or carry her to the bathroom and give her a swirly—which was strange, because he thought he remembered them being friends at the party. But Ryan had noticed that people looked at him like that sometimes since he made varsity, like being popular or well-known around school automatically also made him an asshole. It made Ryan, who did not like to think of himself as an asshole, feel kind of bad, but he was never exactly sure how to address it.
“You have practice?” Ryan asked, trying his best to sound extra friendly. Gabby stared at him blankly in return. “Is that why you’re here late, I mean? You play a sport?”
Gabby snorted like that was hilarious. “Definitely not,” she said. Then, after a moment of apparent internal debate:“I was editing photos.”
Ryan squinted. “Do we have a darkroom I don’t know about?”
“No, not developing them,” she corrected. “Editing. On the computer. The software in the yearbook office is better than the kind I have at home.”
