Alone. The only thing that prevents me from feeling completely alone is knowing that I have someone, that if I really need him, he will be there.
“I’m going to go now,” he says to me. I don’t point out he’s not actually going to go anywhere. Neither of us is going to go anywhere.
“See you tomorrow,” I say, because I know we’re not going to talk again tonight.
“Yeah. See ya.”
My mother comes home and I help her put away the groceries. We make dinner. We don’t talk about anything. She talks, for sure. She talks and talks and talks. But we don’t talk at all.
When I get back to my room, I check my email on my phone. I am surprised to find a message from Nathan.
Hi Rhiannon,
I just wanted to say that it was lovely meeting you and dancing with you last night. I’m sorry the police came and separated us. Even though you’re not my type, gender-wise, you’re certainly my type, person-wise. Please keep in touch.
N
I smile. It’s so…nice. I wonder if he’s single, even though I can’t really imagine Preston going for him. Preston likes guys who are trendier. Or at least don’t wear ties to parties.
I also wonder about being his type, person-wise. What does that mean, really? Where does that get us?
Shut up, I tell myself. A nice guy tries to be friendly with me and I immediately think, Why bother? There is something seriously wrong with me. The reason to bother is because he’s a nice guy.
I hit reply, but I don’t know what to write. I feel I need to make an excuse for not writing to him first; I’m sure the piece of paper with his email address on it is still in my pocket. I also want to sound like someone who gets this kind of email all the time.
It’s weird, because the Rhiannon who comes out in what I write doesn’t sound like I normally sound.
She sounds like she’s really enjoying herself.
Nathan!
I’m so glad you emailed, because I lost the slip of paper that I wrote your email on. It was wonderful talking and dancing with you, too. How dare the police break us up! You’re my type, person-wise, too. Even if you don’t believe in relationships that last longer than a year. (I’m not saying you’re wrong, btw. Jury’s still out.)
I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Steve has another party soon. If only so you can bear witness to its evil.
Love,
Rhiannon
I don’t know why I write “Love” like that. It’s just what I always write. Everything else seems cold.
But now I’m worried I sound too eager. Not eager in the same way I’m eager with Justin. Just eager for…whatever’s next.
As soon as I hit send, the emptiness returns. I’m back into the day I was having. Maybe this is what alone really is—finding out how tiny your world is, and not knowing how to get anywhere else.
I go on Facebook. I read Gawker. I watch some music on YouTube, including the Fun. song from the day with Justin, the one Nathan sang back to me. I feel stupid doing that. I know Nathan wouldn’t find it stupid. Somehow I know that. And I know Justin would find it stupid. I asked him once if he thought we had a song. I mean, most couples have a song. But he said he had no idea, and that he didn’t even understand why we’d want one, anyway.
I’d told myself he was right. We didn’t need one. Every song could be ours.
But now I want one. It’s not enough that every song can make me think of him.
I want one, just one, that will make him think of me.
Chapter Six
The hangover hangs over Monday as well.
It’s like his personality has spoiled from lack of use. He’s in school, but he still thinks he’s in bed. I can’t take it personally that he’s not happy to see me, because he’s not happy to see any of us. He won’t say more than two words in any sentence, and after a few minutes I decide to leave him alone.
A lot of our Mondays are like this.
Our Monday at the beach seems like much longer than a week ago.
What is wrong with me?
—
“How was your weekend?” Rebecca asks when I get to third period.
“How wasn’t my weekend?” I reply.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I just mean that not much happened.”
“How was the party?”
“It was fine. I danced with Steve’s gay cousin. Justin got shitfaced. The cops came.”
“Steve has a gay cousin? I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t think they’re close.”
“Well, if he’s still around, Ben and I were going to hang out with Steve and Stephanie during assembly period this afternoon. Just get coffee or something. Wanna come?”
I notice she hasn’t invited Justin. It’ll be a triple date, only I’m not being asked to bring my date.
“Can I get back to you?” I ask.
Rebecca’s not stupid. She knows why I’m not committing.
“Whenever,” she tells me. “We’ll be there either way. Although it would be great to have some time with you. I feel I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Now it’s clear that Justin’s being deliberately excluded. Because Rebecca sees me all the time. It’s just that he’s always by my side when she does.
—
I find him right before lunch.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asks back.
It looks like he is switching his books in his locker. It looks like he’s about to head to lunch.
“What do you want to be doing?” I ask.
He slams the locker shut. “I want to be playing video games,” he says. “That work for you?”
“Wanna get out of here and do something? There’s that assembly seventh and eighth period. Nobody will notice we’re gone.”
I am looking for that spark. If it’s gone out, I am trying to relight it. Because I have a spark inside of me, too. And right now it wants to be bright.
“What the fuck has gotten into you?” he asks. “If we could just leave, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now? Jesus. It’s bad enough to be here. Why do you have to keep pointing it out?”
“That’s not what I meant,” I tell him. “I just thought it could be like last week.”
“Last week? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“The beach? The ocean?”
He shakes his head, like I’m making things up. “Enough, okay? Just stop.”
So I stop. I swallow the spark and feel it scratch as it goes down.
We eat with our friends. Preston asks about the party, and Justin tells him it sucked. In his version, skank girls kept crowding the kitchen. Stephanie yelled at him for putting his feet on a table. Then the police came, because the police clearly have nothing better to do.
Preston then asks me how my night was. I tell him that my night sucked, too. I don’t tell him about the basement, or about the dancing. No, my version transforms itself into Justin’s version. He doesn’t even notice, but I do it anyway.
I am disappearing. This is the thought that occurs to me: I am disappearing. Like nothing I say or do matters. My life has become so tiny that it’s completely unseen.
The only way I can think to fight this is to text Rebecca and tell her I’m free to hang out after school.
—
He doesn’t care. I tell him I made plans for during the assembly, and he genuinely doesn’t care. He doesn’t ask to be invited along. He doesn’t even ask me what the plans are. He’ll go home and play video games. He won’t text me unless I text him first. I know all this—but why do I still feel surprised, as if it isn’t meant to be this way?
—
Rebecca decides she’s in the mood for ice cream, and convinces the rest of us we’re in the mood for ice cream, too, even though it’s not summer and the nearest good ice cream place is about twenty minutes away. It is, as we expected, surprisingly easy to
get out of the assembly—we figure the visiting author won’t miss us too much, since none of us have ever heard of him. Rebecca, Ben, and I pile into her car, and Stephanie and Steve meet us there. Steve is wearing the effects of the weekend more obviously than Stephanie is; she looks like she spent the past two days at the gym.
We get our cones and head for a table. When we start talking, it’s not about the party, but everything that happened after—all the cleanup that had to be done, all of the bullshit with the police, who didn’t end up arresting anyone. They just wanted to break up the party and they did a good job of it.
Stephanie admits she was a little relieved. “There are some people,” she says, “who will never leave a party unless the police come.” From the sound of her voice, I know I’m supposed to know who she’s talking about. I have no idea.
“I really liked your cousin,” I tell Steve. “He kinda saved the night for me.”
Steve looks confused. “My cousin? When did you meet my cousin?”
“At the party. Nathan.” I almost add your gay cousin, but then I realize I have no idea if Steve knows.
Now Steve laughs. “At my party? I don’t think so. All my cousins are, like, eight. And none of them are named Nathan.”
I don’t understand what he’s saying.
“But I met him,” I say lamely.
“Oh dear,” Rebecca jumps in, patting my hand. “It sounds like you met someone who said he was Steve’s cousin.”
“But why would he say that?”
Stephanie shrugs. “Who knows? Guys are weird.”
What’s hurting me is how honest he seemed. How real. Now it’s like I’ve made him up.
“He was wearing a tie,” I say. “I think he was the only guy wearing a tie.”
“That dude!” Steve laughs. “I totally saw him. He’s not my cousin, but he was definitely there.”
I wonder if Nathan is really his name. I wonder if he’s really gay. I wonder why the universe is doing this to me.
“I can’t believe he lied,” I say.
“Again,” Stephanie chimes in. “Guys are weird.”
“And certainly you’re used to a little lying?” Rebecca adds. “This guy probably liked you and didn’t know how to deal with it. That happens. It’s not the worst kind of lie.”
I think she’s trying to make me feel better, but I’m stuck on that first part—certainly you’re used to a little lying.
“Justin never lies to me,” I say.
Rebecca plays dumb. “Who said anything about Justin?”
“I know what you meant. And I’m telling you—Justin can ignore me and say the wrong things and go into his moods, but he never, ever lies to me. I know you don’t think we have much, but we do have that.”
Rebecca and Stephanie shoot a look at each other, clearly not believing me. Ben is checking his phone. Steve still seems amused that some guy crashed his party pretending to be his cousin.
I hate this feeling—my so-called friends thinking they know my life better than I do. And I hate it even more this time because I thought I’d had the opposite with Nathan. Stupid, for sure, after one conversation and one email exchange. But still. Whether it was real or an illusion, it makes a rip when it goes.
Steve starts to argue with Stephanie about who was the most wasted guest at the party, and my questions about Nathan seem to have been quickly forgotten. We finish our ice cream and then don’t know what to do—we’ve only been hanging out for about fifteen minutes, but the reason we’re here no longer exists. Stephanie proposes a trip to the secondhand store down the street, and even though Ben and Steve protest, nobody can think of anything better to do.
I am disappearing again, this time into silence. As Stephanie and Rebecca try things on and Steve looks through old records, Ben and I hover on the sidelines. He keeps checking his phone, but then, as Stephanie and Rebecca argue over who looks better in a fifties sundress, he says to me, “I know it probably doesn’t matter, but I’d bet good money that the guy who said he was Steve’s cousin had a reason for doing it. Guys act weird, sure. But it’s usually for a reason. And it’s rarely to be mean. It’s much more likely that he liked you.” Then he goes back to his phone and writes another text.
I go onto my own phone, wanting there to be an email from Nathan explaining everything. But there isn’t. So I write to him instead.
Nathan,
Apparently, Steve doesn’t have a cousin Nathan, and none of his cousins were at his party. Care to explain?
Rhiannon
Almost immediately, I get a reply.
Rhiannon,
I can, indeed, explain. Can we meet up? It’s the kind of explanation that needs to be done in person.
Love,
Nathan
That “Love” hits me. I know it could be a taunt or a tease. And I also know it isn’t a taunt or a tease.
Rebecca is calling me over to decide who gets the dress. Ben is pulling himself farther into the background, not wanting to get involved. Steve is holding up a Led Zeppelin record and asking Stephanie if he already has it.
I don’t reply to the email. Not yet. I need to think.
—
Rebecca gets the dress. Steve gets the record. Stephanie finds another dress that she says she likes more than the one Rebecca has. Ben spots a dictionary and starts talking about whether or not dictionaries, physical dictionaries, will exist in twenty years.
When everyone’s done shopping, they make some noises about hanging out more and eventually getting dinner.
I tell them I have to go home.
Chapter Seven
I don’t owe Nathan anything. He lied to me. Because of this, I should let it go.
But even if I don’t owe him anything, I feel I owe myself the explanation. I want to know.
I stay awake half the night, trying to figure it out. Then I get up and write him back.
Nathan,
This better be a good explanation. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop at the Clover Bookstore at 5.
Rhiannon
The bookstore seems like a good, safe place to meet. It’s in public, but it’s also a place Justin would never, ever go.
I already know I’m not going to tell him about this.
—
If I spent most of the night awake with my thoughts, Justin seems to have gotten plenty of sleep. It’s almost a good morning with him. When I see him, he doesn’t look like he wants to run away. He asks me how hanging out with Rebecca and the others went; I’m impressed because I didn’t expect him to remember what I was doing. He even listens to my response for about a minute. Then he grows bored—but I don’t blame him, because it’s pretty boring. It’s not what’s really playing in my mind. It’s not what I’m really thinking about.
Waiting. I can’t stand the feeling of waiting. Knowing I’m stranded for a few hours in the boring parts.
I check my email at lunch and find something new from Nathan.
Rhiannon,
I’ll be there. Although not in a way you might expect. Bear with me and hear me out.
A
My immediate reaction is that he’s not gay at all. And that his name must start with an A. He was hitting on me, and when I caught him hitting on me, he made up that he was gay. It explains the connection I felt a little more. Both magnets were working. I know I should be offended, but part of me doesn’t mind if he was hitting on me, especially because he was too sweet to do it all the way. It’s still a lie, and I’m still angry about that. But at least it’s a flattering lie.
I know Rebecca would love it if I talked to her about this. I know she is perpetually ready for that kind of conversation—she thinks friendships are built out of that kind of conversation. I sit across from her at lunch and I can see the question marks darting out of her eyes—does she know something is going on, or is she just hoping? Justin is right next to me, so it’s not like I can say anything. But even if it was just me and Rebecca, safely alone in her car, I’m not sure I
would tell her. I like that it’s mine, and mine alone.
—
I get to the bookstore early and take a table by the window in the café. I’m nervous, like this is a first date. I know I shouldn’t be feeling this way—I’m only here for answers, not to get a boyfriend. I already have a boyfriend.
It’s amazing how many people will walk into a café area when you’re waiting for someone else. At least I already know what he looks like. I wonder if he’ll still be wearing a tie. Maybe that’s his thing. Maybe he’s really that much of a dork. I could be friends with that kind of behavior.
I try to distract myself with an Us Weekly, but my mind doesn’t even want to look at the pictures. A girl comes in and I don’t really notice her until she’s right in front of me, at my table, sitting down.
Rude. “I’m sorry,” I say. “That seat’s taken.”
I’m expecting her to tell me she’s sorry and move on. But instead she says, “It’s okay. Nathan sent me.”
Weird. I take a good look at the girl—her Anthropologie top, her Banana Republic pants—and figure she’s not evil. But her presence is still confusing.
“He sent you?” I say. “Where is he?” Was he so scared that I’d be pissed that he brought reinforcements? Total dork move. I look to see if he’s watching us, if he’s waiting to see if it’s safe to show his face. But he’s nowhere in sight.
“Rhiannon,” the girl says. I turn back to her and she’s looking right at me. Unsettling. There’s something big she’s not telling me. She’s both excited and terrified to tell me. It’s all there in her eyes.
I don’t look away.
I am not ready for this, whatever it is.
“Yes?” I whisper.
Her voice is calm. “I need to tell you something. It’s going to sound very, very strange. What I need is for you to listen to the whole story. You will probably want to leave. You might want to laugh. But I need you to take this seriously. I know it will sound unbelievable, but it’s the truth. Do you understand?”