You Know Me Well(16)

I catch some people looking at me during Spanish, but mostly it feels like things are returning to normal. But then second period is study hall, and that’s where I know I’m going to see Ryan. It’s one of the parts of the day that I’ve always designated as our time—all we have to do is tell Mr. Peterson that we’re going to the library and he’ll let us leave; the fewer kids he has to watch over, the happier he is. Sometimes Ryan and I ask for permission at the same time, but mostly we space it out. He doesn’t want it to seem like we’re running off together. And as long as the end result is us running off together, I never mind.

It isn’t completely out of the question for us to head to the library. We’d sit across from each other, and the tension there made everything—even a pencil sliding from my side of the table to his—seem powerful and ours. Other times, we’d break free from the building and walk through the woods or the playing fields. If it was absolutely quiet—if there was absolutely no one around—I could usually get him to make out with me a little. And when it was done, he’d smile and start talking again as if nothing had happened, as if other people were around, even when they weren’t. Everyone knew we were friends, so we acted like friends. But that’s never what it felt like, not if I was being honest with myself. I wanted him more than that. I needed him more than that.

By the time I get to the room, he’s already got the pass in his hand. He winks at me and steps into the hall. I go to Mr. Peterson and ask for a pass of my own. He actually questions me about why I need to go to the library. Of all days, why do you have to start being skeptical now? I think. But I also answer quickly, invent a report on Sylvia Plath that I’m researching. He grunts at the mention of Sylvia Plath, as if she’s an ex-girlfriend of his. But he lets me go.

Ryan is waiting just outside the doorway, just out of Mr. Peterson’s line of sight. He looks eager to see me. And, despite everything that happened Saturday night, this eagerness makes all my hopes feel a little more justified.

“Well well well,” he says, smiling and shaking his head. “It looks like both of us had nights to remember.”

If he were just my friend, I would smile back at this. I would be curious. I would want to know everything.

But I don’t want to know what he means. And I can’t think of any way to tell him that.

From the direction he starts walking, I know we’re headed to the cafeteria, not the library.

“Taylor told me—he said that when he saw you dancing on the bar like that, he knew you’d have no problem finding some trouble. I was a little worried, when I saw you weren’t in the club anymore, but he told me you’d be fine. And then, you know, he was kissing me, and I didn’t worry as much.”

“Taylor was the one with the tattoos?” I find myself asking.

Ryan nods. “Yeah. Some you could see. And some weren’t apparent until … later.”

I don’t want to know what this means. I have to know, but I don’t.

“But holy shit, me getting to know Taylor is nothing compared to you partying it up at the Facetime Mansion. Do you know how many of my favorite authors hang out there? Please tell me Zadie Smith spilled her drink all over you.”

I try to give him my best Mona Lisa Smile. His question, in my mind, doesn’t count as asking. He’s not asking to hear about me. He’s asking to hear something that would reflect back on him.

We’re at the cafeteria now, but instead of going outside like we usually do, he steers us to a table. No one is around, except the staff starting to put lunch together.

“I have to tell you, Taylor was awesome,” he says as he sits down—but not before double-checking that even the lunch ladies can’t hear us. “I promised him I’ll be there for the real Pride Week festivities, now that kickoff is over. So we have to go back. It is absolutely imperative that we go back.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” I say.

“I owe you my life for covering for me. I don’t know what you told your mom, but it worked—she didn’t rat me out. I didn’t get home until about three o’clock on Sunday, and I was sure my mom was going to be waiting in the front room with this huge magnet, and she’d make me watch as she fried my phone and my laptop. Or she’d make me read only James Patterson until I left for college. Something really cruel like that. But she wasn’t even home! She’d left me a note—Hope you and Mark had a good night. I’ll say we did!”

He is happy for me. I remind myself that he is happy for me.

The first time something happened between us, I wasn’t expecting it. We were in his basement, playing some game that was half racing and half mortal combat. I was handing his ass to him, and he wasn’t taking it too well. The bloodshed on the screen started to spread into the room. I’d slam his vehicle into a ditch and he’d poke me in the ribs. I’d crash into his vehicle’s side and he would use his body to crash back into me. Finally, the fifth or sixth time this happened, I threw down my controller and attacked full on. Laughing and shoving, ducking and pushing and yelling out hyperbolic threats. Before I knew it, we were rolling on the floor, and he was on top of me, and we were still laughing, but there was also something serious in the way he was looking at me, and something serious in the way I was feeling that look. He had me pinned, and then he eased up a little, settled down a little. And now it was something else. I had wanted it for a long time but had never imagined I would get it. I kissed him first—I know I kissed him first—but it didn’t feel like I was kissing him first, because I was only confirming what I had already seen, what I suddenly knew. We kissed, and it was awkward afterwards, awkward when we were sitting up again, awkward when our minds had to give what we were doing a name. I thought it was the end of the world, but it wasn’t. I thought it was the start of the world, but it wasn’t. Instead it was an introduction to the halfway world where we’d spend the next two years.