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Top Ten(55)

By:Katie Cotugno


“Hi!” Shay said when she spotted Gabby and him, edging around the clusters of arty-looking parents in their dark overcoats and expensive scarves. She was wearing a white top and a stretchy black skirt, and she looked nerdier than she usually did—she looked, actually, like the kind of person who would take cello lessons for thirteen years—which made Ryan feel less threatened by her than normal. She kissed Gabby hello, nudged Ryan in the elbow. “Thanks for coming, dude.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, trying not to be offended by the blatant surprise in her voice. “Of course.”

The thing he had somehow not anticipated about this recital was that it was, in fact, gigantically dull. The first few performers were little kids screeching their way through vaguely recognizable holiday tunes, but pretty soon they’d moved on to long, tedious classical numbers he’d never heard before. Ryan sighed. He thought about the fight at the ice center this afternoon, how fast the whole thing had unraveled. He thought about Chelsea Rosen’s crooked smile. He glanced over at Gabby, but she was listening raptly, her hands folded primly in her lap like a nun at church.

Ryan shifted his weight, the old wooden floor creaking under his rickety chair. His head was killing him now; it felt like somebody was standing behind him squeezing his temples like an accordion. He felt exhausted, too, and the sleepy-time music combined with how hot and dry it was in here wasn’t helping things any. He stifled a yawn in the sleeve of his coat and Gabby glanced at him out of the corner of her eye; when he did it again a minute later, she scowled. If he passed out she was going to murder him.

Sorry, he mouthed, smiling guiltily. He dug his phone out of his pocket and opened a tic-tac-toe app, then pulled up a new game and nudged Gabby, showing her the screen as a peace offering. She rolled her eyes at him.

“Can you stop?” she whispered. “You’re being an ass.”

That took him by surprise. There was no way he bought for a second that she was actually interested in this stuff—or at least, she hadn’t been back when they were hanging out all the time. Maybe that was different since Shay, too. Still, nobody could even see them. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, rubbing irritably at his aching head.

Gabby frowned at that, looking at him closely. Are you okay? she mouthed.

“Yeah,” Ryan whispered back, “just a headache.”

Gabby’s whole body straightened up, alert. “A headache?”

“It’s nothing,” he whispered; then, before he could think better of it: “There was kind of a dustup at the game today.”

“A dustup?” Gabby’s eyes were wide. The woman in front of them turned around and shot them a dirty look. “Like a fight? Did you get hit?”

“Just a little,” Ryan told her. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Are you serious?” Gabby hissed. “After what happened last year? How can you say it’s not a big deal?”

“Because it’s my head,” he told her, sounding more irritated than he meant to. “So I feel like I’d know, yeah?”

Gabby ignored him. “I don’t even know how you’re still playing,” she whispered. “Do you not remember the doctor telling you getting hit again could be an actual catastrophe? Like, she literally used the word catastrophe. Did you forget that part?”

“Can you leave it?” Ryan blew a breath out, irritated both at her and at himself for not keeping his mouth shut. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”

Gabby’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

Ryan shrugged. He hadn’t said anything to Gabby about the conversation he’d had with his mom the day before in the kitchen. Best friends or not, there were limits to what he could tell her. Money had always been easy for her family; she and her sisters and Shay were all heading off to private colleges to study things like English literature that had no practical application in the world, and everything would work out just peachy for them. Meanwhile, if Ryan couldn’t swing this fucking scholarship, he’d be lucky if he wound up working at Walter’s for the rest of his life, still selling the last of the vegan hot dogs when he was old and gray.

“Huh?” Gabby was still looking at him. “Ryan. What does that mean, you don’t have a choice?”

This time the woman turned around and actually shushed them, an exaggerated shhh like a librarian in a Saturday-morning cartoon. Ryan almost laughed, but Gabby looked mortified, whipping around to face forward blankly, her cheeks going a bright screaming pink.

Ryan sat there for another moment, sulking. He was tired; it had been a mistake to tag along to this thing, obviously. Maybe he was exactly the kind of dumb, uncultured person Shay and Gabby thought he was. Maybe it was useless to try to be anything else.