Top Ten(7)

“The beginning of—” For a moment Gabby just stared at him, still crouched on his bedroom carpet with a sandal in one hand. “Wait, you want to date?”

Jesus Christ, it was like he’d suggested ritual sacrifices or a Tough Mudder. Ryan felt his spine straighten up. “Not with that tone in your voice, I don’t.”

“No, no, no,” Gabby said, tipping backward and sitting down hard on the floor. “I just mean, like. You don’t really . . . date? One person?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan demanded, stung. It wasn’t even true. “I dated Chelsea for like a full year.”

“Okay, you’re right,” Gabby conceded immediately. “You’re right, that was fucked up. I’m sorry. I guess I just mean that, like . . . you don’t usually date one person? You definitely haven’t been dating one person lately? And I worry this would be, like, a Hallie Whiting situation.”

Ryan shook his head, disbelieving. He’d hung out with Hallie Whiting for a grand total of like twenty minutes back in April, in between a softball player named Karly and a girl from the art club who called herself Fern; when he’d broken things off with Hallie, she’d sent him a note telling him to fuck himself with an ice pick along with a Spotify playlist made entirely of songs by Florence and the Machine. “You think that’s what this would be?” he asked. “You think you’d be Hallie Whiting in this situation?”

“I don’t know,” Gabby said, tucking her messy hair behind her ears. “I mean, not the ice pick thing, obviously, but—”

“Is this about Hallie Whiting?” Ryan asked suddenly, not liking at all how close to desperate he sounded. “Or other girls? Like, do you think I’m—”

“Kind of indiscriminate about who you hook up with?” Gabby supplied. “I mean, yes, but you already know that. And that’s not why—I mean, I don’t even know—” She broke off.

“What?” Ryan prodded, somehow managing to suppress the urge to tell her he was only indiscriminate because she’d never been an option. Shit, this was not how he’d pictured this happening. “It’s me, just say it.”

“I mean, I don’t know if I even want a relationship.”

“Seriously?” Ryan blinked. Didn’t girls always want relationships? He felt like he’d spent all senior spring trying to avoid getting into relationships with girls who wanted them. “With anyone? Or just with me?”

“With anyone!” Gabby exploded, then glanced nervously at his bedroom door and lowered her voice. “We’re leaving in two months. I don’t know if I think it’s a good idea to start anything with anybody.” She shook her head. “Or maybe just with you,” she admitted after a moment. “I don’t know, Ryan. Do you see any scenario in which trying to date doesn’t mean we aren’t friends anymore?”

“So then why did you just have sex with me, Gabby?”

“Wait a minute.” Gabby scrambled to her feet like the room was on fire; she was taller than Ryan suddenly, him still sitting in his bed like a little kid. “Wait a minute. Since when does casual sex automatically mean something to you? You had casual sex with half the senior class this year, but now—”

“This wasn’t casual sex to me!” Ryan hissed.

“I—” Gabby looked at him for a minute, something clicking into place behind her eyes. “Oh,” she said.

Oh. There it was. Jesus Christ, this fucking sucked. This was officially embarrassing now. This was a disaster. “Look,” Ryan said, getting up and grabbing for his T-shirt, for the boxers in a puddle on his floor. He wasn’t shy, but fuck. “Forget it, okay?”

“No,” Gabby said, like the goddamn mule she was. “I don’t want to forget it. What does that mean, that it wasn’t—”

“What does it mean?” Ryan gaped at her. It meant that he’d spent the last few years convincing himself nothing was ever going to happen between them. It meant that for a couple of hours last night he’d thought he’d been wrong. It meant that he’d let himself believe that maybe he was actually the kind of person she’d want to be with, smart or interesting or whatever, and it made him feel like an idiot of the first order to remember all over again what a total fantasy that was.

But he wasn’t going to say any of that to her, clearly. Not now.

“It means we can’t just go back to how it was now, okay?” he said finally. “Not after we—”