RYAN
Leaning against the knotty trunk of a maple tree in the immaculately manicured backyard of Jordan Highsmith’s house, half listening to Michaela Braddock from his English class chatter animatedly about a minor celebrity’s nose job, Ryan felt like shit.
He felt like shit physically—his head was thudding along with the bass seeping out of somebody’s portable speakers on the back deck, his shoulders ached as if somebody had unzipped his neck and replaced all his muscles with sedimentary rocks, and he was vaguely sick to his stomach, which was weird ’cause he hadn’t actually had that much to drink at all since he got here.
But also—and woof, Ryan knew this was pathetic of him—he felt like shit in his emotions.
He blinked twice, trying to listen to the story Michaela was telling—she’d switched topics now, was nattering on about the car wash her Key Club was doing tomorrow and the matching shirts they’d all made. Ryan had known Michaela since middle school at Thomas Aquinas, and he liked her: She was pretty. She was a good person, apparently, who was spending her Saturday morning doing charity work for a women’s homeless shelter. And she had truly fantastic boobs.
But all he could focus on was his fight with Gabby.
This was stupid, Ryan thought, even as he shot a hopefully charming smile in Michaela’s direction. He was stupid. He couldn’t believe how badly he’d blown it back there, how he’d clammed right up and stumbled all over himself like somebody who’d never even talked to a girl before, let alone dated one. He hadn’t even realized how bad he’d wanted this to finally be his chance with her until he’d missed it, like watching a puck sail right past him across the ice.
Unless he hadn’t actually missed it at all.
He could still tell her, Ryan thought suddenly. He could go find her right now, take her by the hand and lay it all out for her. Maybe she’d think he was crazy. Maybe she’d tell him to get lost. Maybe their friendship really would be over. But he had to try, didn’t he? He had to try.
Once he thought it he couldn’t unthink it, like those Magic Eye books his mom used to do with him when he was little: once you found a picture in the pattern, you couldn’t figure out how all you’d seen before was dots. He made his excuses and extricated himself from Michaela, then headed back inside the house, hoping Gabby hadn’t bailed out entirely and gone home. That would be just like her, he thought, peering with no luck through the crowds in the kitchen and the den. His head was still throbbing, a rhythmic pulse deep in his brain stem. He thought he might have fucked himself up for real today.
She must have left, he thought, when he didn’t find her after another ten minutes of looking. Well then, he’d have to go over to the Harts’. He made his way to the front of the house, waving good-bye to a couple of his buddies before letting himself out; he was halfway across the lawn when he stopped short. Because Gabby hadn’t left at all. She was sitting mostly hidden in the shadows on the screened-in side porch, the sharp column of her spine as familiar as her face every morning.
And she was kissing a girl.
Ryan turned around, feeling himself—Jesus Christ—feeling himself blush like a scandalized grandma. He knew Gabby was bi, obviously, thanks to an extremely awkward top ten celebrity crushes conversation halfway through freshman year. But there was a difference between knowing something existed without ever having seen it in real life, like the Grand Canyon, and having evidence of it right in front of your face. God, he was such a fucking idiot. He’d been so distracted trying to figure out whether or not Gabby had feelings for him that it had never occurred to him to wonder if she might have them for somebody else entirely. But she did. And here was the indisputable, undeniable proof.
They hadn’t seen him, and Ryan wanted to keep it that way. He turned around and wandered toward the back of the house. He really, really was not feeling good; his brain was a pot of the clean-out-the-fridge soup his mom made when she hadn’t been grocery shopping, murky and full of suspicious floating bits.
“Hey, McCullough.” It was his buddy Remy from hockey; his voice sounded far away, though Ryan wasn’t sure exactly why. “You okay over there?”
“Hey, Remy,” Ryan said, trying to sound cheerful.
That was when he leaned over and barfed.
GABBY
Sitting huddled together on the darkened side porch a little while later, Gabby shivered as Shay sucked lightly on her lower lip. It felt like she’d left her body entirely, except for the fact that she was sharply, deliciously aware of every single one of her cells vibrating back and forth, her blood moving underneath her singing skin. She had never in her life done anything like this, made out with a stranger at a party, but it was official: she wanted to do it forever. She wanted to kiss Shay forever. She smelled like vanilla and chamomile. Her mouth was clever and warm.