Top Ten(67)

Right away, Ryan felt like a dick of the first order. “You’re right,” he said, swinging his arm around her and swiping a finger through the fog on her glasses. “You’re right, totally.”

Chelsea smiled. “I usually am.”

They got giant hot chocolates with whipped cream and drank them while they watched the ice skaters swirl around the sunken rink beneath the Christmas tree; they sat under a smelly, moth-eaten blanket on a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park. Ryan knew Gabby and Shay would probably think it was dumb suburban-kid stuff, but he didn’t really care. Chelsea was having a really good time, he was having a really good time with her, and frankly he was really psyched about the idea of having sex in a hotel bed later tonight like he was James Bond or something.

But he couldn’t stop worrying about Gabby.

Ryan couldn’t figure out what his problem was. Ordinarily he was great at putting weird, unpleasant stuff out of his head in the name of a fun night. It was basically his superpower. But this reminded him of when he was eight and had gotten poison ivy, of lying in bed trying desperately not to scratch it: in the end he hadn’t been able to hold off and wound up spreading the rash everywhere, including on his balls. This was like that, only somehow worse.

“Hey,” Chelsea said now, snapping her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. They were eating dinner at a fake-old diner in Midtown where all the waiters and waitresses periodically burst into song. “Where did you go?”

Ryan blinked. “What?” he asked, realizing abruptly he was holding a bacon cheeseburger he had no recollection of picking up—or, for that matter, even ordering. “Nowhere.”

“Really?” Chelsea frowned. “Because you are not here.”

“I am,” Ryan protested, taking a big bite of his burger to illustrate and washing it down with a giant gulp of soda.

“Really?” Chelsea asked. “What did I just say to you, then?”

Crap. Ryan had no idea, truthfully; he’d been trying to work out what Columbia freshmen generally did at eight thirty on a Saturday night, and what Gabby might be doing along with them. “I was listening to the song,” he tried, gesturing up at the zitty dude in a top hat currently singing “Music of the Night” from his perch on top of a shiny red banquette. “This is a cool place.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Are you still freaking out about Gabby?” she asked. “Is that what’s going on?”

“What?” Ryan asked, sounding like he was completely full of it even to his own ears. “No, of course not. And I wasn’t freaking out.”

“Then what is it, huh?” she asked. “It’s me; the whole point of this night is supposed to be that we’ve been together a whole year. You can talk to me. If something is bothering you, then . . .” Chelsea shrugged across the table, her hair frizzing around her face from the cold and the static, her mouth a bright lipstick red. “Just tell me about it.”

“All right.” Even as Ryan was saying it he knew it was a terrible idea, but it just came out, like word vomit. “Let me just shoot her a text, then, see how it’s going.”

“Just shoot—” Chelsea sighed. “Really?”

“You just said I could tell you!” Ryan protested.

“I—” Chelsea pressed her lips together. “You’re right,” she said. “I did; I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

Ryan set his phone on the table and spun it a little. “It’s just, the thing you gotta understand about Gabby is she’s never going to just ask for help or advice, even if she needs it. So you gotta just dig like a freaking archaeologist to find out what’s going on with her, and that’s the only time you find out that, like, she hasn’t eaten for two days because she has to give a class presentation or she’s obsessing about some awkward conversation she had in fifth grade or her whole relationship is in the shitter.” It felt good to talk about her, like lancing a blister or sneezing after you’d been holding it in. “So just because she was acting like a tough guy in the car doesn’t mean she’s not freaking out, is all.”

“Okay,” Chelsea said slowly. “I hear that. But meanwhile here I am sitting across this table from you, and you don’t need to be an archaeologist with me. I’m right here, and I’m telling you I don’t feel like I’m getting your full attention.”

“I know that,” Ryan said, trying not to sound irritated. “I’m paying attention to you. It’s just—I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”