The Romantics(19)

everyone’s an advice columnist these days


The next day, during lunch at school, Gael headed to his usual spot in the outdoor courtyard. It was already halfway through October, the leaves had fallen, and the temperatures had cooled. No one besides him was still sitting outside, but navigating lunch-table dynamics didn’t exactly appeal to Gael.

I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of the school cafeteria. Whether from your own experience or from watching movies, you should be familiar with the usual social divisions, and Gael’s high school was no exception. Before The Ultimate Betrayal (TUB), Gael had always sat with his own little cohort of not-so-nerdy band nerds—Anika, Jenna, Danny, Mason, and occasionally one or two of the girls from Jenna’s AP biology class.

Since TUB, however, Gael had been eating outside alone.

So Gael was quite shocked when, as he sat down on the concrete, leaned against the bricks, and pulled out his Monday usual, a sad ham-and-cheese sandwich his mom had haphazardly thrown together this morning (lunch had been so much better when his dad packed it), he saw Danny and Jenna walking toward him.

“Dude,” Danny said, hair neatly combed and gelled, one hand on the strap of his backpack. “Enough of this lunch outside. Come in and sit with us.”

Gael took a bite of his sandwich and shook his head.

“Come on,” Jenna said. Her own hair was the opposite of Danny’s, auburn and wild and frizzy, like she’d just stuck her finger in an electrical socket. They made an odd but cute couple. She looked over to Danny, and he nodded at her. “We miss you,” she said. “And it’s cold as balls out here.”

Danny definitely put her up to that, Gael thought. But still, it was nice.

Gael swallowed and took a sip from his Nalgene bottle. “I have zero desire to sit with Anika and Mason,” he said.

“They aren’t sitting with us anymore,” Jenna said. He detected a hint of annoyance in her voice. She crossed her arms and smiled forcefully.

Danny’s smile was more genuine. “We didn’t think it was quite fair that they did the wrong thing and you got the shit end of the stick.”

Jenna laughed. A few weeks ago at lunch, she’d said “shit end of the stick” accidentally, and it had stuck.

Gael laughed, too. It was pretty funny, no matter how many times you said it.

And he had gotten the shit end of the stick. They were right. Why was he letting Mason and Anika’s selfishness ruin his other friendships, too?

Without saying anything, Gael grabbed his sandwich and backpack and followed them inside to their usual table. As promised, Anika and Mason were on the opposite end of the cafeteria, eating with two girls from Anika’s Bhangra dance group and laughing. He tried to ignore them.

Danny and Jenna spent the next thirty minutes flirtatiously arguing about which season of Doctor Who was the best and discussing whether they really needed to do the biology reading or if they should try and Google the answers to the worksheet.

Gael was mostly silent, until Danny, as if a lightbulb had just gone off in his head, stopped talking about bio and looked at him with excitement in his eyes.

“Maybe you need to hook up with somebody else. Especially if she’s hotter than Anika.”

Jenna smacked him on his ultra-skinny arm. “Could you be any more chauvinistic? He needs some space and to not pull someone else into this drama.” She looked at him all serious, and Gael swore even her freckles looked like they weren’t messing around. “Like they say on Reddit, lawyer up, delete Facebook, hit the gym. Except for the lawyer part, obviously. Oh, and stop publicly slut-shaming Anika in restaurants.”

Eeesh, Gael thought, brutal. Was that what he really had done?

He tried to think of a respectful way to defend himself, but Danny shrugged and moved on: “It might be a lot easier to get over Anika if he got under someone else, all I’m saying.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “You just heard that on a bad TV show and wanted a chance to say it.”

“Maybe,” Danny said, and then he kissed her sloppily.

Between their PDA and conflicting advice, Gael only felt worse. In fact, none of the advice Gael received these days seemed to help:

Last night, his dad had handed him one of the awkward self-help books he had read when he and his mom split up, and then he asked for about the millionth time since the separation if Gael was sure he didn’t want to try therapy.

That morning, his mom had begged him to accompany her to a meditation-focused yoga class on Wednesday.

At breakfast, Piper had read him his love horoscope, which suggested he be open to “those who offer deep conversation and intellectual intrigue.” (Okay, I was the one who dug up that gem.)

And in chemistry before lunch, Mason had reminded him that now was the time that Gael needed a friend the most. Mason didn’t seem to appreciate the irony of the situation.

The problem with the advice he was getting was the problem with almost all advice having to do with me. People suggest what they themselves would want or need. But the act of loving is such a unique experience, it’s damn near impossible for anyone but me to know exactly what someone needs at any given time—and even I get it wrong sometimes.

Danny pulled away from Jenna’s kiss and fixed his eyes on Gael.

“Come on,” he said. “There’s got to be some girl you at least think is cute.”