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The Boys of Summer, Chapter XXXI and XXXII

And I was hiding Till you came along And showed me where I belong You found me Kelly Clarkson, You Found Me

Haley

It was about two-thirty in the afternoon on Friday. I’d been in Byron’s bedroom for about five minutes, and I was already annoying the crap out of him.

I wasn’t doing it on purpose, mind you. He was trying to do some last minute sorting and packing, because he was headed off to college in the morning. I wasn’t actively doing anything to tick him off. The whole room sort of looked like a bomb exploded in it, which is so not By. He’s usually a little anal about organization. The only fight I’ve ever really heard him get into with Nick was about Nick being a slob. But this mess actually fit into that. He was being horribly OCD about where everything went and how it was organized, both among the things he was taking with him and the ones he was leaving behind. And it didn’t seem to matter where I sat in the room—even on Nick’s bed—I was just always in the way.

I had just sat down on top of Nick’s desk and pulled my feet up with me when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” By called distractedly.

Vanessa poked her head in the door. “Wanted to see how it was going in here,” she said with a smirk. That expression said everything—she really just wanted to see how big of a mess he’d made.

He didn’t even look up at her. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get this done,” he said with a sigh.

She shook her head. “You say that about everything, but you always meet your deadlines,” Vanessa said, not unkindly. By turned to actually look at her and shrugged, then went back to sorting.

Vanessa surveyed the room again and spotted me curled up in a ball. “Haley,” she said, sounding shocked, “I’m surprised you’re allowed in here without a chaperone.”

It was my turn to shrug. “I guess your parents finally figured out there was no risk of anything happening between me and Byron,” I suggested. Actually, we hadn’t even asked if I was allowed in his bedroom; we’d just assumed. That in and of itself was kind of a big step for him; he wasn’t usually one to assume his parents were going to approve of anything.

Vanessa leaned on the doorjamb. “I was actually just about to call you. Charlotte called. She’s inviting ‘the girls’ over for the afternoon, just to hang out. You want to come? She said it’s okay if you’d like to join us.”

There was something about her tone of voice on that last part that made me really pause. “I was going to spend the afternoon here with By,” I said. It was true. He was ditching me in the morning for more exciting places and people, and I wanted just one more day of By and Hay before we went back to being Byron and Haley—separately—again.

By pulled his attention away from the pile he’d made and shoved back into his dresser drawer. He looked straight at me. “Go,” he said firmly. I opened my mouth to protest and he shut me down. “I want to spend time with you too, but I have to finish this. It’ll take me a couple hours tops if you’re not here. If you stay, you’ll distract me. It’ll take me all day.” He looked at his watch. “Call me at five o’clock. Anything that’s not finished, I’ll shove back into this drawer here in my desk and leave there. But give me a couple of hours.”

He doesn’t get bossy like that very often, but when he does, he’s the stubbornest creature on earth. There’s absolutely no arguing with him. “Alright,” I said. I looked down below my bare feet, trying to find a path out the door. “I’m hopping down off here. Do me a favor and move that…what is that thing?”

He picked up the green action figure and chuckled. “It’s one of the Wandering Frog People,” he said, amazed. “I thought Adam had hoarded all of these after I stopped sharing a room with him and Jordan. He sold them at a garage sale for fifty cents a couple years ago.”

I jumped lightly off the dresser, landing on my toes. “What are you going to do with it?” I asked him. He shrugged half-heartedly, not really thinking about it. I snatched it from him. “Let me keep it. I’ll put it on my dresser and ask it questions sometimes. I’ll pretend it’s you and think of what you’d say.”

I’d forgotten Vanessa was there until she started laughing. “Looks just like him, too,” she said. Byron picked up a stress ball shaped like a soccer ball and threw it at her. She picked it off the floor. “Oh, Byron, let me keep this stress ball so that I can squeeze it and think of you,” she quipped, rubbing it on her face.

He flicked her off. “Get out of here, both of you,” he called as I made my way to the door. After Vanessa left, still laughing, he spoke again. “Call me later, Hay. Please.”

I nodded. “See you later, By.” I stuffed the Wandering Frog into the back pocket of my capris.

I caught up to Vanessa at the bottom of the stairs. She still had the soccer ball in one hand, but she set it on the kitchen table. I picked my purse off the counter and she grabbed up her latest purse, shaped like Hello Kitty, from a hook in the mud room. I thought back to what had made me uneasy about Vanessa’s invitation. “Did Charlotte really invite me to her house?” I asked.

She looked unsettled herself. “Kinda-sorta,” she said.

We headed out the back door and I gave her a look. “And what does that mean?”

Vanessa screwed up her nose and closed one eye. “I asked if you could come along. She said ‘whatever.’”

That made me even more uneasy. There’d been a time, back in the day, when Vanessa, Charlotte, Becca and I had done a lot of things together. But I’d always been Vanessa’s best friend, and Charlotte and Becca had always been best friends. Charlotte would invite just Becca over, or just Vanessa, but she rarely just called me, and I rarely just called her. As we’d gotten older, I’d never been entirely sure what Charlotte had thought about me.

I was debating going to Charlotte’s internally. On one hand, if she didn’t really want me to be there, she could potentially be unpleasant. On the other hand, I really wasn’t in the mood to go home and wallow in self-pity. I’d done enough of that recently. So I followed Vanessa all the way to the Johanssens’.

Becca was the one who greeted us at the door. “Hey,” she called, holding the screen door open for Vanessa. When I came through, she gave me a hug. “It’s good to see you, Haley,” she said warmly.

I hugged her back. “And you, too.” I hadn’t really taken a good look at her for a while. She had grown tall and willowy, like her sister, though if I’d had to guess, I’d have said she was probably still as clumsy as ever. Becca was wearing a sun dress that was low cut and showed off her cleavage—what little she had. She was almost as flat chested as I was. It was a pretty shade of green and looked beautiful against her skin. “You look great,” I said.

She smiled shyly. “Really? I’m never quite sure about this dress. I feel a little…exposed… when I wear it.”

Vanessa put her purse down on the floor and left her shoes next to it. “I keep telling Becca,” she said to me, “not to worry about exposure. Look at her. If she held herself up straighter, she could totally be a model.”

Becca squirmed. “Charlotte stepped into the bathroom,” she said, trying to change the subject, “but she should be right out.”

And she was. Like Becca, she’d grown up to be pretty gorgeous. Her hair was this really pretty shade of brown, and it fell in natural waves. She wore it so that it hung across her eyes a little bit—not like By hides behind his, but more naturally. Everything about Charlotte other than that was medium—she was average height and the right weight for her height, but she dressed very well. She had a very well fitted pair of jeans that accentuated her natural curves without leaving any bulges and she paired it with a yellow silk blouse. She was only sixteen, but if hadn’t known that, I might have thought she was twenty-one. “Hi, Charlotte,” I said, feeling awkward. I was suddenly glad Vanessa was into dressing like an overgrown toddler these days. If not, I might have felt really immature standing next to those two.

She glanced over at me briefly. “Oh, hi,” she said, as if I was barely worth greeting.

I turned to Vanessa, who shrugged. “So what’s the plan for the afternoon?” she asked.

Charlotte raised one shoulder in a half-shrug of her own. “We didn’t really have one. We always manage to find things to do anyway, right?” she said idly. Vanessa turned to look at Becca, who raised her eyebrows, and they both turned to look at me. I raised my hands up in the air as if to say, ‘Don’t look at me—I’m just along for the ride.’

The four of us trudged up to Charlotte’s room. I hadn’t been in there since I was fourteen, a couple weeks before I’d really last spoken to her and Becca. It hadn’t really changed much in the past three years. A few of the posters were different, but the bedding and everything else was the same. A few fashion magazines were laid out on the bed and Becca flopped down in front of one of them. “Anyone read the confessions page in this month’s Cosmo yet?” she asked.

Vanessa and I shook our heads. “My mom has a subscription, but she doesn’t let me see it until she’s done reading it…and she’s ripped out almost all the articles about sex,” I said, still shaking my head—not in answer to the question any more, but at my mom’s idea of keeping me ‘safe.’

Becca laughed. “Because you don’t know anything about sex already,” she said as she flipped the page, looking for the article in question.

“And like you couldn’t just pick up a copy at the grocery store anyway.” Charlotte sat down near the foot of the bed and folded her legs up in front of her, the way they made us sit in kindergarten. Vanessa also found a seat on the bed, near Becca’s butt. You could tell the three of them had sat that way on numerous occasions since Vanessa had started hanging out with them again.

Only trouble was, they hadn’t left me a place to sit.

Instead, I backed up near the door, where there was a bare patch of wall. I slid down onto the floor, so that I could see them and they could see me. “Pass me one of those magazines,” I called.

Becca sat upright, realizing why I was on the floor. “Sorry…I can make room for you over here,” she said, looking a little embarrassed.

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t really want to join them on the bed. Something about even being in the room was even more awkward than I’d expected, even though Becca had been warmer and more solicitous than I’d thought she’d be. “I’m fine down here for now.” She tossed a magazine down to me. It was an older issues of Cosmo, one I’d read before. I turned to the index, hoping to find the article about orgasms my mom had removed.

We were quiet for a few minutes before Charlotte threw aside the magazine she was looking at. “This is boring,” she said, and even though the article had been informative, I had to agree with her. “It’s Friday afternoon,” she added with a sigh. “Back in middle school, we thought we’d be busy every Friday and Saturday night. Remember that? We thought we’d have dates every weekend night and social schedules so chock full we weren’t sure we’d have time to do our homework.”

Vanessa leaned over. “Oh, yeah! And we all were going to have these steady, long term boyfriends. We were all going to follow our guys to college, and then we were all going to get married at the same time and each have exactly two children—one boy, one girl.”

Becca snorted. “I remember that! I think my boyfriend was going to be named Beau. I don’t even know any guys named Beau now.”

Charlotte had started giggling. “Mine was Trevor, I think.” She paused. “Or was it Travis? Something like that.”

Even Vanessa had started laughing. “And mine had a soap opera name. Brick or Stone or Ridge or something.”

Becca leaned off the bed toward me. “What about you, Haley? Do you remember your boyfriend’s name?”

I furrowed my brow. I couldn’t even remember the game they were talking about, never mind the name of my imaginary boyfriend. “Sorry. I don’t,” I said, a little sadly. I kinda wished I did remember, because maybe it would make me feel more at ease with the three of them.

Charlotte glanced over at me for the first time since we’d had a seat. “Don’t mind Haley,” she said to Becca and Vanessa. “She’s got better memories than the ones she made with us.”

I couldn’t read her expression, exactly. Part of what she said sounded holier-than-thou, but another part sounded upset…like she was still annoyed over something I’d said or done back in the day. In any case, I felt myself stiffen. “And what is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

I saw Becca look at Vanessa and that’s when I knew that Charlotte was nursing an old grudge. Becca knew exactly what Charlotte’s problem with me was. (She’s even easier to read than Byron, and he wears his emotions on his face.) Charlotte turned back toward me and unfolded her legs so they were in front of her, pointing her bare feet toward me. “It means that you never really did like hanging out with us, did you? You always had better things to do.”

She didn’t sound angry, but she was a little accusatory. “I’m still not sure what you’re saying,” I said, and I wasn’t. The four of us had always done everything together until the summer before we started high school and my world had fallen apart. I still didn’t quite understand why Charlotte and Becca had stopped being friends with Vanessa and me, but I had a feeling I was about to find out.

Charlotte edged forward to the side of the bed and leaned over toward me. “That summer, you were the first one of us to really find a guy. And suddenly, we weren’t good enough for you anymore. Everything out of your mouth was about your new guy.” She frowned briefly at the memory. “You turned into a boy-crazy…nympho.”

Becca giggled nervously, partly at the tension and partly over Charlotte’s turn of phrase. I didn’t feel like laughing; instead, tears welled up in my eyes. That tended to happen anytime someone brought up Dominic. I didn’t answer Charlotte right away, because I didn’t want her to know I was crying. After a moment I looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t mean to do that,” I said quietly, knowing anything louder would turn into a sob. “I was just excited. I wanted you guys to be excited with me.”

Vanessa spoke for the first time in a while. “Charlotte knows that,” she said, giving Char a look. “She was just jealous, and I think maybe she still is.”

Charlotte looked surprised for a moment. She lowered her head for a second and then looked back at me. I was still gazing at the ceiling but I could see her out of the corner of my eye. “Yeah,” she said finally. “I was definitely jealous of you back then. I mean, when you stopped hanging out with us, you started hanging out only with guys.” I wiped tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand. I’d never thought of having only one friend in the world as ‘hanging out only with guys’ but I guess it was true…at least from Charlotte’s point of view. I mean, By is a guy, even if I’ve never had a single romantic thought about him.

I looked back at Charlotte and smiled tentatively at her. She looked me over critically for a moment, and then made up her mind. She shifted back to her old seat and folded her legs again. She patted the spot next to her. “Come sit with us,” she said.

I stood up and wiped my cheek where one tear had escaped. It had been a teary couple of weeks for me. I’d quit wearing eye makeup because of it. Becca scooted the magazines out of my way and I plopped down my butt, leaving my legs hanging off the edge of the bed in case I needed to make a fast escape. “I wouldn’t say me hanging out with Byron is something to be jealous of,” I said, still sniffling a little. “After all, it’s not like we were doing anything nymphos do, right?”

Vanessa laughed and Charlotte blushed a little. Becca picked up one of the magazines, but she didn’t open it. “So, senior year for you three,” she pointed out. “Got any plans for what you want to do to make it memorable?”

Charlotte shook her head. “I’m still trying to narrow down where I want to apply for college. My only goals for this year are to get good grades and get accepted somewhere my parents will be proud of.” She paused and smiled at me. “And maybe finally get myself a boyfriend, right?”

I smiled back. “I might try out for Guys and Dolls. I haven’t made up my mind. Oh, and I’m going to try to make as many home football games as my work schedule will allow.”

Vanessa bent her knees and pulled them up in front of her. “Football? Why?”

I pretended to be insulted by the question. “I love football.”

“Again, why?”

I shrugged. “There’s something so primal about it. It’s like the modern version of gladiator fights. Even though there are plays and moves, the players are really just getting down to basic instinct. Tackle, dodge, run! I love watching the players all smash into each other, the tangle of bodies.”

Becca giggled. “You almost make it sound sexy.”

Vanessa laughed long and hard, leaning back against Charlotte’s headboard. We all turned to her. “Oh, my goddess, Haley,” she said. “We have got to get you laid.”

Charlotte nudged Becca. “Her goddess?” she repeated.

Becca shrugged that part off. “You’re still a virgin, Haley?” she asked curiously. “I would have thought….”

I cocked my head at her. “Are you calling me a slut?” I teased. Becca grinned.

Vanessa sat back up and looked at Becca. “No, you’ve just heard enough stories about my brother that you assumed there’s no way Haley could have dated him for four months and still be a virgin.” I felt a pang when she referred to my relationship with Jordan in the past tense. “We could find you a new guy really easily, you know. For example, P’s friend Bill likes you.”

“Oh yeah,” Becca said gleefully. “I forgot that you had a new man. How are things going with P?”

Vanessa smiled. “Absolutely great. I’m so glad we found each other. We’re having a good time.”

“I’ll bet,” Becca said with a giggle. “A really good time.” Vanessa gave her a little shove.

“So. A guy for Haley.” Charlotte leaned forward, rubbing her hands together. She seemed intrigued at the idea. “What about that guy from Grease? What was his name? He played Danny and followed you around like a puppy for a while.”

I raised my eyebrow, surprised Char had noticed that. It had taken me a few weeks to figure it out myself. “Brandt Santoni?” I supplied.

“That’s him. I bet you could get him to go out with you.”

I shrugged. The whole conversation was making me uncomfortable. “I’m really not interested in Brandt or anyone else. And I especially don’t want to find a guy just so I can sleep with him.”

Vanessa turned to Charlotte. “See, not a nympho,” she pointed out. Charlotte threw a teddy bear at her. Vanessa turned back to me. “Well, why not? What’s the matter with finding you a guy? You aren’t dating anyone,” she said pointedly.

I shrugged helplessly. “I’m not really looking for a man.” I knew all three of them were staring at me.

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “The best way to get over a guy is to find another guy,” she asserted—as if she’d dated more than two guys in her whole life and just knew these types of things.

I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t really want to get over Jordan particularly. “I’m not ready,” I said lamely. I was ready to cry again.

Charlotte was looking at me funny. “What’s bothering you, Haley?” she asked.

I broke eye contact with all of them and looked down at my lap. “I don’t know. I just don’t really want to go out with anyone, okay? I can’t picture having a date or doing… anything…with any guy but Jordan.”

Becca frowned sympathetically, but Charlotte took a different direction. “Well, why did you break up with him, then?” she asked quizzically.

I screwed up my mouth. “I didn’t break up with him; he broke up with me.”

“Bullshit!” Vanessa trilled. We all three turned to look at her. She rolled her legs underneath her so she was kneeling and leaned forward toward me. “He might have been the one to actually sever ties, but you need to cut the crap. You drove him to it.” She leaned further forward, supporting herself on one hand, and pointed the other at my face. “I know how your brain works, sister. You wanted to hurt Jordan before he could hurt you. Well, congratulations. It worked. Jordan called from school last night. And just like every other time he’s called, he was crying. Do you have any idea what it takes to make Jordan cry?”

I did, in fact. I’d only seen him cry once—the night I told him I was raped, when he’d first told me he loved me. I didn’t reply to Vanessa; instead I scooted off the bed and backed away from her. Vanessa took that for what it was—confirmation of everything she’d just said. “Look,” she said, more gently this time. She sat back on her heels. “Date my brother, don’t date my brother. I don’t care about that. What I do care about is how you are now. You’re obviously unhappy, so why are you being so stubborn about it? Ditch your pride, get down on your knees and beg for his forgiveness.” Her expression softened even more. “Or get past it and move on. Whatever. I just don’t like seeing you miserable like this.”

I looked towards the door. “Okay,” I said quietly. The other three girls were staring at me now, the way you’d look at a car wreck, and that’s what I felt like. “I think I’ll be going now.”

Charlotte made another face, but I could read this one—it looked regretful. “No, don’t go. Stick around. We’ll find another topic.”

I shook my head. I was, among other things, developing a major headache. “Next time you have everyone over, call me, okay? I’ll be here.” She smiled lightly. “It was good seeing you again, Char, Becca. Later.”

I saw Vanessa get up as I walked out the door and saw myself out. I stopped on the front stoop and tried to gather myself together, but it was a losing battle. Vanessa followed me out the door. “You okay?” she asked.

I was sobbing as turned to look at her. I started walking and she followed, catching up quickly. I looked straight ahead as I finally spoke between sobs. “I didn’t mean to hurt Jordan,” I said, scrunching up my face, attempting once again to stop crying.

“I know that,” Vanessa said gently. I looked at her for a moment. “Look, you wouldn’t be this upset about it if that had been your goal. But I was right about you trying to push him away so he wouldn’t hurt you, wasn’t I?”

I didn’t answer right away, but she kept her eyes, which were so much like her brothers’, on me. “Maybe,” I said finally, knowing she’d take that as a yes.

“I thought so. I couldn’t quite grasp what had happened between the two of you at first. Jordan was head over heels for you, and you told me just a couple weeks ago that you loved him. I knew something must have shifted if you two broke up.” Vanessa was quiet for a moment. “I’m the one who broke up with Devon, so I can’t really relate to what you’re going through. I was glad to be rid of him for the most part. And now I’ve found someone way better.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Byron said…and I know you love Byron’s advice…that he’d always pictured me having a guy I could bring home to dinner with the Pike family zoo. And I think P could handle that. In fact, I think he’d enjoy it.”

My tears were quiet now and almost done. “As much as anyone can enjoy a dinner with the Pikes,” I commented. I’d had one myself just a couple weeks ago.

She smiled. “Right!”

I turned to her. “Have you and P slept together yet?” Vanessa made a face at me, but I went on. “Hey, you were the one trying to get me laid a short time ago. I can ask this.”

“Nope. I’m in no hurry, either. I regret my first, and I don’t want to regret my second. I want to make sure I know the real him—not just an act that he puts on—before I do something like that.”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

She grinned. “Oh, and after the conversation we had this afternoon, I think I’m going to try introducing P’s friend Bill to Charlotte. He’s kinda sweet and sensitive beneath the tough skater exterior. I think they’d like each other. And I know she thinks her life would be tons more interesting if she had a boyfriend.”

I smiled despite myself. “Life is more interesting with a boyfriend. It’s just also way more complicated.”

Vanessa eyed me critically. “Yeah, I hear ya.” She sighed. “It’s so much easier when it’s just you. You don’t have to worry about whether he’ll like how you dress or what you say or do. You can make plans without consulting with him. And don’t even get me started on sex.”

“Yup. Sex is the toughest.”

She turned to me as we continued to walk. “Waddya know about it? You are a virgin, aren’t you?” I stopped in my tracks and bit my lip. “Haley? Haaaaaley?!?”

I looked away from her. “Sorta.”

“Sorta?” Vanessa repeated dubiously. “How can you sorta be a virgin? It’s like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t.”

I bit my lip harder and had to stop because I tasted blood. “Byron said it doesn’t count if….”

I had her complete attention, and it was making me squirm. “Doesn’t count if what? You do it standing up? You use a condom? He pulls out? What?” She grabbed my arm. “Tell me so that I can know which of my lamentable experiences I can discount.”

I hadn’t wanted to say it, but I knew I couldn’t get out of it now. “It doesn’t count if you said no.”

She stared at me, dropping my arm. “Not Jordan,” she said slowly.

I started walking again, desperate to get home and crawl into my bed. “No. Not Jordan,” I confirmed.

“Who, then?”

I was still walking at a fair clip. “It was a long time ago,” I told her, looking straight ahead.

Vanessa’s mouth was hanging open. “Dominic,” she said in sudden recognition. I nodded pitifully. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried, remember? You told me it was my own fault for going out with a senior.”

Her eyes grew round. “Oh, my goddess,” she said for the second time that day. “I always wondered why you got so mad at me back then.” I looked at her for the first time since I’d started walking again. “You stormed off like I’d insulted you in the worst way possible… which I guess I did. I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry too. For a couple things.” She raised an eyebrow. “First for not being clearer about what happened back when we talked. I still have a hard time saying the words to what happened to me. I have flashbacks and nightmares all the time about it to this day.” Vanessa pursed her lips and looked uncomfortable. “The second thing is that I’m sorry for not staying friends with you afterward. I’m going to tell you something now. You have to promise never to tell your brother this, okay? You know Byron walked me home, the whole couple hundred feet of it, after we got into that huge fight. And then I called to talk to him the next day, remember? I didn’t call because I really wanted to talk to him. I did it because I wanted to piss you off.”

She chuckled. “I had a feeling. And it worked.” I smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Byron, but I don’t think it would bother him so much anymore. He definitely got the best part of the deal in that arrangement.”

We were standing in front of my house. “Thanks for inviting me today. Even though I didn’t have a good time particularly, I’m glad I went.”

“Anytime,” she said breezily. “Two things before I leave you here. First of all, if you ever tell Jordan that I stood up for him in any way, I will have to kill you.” I actually chuckled. “Second, maybe sometime next week, you could invite us all over? That would show Charlotte you were serious about being friends with her again.”

“That’s a good idea.” I tested the door. Locked. I fished around in my wallet for my house key. “I honestly can’t believe that Char was jealous of me. I’m the most fucked up person I know.”

Vanessa laughed. “Ah, but you hide it so well most of the time.” I smiled back at her. “See you later, Haley.”

“Yup. Later.”

I went straight up to my bedroom and checked the clock. It was too early to call Byron, so I decided to take a nap. I drew the curtains, climbed into bed and rolled over onto my stomach. I heard the patter of tiny feet and Hermione jumped into the bed with me— something she doesn’t do too often. “How’d you know I needed a kitty right about now?” I asked as she head butted me.

Hermione curled up around my head and purred herself to sleep. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Even though I wanted to sleep, I couldn’t turn off my brain. I kept thinking about what Vanessa said about me and Jordan. I probably needed to call him so I could sort things out. I had a lot of regrets in my life—going out with Dominic, the way things went with Vanessa, and a lot of other little piddly things that I had trouble getting past—but none of them hurt so badly as the choice I’d made with Jordan.

I was just afraid that he wouldn’t be willing to talk to me.

I lay there thinking, running the same couple thoughts through my head for longer than I should have. I actually gave myself a stomachache doing it. Finally I got up, carefully extricating myself from the Hermione pillow, and went over to the scribble wall. I needed some schlock and schmaltz to get me past this moment. I read every word that was written on it, starting on one side and working my way to the other. I was just about finished when I discovered something new I’d never seen before. Down in the corner, almost hidden by my desk, was a sentence I hadn’t noticed in the past. I don’t know when it was put there, but I recognized the handwriting right away. The words put tears in my eyes again. ‘Always remember how much I love you,’ Jordan had written.

That made up my mind. I went to fish my cell phone out of my pocket. Instead, I pulled out Byron’s Wandering Frog figure. I placed it on my night stand and sat down on my bed. “By, should I call your brother?” I asked it.

Of course it didn’t answer, but I could hear By’s voice all the same: ‘Of course, you doofus. Make up with him already.’ I reached into my other pocket and pulled out my phone. Before we’d broken up, Jordan had given me his school phone number and I’d programed it in. I pulled up his entry and, with a deep breath, pressed send. The call was picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” a deep voice I didn’t recognize said.

I almost lost my nerve. “Is Jordan in?” I asked.

“Sure is. Hang on.” It must have been Dave, Jordan’s roommate. I heard him talking directly to Jordan. “There’s a chick on the phone for you, and it’s long distance from Connecticut. If you want to tell her to fuck off, you’re going to have to do it yourself. I’m not doing your dirty work for you.”

I cringed. Obviously he’d heard a little bit about me, and none of it had been good. It took a while before Jordan picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said, very tentatively.

“Jordan? It’s Haley.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “What do you want?”

I had to get the words out. “I need to tell you how sorry I am. I’ve been a complete idiot. I know you’d never cheat on me or do anything to purposely hurt me, and I never should have said those things I said when you left. I hope you can forgive me.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I know it’s hard for you to trust,” he said finally, “but I put my whole heart and soul into our relationship, and you couldn’t even trust me enough to realize it.”

“I know that now,” I said. I was crying again. “I’ve realized you were pretty much the best thing to ever happen to me. Even if you can’t get past this, I’m a better person just for having been with you. You taught me that not all guys are scum, and it’s been one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn.” He didn’t reply. “I’m hoping someday I’ll be able to earn back your trust, but even if I can’t, I need you to know that. I need to thank you.”

There was another pause, a lengthier one this time. “I really have to go,” he said finally, although this time his voice was different. He didn’t sound guarded or defensive, but sad and tired.

“Bye, Jordan. I love you.”

“Bye, Haley.” And he was gone.

I climbed back onto the bed. Hermione had run off while I was on the phone, but she left a warm, furry spot on my pillow. I put my head face down on the non-furry part of the pillow and cried myself to sleep.

I was awakened by a knock at the door. I groggily sat up as the door opened and By stepped into my room. He was carrying a beach bag that looked vaguely familiar. “Matt let me in,” he said as he sat down at the end of my bed. “You forgot to call me.”

I looked at the clock. Five-thirteen. “Oops. Sorry. I fell asleep.”

“No worries,” he said. I flipped on my bedside lamp. It was still very much daylight, but the curtains were still drawn, making it rather dark in my room. I wanted to be able to see his face. “Someone else called me instead. They wanted me to bring you this.” He set the beach bag on the bed.

I looked the bag over. “They wanted you to bring me my old beach bag?” I asked. I hadn’t seen that bag since I was eleven.

By looked surprised. “This is yours?” he asked. “I found it down in the junk room. No, it’s just the carrying vessel for the gift.”

He had my full attention now. “Gift?”

“Yup.” He pulled a box out of the bag. It was sloppily wrapped in paper that said ‘Happy birthday! You’re three!’ and had pictures of dinosaurs all over it. I shook my head both at the paper and the wrap job as he handed it to me.

I gingerly slid a finger under a gap in the paper and ripped it open. I knew the gift wasn’t from By because his wrapping is always super neat, but my brain was still half asleep and I couldn’t figure out who was giving me a present…until I opened it.

It was a plain white t-shirt, at least five sizes too large for me, that was worn somewhere between that softened stage and being threadbare. I recognized it right away and brought it to my nose, taking a deep sniff. It smelled like deodorant and Irish Spring…and like him. He hadn’t washed the shirt, just like the last time he’d loaned it to me. I pulled it away from my nose and hugged it close to my body. In my head, I was hugging him.

By was watching me closely. “Everything okay?” he asked.

I pulled the shirt on over my own top. “I called him earlier,” I said softly, still breathing in his scent. “I told him how sorry I was, but I didn’t think it had done any good.”

He nodded. “It took you two weeks to admit that you’d been wrong. Jordan’s nearly as stubborn as you are. You think he’d instantly forgive you?”

“I’m not going to complain,” I said. By smiled at me. “I’m just glad he decided to forgive me at all.”

“He’s going to call you tonight so you two can really talk,” By said. I smiled a little bit. I still felt like crying, but somehow I knew things were going to be better after this. By opened the bag and pulled out something else, which he grasped in one hand. “Does this mean you’re going to be a little more secure with me leaving tomorrow?”

He had to go and remind me. “Don’t even talk about that. I’m still mad at you for ditching me.”

Byron sighed as he put the small item back in the bag. “As much as I am looking forward to blowing this town, I wish I could take you with me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“Yes. Correct.” I smiled at his rephrasing of my sarcasm. “I’m just as unhappy about us not being in the same state as you are, believe it or not. You know I’m not one for making friends easily or dealing with crowds of people.”

“You’re going to be just fine,” I assured him. He wrinkled his nose. “You’re not the same person you were three years ago, when you didn’t really have any friends. You know who you are now, and you’re not embarrassed by that. You’ve got built in groups of friends, because you’ll have lab partners and study groups and what not. You could even join some LBGT support group if you want to.”

He shook his head but smiled a little. “And you’re going to be fine, too, you know that?” he replied. “You’re way tougher than you think you are.”

“Hey,” I joked, “I’m the one with the balls in this friendship, remember?”

By grinned back at me. “You certainly are.” He stretched out along the bed and I plopped down next to him. “What should we do with our last couple hours?” he asked.

I groaned for a moment. “Well, my parents will be home soon. Do you want to eat with them or go out to eat or what?”

“Eat here, of course. It’s tradition.”

***

After dinner, we traipsed back to my bedroom and I plopped myself down on my chair. By sat on my desk. “What part of college life are you most looking forward to?” I asked him.

He thought about that for a moment. “The freedom.” I smiled at the thought. It was something I was looking forward to myself. “It’s a lot of different kinds of freedom, you know? I mean, I don’t have to be home at a certain time. I don’t have to come home at all, if I don’t want to.” Byron wrinkled his nose, and I know he was thinking about how he’d gotten in trouble for falling asleep at Jeff’s. “But it’s more than that. I can really decide who I want to be, because I won’t know a single other person who knows anything about me.”

I had the sudden image of By wearing leather, his hair in a mohawk, smoking a cigarette and ditching class. I started giggling and he gave me a strange look. “You can’t change who you are,” I said after I stopped laughing.

He gave a half-smile. “Not deep down at your core. But you can shift. You can either make up your mind to change your attitude, same as you can make up your mind to change your style. Or something can happen to you that changes things for you.”

I had another sudden image, this one a flashback from three years before of getting into the back seat of Dominic’s Toyota. I shivered. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

He leaned back against my window, still looking at me. “I should know. I’ve changed more in the past six months than I have in the whole eighteen years before that. I came out. I found Jeff again…and fell in love. I’m closer to my family than I ever really have been before. I found out we all had so much more in common than I thought.”

I swiveled my chair around and looked at him. “Oh really?” He shrugged and smiled. “I get you, Adam and Jordan being closer. You all kinda found some common ground. Even Jordan and Adam figured some things out between them, and they were close from the start. But I don’t get how you’re any closer to anyone else in your family. What do you have in common with your sisters, for example?”

By swung his foot around in a circle. “We all like guys,” he said with a smirk.

I grinned back at him. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” He shook his head, his eyes shining bright. “Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants, what about Nick? What in the hell do you have in common with Nick?”

He pulled his legs up so his bare feet were on the desk in front of him. “Oh,” he said brightly, “Nick and I have a lot in common. He’s exactly how I would have been if I hadn’t had you in my life.”

I scoffed at him. “Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously.” I looked into his eyes, and I could see he was completely sincere. “Nick is the way he is because he lost all his friends. Different circumstances, same outcome. I could have totally turned out that way.” I raised my eyebrows. “Remember earlier this summer when you said that, if it weren’t for me, you might have turned into a boyfriend stealing whore?” I nodded with a smile at the memory. “Well, if it weren’t for you, I could have turned into a complete recluse.”

I leaned back in my chair and pulled my feet up underneath me. “Okay, then.” I couldn’t argue with him when he put it that way.

By chuckled. “Actually,” he said, leaning forward again, looking me straight in the eye. “Nick’s not doing too badly for himself. You know what he was doing when I left? He was getting ready for his first date. He called Tiff’s sister Maria. Even though he told Mom and everyone else he asked her out, I was right there during the conversation. She asked him out. But I think he’d called her to get up the nerve to do just that, so it worked out pretty well for them.”

So Nick was going on a date with his brother’s ex-girlfriend’s sister? Weird, but good for him anyway. “That’s kinda sweet,” I observed.

He hopped down off the desk, one of his knees popping as he did. I winced in sympathy, but he didn’t even bat an eye as he sat down on my bed. “He actually asked me for advice.” I put my hand on my desk and spun myself around so that I was facing him again. “I told him two things: first and foremost, always be a gentleman. And listen to both your heart and your head, but if they disagree, follow your heart.”

I stared at him. “Aww, By, that’s beautiful. How come you never give me advice like that?”

He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning. “Like you listen to me anyway,” he said with laugh. “Why would I waste my best material on you?”

***

We were still talking a couple hours later. “Didn’t your parents want to have a goodbye with you and your whole family?” I asked him. Don’t get me wrong; I was honored he’d chosen to spend his last evening in Stoneybrook with me. But I know that if I were the one leaving for the next so many months, my parents would want to hog my attention on the last night.

We were sitting back to back on my bed at this point. “We did that yesterday,” Byron said. “It’s not like it’s a whole family thing anyway,” he said, sounding sad and just a little bit panicked. I’d been waiting for that panic to set in. “I mean, both Mal and Jordan are already gone. We had a mandatory family evening shortly before Jordan left, so that all ten of us were in one spot for one night. Mom gave all of us wallet-sized copies of the family portrait we had done back in June, thanks to you. She can’t get over how ‘thoughtful’ we all were to come up with that.”

I beamed. Somehow, I’d just known that By and Jordan’s mom would love that. “It turned out great,” I said. They’d hung a full-sized copy in their living room, and I’d admired it on a couple occasions.

“Yeah, it did.” He lay down on the bed and rolled around so he was facing me. I turned over my shoulder. “How am I going to survive at school, Hay? I’ve always been surrounded by people who know me. First it was my brothers protecting me from the big, bad world. Then it was you. I’m not going to have anyone off at Duke.”

I chuckled at his predictable paranoia. “By, you’re the one who said, earlier this evening, that you were starting over fresh. Freedom, remember? You’re going to have to protect yourself, because you’re a big boy now. You’ll be just fine.”

He shook his head. “You’ll be my long-distance cheering section, though, right?”

“Of course!” I grinned at him. “And if you need me to, I’ll drive down to North Carolina and punch someone in the face for you. But save that for a last resort, will ya?”

By actually smiled, but before he could reply, my cell phone rang. I knew who it must be, because only a couple people had the number. Sure enough, I looked at the display and lit up. “Before you answer that,” he said, “two things. First, come over in the morning and say goodbye.” I made a face. “Second, there’s something else for you in the bag. Jordan wanted you to open it while you’re on the phone with him, so I needed you to know that. G’night, Hay.” He left without waiting for me to return the phrase.

I hurriedly answered Jordan’s call before it went to voice mail. “Hello?”

He still sounded cautious. “Haley?”

“Yes, Jordan?”

“I’m sorry for breaking up with you,” he said quietly.

“That was my fault,” I said. “I wasn’t aiming for that, but I know now that I caused it. I’m sorry, too.”

“Good,” he said, sounding a little more cheery. “Enough apologies. Let’s start over fresh. Did Byron bring you my gift?”

“Yeah. I’m wearing your shirt right now, right over my tank top.” I pulled it up to my nose again. “And he just told me there’s something else, too.” I found the beach bag hung on the post of my bed and reached inside. The only thing in there was the little box By had been playing with earlier.

“Open it now,” Jordan urged. I did, and there was a delicate little ring with a small pearl on it. “Does it fit?” he asked. “I had to guess your size.”

I put it on the ring finger on my right hand. “Just about perfectly.”

“Good,” he said for a second time, and now he sounded more hopeful. “I asked the lady at the jewelry counter to help me pick out something that said what I meant and what I was feeling. Pearls are supposed to symbolize innocence and purity.” He took a deep breath. “Byron told me—don’t be mad at him; I forced it out of him—that you were worried that what happened to you meant that you weren’t a virgin anymore.”

It was my turn to take a sharp breath. “A little worried,” I admitted.

“A lot worried,” he corrected, and he was right. “But I can see right past that. In some ways, Haley, you’re way too pure, too good for me. But you still considered me anyway. I hope that someday, we can get past all the pain you’ve had.” He paused, and he sounded more tentative again. “Someday, I want to be your first…and I want you to be mine. When we’re ready.”

I was trying really hard not to cry again, but for the first time in weeks, they were happy tears. “I…I don’t know what to say,” I stammered.

“Then don’t say anything. It’s okay. I’m not asking you to make promises. I’m just hoping.”

“Me, too. Me, too.”

We talked on late into the night.

 You’re a part of me I’m a part of you Wherever we may travel Whatever we go through Glen Frey, Part of Me Part of You

Byron

I hadn’t known what to do with myself when I’d gotten home from Haley’s house Friday night. I’d ended up playing an endless round of The Game of Life with Claire. It went on for hours and hours…or maybe it just felt that way. It made me wish that I’d taken Adam up on his offer. There’d been one last kegger hosted by one of the guys in our group, though I wasn’t sure if Adam had invited me because he was being polite or because he’d needed a designated driver. I’d turned him down long before I’d known Hay was going to get her act back together and make up with Jordan.

I love my youngest sister, but even hanging out with a bunch of drunken idiots—some of whom made my life a living hell for four years—would have been an improvement over watching her mercilessly cheat at what is quite possibly the world’s stupidest game. Finally, Margo arrived home, putting me out of my misery. I trudged up to my room as the two of them got into an argument over something petty and stupid.

College was starting to sound better and better.

My room was finally put back in order. Actually, after Hay had left earlier that day, I’d had it organized in about twenty-five minutes. I had only about five more things to pack up in the morning: my toothbrush, my deodorant, my pajamas, my pillow…and the picture of me and Jeff. I was looking forward to college in almost every way. I hadn’t originally been worried about having a roommate, because I’ve always had a roommate. Even in my earliest memories, I was sharing a room with all three of my brothers. Later, at the age of ten, I’d needed to be the ‘bigger man’ and agree to share a room with Nick. That had actually worked to my benefit, as he’d been so thrilled that I’d agreed to room with him that he’d been the model roomie for a long time afterward.

But I did worry about meeting and making friends with Julio. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know me at all; there was going to be an element of culture shock. I was going to be a Connecticut Yankee below the Mason-Dixon Line. Julio was Cuban by way of Florida, fluent in Spanish. He’d already promised me (by IM) that he was going to teach me to curse like a Cuban. I knew a lot about him—how his dad had passed away and his mother worked two jobs; how he was an only child but he had ‘millions’ of cousins and was the first person in his family to go to college. I’d told him a lot about myself—how I was one of eight and an identical triplet; how I was, like him, relying on loans and scholarships to get through school. I’d only left one thing out.

I hadn’t forgotten to mention I was gay on purpose. It just kind of slipped my mind the first time we talked, and then it had seemed really awkward to try to slip it into a later conversation: “Oh, and by the way, I’m a homosexual.” I couldn’t decide if it slipping my mind was a good or bad thing. Was I falling back into my old, in-the-closet ways, or was it just such a natural, ingrained part of me at this point that it didn’t need to be the first thing I told people? I really didn’t know the answer.

I was still debating that when Vanessa appeared in my open doorway. “You’re home early,” she noted with surprise. “Haley get sick of you and kick you out?”

I rolled my eyes at her. Vanessa may have become more accessible and easier to talk to this summer, but she purposely tinged every conversation I had with her with sarcasm. I never could quite figure out what she was feeling that way—which I guess was her goal. “Nope. I excused myself when she got a phone call. I have to ask how much you had to do with the events today?”

She looked at me like I was loony. “What events?”

Even though I was pretty sure she was somehow responsible for Hay’s change of mind with Jordan, obviously Hay hadn’t told her about it. “Next time you see Haley, ask her where she got her ring. Or better yet, who she got it from.”

Vanessa made a face that hid a grin. “Oh, gag,” she said, pretending the news was disgusting. “You mean she got back together with him? I think I need to go vomit.”

I shook my head slowly. “I’m going to ask you again: How much did you have to do with this?”

She feigned innocence for a moment before she smiled. “I just gave her a little kick in the bum,” Vanessa said finally.

“Bum?” I repeated.

“I’m feeling British this evening.”

“Ahh.”

“Anyway,” Vanessa continued, “I’m glad you made her leave today. We had a good talk.” This was the most open and unguarded I’d seen her since we’d been in Maine. “I understand her a lot better now.”

I smiled faintly. I’d kicked Hay out earlier partly for the reasons I’d given her, and partly so that she’d go spend time with her old friends. I was glad it had done some good. “That’s good. You’ll keep an eye on her for me while I’m gone, right?”

Something about that phrasing tickled Vanessa’s funny bone. “Sure, whatever,” she said with a laugh. She’d been leaning against the door frame, but she stood up. “I’m glad you’re leaving tomorrow,” she said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, for a bunch of reasons.” She had a mischievous look in her eyes. “First of all, with you all gone, I’m the oldest sibling in the house. And with Nick not turning seventeen for almost another year, the car is mine! All mine.” I chuckled. “Anyway, with each passing kid in this family, Mom and Dad realize they’re not doing too badly as parents, and they ease up. You being such a ‘role model’ and butt kisser has helped tremendously in that respect.” She was grinning, although I don’t think she was trying to compliment me in any way with that statement. “But you leaving means that I don’t have you there as a measuring stick that I need to be compared against any more. I don’t think you ever did anything to purposely make the rest of us look bad, but it happened all the same.”

“So you’re glad to be rid of me?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Vanessa replied. She had just come out of the shower before stopping to talk, and she was wearing regular pajamas, no makeup, and her hair was uncombed and still dripping. You’d never guess if you saw her like that that earlier today she’d been wearing an extremely short dress with several petticoats, white thigh-high stockings and platform Mary Jane shoes, with her hair in two pigtails high on her head and ridiculously pink makeup. “With you gone, Margo’s going to try to get me to give her and her vapid friends rides to the mall all the time.”

I rolled my eyes at her again. “Never change, Vanessa,” I said with a laugh.

She leaned against the door again, briefly. “I don’t intend to,” she said with a smirk. “I’m sure I’ll see you again before you leave, but probably not alone like this, so I better get this out of the way.” She made a quick look around to make sure no one else was listening. “Have a good time at school. I know you’ll have no trouble with your classes and homework and everything, but make sure you actually go out and live a life, okay? All school and no fun makes Byron a dull boy.”

I gave her a hug, which she actually returned. “I’ll try. I don’t have too much experience with that, so no promises, okay?”

She left me alone with my thoughts, but I didn’t get too far with them. It must have been nearly curfew, because Nick joined me in our bedroom shortly after. “How was your date?” I asked him.

Over the past few years, Nick hadn’t been much of one for facial expressions, but the look on his face said it all. Had he been a girl, he would have plopped down on his bed in a fake faint and said, ‘I’m in love!’ But Nick is definitely not a girl. “I had a good time,” he said, trying to play it cool. But he had a giant grin he couldn’t turn off.

I had to smile back at him, because I’d felt that way, not too long before. It was the feeling that you were finally joining the human race and doing what everyone else your age was doing…and you were having a good time doing it. “We went to see the Bourne Supremacy,” he told me without my even asking. “Then we had burgers and milkshakes at the Rosebud.”

This was apparently ‘Open Up to Byron Day’ and no one told me. I wasn’t really complaining, though. “That’s awesome, Nick,” I said, and I completely meant it. I had a feeling there was more to the story, though. “Did you kiss her?” I asked.

He shook his head, and I could see I’d touched a nerve. The smile went away. “I wanted to…and I think she wanted me to. But I didn’t know when. And it wasn’t like I could give her a goodbye kiss or anything. I mean, her sister Shannon dropped me off, and I wasn’t going to kiss her with her sister right there.”

I nodded sympathetically. I hadn’t had that problem before—even if we hadn’t been old enough to drive, Jeff wasn’t exactly the type to shy away from kissing me in front of others. “Is she still coming to Dungeons and Dragons with you guys?” He nodded. “Well, next Wednesday, pull her aside some time, if you can. Maybe before the game starts or after it’s over. Tell her there’s something from the other night that feels incomplete, and then go for it. I bet she’ll be really surprised, in a good way.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good. Maybe you should write an advice column.” Nick’s smile returned, but I was surprised. I hadn’t heard him joke like that in a couple years. He was even more serious than I was most of the time. “If that doesn’t work out, I can always try again next Friday. We’re going to see another movie. And this time, because it was my idea, I’m actually going to pay.” He leaned in the doorway, similar to how Vanessa had been standing a short time ago, and looked out into the hallway. “Bathroom’s free. I’m going to get ready for bed.”

He left and I chuckled. I wasn’t sure I’d ever met Maria, but from what Adam had said and the comments Nick had made about her earlier in the day, she sounded like she was going to be the one wearing the pants in that relationship. Actually, I worried just a tiny bit about my advice to Nick, because if Maria was that strong-willed and she hadn’t kissed Nick herself, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for him to even try it.

Nick would probably be going off to sleep soon, but I was in no way ready for bed. Instead of lying down and letting my thoughts take over my head, I went down to the computer. Margo and Claire were still bickering down in the rec room. When the two of them get going, they can go at it for hours, bringing up every time one of them has wronged the other in their entire lives. Vanessa’s new bedroom—Dad’s former office—is right next to the computer. Her door was shut but her light was on, and I could hear quiet music playing. I logged in and checked my email, not expecting anything. After all, I’d just checked in shortly before Jordan had called me at around four thirty. I had one new message.

To: byronp86 From: superjeff15 Subject: move in day hey By i know ur going to school in the morning. i also know ur probably a little worried about a few things. stop worrying. everyone is going to love you as much as i do. (well maybe not quite that much.) u will have no problem with anything. love and miss you, Jeff

I smiled to myself. It was beyond fabulous having someone who knew my fears before I even said them. I had to wonder why I’d ever worried about him being able to read my mind. I typed out a fast reply.

To: superjeff15 From: byronp86 Subject: love you :) We’re leaving early tomorrow. Not as early as we left for Maine, but pretty bad. I’m hoping to sleep on the way and dream that I’m driving closer to you… Love, Byron

It was mushy and sappy and if Adam ever saw it, he’d be completely disappointed in me, same as he was with Jordan through most of the summer.

He almost did see it. He came in a short time later, while I was trying to figure out if I could win a game of computer solitaire I was playing. I’d been hoping to tire myself out so I could go to sleep. Jeff’s email had taken away the edge of my fears, but they were still there below the surface, and I knew that if I tried to go to bed too soon, I’d just keep myself awake, thinking of more things to worry about.

Adam was dropped off by a car I didn’t recognize. Usually when my brothers went out drinking, they tried to ‘sneak in’ by going through the back door. Apparently, when you’re drunk, walking (or stumbling) through the backyard—which is the direction Mom and Dad’s bedroom faces—seems to be more stealthy than quietly coming in through the front door.

This time, Adam just walked right through the front door, and no wonder. He was totally loaded. He came in and plopped down on the couch, several feet away from me, and I could smell the liquor on him from that distance. I turned around and sized him up. Despite the smell, he seemed at least a little coherent. I wondered briefly if maybe he’d just been swimming in a tub of beer instead of drinking it. “Have fun at your party?” I asked.

He sprawled across the entire length of the couch, putting his shoes on one of the cushions. If Mom had seen him, he would have been dead for a couple of reasons. “It was okay. It would have been better if you and Jordan had been there.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never even gone to a party with you. How do you know I would have improved your experience?”

“You’re my brother,” he said, slurring his words a little bit. I got the feeling that I was getting more honesty out of him drunk than I ever would have if he’d been sober. “Everything’s always been better when you and me and Jordan did it together.”

I didn’t necessarily agree with that, but one of the few things I’d ever learned from drunk people is that it’s pointless to argue with them. “Before this year, when was the last time the three of us really did something together?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I dunno. But when we were kids, we always did everything together. And I know those were my happiest days.”

I was looking at him in a whole new light for a moment. Who knew that Adam was so sentimental? Maybe he only got like this when he’d drunk too much. “We don’t have to stop doing things together just because we’re going to be separated most of the time,” I observed. “We’ll just be doing different sorts of things together.”

“Oh yeah,” Adam sighed. “Group email and instant messages. Joy of joys.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “Maybe we should make some plans. Like every year, we’ll do something special, just the three of us, no matter where we are or what we’re doing.”

Adam let loose one loud, long belch and then wiped his mouth with his hand. “Sure,” he said sarcastically, “We can get together every year for our birthday. That’ll last for maybe two years. Then you’ll be too busy studying and Jordan’ll find himself a girl and be too busy making kissy-face and you two will forget about me all together.”

I didn’t address his fear, because I knew he was too drunk to reason with. “I think,” I said instead, “that Jordan already found a girl.”

Adam looked at me and tried to focus his eyes. “What?” he said, surprised. “I thought it would take him months to get past this…this. I can’t believe he really found himself a girl already.”

“He did,” I asserted, “and her name is Haley.” Adam didn’t seem to be sorting that out straight. “They got back together,” I explained.

He looked at me and laughed. “Oh, good,” he said. “The Great American Romance is back on.” Although he obviously meant that in a sarcastic manner, he didn’t say it with the correct tone of voice. He actually sounded a little pleased.

I turned the computer off and sat down by Adam’s knees on the couch itself. He slowly shifted his head so that he was looking at me again, although I wasn’t sure how much he was actually taking in. If I’d had some grand words about how much growing up with him had meant to me, it would have been an ideal time to say them. But I didn’t. I think I’m pretty good with words overall, but come on here. I was an eighteen year old boy talking to his drunken brother. I would have needed more time to put together a speech like that anyway. Instead, I had a glint of memory from the far past and slapped my hand to my forehead. “What?” Adam asked suspiciously.

“You know what we forgot?” I asked.

“No.” He looked around, like the answer were somewhere in the living room with us. “What?”

“We were supposed to organize all the neighborhood kids and dig up the time capsule.” Adam looked at me blankly. “Remember, there was that time capsule that Mal and all her babysitter friends helped us put together when we were kids? We were supposed to dig it up this summer before we went off to college.”

Adam laughed. “Oh yeah. That stupid thing.” He rolled over a bit so he was on his side, pulling his knees up toward his chest. I slid fully into the seat by his shoes. “Don’t worry about that.”

For someone so nostalgic about his childhood, I would have thought unearthing a canister full of memories would have been a positive thing in his eyes. “Oh?” I said. “Why not?”

He laughed even louder, this one turning into a cough. I heard Margo and Claire quiet down in the rec room and I knew they were listening to him. “Remember last time Jeff came to town for the whole summer? I think we were fourteen.” We’d been thirteen, but I didn’t disagree with him. “Anyway, Jeff found the map that he’d drawn to its location. He knew that his sisters would kill him if we dug it up early, so he, Jordan and I snuck out a couple of nights and tried to find it.”

I was agog. “You guys busted out after curfew so that you could find the time capsule? Repeatedly?” I parroted back to him.

He was giggling by this point; he sounded a little like Margo, which sort of disturbed me. “Yeah. We dug holes all over his yard, but we couldn’t find it anywhere.” He put a hand over his mouth to quiet the giggles, but it didn’t help. “You ever try following a map drawn by a ten year old?”

I remembered that! I’d heard Jeff’s stepdad talking to another one of the neighbors about the ‘gopher holes’ he’d kept finding in his yard. “That was you guys? Mr. Spier thought that his yard was infested by digging animals.”

“It was. Digging monkeys.”

I shook my head. “Sounds like fun. I wish I’d been a part of it.”

He looked at me clearly for the first time since he’d sat down. “I wish that too. We asked you to come, you know. You were so worried about getting caught out after curfew that you wouldn’t join us.”

That sounded about right. I didn’t have a good reply to that, so instead I bumped his shoulder with one fist. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get you up to your room before you attract Mom and Dad’s attention.”

He didn’t argue with that or tell me that he didn’t need my help. A year ago, I would have run up to my parents’ room to wake them if he’d come home wasted like that. Even if I’d wanted to do that today, it would have been pointless. Adam could have as much to drink as he wanted any time he wanted, starting tomorrow. And what were my parents supposed to do? Ground him? Say, “Sorry, you broke the rules, so you can’t go to Ohio?” Right.

I settled him into Jordan’s bed for fear he’d roll out of his own. He zonked out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. I made sure his mouth was free of the pillow—to make sure he’d actually live to see college—and then I headed to my own bed. I was reminded distinctly of the first night of spring break—the night Jeff came back into my life—when Adam and I had basically given Jeff the same treatment, and couldn’t help but smile. I only tossed and turned for a little while before I finally made it off to sleep.

***

I felt like I’d only been asleep for five minutes when my alarm went off. Grumbling, I turned it off and stumbled out of bed. Nick growled, sounding for all the world like a rabid dog, and pulled his covers over his head. I took a quick shower and headed down to breakfast.

Only one other person was down in the kitchen, frying up an egg. “Hey, Claire,” I greeted her. She’s the only person in our family who routinely doesn’t need an alarm clock; she’s up crazy early every day.

She glanced over from her eggs and smiled at me. “Morning! Glad to be getting out of here?”

“Sorta,” I told her as I pulled out a banana and the Cheerios. “I’m ready to go, for the most part. But I’m nervous about a couple things, too.” I quickly sliced the banana and poured the cereal into a bowl.

“Of course you are. I’d be shocked if you weren’t,” she commented idly as she turned the heat off on her frying pan. For all her faults, that’s one thing I love about Claire: she lets me have my fears instead of trying to talk me out of them like the rest of the world. I poured the remnants of a gallon of milk into my Cheerios and added the banana slices. “Will you bring me back a present?” she asked as she unceremoniously dumped her eggs onto a plate.

I had just taken a bite of breakfast. “It’s not like I’m going on vacation, Claire,” I pointed out after I’d swallowed. She poured some ketchup on her eggs and shrugged. “What kind of present?” I asked after a pause.

Claire shrugged again. “I dunno. It’s just that you guys are spreading out, right? If you could bring me back something special from North Carolina, it would be almost as good as going there myself. I asked everyone else the same thing, but all Mallory brought me was a book.” She made a face as she sat down at the table across from me.

I felt for her. We hadn’t had a family vacation since she was seven, and even then, we’d just gone to New Jersey every summer. Each one of us kids had taken one trip with the middle school to somewhere interesting, but the school had stopped offering those programs just before Claire had enrolled there. “Sure. I’ll try to find you something special that isn’t a book. And save your money.” She looked up at me from her eggs. “Save enough for some plane tickets and you can spend the weekend with me any time, okay?”

She brightened. “You really mean that?”

“Have you ever heard me say anything I don’t mean?”

Claire threw herself across the table and gave me a big hug. She smeared ketchup all over her pajamas and nearly knocked over my cereal in the process. “You are the best big brother ever!”

Part of me was grimacing over the mess she’d made, but I put that aside. “And don’t you forget it,” I told her as she dashed off to get dressed, leaving her dishes all over the place.

***

By the time I was done eating, Mom and Dad were at the table having their own breakfasts. I headed back up to my room to quietly do my last bit of packing. Nick still had the covers over his head, but he was back to sleep and snoring softly. I had listened to that noise for most of my life. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I’d miss his snores.

I grabbed my last few items and stepped out of the room, heading to the bathroom. It was in use. I sighed and opened the bag I was carrying, gently placing Jeff’s photo on top. It was going to have a place of honor somewhere in my dorm, whether Julio liked it or not.

I was thinking about the layout of my dorm room, leaning against the door to the bathroom, when it opened. I nearly fell on top of Margo as she jumped out of the way. “Jesus, Byron,” she gasped. “What the hell are you doing? Trying to kill me?”

“Sorry,” I said as I righted myself. She shook her head at me and sat down on the toilet. I started pulling my toiletries out of the mess on the sink and she watched me, morosely. Margo’s not usually one to get depressed these days, so I was concerned. “Everything okay?”

She was wearing a short nightshirt and her hair was loose. Somehow, it made her look less than fifteen—which is how old she’d turned on her birthday just a week before. She wrinkled her brow, a favorite expression of hers from childhood, making her seem like she was maybe seven, waiting for someone to put a bandage on her hurts. “You’re the brother I always take my problems to,” she said finally. “What am I going to do when you’re gone?”

I raised my eyebrows. Margo hadn’t really come to me with her problems in the past year or so, since she’d started high school, but maybe she hadn’t noticed that. I bumped my butt up on the vanity so that I was sitting facing her. “Same as you’ve always done,” I observed. “It’s not like I’m going off to the Army or something. You’ll still be able to get ahold of me.”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “You always give the best advice,” she said, pulling her knees up in front of her and leaning on them. “What am I going to do now? Talk to Nick? Can you imagine the type of advice he would give?”

I could, all too well. I smiled briefly. “Call me. Or go to Vanessa. She’s not that bad with setting people straight.” I thought about the kick in the ‘bum’ she’d given Hay. I still wasn’t sure what she’d said, but obviously it had been just the right thing.

Margo snorted back a laugh. “Sure, whatever. She’s such a weirdo.”

“Oh, and I’m not?” I asked her. She looked over at me, a smile starting to form on her face. “Whatever you do—whether you go to Vanessa for advice or not—make sure you ask her for rides for you and your friends as often as possible.”

Margo’s mouth dropped open for a second. “Why, Byron Pike,” she said, giggling, “are you telling me it’s okay to annoy my older sister?”

“I’m not just suggesting it; I’m encouraging it.”

She hopped off the toilet, looking a little better, and gave me a hug. “You’re going to knock ‘em dead at school, you know that?”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

Margo looked a little embarrassed, like she was about to say something that went against the teenaged code. “You’re smart. You’re a good listener. You’re easy to get along with. What else do you need?”

You’d be surprised how good hearing something like that from my baby sister made me feel. “Thanks, Margo. And you’re going to be just fine, with or without my advice. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, starting to blush. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment. “Think it’s safe to take a shower?” she asked.

I reviewed the counter. “Adam hasn’t grabbed his stuff out of here yet, so I’d wait.”

She nodded. “I’ll probably wait until after you leave, even though it means someone not in this family might see me looking like…this.”

“Nice to know you’ll make sacrifices on my behalf,” I told her with a smile.

***

Hay showed up just as we were starting to load the cars. She was wearing the same tank top she’d had on the day before with a pair of shorts that could be pajamas—it looked to me like she’d just stumbled out of bed and come by. Her loose hair was getting longer, and soon it would reach her shoulders. She was also wearing a pair of sunglasses—the purple ones shaped like hearts she’d taken to Maine with her. “Love the sunglasses,” I said as I gave her a hug. “Haven’t seen those in a while.”

She flipped them up on top of her head and I could see why she’d put them on. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her eyes looked tired. She confirmed that for me. “Didn’t get much sleep last night. Stayed up until nearly three talking to Jordan.”

My heart soared for her when I heard that. I glanced down at her hand and, sure enough, she was wearing his ring. And while she did look like she was going to walk back to her house after my dad’s car drove off and crawl back into bed and sleep for another six hours, she seemed much more at peace than she had just the evening before. “You look much happier today, even with the lack of sleep,” I observed.

“Yeah, well, what can I say?” Hay asked me, grinning her happiest smile. “I love your brother. He makes me happy.”

I pretended to pout over that. “I remember a time when I made you happy,” I teased.

She put on a mock stern face, her hands on her hips. “My world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

“Great. Now you tell me.”

Just then, Mom came out the door, followed by Adam. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” she asked him suspiciously. “First you didn’t want any breakfast, and now you’re saying you don’t want to drive. That’s just not normal for you.”

He ducked his head. “I’m fine,” he said slowly. “I’m just really tired. I got home pretty late last night.”

I leaned over toward Hay. “Maybe you should loan Adam those sunglasses,” I said in a low voice.

She tried to hide a smile. “Hung over?” she whispered back.

“And how.”

Mom spotted me as I crammed my last box into the back of the SUV. “Byron, there’s a cooler in the kitchen full of snacks, sandwiches and drinks. Should make it all the way there and back without a refill, I think. Oh, and your dad’s brewed a massive pot of coffee. Are you going to want any of that, or should I just plan on a thermos for your dad?”

I made a face for two reasons. First, I hate plain coffee and didn’t want any. Second, despite the fact that she was sitting on the back of the car not a foot away from me, Mom didn’t acknowledge Haley’s presence. I wondered if she was mad at her for the whole thing with Jordan. “No. No coffee for me, thanks,” I replied. Mom nodded and started to walk away, but I called over her shoulder. “Did you hear the good news, Mom?” She turned back around, looking confused. “Jordan and Haley are back together. I think the tearful phone calls should stop…well, from him, anyway.”

Mom smiled gently and addressed Hay. “That’s great. I’m glad to hear it, for both of you.”

“I’m glad too,” Hay replied. “I never realized how much my words could hurt someone before. Mostly because, in the past, only one person was listening, and he never took me very seriously.” She grinned at me and Mom shook her head.

I turned to Hay as Mom walked back inside, planning to tell her just how seriously I really do take her. Before I could say anything, though, she hopped off the back of the SUV and strolled over to the driveway, where Adam was tossing things into the back of the station wagon. I raised my eyebrows as she picked up a box and set it in next to the others. He looked at her for a moment, thinking about saying something, but she spoke first. “Here,” she said, handing him her sunglasses. “Let me give these to you so you can cover your eyes. They’re not really my style anymore, anyway.” I had to admit that she was right about that. She’d outgrown a lot of her more childish ways this summer. Adam took them from her, bemused. “And while I’m at it, give me a hug.”

Adam looked from her to the glasses and back to her. “Why?” he asked her suspiciously.

“Well, why not?” she asked him. “You’re the only triplet I don’t hug on a regular basis. I need to even that out a bit.”

Adam frowned at Hay. “I don’t think you’ve been hugging Jordan recently, or doing anything else with him,” he said, sounding unhappy about it.

Hay made a face and then turned to me. I sighed. “Adam, do you remember anything we talked about last night?”

He looked blank. “We talked last night?”

I looked at Hay again and she rubbed her hand across her eyes tiredly, though I could see a smile hiding behind her arm. “Yes. We had a nice chat where you told me that the best years of your life were spent with me and I told you that Hay and Jordan made up.”

He made a face himself. “I must have been more trashed than I thought, because I usually remember my stupid ramblings,” he said. I shook my head and he turned back to Hay. “So he decided to take you back, huh? I hope you know how lucky you are.”

She smiled a little shyly. “I do. I really do.” Adam looked at her critically for a moment and then gave her a very quick hug. She patted his shoulder as he let her go. “Good luck with school, Adam,” she said earnestly.

He plopped her sunglasses on top of his head and both Hay and I grinned at him. “And you take care of Jordan, okay? He’s a lot more sensitive than he lets on. If you’re going to bother dating him, go for it all the way.” It was her turn to look him over. “Okay. Maybe not all the way.”

Hay threw a glance at me and we smirked at each other. Even when Adam was being serious, he had to throw in a joke. “Well, hopefully someday,” she said to my brother, causing him to raise his eyebrows.

I held out my fist to Adam and he bumped it with his own. I could see Hay rolling her eyes at our ‘manly’ display of affection. “Keep in touch,” I told Adam. “I need to live vicariously through the parts of the college experience that I’m not likely to, well, experience.” He grinned back at me.

Mom popped her head out the back door. I could just barely see her around the side of the house. “Byron?” she called. I inched over so I could look her in the eye. “Come inside here and help me get these coolers out to the cars.”

I went straight inside, expecting to find the heavy coolers, like the one we’d taken to Maine that spring. Instead, Mom had two smaller coolers and bags of snacks. I raised my eyebrow; she could have carried that herself. I went to lift one and she stopped me with a hand to my shoulder. “I called you in here so we could have a quick talk before you left,” she admitted. “In some ways, you’ve always been the son I worried about the least, but in other ways, you’ve been the one I worried about the most.” Mom took a deep breath. “I always knew you’d never cause trouble and you could be counted on to help solve problems and keep order among your brothers and sisters. But you always seemed sad and ill at ease while you were doing it. I always worried that more was going on with you than met the eye.”

“And there was,” I observed.

“Yup,” Mom agreed. “But that seems like it was years ago now. You stopped hiding and started being the real you—and I think we all like the real you so much better than we liked the shell you let us see before that.” She gave me a hug and I returned it gratefully. “You’re not a little boy any more, and I couldn’t be happier.” She fished in her pocket and pulled out a phone card. “I have one of these for each of you each year you go off to school. I think Jordan’s managed to use his up already, while Mal makes hers last all school year. She probably has some left on hers from last year, even.” She shook her head. “Basically, what I’m saying is that if you need anything—anything at all—call and we’ll always be there for you.”

“Unless you’re asking for money,” Dad’s voice boomed from the bottom of the stairs. He and Mom shared a smirk. This is apparently a favorite joke of theirs—I have a feeling Mallory has heard it every year since she was eleven.

Dad picked up his thermos of coffee and the bag of snacks for our car. I grabbed the cooler. “Hey everyone,” he called up the stairs, “We’re leaving. Come say goodbye.”

What happened next wasn’t exactly the Brady Bunch running down the stairs, but it had a similar effect. There was Vanessa, her hair half done, followed by Margo, wearing real clothes but clearly not actually dressed for the day. Next came Claire, her hair piled into a ponytail on the top of her head. Almost a whole minute later, Nick, still in his pajamas, his hair messy from sleep, came down, rubbing his eyes.

My four younger brothers and sisters crowded out front, in such a way that they could see both cars. Hay joined them, and I could see that she was getting ready to cry again. I put the cooler down in the car in such a way that I could grab it easily from the passenger’s seat, and then I went over to her. I enveloped her in a giant bear hug, squeezing her so tightly that I’m surprised she was able to keep breathing. I let her go and she gazed into my eyes for a moment before she spoke. I waited for some words of wisdom to emerge from her mouth, but I was going to have to keep waiting. “Do me a favor,” Haley said seriously. “Get a haircut at some point this year. My hair’s finally longer than yours, see? And I’d like to keep it that way.”

I laughed and gave her another hug. “I love you, Hay.”

“And I love you. And I always will, no matter what.”

Vanessa put her arm around Hay as she wiped a single tear from her eye. “And I love all the rest of you, too,” I said, acknowledging my younger sibs. “Be good, or I’ll hear about it.”

My siblings mumbled various replies as I headed back to the car. I could see Mom and Adam getting into the station wagon. Dad made a few last minute directives to Vanessa, who was in charge for the day, and then he started the car. I waved furiously as the car shifted into gear, and I could see them all waving back. Hay ran after the car, waving and blowing kisses. I continued to wave at her until she faded from view.

Little did we realize just how big a change this was going to be in our lives. I had no idea none of us would see Mallory again for nearly five years, or that I only had one more year considering this house (and Connecticut) my home. I didn’t know just how long Jordan was going to manage to hold on to his virginity pledge, or how wild Adam was going to let loose now that he felt he’d dodged a bullet. There was no way I could have predicted what an entrepreneur Vanessa would become, or that Nick would be quite the ladies’ man. I wouldn’t have known that Claire would hit her teen years harder and faster than the rest of us (though I might have guessed) or known the hardships Margo had coming up for her. I couldn’t know that Tiff was going to give birth to a beautiful baby boy and name him after her white knight. Or that I’d still think of Hay as my best friend years in the future and ask her to be the “best person” in my upcoming wedding. I had no way of knowing just how much my life and Jeff’s would be intertwined over the years.

But as hard as all those years may have been—no matter who may have come and gone from my life, no matter how many tears I may have shed—I wouldn’t change a single thing.

And it all began that day as the car drove off to North Carolina.

[tosybelle-blog]

The Boys of Summer, Chapters XXVI-XXX

No one could ever know me No one could ever see me Seems you’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be me The Rembrandts, I’ll Be There for You

Haley

I rarely get phone calls, but when I do, they’re usually from one of two people. Both of them were working on Tuesday, so when the phone rang during the middle of the day while I was home alone, I assumed that it was a telemarketer.

The caller ID showed a very familiar phone number and for a moment I thought maybe Jordan or By had decided to skip work. (It was Jordan’s last day at the Rosebud, and maybe they’d decided they didn’t need him after all.) But it was another Pike wanting my attention.

“Hey, Haley,” Vanessa started, as if she called me all the time. Sure, we’d hung out a few times over the summer, but it wasn’t like it had been back when we were ‘besties’ and spoke at least once a day.

So naturally I was a little suspicious that she was calling. “What do you want, Vanessa?” I asked.

She paused and then sounded put out. “Why do you think I want something?” she asked.

“What do you want, Vanessa?”

The pause was even longer this time. “I was hoping you’d like to go to the mall with me,” she said in a small voice.

I relaxed a little bit. I didn’t have any plans for the afternoon or evening, so why not? I knew Vanessa must have asked me to come along so I could give her a ride, but did her original motivations really matter? She wanted to spend some time with me and I could really use the distraction. “I guess so,” I said after a pause of my own. I know I didn’t sound enthusiastic and she must have picked up on that right away. It wasn’t really Vanessa’s fault; I was just feeling sort of down in the dumps.

We hashed out a few details. She was in charge of the laundry for the week and she had two more loads to finish, so we planned to leave in an hour, shortly after she put the last load in the dryer. We hung up and I went back to what I’d been doing before she called: brooding. I’m not a world champion at it the way By is, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t while away entire afternoons thinking about everything that’s wrong with my existence.

Jordan kept trying to assure me that everything was okay between us, but I just didn’t believe him. It wasn’t that I thought he couldn’t get past me shoving him away from me while sobbing. It was more that I was afraid that if I kept shoving him away, he’d get tired of it and stop coming back. Especially since he was leaving so soon. He’d be off at school in less than a week and there would be so many other things and people to get his attention.

I was listening to Vanessa’s CD of depressing music on my stereo and lying on my stomach on my floor when the phone rang again. I rolled my eyes and slowly made my way off the floor, working under the assumption that Vanessa had changed her mind or wanted something else from me. But I didn’t recognize the phone number, other than the fact that it was local. I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I said tentatively.

“Haley? It’s Jeff.” He sounded upbeat and happy. I couldn’t help but wonder what had gotten into him. “Can you help me out? I need to get out of the house. My sister is driving me fucking nuts.”

I didn’t even know his sister was in town. I sighed. “I just agreed to go to the mall with Vanessa,” I told him, disappointed. I’d been hoping to nab an afternoon alone with Jeff all summer long, but it had never worked out the way I’d wanted.

“Oh,” he said, trying not to let his own disappointment show. Despite the pep to his demeanor, he didn’t sound too thrilled with the prospect of spending the whole afternoon with his sister. I’d liked Jeff’s sister back when I’d really known her, but I couldn’t think of the last time I’d seen her. Maybe something had changed.

I was torn. I couldn’t go back on my word to Vanessa—we might not be the kind of friends we were when we were thirteen, but we were friends. But at the same time, I was also friends with Jeff, and he needed me for something that sounded more important than just my car. “Do you want to come with us?” I asked. “Vanessa can’t really complain because we’re taking my car. I’d love to go shopping with you again.”

This time, Jeff paused. “Are you sure Vanessa won’t mind?” he asked hesitantly.

I honestly didn’t care if she did. “It’s my car, so I get to pick the guest list,” I said, not really answering his question.

He did sound marginally happier. “Great. What time are you guys leaving?”

“In about forty-five minutes, but you can come over any time you want.”

Jeff came over about five minutes later. I wasn’t sure what the rules were with him. Jordan’s not allowed anywhere on the second story except the bathroom, while By can go just about anywhere he pleases. I decided that my mom would be closer to that with Jeff. No one was home and we’d be gone before they came home, but I figured that we’d be okay in my bedroom, especially if we left the door open. It’s not like I had any plans to make out with Jeff, after all. Can you imagine the kind of drama that would lead to? Really not my style.

He dropped his sandals by the door and the two of us thundered up the stairs. I had thrown my six bed pillows all over the floor, so I sat down on them, expecting Jeff to take the only chair. Instead, he plopped down right next to me, taking a look around as he did. “Cool room,” he said, taking everything in. “It’s very…”

“White,” I finished. I couldn’t exactly explain why I had redecorated my room so monochromatically, but I’d found that I liked it when it was finished.

He leaned over and inspected my scribble wall, or as By likes to call it, ‘The Wall of Schlock and Schmaltz’. “I especially love this,” Jeff added.

I smiled half-heartedly. “Some days, those words are the only thing keeping me sane,” I admitted.

Jeff grinned briefly. “I feel the same way about my meds,” he said. I looked over at him, wondering what medication he was talking about. He must have read my mind. “I’m taking lithium for bipolar disorder,” he said seriously. “It’s why I’m so up and down all the time.”

I nodded at him, wondering what my problem was. “You can write on it if you have any words of wisdom,” I told him. “There are markers on my desk.

Jeff hopped back up and grabbed a Sharpie. He inspected every word written on the wall before he found a blank spot up out of my reach—and probably By’s as well. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t already have this one,” he commented before he began writing. In typical male chicken scratch he scrawled, ‘The journey of a million miles starts with one step.’

I stretched out on my stomach as he joined me back on the floor. Vanessa’s CD was still playing. “What are you listening to?” he asked.

I wrinkled my nose. “I have no idea,” I admitted, “but before you called, I was getting ready for a good cry. I can change it, if you’d like.”

He shook his head. “Nope. Your house, your choice. But I do have to wonder what is bugging you so badly that you feel like listening to shitty, depressing music and sobbing your heart out.”

I didn’t answer him directly. Instead, I glanced over at my dresser where, among the general life clutter, was a single framed photo. Jeff followed my gaze, never moving from his pillow perch. The photo was of Jordan and me in Maine. I was standing on a bench behind him, leaning against his back, my arms wrapped around his neck. He’s turned away from the camera—looking over his shoulder at me. “Oh, I see,” he said gently, “He’s leaving for school this weekend, isn’t he?” I looked away and bit my lip. Jeff watched me for a moment and then shook his head. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” He furrowed his brow.

I shook my head back at him. “You didn’t bring it up,” I replied, stretching out flat with my head sideways on one of the pillows. “I haven’t been able to think about much else for the last few days.”

“Believe me, sister,” Jeff said, “if anyone understands what you’re going through, it’s me.” He rolled onto his own stomach so we were side by side. “You feel like he’s running off to start something interesting and fun without you, and you’re left behind in the dust, hoping he doesn’t forget you.”

He did understand; I could see that. And I knew why. Jeff was headed back home to live with his dad soon, same as he’d been doing his whole life. He wasn’t moving hours away from home to live in a dorm with a bunch of strangers, like Jordan and By and Adam were. I nodded at him and he smiled. “Aw, Hay, I get it. I really do. You’re going to have to go months without seeing him. I’m in the same boat with By. But I really have faith in my relationship and I’m certain it can go the distance.” He paused and made a face. “Inadvertent pun. Sorry.”

I rolled my eyes. If I’d been in a better mood, I probably would have laughed. Instead I fought back tears a bit. He looked at me and I knew he could see it. We sat quietly for a minute before he spoke again. “So what’s this I hear about Jordan still being a virgin?” he asked. I rolled over onto my side to get a better view of him and he grinned at me in a way that told me he was just trying to lighten the mood. “You two are the king and queen of PDA. I’m surprised you’ve managed to go four whole months without sealing the deal.”

I wasn’t sure if he didn’t know the truth about me or if he just decided it would be cute to pretend. I decided to go with the latter. “I’m a tease,” I told him. “I’ll give him a taste, and that’s it.”

Jeff laughed heartily. “I should have been that way back when I was dating girls,” he said wryly as he rolled onto his back.

I sat up. “Not with By, though, huh?”

He closed his eyes and grinned. “No, not with Byron so much. I’m in no hurry to go farther with sex with him, but that’s not being a tease. It’s savoring things. D’ya know what I mean? Enjoying everything to its fullest while it’s new and special, knowing we have time in the future to go to that next step without feeling like we have to rush into it now.”

I wanted to feel that healthy and mature about sex. Instead, I was constantly of two minds about it. I definitely had hormones and they were definitely raging. My heart said to go further and do whatever comes next. But my head held me back. It said, ‘Stop now, because you’re only going to get hurt.’ “I wish I felt that way,” I commented idly.

Jeff opened his eyes again. “Which part don’t you agree with?” he asked.

I thought about that. “I don’t have a problem with enjoying things,” I said and he gave a half smile. “It’s more the time thing. I don’t know how long I have before I fuck things up and everything falls apart.”

He crossed his legs in front of him, still lying on his back. “What makes you think you’ll screw something up?”

“I may have already,” I muttered. He gave me a look. “Never mind. It’s really complicated.”

Jeff shrugged. “I have the time. Why don’t you try me?”

I closed my eyes briefly before I replied. “My mom has a motto,” I said after a moment. “Expect the best, but prepare for the worst.” Jeff nodded. I know he remembered my giant Mom-purse from Maine. “It’s always worked pretty well for me. But she never prepared me for the absolute worst thing that ever happened to me, and it’s not something I know how to deal with now that I’m reliving it on a daily basis. I just think that Jordan’s going to get tired of waiting for me if I don’t get over it.”

He pursed his lips for a moment. “I’m not going to even try to pretend to understand what you’re going through on that end,” he said finally, “but I’ll tell you what I do know. There’s a serious downside to always being prepared for the worst.” He had my full attention now. I leaned over toward him. “Sometimes, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You spend enough time thinking you’re going to ruin your relationship that you actually do.”

I wrinkled my brow but didn’t say anything. Instead I flopped back face down on the pillows. We were quiet for a moment before Jeff spoke again. “Hey, Haley, remember that time we were stranded on an island with my sister?”

I pulled my face off the pillow. “How could I ever forget that?” I replied, smiling for the first time pretty much all day. “Why do you think my mom is the way that she is?” He tilted his head to one side, looking glorious in the fact that he’d actually made me smile. “When we were missing, she thought she’d never see me again. Ever since then, she’s done everything she can to prevent hurting like that again.”

We were a lot less deep after that. We talked about television and music and he told me about some of his friends back in California. And then, just about five minutes before she said she’d arrive, Vanessa popped up on my doorstep. Because she’s Vanessa and not your average human, she didn’t knock or ring the doorbell—she threw pebbles at my window. I knew exactly what that meant because she’s done it before. I pulled myself off the floor and threw my pillows back onto my bed. Jeff stood as well, looking confused. I leaned on the window sill. “Hold your water!” I shouted at Vanessa. She grinned back at me and plopped down in the grass where she stood. She was wearing a short plaid skirt and a black shirt with her Doc Martens and she’d pulled her hair into two pigtails. Her makeup these days is bright and colorful—she was wearing hot pink sparkly eye shadow. She looked absolutely ridiculous, but I knew that was the point.

I turned to Jeff, who’d gathered up the pillows he’d been sitting on. “Vanessa’s here,” I announced.

We were out the front door in just a moment. Vanessa looked over at the two of us together. Her face clouded over for a moment, but then she just shook her head. “Oh, goody,” she said sarcastically, “It’s two thirds of the Pike triplet fan club! What did I do to deserve the honor of this company?”

I was not in the mood for her unique brand of humor. “You don’t have to go with us, if you’re that unenthusiastic about our ‘company,’” I said warningly.

She looked over at Jeff, who was playing with his sandal and pretending he wasn’t listening to the conversation. The look on her face plainly said she was surprised Jeff was coming along on our mall trip, but she smartly didn’t say a word. Jeff looked up from his shoe and, realizing we were past the moment, tried to break the tension. “So, Vanessa, what takes us to the mall today?”

She turned a little bit pink. All the Pikes are really fair skinned and blush unbelievably easily. “Nothing special,” she said as I locked the front door. That kind of response said that she had something specific in mind, but she wasn’t going to bring it up until she had us trapped in it with no escape route in sight. She and Jeff followed me to the car.

Jeff was reading Vanessa’s mood properly, so he didn’t even attempt to get into the front seat of the car. He got in behind the driver’s side and let Vanessa climb up in front with me. We turned out on to Burnt Hill, Vanessa still stewing and me concentrating on driving. Jeff leaned forward between the seats; he hadn’t belted up yet. “Didn’t Byron tell me that your parents used to not let you drive your car?” he asked me. “When did that change?”

I laughed. “When everyone made it back from spring break in one piece. They were impressed that I’d driven around that much and no one died.”

Vanessa was looking over her fingernails, which matched her eye shadow. “You really didn’t drive that much,” she said. “You let the boys do all the highway driving.”

I’d hoped no one had noticed that. I’d never driven on the interstate before and I hadn’t been eager to try it for the first time with a car full of my friends and quasi friends. I’d gone on my own and tried it out a few weeks after we’d gotten back and found that it wasn’t that bad. “Well, my parents didn’t need to know that part,” I said lightly.

We were relatively quiet for a moment before Vanessa looked up from her hands. “What the hell are we listening to?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I replied. Jeff caught my eye in the rear view and he grinned. He’d caught the echo also. “Jordan made me a mix CD. He’s trying to get me into classic rock.”

That got Vanessa’s attention. “Jordan likes classic rock?” she asked, bewildered. “I only ever hear metal coming out of his bedroom,” she added.

“That would be Adam,” I said. “I get the feeling Jordan usually uses head phones when he plays music.” Vanessa wrinkled up her nose and mouth, although I wasn’t sure why. Was she upset that I knew something about her brothers that she didn’t? “Jordan likes all kinds of music. His tastes are very…eclectic.” I turned the CD up a little bit. “My tolerance for this old stuff is growing. I can’t say I like most of it, but I can actually listen to more than thirty seconds of most of the songs before I change them. And there are a few that I actually will admit aren’t bad.”

Jeff was still leaning between the seats. “Oh, yeah?” he asked. “Like what?”

I gave my most evil grin and flipped through the CD until I found exactly what I was looking for. A short time into the song, Jeff laughed and sat back, finally putting on his seatbelt. Vanessa gave him a look. “What’s so funny?” she growled.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Jeff replied. Vanessa did not look any happier. She glared at me suspiciously.

“I think Jordan put this one on here first to get my attention because he knows I can’t resist shit like this,” I said with a smirk.

She listened intently for a little while, trying to figure out what Jeff and I thought was so hilarious. The song was long and it took longer than I’d anticipated for Vanessa to recognize it. “Noooo!” she shrieked. “Haley! You actually like this garbage?” she asked, her tongue hanging out of her mouth like the music had left a bad taste behind.

I looked at her innocently. “You mean you don’t like Bohemian Rhapsody?” I asked as I flicked my eyes back to the road.

“You’re not going to get me to head bang,” was her only reply, but it was pretty much a lie. When that part of the song came on, she ended up bobbing her head as much as Jeff and I did.

When the song ended, I turned the radio off. “For the ride home, I have Stairway to Heaven,” I teased. Both of them shuddered.

We pulled into the Washington Mall parking lot and I started looking for a parking spot. There were plenty of spots, but I always like to park under one of the lane markers so I can remember where I left my car. As I was cruising up and down the aisles, Jeff plastered his face to the window. “Isn’t that the Helen-mobile?” he asked.

I looked the same direction, and sure enough, there was Helen’s convertible. She has a custom license plate with her last name spelled phonetically on it, so there was no mistaking it. “If we see her, I’m going to duck into a store and hide,” I sighed.

“Who is Helen,” Vanessa asked, “and why do you have to hide from her?”

I grimaced and Jeff turned to Vanessa. “She’s Byron’s manager and she’s got a major hate on for Hay,” he told her.

Vanessa frowned and turned to me as I finally parked the car. “I originally interviewed to work behind customer service with her,” I said, “but when they offered me a job, it was in towels with a different manager. I don’t know if Helen just decided she didn’t like me or if the bath manager Jeri poached me. Then when they were short a bridal consultant, Helen recommended someone and Jeri recommended me. I got chosen.”

She looked confused. “So?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Helen holds grudges. I think there’s a lot more to it than those two things. I heard a rumor that Helen wanted to switch over and be in charge of the bridal and china department, but they promoted someone over her head instead. She’s been super- critical of me ever since I got sent to the bridal department. I got my three month job review yesterday and I was rated ‘exceeds expectations’ in nearly every category. Yet Helen tells me off every time we work together for something stupid. She basically told me I was incompetent the other day.”

Jeff nodded. “Yeah, because you can really control having an allergic reaction,” he commented with a chuckle.

Vanessa made a face. “I had a reaction to the chemicals they use to clean the toilets. My throat started to close up. It would have been cool if it wasn’t so life threatening,” I told her.

She shook her head as we reached the mall door. “Clearly,” she said dryly, “you and I have different definitions of cool.”

We’d barely made it inside the door when Jeff decided he needed to use the bathroom. Vanessa apparently has a map of the mall inside her head, because she knew exactly where the closest men’s room was. Jeff popped inside and I leaned against the wall a short ways away. Vanessa folded her arms in front of herself and glared. “What?!” I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer.

She didn’t answer directly. Instead she looked up to the second story balcony and watched some shoppers for a moment. She was trying to up my irritation level and she was succeeding. “Maybe,” she said finally, still not looking at me, “if I start calling you ‘Hay’ I can actually get some of your time.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

Vanessa met my gaze. “I was hoping to spend some time alone with you,” she said crossly. “You and I used to be so close. And then we had a stupid fight over nothing and you stopped being friends with everyone except my idiot brother. I thought after spring break we’d be able to hang out together more, but you’re always with one of my brothers. I knew they were both busy today so I was sure you’d be free. But you had to go and bring Jeff along with us.”

I knew it was killing her to admit that out loud and that melted my iciness a little. “I’m sorry it’s not what you were expecting,” I said, still annoyed a bit, “but Jordan is leaving this weekend. And then both By and Jeff are leaving within the next two weeks after that. I want to spend as much time as possible with them before they go.” Vanessa was sulking. “I’ll have just oodles and bunches of time free when school starts. I’d be glad to spend some time with you, just the two of us, after that happens.”

“Great,” she said, “I’m the honorable mention. I’m what you get when everything else was taken.” Vanessa sighed. “I remember a time when you were mine and I didn’t have to share you with my brothers.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a toy, you know,” I said as Jeff came out of the restroom. “I don’t belong to anyone. I get to decide how to spend my time.”

Jeff watched warily as Vanessa shook her head in disbelief. “Oh yeah? Like you wouldn’t run back home right now if Jordan called and said he needed you.”

She was right about that. “Yes,” I said after a moment’s pause, “but that would be my decision. I love Jordan and I would drop everything for him if it came down to that.”

Vanessa looked surprised and she opened her mouth to speak, but Jeff interrupted. “Sorry I took so long,” he said, putting one arm loosely around my shoulder and looking at Vanessa with his head cocked to one side. “Where do you want to go first, Vanessa?”

She gave him a look that said she didn’t appreciate him breaking up our disagreement, but she just shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I really just wanted to do some boy scoping.”

I groaned and Jeff turned to me pleadingly—I think he thought I was about to start the argument again. “Have you heard about Vanessa’s mystery man?” I asked. He shook his head. “She’s spent the past two months trying to identify this guy she met when she got her driver’s license. I actually spent a couple hours wandering downtown Stoneybrook with her a couple weeks ago, hoping to find him.”

Jeff was intrigued. “Ooh, that sounds interesting,” he said. Vanessa perked up just a little.

“The only problem is,” I continued, “we have absolutely no idea who this guy is or where he lives or anything of the sort. All she’s got is a vague description.”

Vanessa grimaced. “I’ll recognize him if I see him again,” she defended herself.

“Describe him,” Jeff insisted.

“Tall—a couple inches taller than you, I’d say,” she said. “Olive skinned, brown eyes and hair. Really cute.”

“See the trouble?” I said to Jeff. “He could be a lot of guys by that description.” I looked around and began pointing. “He could be that guy…or that one…or that one.”

“Wait a minute,” Vanessa said, looking surprisingly happy. “That’s him!”

Jeff looked off in the general direction I’d been pointing. “Which one?” he asked.

“The second one,” she said, standing on tip-toe and staring off into the distance. She’s a good four inches taller than I am and I had already lost track of the guy in question. He’d been with another shorter young man, both of them carrying skateboards. “Oh my goddess!” she said, getting a little panicky, “That’s definitely him!”

“Well then,” Jeff said, moving in the direction which the boy had been walking, “let’s do what we came for and follow him!”

Vanessa quickly followed Jeff and I had to break into a trot to keep up. “What exactly are you going to do once you catch up to him?” I asked. “Say, ‘Hi, remember me? I’ve been thinking about you for weeks. What’s your name?’” Vanessa shrugged but she looked a little irritated. Instead of responding, she sped up.

In a moment we were right behind them. “Recognizance time,” Jeff whispered, standing between me and Vanessa. He slowed down so that we were close enough to hear what the boys were saying, but not so close we were obviously following them.

The shorter boy was talking about his sister’s birthday, which was apparently coming up soon. “What do you get a ten year old?” he asked with a shrug.

Vanessa’s boy was idly spinning one of the wheels on his skateboard. “I had the same problem when my sister turned ten,” he said. “It’s too old for Barbies and shit, but too young for makeup and the kind of stuff my other sister is into.” He thought about it for a moment as the five of us walked past a toy store. “Bill,” he said to his friend, “Look at that!”

From my angle I couldn’t see what he was pointing at, but whatever it was, it got Bill got all excited. “It’s perfect!” he exclaimed. “You’re a genius, P!”

Jeff looked at Vanessa and raised his eyebrows. “P,” he mouthed at her. She made a face, not catching it, so I signed the letter P and she nodded.

Meanwhile, the two boys had gone inside the toy store. A moment later, they both returned without the toy. An employee was with them. “You’ll have to leave the skateboards outside,” she told them.

The two of them made faces and turned toward each other. Jeff, Vanessa and I had stepped back toward the fountain, pretending to be fascinated by it while watching everything out of the corner of our eyes. I really got a look at the two of them for the first time that way. Vanessa was right; the boy she’d been hunting for was pretty cute. P sighed. “I can stay here with both boards,” he said.

“Naw,” Bill replied, “I wanted you to take a look at the video games with me, remember? Just put them down. No one will bother them.” P nodded and set his board leaning against the side of the store. Bill put his right next to it and they went back inside.

Quick as a flash, Vanessa zoomed over to the boards and picked one up. “Vanessa,” I hissed from a distance, “What are you doing?”

“I’m looking at the boards,” she said. “Maybe his has his name or number on it somewhere.” She picked up first one board and then the other. “Damn!” she exclaimed, “I can’t remember which is which.”

I looked at the one in her hand. “That’s the other guy’s,” I said. She gave me a questioning glance. “It says Bill right here. That’s what your mystery P called his friend.” All I could think at that moment was that either Vanessa was a really lousy detective or she had been too busy drooling over P to pay much attention to what he was saying.

“Right,” Vanessa put the board down and picked up the other skateboard again. She groaned. “It doesn’t have any identifying marks on it. I’ll never figure out who he is!” Frustrated, she practically tossed the board back down.

“No…” Jeff began. He’d stayed a few steps back from where Vanessa and I were standing in the doorway to the toy store. “But I know a good way to find out if he remembers you or not.” Vanessa raised her eyebrows. “He’s paying right now. Quick, grab his skateboard again.” She picked it back up. “Now, on my call, run with it.”

I was aghast. “What?!” I said, not sure I was believing my ears. Jeff shushed me and I backed away from the two of them, hurt and confused.

P and Bill came back out of the toy store. “Hey,” he said as he saw Vanessa standing there with his skateboard. A look of recognition crossed his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked, amazed.

“Now!” Jeff shouted and the two of them took off running. A moment later, realizing that me standing there gawking was not going to help, I followed. They’re both taller than I am, with longer legs, and they could have outrun me if they’d chosen, but they didn’t. I caught up pretty quickly. I suddenly realized they were hoping that the two boys would catch us.

Instead, P just stood there, looking surprised. Bill leaned against the toy store window, holding his own skateboard, and laughed. “Vanessa Pike!” P bellowed down the hall, causing everyone in hearing distance to turn and look at him. “I’ll get you back for this!” he shouted.

We sped a ways down the mall before we ducked into the food court. “Do you two realize,” I said seriously as we plopped down at a table, “that you just stole that guy’s skateboard?”

“Ahh, but more than that,” Jeff said, starting to laugh, “we discovered something very important.” I gave him a ‘do go on’ gesture. “Not only does he remember who Vanessa is,” Jeff continued between chuckles, “he likes her.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

Jeff stopped laughing, although he was still grinning. “Haley,” he said to me, “when did you figure out that Jordan had a thing for you?”

I frowned at him. “Why?” I asked. He didn’t answer; instead he sat there, waiting for me to answer him. Finally I sighed. “When he came to apologize for his behavior during the trip. He said he was sorry for the way he’d been acting toward By and then promised I’d never hear him behave like that again.” I took a breath. “And then he said that he’d do anything else I wanted to make sure I forgave him. I suddenly realized that he’d been acting like an ass during the whole car ride from Camden to Ogunquit because I’d yelled at him and basically threatened to punch him again.”

“And you realized that upset him because he had feelings for you,” Jeff added. I nodded. “I have to ask, did you kiss him, or did he kiss you?”

I flushed. “I kissed him.” I honestly don’t think it would have gone well if he’d tried to kiss me. I probably would have broken his nose that time. I still don’t take surprise kisses very well, even after months of making out with him.

Vanessa rolled her pink-lidded eyes. “This is all very touching,” she said, oozing sarcasm, “but can we get back to me here?”

“Yes, Vanessa,” Jeff said, matching her sarcasm, “this will roll back to you here in a second. I knew that Jordan liked you pretty early on, but I had it confirmed the night before you two hooked up. He kept sliding you into the conversation when we went out for a walk. He was really concerned with how he looked in your eyes. I finally just said to him, ‘So how long have you been in love with Haley?’ and he answered without even thinking about it, and then he looked embarrassed.” He chuckled and I smiled, thinking about how Jordan didn’t say anything before that night because he thought I was dating his brother.

“What I’m saying here is that straight guys all kinda work in just a couple different ways. A lot of them, including Jordan, want to look good to the girl they like and protect her from stuff.” Jeff dug into his pants pocket and inspected the money he pulled out. “I see a little bit of this in that P guy. I know he remembers Vanessa because he said her name. I also know he likes her because he totally could have threatened to call mall security and have her arrested for theft. But that would make him look bad in Vanessa’s eyes. Plus, his friend totally knew who she was and that P wouldn’t chase after her.” He paused for a moment. “Of course, he seems to be more of another type of guy…the one who’s going to pretend he doesn’t care and be standoffish so the girl comes running to him. This guy’s an interesting blend of character traits, Vanessa.”

She grinned and set the skateboard down on the table. “I’m famished,” she said, draping herself across several chairs.

Jeff handed her a twenty dollar bill. “Then go get yourself a smoothie. Get one for Haley, too, my treat.” We straightened out what was being ordered and she walked off. Jeff looked at me as I started playing with the wheels on the skateboard. “You okay?” he asked me. I gave him a look, not sure why he was asking. “You didn’t seem real thrilled with my plan to get P’s attention back there, and even though I got you smiling when I was talking about Jordan, you’re back to overly serious again. It doesn’t really suit you, just so you know.”

I sighed. “How did you become such an expert in mine and Jordan’s relationship?” I asked.

He stretched and put his feet on Vanessa’s vacated chair. “I’m not an expert,” he said, “I was just an outsider with a fresh perspective, that’s all.”

“Well, I feel the need to point something out to you,” I said, putting my head on one shoulder. It was the only way I could see his face while he was seated like that. “Wanna know how quickly I figured out that By liked you? About ten seconds after you showed up on that Sunday morning. And know how quickly I figured out you liked him? A couple hours into the car ride—right after the two of you started talking. It was like something clicked into place for you. You became instantly happier.”

Jeff laughed. “You’ve got me beat then, because I never would have guessed that you were the one to kiss Jordan. I knew he liked you, but I didn’t know you liked him.” I shrugged at him. I hadn’t really known that myself until I’d been in the moment. “As for me and By, you know what ‘clicked into place?’ I asked him how long you two had been dating and he told me you weren’t. It was the second piece of how I figured out he was gay, and even though I was sitting there going, ‘I’m straight—I can’t be attracted to him,’ it made me so happy.” Vanessa returned with the drinks as he finished his story. “I was really pretending to myself those days. I have to admit now that Byron wasn’t even the first guy to get my attention—he was just the first guy to return it.” Vanessa set a drink down in front of each of us. “Back then, I was all about no labels, no identity. I’m just Jeff. I’m actually secure in who I am now. I could jump on top of this table and shout my identity to the world, if it weren’t totally copying that dare you gave By back in Maine.”

Vanessa took a long sip of her smoothie. I ignored mine, staring at the surface of the skateboard for a moment. “What identity is that?” Vanessa asked. “Are you really Clark Kent or Superman?”

I looked up from the skateboard. “Hey,” I said, interrupting Jeff’s announcement. “I think P is this guy’s last initial.”

Vanessa turned from Jeff to me. “What makes you say that?”

I ran a finger along the surface in between the stickers on the board’s underside. “Someone carved some letters on here. I’m pretty sure it says LP.”

Vanessa snatched the board from me and turned it back and forth in the light. “Hey, you’re right,” she marveled. “LP. I wonder what that stands for?”

I shook my head. “Dunno,” I said, “but you were right, Vanessa. I have seen him somewhere before. I can’t remember when or where. I think we were a lot younger at the time, though.”

We finished our smoothies and were throwing away our garbage when LP and Bill showed up in the food court. They spotted us before we spotted them. “Oh, Vanessa and friends!” LP shouted.

Jeff grabbed the board and handed it to Vanessa. “What’s the fastest way out of here?” he asked.

She pointed. “That way.”

“Well, let’s go, and quick.”

The door we left by wasn’t anywhere near where we’d parked the car. We panted, out of breath, as we walked halfway around the exterior of the building. LP and Bill had been stopped by mall security shortly before we’d left the mall—not only were they running, but LP’d been shouting as well. As for us, we’d spent less than an hour at the mall and hadn’t gone into any stores. When we finally reached the car, I didn’t unlock it right away. “That was the dumbest and most illegal thing I’ve ever done,” I commented to the other two.

Vanessa leaned against the car, cradling the skateboard like a baby. “Yeah, but you had a good time,” she pointed out. I didn’t know if I agreed with that. I’d have rather gone shopping while sipping my smoothie than run out of the building like a common criminal. But it was a more enjoyable way to spend the afternoon than sitting in front of my stereo, mourning the death of my relationship (even though it was still alive for now.) I shrugged at her.

Jeff stood behind me and put a hand on each of my shoulders. I tensed up for a moment, but then relaxed. “Anyway,” he said, looking at me over my shoulder, “aren’t you the one always telling my boyfriend he needs to get out and do stuff more? Which, by the way, is something I agree with.” He stood up straight and came around to lean on the hood. “If you’re going to steal a skateboard and run through a shopping mall, you’d better do it now, while you’re still a minor and it doesn’t show up on your permanent record.” He grinned. “I’m a legal adult in a couple weeks. I’m going to celebrate by buying a lotto ticket and a pack of cigarettes and giving the cigarettes to the first homeless guy I see. Until then, I’m going to enjoy being juvenile and immature as much as possible.”

Vanessa looked at him sideways. “Today was a pretty good start,” she said, and then she burst into laughter. “Sorry I was so testy when we first got started today,” she told him.

He waved that off. “No problem. You weren’t that bad.”

We were interrupted by the sound of music—to be more specific, Beethoven’s Für Elise. The three of us looked around for a moment, trying to figure out where it was coming from before I had a revelation. “Oh!” I exclaimed, and pulled a cell phone out of my pocket. I picked up the call. “Hi Mom,” I said.

I listened to my mom for a moment as the other two looked at each other. “No, Mom, I’ll be home for dinner. Okay. Sure. Can I call you back in a minute? Okay, thanks, bye.”

Jeff and Vanessa were staring at me. “When did you get a cell phone?” Vanessa asked.

“Yesterday,” I answered. “My whole family got them, even Matt. Ours have unlimited texting, and they have a special plan that doesn’t include phone calls, just texting, especially for the deaf. I guess Mom found one more way to be prepared. I’m surprised she didn’t insist upon it years ago.”

Jeff was stretched out, actually sitting on the hood by this point. “Why’d you say you’d call her back? You didn’t have to end the call for our sake.”

“She wanted to know if I was bringing anyone home for dinner tonight. She made seafood lasagna. If you wanted to come, Jeff, I’m sure we could find you something else.”

“What kind of seafood?”

I thought about it. “It’s a mix. Shrimp and clams and squid and octopus.”

It was his turn to think. “No, that sounds fine. I’d eat that.”

Vanessa asked what I was thinking. “You’ll eat that, but not lobster?”

Jeff made a face. “I just hate the thought of the way they throw the live lobsters into the boiling water,” he finally said.

I looked over at Vanessa and she laughed. “What about you?” I asked her. “Coming to dinner?”

She looked happier than she had all day. “Sure. Any time.”

 I do my best to understand, dear But you still mystify and I want to know why I pick myself up off the ground To have you knock me back down again and again Nick Lowe, Cruel to be Kind

Jordan

The day I left for college was the worst day of my life so far.

It didn’t start that way. I was nervous about leaving, but mostly I was excited. I was ready. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I thought I could handle whatever life was going to throw at me. I just didn’t count on Hurricane Haley.

The drive down to Gainesville isn’t exactly a short one, so Mom had taken time off work to take me to school. We were going to stop at a motel Saturday night and then she’d spend Sunday helping me get settled. She’d spend Sunday night down there before making the whole drive back on Monday. Any time I wanted to come home in the middle of the school year, I’d have to fly.

I said goodbye to my brothers and sisters one at a time. Nick had come to talk to me Friday night because he had no intention of being up early enough on Saturday to see me off. He’d spent the whole time looking at the ground, embarrassed he’d actually come in. Vanessa had stopped by fifteen minutes later and told me to remember every detail of college life because she’s trying to decide whether or not she actually wants to go to college herself. (She was kidding. I happen to know she’s dying to get accepted at Vassar.)

Margo and Claire each got up in the morning and came by to tell me to have fun off at school. They were both overly solicitous. (It wasn’t until several hours into the car ride later that day that Mom admitted that Mallory—who was moving into an apartment off campus and was planning to come home only briefly now and then—had decided to give up her bedroom. Vanessa was moving into the room (which had once been Dad’s study). With Adam and me going away, our bedroom would be empty most of the year, and Margo and Claire were campaigning to be allowed to take it over.) For her part, Mal had popped her head in and told me to have fun, but not too much fun, and told me to send her an email now and then.

Byron stopped me as I headed down to breakfast and he was headed out the door for work. “I’m so jealous, man,” he said.

“What for?” I asked with a grin. “You’re leaving in two weeks, right?”

“Right,” he agreed. “But I’m eager to start my life now.” We vowed to compare notes on a regular basis and stay in touch by email and instant message as much as possible. I was suddenly glad that he and I had had a chance to talk not long before. I can’t explain what had changed, but ever since Adam and I had sorted out our disagreement, Byron and I had been getting along better also.

I went back up to my room after breakfast to do some last minute packing. Adam was sitting on his bed, watching me sullenly. “What’s up?” I asked him. I was still sorta irritated with him for not telling me he thought he’d gotten Tiffany pregnant, but it wasn’t the first time I’d held a grudge over something idiotic he’d done, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last. I wasn’t sure if he was looking so cranky because he knew that, or if something else was going on.

He eyed me blearily; he’d just woken up. “Florida,” he said, lying back down and pulling his sheet over his chest. “Why the fuck did you have to pick a school in Florida?”

I laughed, even though he sounded serious. “Isn’t it a little late to be asking that?” I pointed out.

He made a face. “I just don’t know how we’re going to make it, being thirteen hours apart,” he said, rolling onto his back and talking to the ceiling.

“Thirteen hours?” I asked.

“I looked on MapQuest.”

“Ahh.” I put a few last minute items of clothing into a suitcase as he continued to look up and ignore me. I reached into my sock drawer and pulled out two items—a wrapped shirt box and a small jewelry store box. “C’mon, Adam,” I said, and he turned back to look at me from the top bunk, “Did you really think we’d end up at the same college?”

“No,” he said, but his voice told me he was lying. He sat back up and swung himself out of bed, jumping from the top bunk. “I just thought we’d be closer together, that’s all,” he added.

I shrugged, turning my attention away from the presents I’d put on top of my bag for longer than I’d expected. I’d thought that we’d end up much closer than thirteen hours too, but it the fact that it didn’t happen seemed to bother him a lot more than it bothered me. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I just couldn’t pass up the chance. Florida, man! I mean, I’ve always loved them. How could I turn that down?”

He shook his head. “I guess you couldn’t,” he conceded. I picked up a few more items and put them in a pile, then remembered I needed to gather up my stuff from the bathroom. “You will stay in touch, right?”

I gaped at him; he was starting to sound like Byron a bit, with the worries over stupid shit. “No, Asshole,” I said, trying not to laugh again, “This is the last time you’re going to see or hear from me ever. Better say your last words.”

Adam slugged me in the shoulder. “All right, Shithead, point taken.”

Mom appeared in the doorway. “Jordan,” she said, looking around at the room. She’d taken to having a funny expression on her face whenever she looked and saw something else was packed up. “We’re leaving in half an hour. You said you had a stop to make?”

There was one last goodbye I had to say that I was really dreading. I packed up my toiletries and left them with the rest of my luggage by the door. I really didn’t have too much to haul—mostly just clothes. Most of my things were going to be waiting at the Kitchen & Bath store in Gainesville. I ran out the front door and was halfway across the yard when I realized I’d left Haley’s present sitting on top of my bag. Cursing myself silently, I decided to go ahead with my goodbye. Maybe I’d have Byron bring it over to her later. I had the feeling she’d be spending some extra time with him in the next few weeks before he left.

She knew I was coming and she was waiting by the door. She looked like she hadn’t slept right the night before—she was even more unhappy looking than Adam was. I had been completely ready to leave Stoneybrook behind until I saw that.

“Haley,” I whispered, not able to articulate anything I wanted to say. She tried to smile at me but failed. I pulled her into a tight hug and she squeezed me hard. I heard her sigh deeply as she pressed her face into my chest. Finally I released her. “I got you a present,” I told her, “but I left it at home.”

Haley didn’t look any happier than she had when I showed up. “I’ve got something for you, too,” she said listlessly. I’ve seen her show a large variety of emotions through the years, but I couldn’t read her right now. She didn’t look pouty like she did when she wanted something out of me, nor did she seem tearful. There was a certain dark resolve to her, like she knew something unpleasant was going to happen but there was nothing she could do about it.

I stepped inside the house. The rest of her family was home, but they quickly cleared out of the living room to give us some privacy. Haley perched on the arm of the couch and looked at me blankly. I moved to her and put one of my hands in her hair, wanting to remember the silky feeling. She pulled back for a second but then leaned toward me. I knelt in front of her and she inched off the couch, throwing her arms around my neck. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said directly into my neck.

“I know,” I replied. I ran my hands up and down her back as I felt the first tears drip down into my shirt. I was going to have to be careful or I’d start crying in a second. There was no telling when I’d be home next. Would I be able to afford to fly out for fall break or Thanksgiving? Probably not. Mom and Dad had promised all three of us triplets a plane ticket home for Christmas, but we were on our own for the rest of the breaks. Either find a ride or pay for our own way. Christmas break was more than four months away.

Haley finally pulled her face away from my soggy neck and sat back down. I sat down next to her, my arm around her waist. “I want you to have fun at school,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across one eye.

She was starting to sound like my parents—or Mallory. “I plan to,” I said, not sure where she was headed with this. I touched her forehead with my free hand and tucked some hair behind her ears. She was still wearing her pajamas—a tank top and a pair of shorts covered in rainbows—and she hadn’t put on makeup or done her hair yet for the day. (This was probably a good thing, because otherwise, colored mascara would be smeared all over her face once again.)

Haley nodded. “Good. And I want to help you with that.” She wiggled her way loose from my grip and backed away from me just a little bit, until she was nearly out of my reach. “I’m going to set you free,” she said, not looking happy—just resolute.

I didn’t like the sound of that. Without her to touch, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. “What does that mean?” I asked, cracking the knuckles of my left hand with my right.

She stood up and walked over to the window. The curtains were pulled open and she looked out toward the sun, not responding right away to my question. Finally she turned back toward me. “There’s going to be so much for you to do at school. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“I’m not sure how you could,” I commented. I wanted so badly to go over and join her in the window, but I knew she’d walked over there for a reason, and if I followed, she’d just go to the other side of the room.

Haley set her jaw, willing herself not to cry any more. “You’re going to meet interesting new people and have all new friends—a whole new life. All I’m saying is, that if you meet someone you like better than me, I want you to have the chance to explore that.”

“Someone I like better than you?” I repeated. What was she saying? Was she breaking up with me? “I don’t think I could ever find someone I like better than you. I don’t think you get it, Haley.” She had been looking at the ground, and when I said her name, she turned her brown eyes back to meet me. “I love you. Distance isn’t going to change that.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know that,” she said. “There are all kinds of awesome people at school, people with different ideas and new ways of thinking. You could meet girls that are way better than me—smarter, prettier, and a whole hell of a lot less crazy.”

“Haley. You are not crazy,” I insisted.

“Aren’t I? I think I am some days,” She came back over to the couch, where I was still sitting. “I’m not breaking up with you, Jordan,” she said, reading the look on my face, “I’m just saying that if you find someone else you want to date, you’re free to do so.”

I felt those tears I’d pushed down earlier come bubbling back up. “Why? I don’t want to date anyone else!” I was being a little louder than I intended. I hoped her parents weren’t overhearing any of this. “What is this about, Haley? Is there someone else you want to date?”

Haley shook her head. “Nope. I sincerely doubt there’s any guy in this town that could hold my interest.”

“Then why? Explain yourself, please.”

She shook her head again. “I already explained myself. I don’t want stupid little me in Stoneybrook holding you back in any way.”

“I take back what I said about you being crazy,” I said, “because you’re sure acting crazy right now.” She bit her lower lip and glared at me a little; I’d clearly hurt her feelings a bit. “Look. I don’t want a half-way relationship with you. Either we can be completely together, or we’re not together at all. I love you and I don’t want things to end this way.”

Haley turned away from me again. “There’s no way for us to be completely together,” she said sadly. ��We’re going to be in different states, fifteen hours apart. And even if we were in the same state, I’m sure I’d just end up driving you away.”

She was sure driving me away now. “What are you saying, Haley?” I asked. She didn’t reply, just looked down at the end table, her back completely turned to me. Her hands were sitting flat in her lap; she wasn’t even fiddling with anything the way she does when she’s upset. I stood up and walked away from her. “Fine,” I said icily, standing in the doorway between the living room and the vestibule. “I guess this is it. It’s been nice knowing you.”

I was such a mix of emotions as I walked back to my house. I was mad at Haley for being so stubborn and hard-headed. Why wouldn’t she listen to reason? But I was also upset with myself for not being more patient with her. I have quite the temper sometimes, but I had been trying so hard not to ever unleash it on her, because she has moments where she’s just so delicate I’m afraid she’ll break. I hadn’t even given her a sliver of my fury this morning for that reason.

But mostly I was just sad. We’d been together a little less than four months. Is this all I was going to get out of her? Granted, it was the longest relationship I’d ever been in, but that kind of made it worse. What was the matter with me that I couldn’t hold on to a girlfriend—especially one that I’d never been anything but careful with?

I went around the back of the house, hoping I could slide in through the kitchen without anyone else seeing me. I hadn’t actually shed a tear, but I knew my eyes must look like I had. I didn’t have any luck in the avoidance department. “Hey, Jordan,” Adam said as I came in through the door, my head ducked down so he couldn’t see my face, “You left Haley’s present upstairs. Did you want to run it back over to her?”

I shook my head, still looking at the linoleum. “No.”

Adam held it up. “What do you want me to do with it?” he asked.

“Throw it in the trash.” I hurried out of the room, leaving him with a bewildered look on his face, still holding the boxes.

Mom was standing at the bottom of the stairs with the two bags I still had in the house. “Jordan,” she said, clearly surprised, “You’re back sooner than I expected.”

I didn’t reply directly to that. “Can we go now?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrow. “Everything okay?”

“Can we please just leave?”

***

Mom must have gotten the idea that I was serious, because we were on the road within five minutes. She watched me quietly the first ten minutes or so, until Stoneybrook was behind us and everything ahead of us was uncharted territory. “Spill,” she said finally. “What happened?”

I sighed because I knew we were going to be spending fifteen hours in the car together. If I didn’t tell her now, I’d tell her eventually. Better to get it over with. “I think Haley broke up with me,” I said mournfully.

Mom had planned to let me drive the first leg, but she knows better than to let me behind the wheel when I’m worked up. “You think she broke up with you?” she asked incredulously. “What exactly does that mean?”

I watched the scenery for a moment before I replied. “She said she wanted to set me free. I’m still not quite sure what she meant by that. But she made it clear that I was allowed to date other girls. I told her I didn’t want to do things half-way with her.” I made a face as I realized that I’d actually broken up with her, not the other way around.

Mom looked out to the horizon as she drove, but I knew she was paying attention to everything I said. Sometimes, Adam calls me a Mama’s boy, because he doesn’t go to our parents with his problems the way I do. Neither, I’d noticed, did Byron. Well, so what? Mom’s always good for solving my girl problems, plus she gets a lot less mad when I go to her and tell her I’ve done something I shouldn’t than when she finds out through the grapevine. She knows that I got really sick the one time I smoked pot, and that ever since then, I’ve just pretended to take a hit if someone passes me a joint.

She finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Jordan,” she said. “Breakups bite.” I laughed at her phrasing and she smiled lightly. That had been her intent. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

I slumped down in my seat. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. Try as she might, your mom can’t mend your broken heart any more than she can mend your broken bone. “I don’t get it, Mom,” I said, hoping that she had some insight into the ways of women. “Why did Haley do this? She kept saying I’d find a girl that was better than her. Do you think it’s possible that she never loved me the way I loved her?”

Mom reached over and patted my arm. “Sweetheart, it sounds like just the opposite. I don’t know—I can’t get into Haley’s head. But I think she cared so much about you that the idea that you could potentially find someone else scared her. She wanted to stave off the hurt by being able to say, ‘I told him he could do this,’ if you ever did break up with her.”

The tears I’d been fighting all morning long finally came out. “I wouldn’t do that to her,” I said sadly. Even if by some chance I actually found another girl I liked more than Haley—and I couldn’t even imagine one—I wouldn’t want to sneak around and date someone else behind her back…even if she’d given me permission to do just that.

The tears were quiet and I wasn’t sure Mom noticed them at first. After a moment, she reached into the console between the seats and pulled out a tissue that she handed me. I wiped my eyes with it. “I know that,” Mom said, her eyes still on the road. We were quiet for a while and I threw the tissue away. “First love is tough, Jordan,” she said finally. “You want so bad to make it work, but it doesn’t usually. You’re still growing up, even though you’re an adult. Even though neither one of you sets out to hurt the other, you end up growing apart and doing just that.”

She had a faraway look in her eyes. “You’re not talking about me and Haley anymore, are you?” I asked.

Mom shook her head. “No. I’m talking about my first love.”

“You mean you don’t think of Dad as your first love?”

Mom laughed. “You don’t think your dad is the only guy I ever dated?” she asked.

“No…” I said slowly. Actually, I kinda had thought that. “I just didn’t realize that you’d had other boyfriends that you loved like that.”

“Oh yeah.” Mom changed lanes and then briefly looked over at me. “I’d call your dad my fourth love. No, probably my fifth. In any case, I dated a boy when I was sixteen. Tommy. I loved him so much. He went away to college like you’re doing, and he got me a promise ring, saying that if I were only two years older, he’d buy me an engagement ring instead.” I blushed, thinking of the box that I’d told Adam to throw away. It wasn’t a promise ring and definitely not an engagement ring, but Mom could have been telling my story right now other than that.

Mom went on. “We started out okay doing the long distance thing. We’d call and talk every Sunday night, and we wrote letters all the time. But as time went on, the letters and calls became less common. We just both got busy with other things. I definitely never cheated on him, and I’m fairly certain he never cheated on me. But when he came home that summer, we had all the time in the world to spend with each other. And we found out that we were just two very different people than we had been the year before. We got into a fight and broke up. I gave him back his ring, and I didn’t see him again for several years after that.” I shook my head in sympathy. “But a short time later I met Frank, who was my second love. And Tommy, he met a girl off a school and married her. Actually,” Mom laughed, “I think he’s been divorced a couple times over now.”

I sighed. “I just don’t think I could ever meet another girl like Haley,” I said.

Mom smiled. “Here’s the thing, Jordan. Maybe Haley will realize she’s been silly and call you and you can work it out. And maybe you two will have better luck than Tommy and I did. I hope so. But if it doesn’t end up that way, you won’t ever meet another girl like Haley. You’ll meet another girl that has some of the qualities you love in Haley, but others that you didn’t even know you were looking for. Each failed romance helps you figure out what you need in a partner. Tommy wasn’t the right guy for me. And neither was Frank or the other two men I loved before your dad. But they helped me figure myself out enough to be in the right place when your dad came along.”

“Did you ever tell any of them you were going to set them free and let them date other girls?”

“No,” Mom answered, “I’ve never done that. But I’m sure that in Haley’s head, she had a very good reason for that.”

I replayed our conversation in my mind, and one line stuck. She had said, ‘I’m sure I’ll just end up driving you away.’ Suddenly, I understood exactly what this was all about. “She’s afraid that she’s going to do something to hurt me, so she wanted to give me an out before she did that,” I said slowly out loud, more to myself than to Mom, “What she didn’t realize is that her actions to prevent from hurting me hurt me more than anything else she could have done.”

Mom made a sympathetic noise. “Why do you think she’s afraid of hurting you?” she asked.

I think she wanted me to realize the truth to her earlier statement that Haley did actually care about me more than I realized, but that’s not where my head went. “She’s got issues,” I said. Mom raised her eyebrows. “Something happened to her once, and she’s got all these walls and barriers since then. I agreed that I wouldn’t try to break them down too fast or without her permission, but it turns out that she’s needing a lot more time to get past things than even she thought.” I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I were hugging her. “I think she was afraid I’d get tired of being patient and just give up on her entirely.”

Mom looked surprised. “What exactly happened to her, Jordan?” she asked, alarmed. I shook my head. If I told Mom, she’d tell Haley’s mother, who I’m pretty certain didn’t know. She definitely would have sent her to see a professional and most likely would have had the guy arrested, and I know neither of those things ever happened. “Is this something her mother should know about? The police?”

I nodded miserably. “Yes and yes. But Mom, it’s been several years. Haley needs to be the one to tell her mom, don’t you think?” Mom nodded reluctantly. “She barricaded herself from the world afterward. I’m pretty sure it’s why she stopped hanging out with Vanessa and all their friends. Byron was able to get past that because she considered him safe, for some reason.” I still didn’t quite understand exactly what had drawn Haley to Byron, although I wasn’t jealous of their friendship particularly. If anything, I was glad they’d had each other—for both of their sakes’.

“I’d always wondered about that myself,” Mom said with a little laugh. “Haley and Byron. By and Hay, right?” I smiled at that. “Two polar opposites in some ways. You don’t get much louder or outspoken than Haley, while Byron at that point was so quiet and conservative. I think they just each needed someone who accepted them for their faults and issues.”

“That sounds about right,” I said after a moment’s reflection. “And I thought I’d found that in her, too.”

Mom glanced over at me again. “Give it time, Jordan,” she said. “She might come back around. If she’s that barricaded and guarded, she might need some time and a little shove to realize she made a mistake.”

I really hoped there was someone around willing to do a little shoving.

 Too bad you couldn’t see See the man that boy could be There is more than meets the eye I see the soul that is inside Avril Lavigne, Sk8er Boi

P

August 2, 2004, I finally passed my driver’s test.

My parents had presented me with my very own car as a reward. It had taken a few hours to slip away from the celebration, but I’d had somewhere I needed to go—and someone I needed to talk to.

I slid behind the wheel of my car for the very first time and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction. It wasn’t just the freedom that now lay in front of me as it does every new driver. I had a specific purpose in mind at that moment, and knowing that I could finally fulfill it was making me extra happy.

I had looked in the phone book and found the name and address I needed. (Luckily, there’s only one Pike family in Stoneybrook.) Actually, I had had the address on Slate Street tacked up on my wall for nearly two months. I’d meant to go there sooner—or maybe just call—but I knew Vanessa would want to know whether I’d gotten my license. It would have been too embarrassing to tell her I’d made the same stupid mistake for a third time. So I’d vowed to wait until I could indeed show her my new ID.

Actually, I’d been a little worried that Vanessa had been a lot less interested in me than I was in her. Obviously, I’d piqued her interest that day at the DMV, but I’d kind of hoped she’d wait around to see if I’d made it. I’d planned to give her my number—if not necessarily my name—after the test. But she’d been gone when I’d come back, and I was pretty sure she’d forgotten all about our little encounter, even if I couldn’t.

But then she and her two friends had stolen my skateboard at the mall the other day. That told me one of two things. Either she was a kleptomaniac and she was really bad at it (unlikely, but funny) or she had wanted me to see her taking my board. That meant she was interested in me enough that she wanted me to come hunt her down. Assuming she wasn’t really a klepto, I’d decided to give her what she wanted.

No one was home when I arrived at her house, which struck me as kind of weird. I couldn’t remember exactly how many brothers and sisters she had, but I did remember there were quite a few. I’d gone on vacation once with her brother and a mutual friend, and I know her sister also had mutual friends with my sister. I seemed to remember at least one older sister and older brother also.

I parked out front, wondering if this had been a bad idea. How would I explain myself to her mom or someone if they came home and saw me sitting outside their house? “I’m here to see Vanessa, but don’t tell her I came by, because she doesn’t know who I am”?

I guess I got lucky. Vanessa came walking across the grass from the next house over—the one on the corner, facing out onto Burnt Hill Rd—just a few minutes later. I jumped out of the car and waited nervously as she came over. She spotted me as I leaned against the trunk of the car, looking in her direction. “Well, well, if it isn’t LP,” she said shaking her head and half-smiling. “I wondered when I’d find you here.”

Obviously, she’d been looking over my skateboard and found the carving Bill had made. “Well, I had to show you that I eventually did pass my driver’s test,” I said nonchalantly. She was wearing a short black skirt, fishnet stockings and a cropped white shirt under suspenders. Her hair was pulled back on either side with clips that had pink roses on them. She’s clearly gone Lolita since I’d seen her last, but it didn’t make her any less charming in my eyes.

She stopped a couple yards away, raised her eyebrows and jutted out one hip, putting her hand on it. “Oh? And how many tries did it take you?” she asked.

“Five,” I admitted.

Vanessa laughed. “Really? I think you’re just saying that to give you an excuse for not hunting me down earlier.”

I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and removed the newly minted license. “You can see that I got it earlier today,” I pointed out.

She came to me and took the proffered card. “Yes, I do see that…” she said with a grin and a gleam in her eye.

I grinned back at her. “I didn’t just come by to show you that,” I told her as I stuffed my wallet back into my pocket.

“Of course,” she said. “You need your skateboard back.”

I sighed. Vanessa didn’t seem to be catching my hints. “Yup. Definitely.”

“Well, it’s in the garage. Come with me.”

The garage was behind the house. It was totally devoid of cars, but there was enough detritus in there that I wondered how Vanessa—or anyone else—could ever find anything specific. But she went straight to it. “Here you are,” she said, handing it over. I took it from her and spun one of the wheels, not sure how to proceed. I was afraid that any further hints to the real purpose of my visit would also be spinning my wheels. “Does everyone call you P?” Vanessa asked out of nowhere.

“What?”

“The friend you were with last week? He called you P. Does everyone call you that?”

I nodded. “Just about. Only my parents call me by my first name any more. Even my sisters call me P.”

She grinned. “I kinda like that. Think I could get everyone to call me V?” I shrugged at her. “Probably doesn’t matter. It’s just that Vanessa is kind of awkward. It doesn’t have any good nicknames.”

“I like it,” I told her. “It’s a whole hell of a lot better than my first name.”

She blushed a little bit. “We should probably go back out front,” she commented, ducking her head so I couldn’t see her pink cheeks. “My mom should be home soon, and she’ll have my head if she catches me inside a building with a guy.”

Before I knew it we were back at the car. I guessed that the real reason she wanted to head outdoors was so that she could usher me away. I screwed up my courage. “You have any plans tonight?” I asked her.

She snickered. “I told my mom I had to work,” she said, looking around to make sure that no one was listening, “but I really got fired almost two weeks ago.”

“Fired? For what?”

Vanessa shook her head in mock disgust. “This one customer made me remake his ice cream five times. Finally, I told him to go hell.”

Whoa. What kind of girl was this I’d come across? “That’s almost awesome,” I said.

“I know, right?” she laughed. “I kinda wish I hadn’t done it though. I was hoping to work through the school year. Earn enough money to blow this town when I graduate.”

“Well, why don’t you just find another shitty job?” I asked. She grinned at me. “What do you end up doing while you claim to be at work?”

“A little bit of this and a little bit of that,” she commented idly. “I make some mischief, of course.”

This was it. It was now or never. “Well, do you want to go out for dinner with me then?” I asked.

She didn’t even look surprised. “Well, duh,” she said with another grin. She had me flustered. “P, I’ve been hoping you would track me down for seven whole weeks. If I’d known your name, I’d have called you that night and asked you the very same question.” Her cheeks were pink again, but she didn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed. “My friends and I have spent a lot of time trying to find you again. It just took me six fuckin’ weeks to be successful.”

I laughed in disbelief. “I was going to give you my number that day,” I admitted, “but you were gone when I came back from flunking the test again. I blame that completely on you hypnotizing me, by the way.”

Vanessa leaned on my car. “My dad came back and I had to go,” she said. “But as for you flunking…you can’t blame that on me, even if I do give off awesomely hypnotic vibes.”

I opened my back car door and threw my board inside, and then I leaned toward her. “Are you hypnotizing me now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

I leaned in and kissed her briefly. “Yup. I’m definitely under a spell.”

She looked me straight in the eye, her whole face smiling. “Did you want to go now, or say hello to my whole family? Most of them are going to be home in the next twenty minutes or so.”

I shuddered at the thought of that. “Is it okay if we leave now?” I asked.

She laughed. “Of course. Let me just go inside to leave a note. Do you have a cell phone? My mom’s going to want the number…and of course, so do I.”

I followed her to the back door, but she made me stand in the doorway so that I wasn’t technically inside. Apparently, me just being in the house when her mom came home was cause for a ‘seriously long grounding.’ She wrote the note quickly and left it on the fridge. As she was locking the door behind her, my phone chirped. I looked at the display and turned to Vanessa. “This will just take a second,” I said. She shrugged. “Yo, Bill….No, I’m at Vanessa’s….Yes, I finally got my license….Okay, I’ll ask her….Talk to you later.”

Vanessa had been listening to every word. “Ask me what?” she asked suspiciously.

“Nothing serious,” I said, feeling a little chagrined. “My friend Bill just developed a crush on your short blonde friend you were with last week. He was hoping we could go on a double date sometime if she’s single.”

She laughed. “Well, she literally just broke up with my brother two days ago,” she said seriously, “so I doubt she’s up for it yet. Besides, your friend Bill is presuming quite a bit here.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s assuming you’re going to get a second date and probably more, if he wants us to double ‘sometime.’” She turned to look at me, a smile hiding behind her faux- seriousness.

I smiled back at her. “Well, I’m kinda hoping for that too. I didn’t leave your name and address on my wall for two months for just a one night stand.”

She leaned in toward me. “Let’s see how tonight goes, Mr. Papadakis,” she said, and then she kissed me this time. “And then, we’ll talk.”

 Well I never pray But tonight I’m on my knees, yeah I need some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah The Verve, Bitter Sweet Symphony

Adam

I was the only one home one afternoon. The day before had been the final day of day camp, and I was so glad. Good riddance to other people’s kids. I’d flopped down on the couch and been so aimless that I’d decided to try playing one of Nick’s video games. It was either that or go to my bedroom. I’d been avoiding that.

I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the ghost of Jordan.

I missed him more than I’d expected. He’d always just been there and I’d always taken that for granted. I was betting that things would get easier soon: just eight more days, and then Mom and I were headed off to Ohio. (Dad would be taking Byron down to North Carolina the same day.) Once everything was new and different and interesting, I’d mourn the loss of his presence a lot less. At least, I hoped so.

Nick’s video game wasn’t just distracting me; it was pissing me off. I couldn’t figure out how to work it. It was a lot more complicated than shooting at aliens or pressing a bunch of random buttons and hoping they made my fighter do something decent. I’d just given up and thrown the controller across the room when I heard chuckling from the bottom of the stairs. “That bad, huh?”

I turned to look at Mallory. “The game or my life?” I asked her.

She sat down on the far side of the couch. She was home early from work, but she was wearing her work-style clothes: a pair of khakis, a button-down short-sleeved blouse and sandals. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, but large chunks of it were escaping. “Well,” she began, picking at one sandal until the strap came undone and it fell off, “I wasn’t going to bring it up, but you have looked kind of unhappy the last couple weeks.”

I watched as she took the other shoe off and then curled her feet up under her butt. “Yeah, well, my whole summer has blown monkey balls,” I summarized.

Mal gave me a stare, trying to size me up. After a moment, she shook her head. “Harsh words,” she commented. I nodded. That was true, but it was accurate to how I felt. “What’s been so terrible about it?”

I really didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t really want even a single other person in the universe to know how the past few weeks had gone. “You wouldn’t understand,” I said with a shake of my head.

Mallory was quiet for a moment. “I understand a lot more than you know, Adam,” she said, sounding a little indignant. “You don’t know unless you try me.”

“It’s about sex.” That slipped out without me intending to say it.

Mal laughed. “You think I don’t understand about sex?” she asked in surprise. I shrugged at her. She never mentioned guys ever. Actually, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been the one to come out of the closet, quite frankly. “Let me ask you a question, Adam,” she said, and she was smiling a smile I didn’t like. “How many people have all three of you triplets slept with, all together?”

“What?”

“Just answer the question. I’ll explain.”

I looked at her, disgusted. How had we come to be having this conversation, exactly? “One,” I admitted.

She looked thoughtful. “Only one. Really?” I nodded. “And you’re the one, am I right?” I nodded again. “When I was your age, I’d been with two different guys. Now, I’m at three. You think I don’t know about sex?”

Well, that was a surprise. I guess it was just a lot easier for her to keep quiet about her sex life when she was away at school and didn’t have all of us nosing into her business 365 days a year. “Ever had a pregnancy scare?” I asked her.

It was her turn to be surprised. “No. I’ve been very careful and very lucky, I guess. Why? Did Tiffany think she was pregnant?”

I lay back on the couch and looked up at the ceiling, rather than at her. There was a pencil stuck in it that Jordan had thrown there when we were ten. We’d agreed to never point it out and see how long it took for one of our parents to notice it or for it to fall down. Eight years later, it was still there. “She is pregnant,” I admitted, still gazing upward.

Mal didn’t even try to hide her shock. “Adam,” she began, her mouth hanging open.

I cut her off before she could give me any sympathy or anything else. “Don’t worry about me, Mal,” I said. “It’s not mine. She’s been pregnant this whole time.”

Her mouth was still open for a moment longer before she regained her composure. “She was pregnant when she came over for the party?” I nodded, not telling her that Tiffany had thought that was actually when she’d gotten pregnant in the first place. “Did she know?”

I shook my head. “Long story short, I thought it was mine for a while. But the dates just didn’t work out.”

Mal pulled her feet back out from underneath her and put them on the cushion between us. “Poor Tiffany. How’s she holding up?”

I sighed. “I’m giving her some space. She said she needed to get her life in order and it was something she needed to do on her own.”

Mallory nodded. “That’s gotta be tough for her.” I nodded back. “Well, how are you holding up?”

I slumped a little bit. “I should be feeling better than I am. I mean, I cheated God, right? I’m not going to be a father. I should be celebrating…or at least feeling relieved.”

Mal completed my thought for me. “But you don’t.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what that is. Maybe you’re just feeling bad for Tiff.”

I thought about that a moment. I definitely felt for Tiff—not only was she going to go through with the pregnancy—something she didn’t plan for and didn’t appear to want— but she didn’t have too many people standing behind her. “Well, it’s not like I was in love with her or anything. But I do wish her well, no matter what.”

“Maybe you should stop by and see her one more time before you go off to school. Put a little closure to the situation.” I just grunted at her and she rolled her eyes. “Or ignore me all together. After all, what do I know about anything?” I didn’t reply to that, so she changed the subject. “So, have you heard from Jordan? How’s he holding up?”

I became instantly crankier. I actually hadn’t heard from Jordan at all. “I’m sure he’s just fine.”

Mal looked at me sideways. “That’s not what I heard.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and looked away, sulking like a small child. Mallory’s expression changed. “Oh. You don’t know yet,” she assumed with surprise.

“Don’t know what?” She was starting to annoy me.

“Margo answered the phone yesterday and it was Jordan on the other end. She said she could barely understand him.” She leaned over towards me, watching my expression.

“So?” I didn’t get where this was going. “Did he have a cold, or does he already have a Florida accent?”

“No,” Mal didn’t stop watching me. “He was crying. So I talked to Byron, and he said that Jordan and Haley broke up.”

That made twice in one conversation she’d surprised me. The way those two were going, I expected them to at least think they could make a long distance relationship work, no matter how stupid it was. I knew Haley must have been the one behind the split for two reasons. First, Jordan wouldn’t have been crying on the phone to Mom if it had been his idea. Second, every third word out of his mouth for about a year and a half had been Haley. He even talked about her in his sleep, for Christ’s sake. “He hadn’t mentioned that,” I told her. I suddenly understood why he hadn’t been in touch. Given how strong his feelings were, I imagined he was sorta depressed.

Mal stood up and gave me another look. “Think about what I said, okay? And if you want to talk, I’ll be in my room.”

“Sure, thanks.” I had no intention of going to Mal’s room for another talk, but it was easier to humor her. Besides, I didn’t really need to talk to her any further. She’d given me enough of a hint. I went back upstairs and found the phone charger empty. I searched the most logical place to find it, and sure enough, it was on Margo’s bed. I picked it out from among the mess of clothes and left my sisters’ room entirely, instead popping into Nick and Byron’s room.

It was a hot mess. Byron had pulled out every drawer and there was stuff everywhere. He was already starting to pack, putting aside piles of what to take and putting everything else back into the drawers. The only place in the whole room that wasn’t messy was Nick’s bed and desk. I sat down on his desk chair and dialed the phone. “Hello?” a familiar voice said.

“Hi, Maria. Is Tiffany home?”

“Yup. Let me go get her.”

She picked up the phone a few seconds later, sounding surprisingly chipper. “Adam! How are you?”

“Can’t complain.” Obviously, I could complain. I just figured my problems would sound like whines in comparison to hers. “I’m leaving for school in a few days. I was hoping we could get together one last time before I left.”

I could hear her smile. “Great! There are a few things I want to say to you that would be better in person. Are you free this evening?”

I looked at my watch. “I think I’m free now, if that’s okay with you. Let me just check and make sure I have the car. I’ll call you back if it’s not happening, okay?” She agreed to that and we hung up.

I left the phone on its cradle and, despite my previous protests, I went downstairs to Mal’s room. I knocked and she opened the door almost instantly, looking surprised to see me. “Do you need the car right now? I asked.

She gave a self-satisfied smile, realizing I was taking her advice. “No. But I’m pretty sure Byron has to work tonight.”

I nodded. “I’ll be back in time.”

***

Tiffany was sitting out front when I arrived, same as she had been the day I’d picked her up for our appointment. The difference, though, was stunning. She didn’t seem tearful and upset, but instead she smiled as I pulled up. “Adam. It’s good to see you,” she said as I gave her a hug.

“Good to see you, too. You look much happier than you did the last time I saw you.”

“I feel much better than I did that day.” She squeezed my arm and then let me go. “Do you want to go inside, or sit out here?”

“It’s not too hot today. Let’s sit out here.” We plopped down in the grass, same as we had done in the park when she’d told me she was pregnant. “What’s changed for you?”

She turned her face to the sun and smiled again. Suddenly, she was the girl she’d been when we were younger—the first time we’d dated: she’d had the life returned to her. “Everything. Where do I start?” She twisted her head so that it was still turned up but she was looking at me, sitting beside her. “My mom has been so cool. I expected her to kick me out, or just tell me I was on my own. But she has been absolutely amazing.”

I was almost as surprised as she was. “That’s great.”

“Yeah. I think part of it was that she felt like she’d failed me or something, like this was all her fault.” Tiff unfolded her legs and put them out in front of her, leaning back on her hands. “But in any case, she’s on my side. She’s taking me out to get some stuff this weekend.”

I folded my legs up under me. “What kind of stuff?” I asked.

“Maternity clothes. My pants don’t fit any more, see?” She pulled her shirt tight around her middle and showed off her belly, which had gotten larger in the past two weeks. I couldn’t believe how round it was. You couldn’t see it unless she showed it off like that, but she definitely had a baby belly. “Plus, we’re going to get a crib and a changing table and a few other things.”

I was surprised. “You decided to keep the baby?”

She sat back up. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure at first. I kept going back and forth. But I stopped to think about it. I feel like I was given this for a reason. I wasn’t going anywhere with my life, ya know?” I shook my head, not sure what she meant. “I had no direction. I was going to school, but I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I wasn’t really into it. I didn’t have any plans like you do, and like my sisters do.” She put one hand on her belly and smiled. “But this baby…now I have a purpose. My life’s got direction. I’m going to be someone’s mom. I need to figure everything else out so that I can be good at that major role.”

I felt a little uncomfortable because I didn’t quite relate. I nodded anyway, wanting her to go on. “My whole life is going to revolve around this little man. He’s going to be the center of my universe.”

I finally smiled. “Or she,” I said.

She shook her head, her own smile getting bigger. “No, it’s a boy. I had an ultrasound earlier today. I’m getting used to the feel of that gel on my stomach.” We looked at each other briefly and then looked away, remembering how panicked and unhappy we’d felt the last time she’d had an ultrasound. Hard to believe that was only a couple weeks ago. “This time, I got to see the baby wiggling around and moving. He’s already almost a person, Adam. I couldn’t believe how much he looked like a baby. That’s when I decided I definitely was going to keep him. And so they told me they were fairly certain he’s a boy.”

A baby boy. What if it had been my baby? Would I have been as excited and happy as she seemed to be now? Maybe it wasn’t something I needed to worry about. “That’s great, Tiff,” I commented, glad she was feeling better about herself.

“Isn’t it? I never thought I’d be happy about something like this. I mean, being a single, teenaged mom is supposed to ruin your life, not make it better. But it’s given me focus. I have to become a better person than I’ve been, for my son’s sake.” Tiffany looked serious for the first time the whole conversation. “I’m already enrolled in some classes for this semester. After that, I’m going to take a semester off and then finish my associates next fall. Then my mom says I can work for her at her real estate office. I can file things for starters and work my way up, and then she’ll help me get a realtor’s license eventually.”

It had only been two weeks since we’d talked last, yet she’d made such a huge step forward in her life plan. “I’m really proud of you,” I said.

“What for?” she asked, confused. “I didn’t really do anything.”

“Yes, you did,” I pointed out. “You talked to your mom, something that has never been your strong point, and admitted something that could have caused a riot in your home. You took control of your life and put together a plan…something else that, by your own admission, isn’t really something you’re good at either.”

She dismissed that. “That was all because of you.”

“Nope. I might have given you a tiny nudge, but you were the one who actually took the plunge.”

Tiff thought for a moment. “I did, didn’t I?” she asked. I nodded at her and she grinned. “But I do need to thank you for a lot of stuff. You were the only person there for me at a time when I needed someone the most. And you did give me that shove. You pointed out so many things to me that should have been obvious but that weren’t.”

I didn’t usually look at my life that way, but it was really nice seeing it through her eyes. She went on. “The best part is that, now that you’re leaving, I have a whole crew of people standing behind me. I’ve got my mom and my sisters. Hell, even Haley called a couple days after we last spoke. She wanted to know how I was doing.”

I was surprised once again. I knew Haley had heard about Tiffany and I assumed Jordan had told her about Tiff deciding to go through with everything. “I’m glad you two are getting along,” I commented.

“I know, right? I guess the one thing I really learned this summer is that we all make mistakes. The key is to forgive other people for as many mistakes as you can, because you want others to do the same for you.”

Would you know, she was right? I knew I had one person to whom I had to do a little repaying for some things I had said. “Have you spoken to Haley in the past few days?” I asked. Tiff shook her head. “You might want to. I think she can use a shoulder to cry on.” She gave me an odd look and I didn’t blame her. Haley isn’t exactly my favorite person in the universe; there’s been no escaping her presence on a regular basis over the past few years. But she didn’t really deserve a couple comments I’d made about her. “She and Jordan broke up before he left for school.”

Tiffany made a sympathetic noise. “I’ll call her in the next couple days before school starts,” she vowed. “Meanwhile, I have another conversation coming up that is definitely not going to be pleasant. I still have to tell Eric what’s going on.” I cringed. I’d never met her ex-boyfriend, but I did know that the two of them hadn’t ended things on good terms. “I’ve called him twice, hoping just to get him to return my call. I figure it will be a lot easier to get him to cooperate if I don’t have to let him know he’s going to be a father by sending him a certified letter from my mom’s attorney.”

We were quiet for a while before she spoke again. “Do you remember when we first met up for coffee and I had a whole list of complaints?” I nodded. “I said I had no friends, my mom never talked to me, my boyfriend cheated on me, my sisters were too busy for me, and I flunked algebra. Well, here we are three months later. I’m on much better terms with my family now. I even talked to my dad for a few minutes, although I didn’t tell him about the baby yet. I spent the summer dating the nicest guy I know.” I couldn’t help but smile when she said that.

Tiffany took my hand as she continued. “And I’m hoping that, even though you’re going away to school, where you’ll meet a whole bunch of new people, and I’m going to be too busy to even consider a relationship, you’ll continue to stay in touch, and I’ll be able to say I have you as a friend.”

I squeezed her hand back. “Of course,” I agreed. “After all, I fully expect you to bombard my email with pictures of your son after he’s born.” She lit up and I laughed. “So you’ve resolved most of your problems this summer. What about algebra?”

Tiff made a face for a moment, but then she smiled again. “Believe it or not,” she said slowly, teasing me, “I passed algebra. Just barely.”

“Well, I guess you’ve got no more problems, then, huh?” I teased her.

She viewed me seriously as I stood up. “Of course, I know that raising a child isn’t going to be easy. There are probably going to be days I regret my choices. But as of now, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my whole life.”

I reached out and took both of her hands and pulled her upright. “I have to go,” I told her sadly, “I have to get the car back by four-forty so that Byron can get to work.”

Tiff gave me one more hug. “Have fun at school, Adam,” she said seriously. “Take care and be safe.”

I hugged her back tightly. “I will. You take care of that little man of yours, too.”

She put one of her hands on her hip and the other on her stomach, jutting her belly forward so it was visible again. “I definitely will. Thanks again for everything.”

I reached the car and put my hand on the door handle, but I turned back around to face you. “Thank you, too. I don’t know if you realize it, but you taught me more than just about anyone I’ve ever known.” She looked surprised, but I said no more. “Bye, Tiff.”

“Bye, Adam,” she replied, a little sadly.

***

I was a little annoyed when I arrived home to discover that Byron didn’t need the car after all. He and Haley had carpooled together. But I got over it pretty quickly. Tiff and I had said everything that needed to be said. Besides, it wasn’t like it had really been goodbye. I knew she was actually going to stay in touch and I was glad about that.

A large amount of my family was gathered down in the basement, watching a movie. I decided I needed to take a little bit of Tiffany’s initiative. I didn’t go join them down in the rec room, an easy choice. Instead, I went up to my bedroom. Jordan’s bed was still there and still in the half-made state in which he left it. But other than that, it seemed devoid of his presence. He’d taken down his Yankees poster and removed every item off his dresser and desk. In fact, his desk was so empty that I found Margo in front of it, putting things in it. “What are you doing?” I asked her incredulously.

She sniffed at me. “Mom said that Claire and I have to keep sharing a room, even though this bedroom is going to be empty after you leave. But Jordan told me I could use his desk, since it’s empty.”

I just couldn’t believe that. Actually, I could, if I was honest about it. I sighed. “Fine. But do me a favor and keep your crap out my room until I leave for school, okay?”

Margo rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You sure are cranky.”

She started to gather up her stuff and I thought about what Tiffany has said. “Margo. Wait.” She looked up. “Never mind. Just go ahead and leave your stuff there. I’m sorry I was so short with you.”

Margo raised her eyebrows. “You feeling okay, Adam?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just headed out of my room, leaving her box of desk supplies on top of the desk. “I’ll wait until you’re not around to do this. Sorry I surprised you.”

I waited until she left and looked at her box of girly pens, paper clips and other garbage. I shook my head and went downstairs and to the computer, which had been moved to the living room when Mal had taken over the office. I pulled up my email and started writing.

To: ct_yankee_fan_00 From: ladiezman47 Subject: how is it going? Hey man…I heard about you and Haley. Hope you are doing okay. Let me know if you need to talk or anything. I know you’re busy with training right now but drop me a line when you’re free. Adam

 And when the rain Beats against my window pane I’ll think of summer days again And dream of you Chad and Jeremy, A Summer Song

Jeff

I’d already worked my last day at Kitchen & Bath. Byron and I had gone in together to put in our two weeks’ notice. Saturday had been my last day. Wednesday was his.

So despite the fact that I never wanted to see that place again, I’d made arrangements to head back out there Wednesday afternoon, right as he was getting off work. Mom was in the planning phase of a project, so she was working from home and didn’t need her car. It amazes me on a regular basis how she can put together these elaborately designed, beautiful rooms and then turn around and do weird shit like leave the mail in the freezer.

I was getting ready to leave the house when my sister came out of her bedroom. “All packed?” Dawn asked. The two of us were leaving for California the next day.

“For the most part,” I said breezily. Dawn had been getting on my nerves a bit recently, but she was starting to mellow out. I guess she’d realized that, despite the apparent changes, I wasn’t really any different than I had been before she’d left for Peru almost fifteen months earlier.

“Me too,” she commented as she followed me down the stairs. “I can’t wait to get back to California,” she added.

“Connecticut treating you that badly?” I asked, looking at her sideways.

“Noooo,” she said slowly. “It’s not Connecticut specifically. I’ve just been away for so long, constantly moving and traveling. I’m ready to go home.”

I nodded. “I can understand that. Question is, where is home these days?”

Dawn smiled at me. “And that’s a very, very good question.” She sat down at the kitchen table, where she’d left a book earlier in the day. The book was in Spanish and even though I took four years of Spanish in high school, I couldn’t translate the title. “I think that’s the trouble with this age we’re both in. We want to be adult and independent, but we haven’t cut the ties to our parents’ homes yet.”

I nodded at Dawn, even though she was sort of talking over my head. How was I supposed to cut ties? No one would let me. She went on. “I guess I don’t know whether I mean my apartment with my college friends, or whether I mean Palo City with Dad and Carol and Gracie…and you.”

I sat backwards in a chair and she picked up her book. All the time she’d been trying to talk to me since she’d breezed back into my life, she’d been trying to get me to talk about my life. This was the first time she’d really opened up about hers. “Maybe it’s a little of both,” I suggested. Dawn smiled. “They say home is where the heart is, after all,” I added idly, spewing forth a horrible cliché.

Dawn’s face drooped a little. “I guess home is back in Lima at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos,” she said with a sigh.

“Ohh-hh?” I asked, my pitch rising a little as I neared the end of the word. She looked at me with almost a hint of a smile. “Who is he?”

She shook her head. “Does it matter?” she replied. “We were together for most of the year. We vowed to stay in touch. I was even going to save up for a plane ticket back to Lima for Christmas.” I nodded, urging her to continue. “While I was at Sunny’s in New York, I got an email from him. He said that he’d had fun with me, but it was time for him to settle down and find a nice Catholic Peruvian girl his parents would approve of.” Dawn hadn’t opened her book, but she was clutching it to her chest, as if she could protect her heart from the story. “I loved him, and he was using me for a good time. And then he broke up with me by email! Email!”

Had she been a different girl, Dawn probably would have been crying by then, but she’d learned a long time ago how to toughen herself up. That’s why the show of emotion I was getting was so rare and special. I didn’t even know how to respond to it; I felt awkward. I was only getting one side of the story and I had a feeling there was a lot more to it than that. “Maybe he did care enough that he knew that the breakup was going to hurt you. Maybe he did it because it would be too hard to do over the phone.”

She looked over at me and smiled, just a little bit, at my clumsy attempt to try to cheer her up. “I’ve thought of that too. I know his parents were pressuring him to find a Catholic wife. Maybe it was easier to give into them when I wasn’t there anymore.” She put the book down. “But knowing that it’s over, it’s easier on my heart to just pretend that he was a heartless bastard who just wanted to tell all his friends he scored with the blonde chick.”

Something about the way she’d said the last line made me smile also. Back to resilient Dawn, the tough girl of Palo City. “Whatever helps get you through the day, right?” I joked.

“Right,” she agreed, smiling fully. She looked at her watch. “Aren’t you supposed to meet Byron soon? Don’t be late for your own date on account of my sob story, now.” With that, she picked up the book and opened it about half way through.

I took the hint and headed to the door.

***

I ran into Haley before I saw Byron. She was running a sweeper across one of the floor mats in such a way that I could tell her mind was somewhere else. She looked fairly miserable. It was the first time since we’d left Maine that I’d ever seen her without any make up.

To be honest, I hadn’t been surprised when By told me about Haley and Jordan. I’d been even less surprised about it than he’d been. But I’d seen it coming: she’d decided to let him go because it was easier to be mad at herself for pushing him away than to be mad at him for leaving her. But obviously, that hadn’t made her feel any better about the situation. She saw me coming and she tried to smile, but it was the most pathetic attempt I’d ever seen. Haley is really pitiful when she’s depressed.

I thought I might try to cheer her up by repeating an old joke of her and By’s. “Is it just me, or is this where bad music goes to die?” I asked. She stopped sweeping and turned to me darkly. She tried the smile again, but only one corner of her mouth turned up briefly before returning to neutral. I grabbed her into a one-armed hug. “Hey, Hay,” I said, smiling internally over how that sounded. “It’s going to get better. Trust me on this one.”

She hugged me back with both arms for a moment. “I don’t know about that,” she said softly. Then she turned around and went back to cleaning the carpets.

Byron wasn’t scheduled to be off for another ten minutes or so. I didn’t want to keep him from his work—he was working with Helen and she hates when the employees have personal conversations on work time. Instead I wandered over to the candy bins and chose a couple items. I figured I’d have an excuse to talk to him if I was purchasing something. I headed up towards customer service because he clearly wasn’t at the open register.

I spotted Helen before I got to the counter, running from the bathroom to the registers. “Jeff,” she said, her tone suspicious. “Didn’t you put in your notice? What are you doing here? If you came to pick up your last pay check, you’ll have to wait until Friday, same as everyone else.”

I sighed and stifled an eye roll. “Nope. I’m here as a shopper.” I held out my chocolate for her inspection.

She eyed it, and me, critically, but didn’t say anything before she turned away from me. She spotted Haley cleaning another carpet in front of the registers. “Hay, what are you doing up here? Shouldn’t you be back in china helping with the transfer?”

Hay bit her lip; she was clearly not in the mood to deal with Helen today. “They said there were too many people working on that today. I was asked to sweep the floor mats until they needed me or until it’s five,” she said meekly, not looking at Helen, but instead at her own feet.

Helen didn’t appear to believe her, but she waved it away with a single hand gesture. “Never mind that. Someone’s made a mess of one of the toilets in the ladies’ room. I need you to get some gloves and the cleaner and deal with it.”

Now Haley looked panicked. “I’m sorry, Helen,” she said, knowing this was not going to go well, “but I can’t clean the toilets. I’m allergic to the cleaner.”

I know Helen remembered the time a couple weeks ago when Haley had an anaphylactic reaction to the toilet cleaner. One of the other managers had been ready to call 911 and have her carted off to the hospital, but Haley had managed to get breathing again before that had to happen. The rest of the management had pretty much banned her from even going near the cleaning supplies since then.

But Helen wasn’t having any part of that. She looked livid that Haley had even dared to disagree with her, and she raised her voice to get the point across. “That’s nonsense. You’re just trying to get out of doing your job. Stop being lazy and get to work. I need you to get it done now. If those toilets aren’t cleaned by the time you leave, I’m going to write you up.”

Haley’s not usually one for tears in the work place, but with her already low mood and the threat of a write up, she looked like they weren’t far away. It didn’t help that several customers had overheard the exchange and were all staring at the two of them. I stiffened, ready to jump in on her behalf, but another voice piped up first. “Helen,” he said quietly. I hadn’t heard Byron come up, but he was now standing between Helen and the counter, a few feet from us. His face was set and stern, but his voice was low and steady. “I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but I don’t think this is appropriate. Hay is allergic to the toilet cleaner, so you’ve asked her to do something she cannot do. She is not being lazy or trying to get out of her job responsibilities.” Helen whirled around upon him, but before she could say anything, he continued. “Even if she were, I don’t believe this is an appropriate conversation to have on the sales floor, with customers and other employees listening.”

Helen obviously couldn’t believe that By had dared to speak up. I almost couldn’t believe it either; he wasn’t exactly the type to defy an authority figure, even one as uneven and unfair as Helen was being. But there was something else I was thinking about. It was the way he had done it: he’d stayed calm and he’d stated the facts. Even though it wasn’t his intention, he’d basically made Helen look foolish because he’d been able to be more mature about the situation than she was being. “Byron. Go back to the customer service counter and sort the returns. Leave me and your girlfriend to have our conversation.”

Byron raised his eyebrows but not his voice. “Hay is not my girlfriend, as you’re well aware.” He looked over briefly at me and I smiled encouragingly at him. “However, she is my best friend. And even if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t just stand by and let you speak to her like that.”

Most of the customers had moved on by that point, but one or two were still standing around. Helen opened her mouth to speak, but before she had a chance, an office door opened between the front door and the customer service counter, and a man stepped out. “Byron? Hay? Can I speak to you for a moment?” Jason the store manager said from the door to his office. I stepped away from the group of people and up to the registers to pay for my purchase. “Helen, do me a favor,” he continued. “Get Tanya to clean the bathroom.”

I walked up to the open register, where one of the cashiers, Morgan, was working. She looked at me with wild eyes. “What the hell was that all about?” she asked me quietly as she rang through the Heath bars.

I shook my head at her. “The culmination of three years of friendship,” I said. Morgan stared at me and I just shook my head again. “Never mind. It’s hard to explain.”

It was five-ten before the three of them emerged from the manager’s office. I leaned against the wall next to the exit door as Jason shook By’s hand. “Thanks for all your hard work this summer. If you’re in town again next summer, call us and we’ll definitely find you a spot.” He turned to Haley. “So, Hay, come in tomorrow about one and we’ll start your training. I think this is going to work out to everyone’s benefit.” She was looking a little less upset, and she managed a smile at him. “You two go ahead and clock out. Helen,” he called, seeing her about to head behind them to the back of the store, “Can I talk to you next?”

Byron and Haley took a little longer than normal getting back up front. Seems a couple of people had overheard part of the conversation and wanted to know details. They hadn’t really done any gossiping, but it had taken a while to extricate themselves from the situation. I was still leaning by the doors when they came out. Byron had his arm around Haley and he gave her a squeeze. “I told you everything was going to be okay,” he said.

She looked like she’d been crying, probably just a few tears, but tears nonetheless. I wordlessly handed her one of the Heath bars. “What’s this for?” she asked as she wiped the other hand across her eye.

I shrugged at her. “No real reason. Just thought you could use it. Chocolate’s supposed to solve everything for girls, isn’t it?”

Hay laughed, looking almost happy, however briefly. “You’re something else, Jeff,” she said. By let her go and she gave me a tight squeeze. “I’ll miss you. Be good,” she told me as she let go.

“Never,” I said. She gave one last little smile and then dug her car keys out of her pocket. She waved to me with the hand holding the chocolate bar and then headed out to the parking lot.

I turned to Byron, who smiled at me. I grabbed him into a big hug also, and capped it off with a kiss on the lips. “What was that for?” he asked, his cheeks turning a little pink. He’d long since come to expect surprises out of me and as such, he didn’t generally blush as much as he had when we’d first started out.

I looked around. We were standing on camera by the entrance door, and Morgan, who was between customers, was smirking at us, but I really didn’t care. “Do you have any idea what you just did there?” I asked him.

He looked at me sideways. “No,” he said slowly, trying to figure out what I meant. “But whatever it was, obviously it was sort of a turn on for you,” he added quietly.

I laughed. I couldn’t believe he’d just said that, even in a whisper, in a public place. “A big one,” I agreed. I waved goodbye to Morgan, who waved back at the two of us, and then I took By’s hand in mine. “Let’s get out of here,” I suggested.

***

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Byron about what had happened with Helen until later in the evening. We didn’t head back toward Stoneybrook but rather I drove until we got to a restaurant in Stamford. Just one look at the place from the outside and you could tell it was fancy—and expensive. “Jeff…” By began as he took a look around at the internal décor.

I cut him off. “Not a worry. You are totally worth it. Anyway, what am I going to do with my money once I get back home to California? I’d rather spend it on you than waste it on crap with the gooneys back there. C’mon.”

I’d warned him to dress up, and we were both wearing ties. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be a dress code. Despite that, no one seemed really thrilled to see us. I never did figure out whether it was our age or that we were two guys holding hands. We were quickly escorted to our reserved table.

We were both a little ill at ease. Byron seemed nervous—he was fidgeting with his hands— but I was just a little bit ticked off. The host had seated us without comment, slapping our menus down on the table. I wasn’t really upset that he didn’t tell us about the wine selection like he did everyone else, but I would have liked to hear what the specials of the day were. Even though I had my fake ID with me, I wasn’t planning on drinking. It wasn’t really Byron’s thing, not to mention the fact that I had to drive us back home. I actually hadn’t had a drink all summer. I wasn’t an alcoholic or anything, but that had to be some kind of record for me since I’d had my first drink at fourteen.

The two of us sat there looking at each other for a moment, not sure where to begin. Despite all the time we’d spent together, we didn’t go out to ‘real’ restaurants like this very often. I reached across the table and took his hand, which he’d been tapping anxiously onto the table repeatedly. I don’t even think he was aware he was doing it. He relaxed a little and smiled at me. He even started talking. “Haley seemed like she was feeling a little better today,” he commented.

I tipped my head to one side, looking him over closely. Sure, I had photos of him, but I wanted to remember every little bit of his face—every little gesture and expression. It was four months until I could come back to Connecticut…if I could even make it then. “Sure, if you consider the fact that she only cried a couple tears today an improvement.”

“Sadly,” he said with a shake of his head, “it actually is. For someone who essentially pushed Jordan out of her life, she’s taking the fact that he’s gone extremely hard.” I nodded sympathetically. “Yesterday, she cried the whole way to work…while she was driving.”

I picked up my menu and he did the same. By looked it over for a moment and then looked at me over the top. “Interesting menu,” he said. “Where did you hear about this place?”

I was drooling over a couple of the options. “It’s where Mom and Richard go every year for their anniversary because they both find things they like. I thought it was appropriate.”

He smiled, looking a little sad behind the happy expression. “It’s not an anniversary for us…is it?” he asked quietly.

“Not that I’m aware of,” I said. I decided on an order and put the menu down. He looked at me questioningly. “I’m not much of one for celebrating three month or five month anniversaries. It’s kind of silly.” Byron was still holding the menu upright, but he wasn’t looking at it. His eyes were focused exclusively on mine. “I guess I’m just hoping this is a first that we could celebrate an anniversary for in a year.”

He lit up. “I love the way that sounds.” I had to grin back at him; it was the first time he’d seemed really enthusiastic all evening.

We ordered and then he was back to drumming his hand on the table. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering him. I watched his knuckles as he nervously twitched. After a moment, I caught his hand under mine. He looked startled and I grinned at him. “What’s bugging you?” I asked.

He looked away for a moment and I could tell he didn’t want to answer that. I changed topics, hoping to ferret it out of him later. “How’s the packing going?”

Byron looked relieved. “Not too bad. Almost done, in fact. Actually, I’ve packed so much that I have to keep unpacking things I need that I thought I was done with.”

I laughed. “I’ve done that before.” He actually managed a smile. “How about Adam?”

It was his turn to chuckle. “He hasn’t started packing yet. He seems to be putting it off to the last second. He hasn’t said it, but I think the sight of his room emptying out is upsetting him. He’s been quieter and less social ever since Jordan left.”

I could understand that. It’s hard leaving your best friend…or watching him leave you. “And what about Jordan? How’s the freedom treating him?”

I had meant the freedom of college life, but that’s not how By took it. “I think he’s taking things even harder than Hay is,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I can’t be sure, because I’ve only heard from him by email, but she’s all that he wants to talk about. He’s asking how she’s doing, but I can’t bring myself to lie about it…or tell the truth.”

Something about his tone made me pause. I was still gripping his hand and I squeezed it. “Why is Hay and Jordan’s breakup bothering you so much?” I asked.

I could tell I’d hit the nail on the head by the way he broke eye contact. “I just hate seeing them both hurt so bad. Especially because their pain is just because they’re both being stubborn and prideful.”

I leaned over to him, still not letting go of his hand. “I think there’s more to it than that. You’ve never said so, but I’m certain you constantly draw parallels between our relationship and theirs.” By finally looked at me again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you even had Venn diagrams in your head.”

I’d been hoping to make him smile. Instead, he stared at me for a moment, completely seriously, and said, “It completely amazes me the way you can read my mind.”

“I love you. I want to be able to read your mind.”

He grimaced for a moment. “I can’t even come close to understanding you the way you get me.”

I couldn’t believe he said that. “You understand me better than you think. You dig deep, By, and that’s why I get so frustrated sometimes.” I ran one hand across his jaw. “Besides,” I joked, “My mind is rather unfathomable.”

He pulled his hand away from mine with a sigh. “I guess I really am transparent, then,” he said, sounding sad and a little frustrated.

“Transparent?” I was confused. “What makes you think you’re transparent?”

Byron looked away for a moment before turning his attention back to me. “It’s what Hay said to me when she told me she knew I was gay.” I wasn’t sure why being easy to read was an insult to him, but obviously he took it that way.

I didn’t want to belittle or wave away his concerns, but I needed to point out something. “That’s Haley, though. She’s your best friend. Her being able to read you doesn’t mean you’re transparent.”

He didn’t seem comforted by that. “Well, what about the fact that some of my family members knew I was gay before I ever told them? Mom, Margo…I think Dad might have suspected, too.” He didn’t give me a chance to reply. “Even that idiot Dan knew.”

“Dan?” I repeated. “Wasn’t he the one that wrote things about you in the bathrooms?” By nodded. “From what you’ve said, he called half the school gay. You think he’s right even a fraction of the time? Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.” I smiled gently at him and took his hand again. “Imagine we were at Pizza Express right now. If I wasn’t holding your hand, do you think anyone would know we were on a date?”

By bowed his head for a moment, but then he looked back at me. “How do you always know exactly what to say?” he asked.

“It’s a gift,” I joked, and he actually smiled.

***

Our food was served shortly thereafter. It wasn’t until we were nearly done eating that I brought up the afternoon’s events. “What happened with you and Hay and Jason earlier?” I asked.

He perked up; before that he’d been ready to fall into a food coma. “He wanted to know about the various run-ins we’ve had with Helen throughout the summer. After we told him just about everything—I left out the time she caught us in the parking lot—he let us in on a secret.” I raised my eyebrows. “He said they’d gotten numerous complaints about her from the staff and the customers. Because of it, she’s getting transferred to another store…and demoted.”

“Whoa,” I said. That was actually pretty serious. “So what was this training Haley’s going to be doing?”

Byron smiled more fully. “They’re not promoting anyone to replace Helen. Instead, Jason’s going to train a couple people to do various parts of her job. He wants Hay to be one of two closing supervisors on the front end, to count money and supervise the cashiers. There aren’t enough brides for the number of the consultants most of the time and that’s why she usually ends up wrapping gifts or cleaning random stuff. Jason says that’s squandering Hay’s talents, and I agree.”

Our plates were cleared right about then. I looked at him as he carefully placed his napkin to his lips one last time before he relinquished it. I finally got a chance to say what had been on my mind all evening. “Do you have any idea how proud I am of you?” I asked.

He froze for a moment, as if checking for sarcasm. “For what?”

“For the way you stood up to Helen.”

By looked embarrassed. “What was so great about that?” he wanted to know.

I answered his question with a question. “How often through the past three years has Hay fought your battles for you? Done something like, I don’t know…punch your brother in his face on your behalf?”

He grinned at the memory, but the grin faded as he remembered where Hay and Jordan stood now. “All the time,” he admitted.

I carried on. “And how often have you stood up for her?” His face sagged, but I didn’t let him speak to the negative. “In the past, that’s the way it needed to be. She spoke up for you, and you supported her. But this time, she needed you to stand up for her and you stepped right out of your comfort zone.”

He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I still don’t get it,” he said. They brought the check and I snatched it before he could even look at it. By got distracted from his confusion and gave me a stern look. “You know the deal,” he said. “You pay, I leave the tip. I pay, you leave the tip.”

I shook my head at him. “Not tonight. This is completely on me. You can do the same next time we see each other.” I tucked a sum of money in with the bill and set it on the table, covering it with one hand so he couldn’t grab it and try to put money in it. “Let me finish complimenting you, okay? I know you don’t get what’s so awesome about what you did. You never see your finest points, you know that? Only the downsides to everything you do.” He nodded his agreement to that, however tentatively. “You’re probably looking at this thing with Helen as ‘Oh no, I told off my boss.’ But I’m seeing it as you stood in front of Hay when she needed you to, and you were calm and mature. You were way more of an adult than Helen was, that’s for sure.”

Byron had ducked his head again during the conversation. “Why don’t I see myself the way you see me?” he asked, still looking away.

I grinned and took his jaw in my hand again, pulling his face back up so he was looking at me. “We never do see ourselves the way others see us.” He locked his gaze into mine. “Tell me, Byron. How do you see me?”

He thought for a moment, pulling his words together. “You make me want to go out and live life, instead of hiding from it. You’re braver than I could ever be—facing your problems head on.” He leaned in toward me. “I love that about you, Jeff.”

“And I love that you make me stop and think twice about stuff. My dad’s favorite word for me is reckless, and I know sometimes I act and speak first and then think later. You’re more careful and that makes me want to be more careful.”

By’s eyes were shining again, but he looked a little playful. “This is really sappy, you know that?” he said.

I laughed heartily. “Yeah. I never thought I’d want to be sappy. But I also never thought this,” I gestured to him and then the table as a whole, “would happen. Remember back in Maine when I said sometimes the best things in life were surprises? Well, you’ve been the best surprise of all.”

I stood up and offered him my hands. He stood up before he took them both. “You really think we’ll survive the time and distance this year?” he asked, going back to his old fear that I hadn’t completely squashed.

I nodded. “Yes. I’m completely certain of it. I love you, you love me, but more than that…I don’t think there’s anyone out there who could complement me better than you do.”

Bryon smiled. “Kinda like soul mates,” he said. I nodded a second time and squeezed both his hands before I let him go. “I guess it’s not a worry, then, huh?”

I shook my head. “I know you. You’ll find enough things to worry about this year. My love shouldn’t be one of them.”

He took one hand again and started walking to the exit. When we were outside, he stopped and pulled my arm, dragging me closer to him. I put my hands on his waist. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For dinner. For this summer. For everything.”

I drew him closer. “This is just the start, By. This is just the start.”

[tosybelle-blog]

The Boys of Summer, Chapters XXI-XXV

I tried to make it Sunday But I got so damned depressed That I set my sights on Monday And I got myself undressed America, Sister Golden Hair

Jeff

When I got home Tuesday I just wanted to go to my room and pull the covers up over my head. Richard had picked me up, and he hadn’t even bothered to attempt conversation with me. Instead he had just turned up NPR and commented on the presidential election, more to the radio than to me.

But Richard ruined the whole trip by saying two words: family dinner. I sighed and rolled my eyes. It’s not that I don’t love my family—even Richard—but they never just get together and have fun. Everything has to be so stiff and formal. I don’t know how my mom stands it, because she doesn’t really do stiff and formal. The only thing I can say after five of these stinkers is that Pete really does not seem at ease around Mom and Richard. There must be good gossip related to that that I haven’t heard, but no one’s talking.

Mom was already home when we arrived, and she was the kitchen making something that smelled like fish. That’s always a little scary because you don’t know what you’re getting. Maybe she’s making fish and it’s therefore a good smell. But maybe she’s not, in which case she’s really fucked something up.

I opened a cabinet and grabbed a granola bar. I figured maybe I could get away with telling her I had a horrible headache and that light was making me nauseous. But I guess I’ve tried that one just too many times. “Jeff, go change shirts,” she said, looking me over.

I looked at my t-shirt. “Why?” I whined.

Mom opened the oven and I could see she was indeed cooking fish. I relaxed a little bit. She gave me a look. “Because your shirt is absolutely filthy and you look you’ve never had a bath in your life.” She shifted her gaze to the stove and frowned at something bubbling over in one of her pots. “Mary Anne and Pete will be here in about half an hour, but Byron said he’d be here any minute now.”

I was just about to take a bite from the granola bar when she said that. “Wait. Byron’s coming to dinner tonight?”

Mom made a face. “Didn’t he tell you?” she asked. I shrugged. I hadn’t really talked to Byron since I’d made an ass of myself on Sunday. I wasn’t really worried about apologizing to him, because he’s the most empathetic person I know and I was pretty sure he’d apologize to me before I could even tell him how sorry I was. What’s so backwards about that is that he really didn’t do anything; I got mad at him for being concerned about me. But I did worry about trying to explain myself to him beyond that. There are some things you just can’t understand if you haven’t experienced them and as much as Byron would want to try to relate, he really couldn’t.

I went upstairs and changed shirts, but after I did so, I stretched out on my bed and was halfway to sleep when the phone rang. Richard had gone outside to water the garden, but I fully expected Mom to answer. Instead, I heard her yell from the bottom of the stairs. “Jeff, can you get that? My hands are covered in mashed potatoes.”

I rose lazily from my bed and made it to the phone. “Hello?”

At first I didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the phone, other than that it was a female and she was whispering. “Jeff?”

I was completely flummoxed. “Yes?” I said.

“I believe in fair warning.”

Something clicked. “Mary Anne? Is that you?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes. Listen, I don’t have much time. I just picked your sister up at the train station. She’s coming to dinner with Pete and me.” There was a noise on the other end of the line. Someone else was talking to Mary Anne. “I’ll be there in a minute!” she called to the other person, and then returned to the phone. “I don’t know what’s going on with her that she thought surprising our parents would be a good idea, but I do know she’s mad as hell about something. I thought you all should be warned.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell my mom so she can set the table for seven.”

There was a slight pause. “I gotta go. She’s coming back out of the bathroom. See you soon.”

Well. This was certainly turning into an interesting family dinner after all—and it hadn’t even started yet. I headed downstairs slowly, my legs feeling like lead. I got to the bottom of the stairs and could see Byron standing with my mom at the stove, looking at the mystery something that had bubbled over earlier. “You don’t have to worry about me,” he told my mom earnestly, “I like all foods. I’m sure whatever you serve will be just fine.” She smiled at him and suddenly I saw exactly what Haley was complaining about one day. Byron just knows exactly what to say to put parents at ease and make a good impression. It’s almost like schmoozing, only a lot less smarmy because he actually legitimately means what he says. I noticed he had dressed up; he was wearing a pair of black pants with his shirt buttoned and tucked in, and he’d even put on a tie.

I walked over to join them even though I was half filled with dread. “It’s true,” I said to my mom, “He’ll eat just about anything.”

Mom made a face at me and I realized that, even though I’d put on a fresh shirt fifteen minutes before, it was all wrinkled from my dozing. By smiled at me tentatively. “Hey, Jeff,” he said. I walked by him and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to let him know that everything was alright. I think he got the message because he smiled more genuinely.

I took a look into the mystery pot and tried to figure out what exactly was cooking in it. It was kind of brown and, although it smelled good, it looked like shit. “What is that?” I asked.

“Lentils.” Mom tipped her mashed potatoes into a serving bowl. “I think they’re a little overcooked, but they should still taste good. I made mashed potatoes for those who are scared of lentils.” She put a serving spoon into the bowl and then turned back to me. “Jeff, didn’t I ask you to put on a clean shirt?”

I gestured toward my middle. “I did put on a clean shirt.”

“Well, put on one that looks like it’s seen an iron at some point, okay?”

I turned to Byron. “Come upstairs with me?” Mom gave me a murderous look. “Mom. Seriously. I’m just going to change shirts, so we’ll be up there for less than five minutes. I’ll even leave the door open.” She shrugged, acquiescing, although she didn’t look thrilled about it. I grabbed By’s hand and we started toward the stairs before I remembered why I had come down in the first place. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Mary Anne just called. She said Dawn’s in town and she’s coming to dinner.”

Mom stopped in her tracks. “I’m her mother, I’m the one cooking, and I’m the last one to know.”

“Not the last one,” I corrected, “because no one’s told Richard yet.” Mom rolled her eyes. “Besides, I honestly think Dawn just called Mary Anne a short time ago, because you know she would have called us as soon as she found out.” I walked up the stairs, Byron right on my heels.

We got to my room and he stood in front of the open door and did the predictable thing. “Jeff, I am so sorry about Sunday.”

I took his hand again. “Well, I’m sorry for making you feel sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m also sorry for how I’ve been acting recently.” I kissed his knuckle and let his hand go. I went to unbutton my shirt, but to my surprise, he did it for me.

Byron took my shirt off and hung it on the back of my chair. “You have no idea how worried I’ve been about you,” he said.

I nodded at him. “Actually, I probably do have some idea,” I said. He looked confused. “I know how much you worry about things in general. And considering that I’m worried about me, I can get a picture of how you feel.” I sat heavily on the bed.

By moved to my closet and looked inside. He pulled out a shirt and held it out to me. I shrugged a ‘whatever,’ at him. “What’s bothering you?” he asked, coming over toward the bed with the shirt.

“Everything,” I said. He handed me the shirt and I put it on. He sat down beside me and put an arm around my middle as I buttoned the last few buttons. “Every little movement I make hurts. It takes a lot of effort just to get out of bed in the morning, or eat something, or whatever.”

He looked alarmed. “Have you been to see a doctor?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. Byron beckoned for me to go on. “It’s not a physical thing, By. It’s mental. The shrink’s fighting with my medication. Get too big of a dose and I’ll be a zombie. Not enough, and I’m crazy.”

He looked at me like he was seeing me through new eyes. “I hope this doesn’t come out wrong, but which side are you on now?”

I actually smiled. “The crazy side, of course. I haven’t had any cravings for brains.”

He grinned. “Sounds like you’re starting to feel a bit better,” he observed.

“Yeah. They upped my dose again last week and I think it’s starting to kick in. I still have trouble getting going, and all I really want to do is sleep, but I do feel better than I did even on Sunday.” He squeezed me toward him and I decided to spill my guts a bit more. “I don’t know how I’ll feel each day when I wake up in the morning. Some days are like these when I just can’t get up and get excited about life. Other days, I just have way too much energy and I can’t even fall asleep. I go back and forth.”

I was going to go on, but Mom came to the bottom of the stairs. “You must have that shirt on by now. C’mon down.”

Byron stood up and moved to leave. I stopped him and planted a kiss on his lips. He looked surprised. “Thanks,” I said as I brushed past him.

He stood in the doorway, still a little shocked, as I walked to the stairs. “For what?”

“For being your awesome self.”

He gave a half grin. “I think you’re pretty awesome, too.”

***

I won’t bore you with the small talk we had while we waited for my sisters to show up. I had half expected Richard to completely grill Byron until he looked like he’d been barbequed, but he was a lot nicer than I expected. He asked about Duke and the biomedical engineering program, and he was rightfully impressed to hear what a good student By is. After that, he started talking about the elections again, and Byron was actually able to hold his own in the conversation. It was pretty apparent right from the start that they weren’t going to be voting for the same candidates, but in no way did the conversation become heated or ugly because of it.

The only time I really participated in that conversation was when Richard turned to me and asked me what issues were the deciding factors for me. I gave him a blank look and Mom piped up. “Oh, Jeff’s more like me,” she said whimsically, “I always look at the paper the weekend before the election, when they put that big graph of where everyone stands on each issue, and then I make up my mind.”

I thought Richard would have a few stern words about that, and I know Byron thought so too, because he reached for my hand. Instead Richard just laughed. “What am I going to do with you two?” he asked rhetorically.

I was saved from more political debate by the door opening. “Hello!” Mary Anne called as she entered, holding the door behind her. Next came Pete, loaded down with a suitcase and a casserole dish, and then finally she came in.

I hadn’t seen Dawn in over a year. She goes to school just an hour away from home, but she’d spent the last year somewhere in South America. She’d left in May of 2003 and was scheduled to come home around the same time this year, but she hadn’t made it to Dad’s house in time for my graduation. She had her long blonde hair pulled back into a thick braid down her back, and she was dressed like a bohemian—a long flowy skirt and a peasant blouse. One look and you could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. She’d gotten more piercings—there were five in one ear, three in the other and one in her eyebrow—and I thought I saw a tattoo on her ankle, peeking out from under her skirt.

The four of us in the living room stood up in greeting. Mom went straight over to hug Dawn, who accepted gratefully. Richard took the suitcase off Pete and set it at the bottom of the stairs, while Pete took the dish—which appeared to contain dessert—over to the fridge. Mary Anne moved into the kitchen, exclaiming that everything smelled delicious. The five of them were all talking noisily, but Byron and I hung back, both feeling awkward, although for different reasons.

After all the ‘we’re here’ chatter subsided, Dawn took a look around and her eyes landed on me. “Hey, Jeff,” she said casually, much like By had earlier, as if she’d just seen me earlier in the week. She stepped over and gave me a quick hug. “I didn’t know you were here. In town for a short time, or you forced to spend the whole summer here?”

I found myself getting a little worked up; my location wasn’t the only thing she didn’t know about me. We hadn’t even spoken since Christmas, and whole hell of a lot had gone on in the past seven months. “Spending the whole summer here by choice,” was all I said.

She looked at me a little oddly, and on one level, I didn’t blame her. I’d thrown a huge fit just before she’d left last summer about coming to Connecticut. I was supposed to spend six weeks here, but I’d dug in my heels and managed to get it down to two. Mom had planned them to coincide with Mary Anne’s wedding. She was sliding up onto her one year anniversary now. Dawn had missed the whole thing.

Dawn shifted her gaze around the room and she spotted Byron, who had subconsciously backed out of the line of conversation. She eyed him critically for a moment. “I know you’re a Pike,” she said, pointing at him, “but you’ll have to forgive me if I can’t remember which one.”

Mom raised her eyebrows and caught my eye. I shook my head at her and I know she got the message. Dawn had no idea I’d been dating By or that I was interested in guys at all. By’s eyebrows knitted together as he realized the same thing. “Byron,” was all he said, but he sounded defeated—like me not telling my sister about us meant that I really didn’t care about our relationship, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

I spoke up. “It’s family dinner night,” I told Dawn.

She turned to me, looking confused. “Yeah?” she said.

“Yeah. You remember how that works. I know you do because the last time the two of us were here together, we got to see the very first time Pete was invited to family dinner.” Pete smiled for a moment and drew Mary Anne close to him with one arm. She smiled back at him and wiggled free. I continued. “And tonight, you and Mary Anne get to be here for the first time Byron is invited to family dinner.” I reached out for his hand. He hesitated for a moment before giving it to me. He generally doesn’t have a problem with that kind of PDA, but this was my family we were with. It’s a little different.

Dawn looked surprised. “What about that girl you were dating back in Palo City?” she asked.

“Risa? You got that right. We were dating. I haven’t been with her since last year.”

Dawn pursed her lips and looked like she wanted to go on, but everyone was starting to feel uncomfortable. Pete had busied himself by looking at the titles on the bookshelves. Mom was nervously pulling on her bracelet, her eyes darting back and forth between Dawn and me. Richard had gone to scoop the lentils into a serving bowl and take the fish out of the oven. Mary Anne was biting her lip and looking upset. I was getting more and more irritated with every passing second. And By, still holding my hand, was looking down at the floor. I could tell he felt worst of all—not only awkward for witnessing the argument, like everyone else, but just feeling like he didn’t belong at all.

Mom finally put a stop to my sister’s chatter. “Let’s not give the boys the third degree, now,” she said to Dawn. “Did your father interrogate every guy you ever brought home?” Dawn settled down and looked less disgruntled.

I, on the other hand, was not any more relaxed. “No, because she didn’t bring most of them home. I think that the back of her car was more her style.”

Dawn made a hideous face and I was about to go on when Byron tugged my hand. “Jeff,” he said in a quiet voice that I recognized all too well. I shut my mouth and eyes and scrunched up my whole face for a moment and then let it all go. I turned to him and he smiled. “Thank you,” he said, equally quietly, because he knew I was going to hold my tongue, at least temporarily. I made no promises for how long, however.

Richard saved the day by making a pronouncement. “Dinner’s ready,” he said.

***

If I thought our usual family dinner for five was awkward and uncomfortable, I was very much mistaken. I guess it’s like how spraining your ankle hurts and you feel like you’re in agony…until you break your arm a short time later and realize how mild the ankle was in comparison.

I can’t pinpoint any one culprit for why everything was so difficult, although most of our nerves came from one source. Mary Anne was cautious because she and Dawn had a fight eons ago—that last summer I had mentioned, when they were about sixteen—over something ridiculous, but Dawn had held a grudge and the two of them never really got a chance to make up because of that. I was riled over Dawn breezing in here after more than half a year, trying to get mad at me for not telling her stuff. Mom and Richard were trying to keep the peace—which wouldn’t have been necessary if everyone else hadn’t been on edge. Byron was so busy trying to make a good impression that he was very formal and nervous. He kept dropping utensils. And Pete was just…Pete. He’s a really nice guy, but there’s definitely something about him that Richard doesn’t like. I suspect that at least part of it is the fact that no man would ever be good enough for Mary Anne in his eyes.

Conversation at the table was even worse than before Dawn had arrived. Pete’s been working at one of Pop-pop’s banks—he works there part time during the school year and full time during the summer—and was explaining something to Mom and Richard about their mortgage. Then Mary Anne told us a story about her little goddaughter—her friend’s daughter Harper—and how she wants a puppy or a baby sister for Christmas this year. Mom explained about a client she had whose house hadn’t been updated since the fifties and how much work that was going to be. After that there was a lull in the conversation and Mom turned to Dawn. “Tell us about Peru,” she said.

Dawn seemed bored at the suggestion. “What’s to tell?” she asked.

Mom looked annoyed. “What kinds of classes did you take there? How’s your Spanish now? Did you go on any trips? Make any good friends? Meet any special guys?”

Dawn waved all that off. “It was fine. I had a good time.”

If looks could kill, Dawn would have been dead by then. Mom looked at Richard, who shrugged at her. “You spent your whole junior year abroad, and all you can say is, ‘I had a good time’?” It was Dawn’s turn to shrug.

Richard could see that this conversation was not going well. “So Jeff, what classes are you taking in the fall?” he asked.

I swallowed a mouthful of lentils (which, despite their appearance, were pretty good.) “I’m taking math and composition and poli sci. I think I’m also taking biology and biology lab. There’s one more class but I can’t remember it.” I had called an advisor at the community college campus by my house, and he’d suggested taking all of the prerequisites—classes that would transfer into any state school—for starters, since I had no idea what the hell I wanted to study.

Richard nodded approvingly. “Getting the basics out of the way first. Smart move.”

Dawn looked over at me. “Where are you headed?” she asked.

I shifted uncomfortably. When she’d left, I’d been leaning on a couple of campuses of California State University—ones far enough away that my dad had to call before he could drop in for a visit, but close enough that he’d still pick me up if necessary. My diagnosis had changed that. I’d been accepted at both schools, but Dad and I had decided that it was better that I stay at home for at least a year. “Nowhere special,” I commented.

Mom kind of deflected the question. “Jeff’s decided to start off at the community college, since he hasn’t chosen a major yet.”

After that we went back to our same old boring family dinner topics: Richard mentioned a case; Mary Anne talked about her job as a receptionist; Pete and Richard discussed how Pete needed a new car, since, come fall, he and Mary Anne wouldn’t be able to share one anymore. I turned to look at Byron. It had been a few minutes since he’d dropped his fork, and no one had asked him any embarrassing questions. He was a lot more at ease. He caught me looking at him and smiled. He’d cleared his plate—he’d even had a helping of lentils—and he was following the conversation intently. I reached over and grabbed his hand under the table, a move no one else could see.

When we finished eating, Byron was the first person to offer to help clear the table. I dutifully followed, carrying my dishes. Mary Anne started serving up dessert—a banana split pie she said was absolutely delicious. She swore up and down she’d made it with honey and only a little bit of processed sugar, but I probably would have eaten some even if she said she’d added extra sugar to it. It looked and smelled as good as she said it was.

Dawn walked away from where the rest of us were working in the kitchen and grabbed her bag. “I’m going to skip dessert,” she said. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Mary Anne, who’s usually the last person to comment on things like that, clucked her tongue. “I know she’s tired,” she said, a little annoyed, “but she could have at least offered to help clean up.”

Pete looked a bit annoyed himself, but he shook his head. “I don’t think it’s something worth fighting over,” he commented.

“I know,” Mary Anne agreed, “but I just wish I knew what was going on in her mind.”

“Don’t we all,” Mom added.

I pulled Byron out of the conversation. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I told him. I looked around to make sure no one else was watching and gave him a quick kiss.

He blushed anyway. “Hurry. That’s where I was just about to go.”

I quickly did my business and was about to head downstairs, but Dawn blocked the hallway so that I had to face her. I had nowhere to hide. “So,” she began, quietly enough that I guessed she was asking for information and not trying to start a fight, “How long have you been dating Byron?”

“Since spring break.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I guess that’s the reason you wanted to come spend the summer here, then,” she said.

“Part of the reason,” I agreed. “The biggest part.”

Dawn looked intense. “Why didn’t you tell me you were gay?” she asked. “Did you think I couldn’t handle it?” She wiped a few hairs that had gotten out of her braid out of her face. “Why am I the last to know?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I said seriously. Now she just seemed confused. “Have you stopped by Dad’s since you’ve been home?” I asked.

“Yeees,” she said slowly, not sure where this was going.

“And did he mention me at all?” She shook her head. “Look, Dawn, I’m not trying to keep secrets from you at all. It’s just…when was the last time we spoke? Christmas. You haven’t sent so much as an email or postcard since then. It’s a little hard to tell you stuff when I’m just figuring things out myself and you’re nowhere to be found.”

I couldn’t read Dawn’s face completely after that. She looked a little annoyed, but there was more. Did I see a hint of guilt in her expression? Whatever it was, it crossed her face briefly and then was gone. “Well, I’m here right now. Tell me all these things you’ve spent the last seven months ‘figuring out.’”

I turned away from her for a second. She was completely wearing me out, and all I could think about was how I wanted to climb into bed and sleep until morning. “Do you know where I was on your twenty-first birthday?” I finally asked as I turned back to her. Now I could read her expression clearly; she was wondering what that had to do with anything. She shook her head. “I was on the fourth floor of the hospital.” That obviously had no meaning for her. “The locked unit? The psych ward? The loony bin?”

She took a step back toward the stairs. “Jeff…” she started, but trailed off. I wheeled around and went into my room, intent upon slamming the door in her face, but she was too quick for me. She was in the doorway before I could even grab the door handle. I stood in front of my bed, feeling even more cornered than I had in the hall. I fully expected my fight or flight reflex to kick in at any moment. “What the hell are you talking about?” Dawn asked me.

I looked at her wearily. I was tired of telling this story, so I gave her the shortened version. “That’s what they do with you when you threaten suicide,” I explained.

She took a step back once again, although she was still blocking my only escape route. Her eyes were huge; I’d shocked her. “I don’t even know who you are any more,” she said, not angrily like I’d expected, but sadly, as if she were somehow to blame.

That didn’t do anything to diffuse my anger. “You don’t know who I am?” I was shouting by this point, but I didn’t care. “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m Jeff Schafer, the bipolar bisexual. And if you have a problem with that, you have a problem with me.” I looked at her defiantly, as if willing her to have a problem with me.

Dawn turned quiet. “I don’t have a problem with that,” she said, almost whispering.

“Yeah? Well, that makes one of us.” I flopped down face first on my bed.

A little time passed without conversation. I heard Dawn move into my room and sit down in my chair. I finally looked up at her and she was staring at me. “Tell me something,” she said finally. “Something about your life now. Maybe I’ll understand you better.”

I sighed. “What kind of something?”

Dawn shrugged. “I dunno. Anything. I have a feeling that there are tons of things you could say that I don’t know.”

I watched her for a moment before I turned away. “For a long time, I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Even when I was manic, I just felt so down, like my life had no purpose.” I sat up, still not looking at her. “I don’t feel that as much these days, just every now and then.”

She nodded. “Is the medication helping?” she asked.

“Some, but that’s not the real reason I feel better. The real reason is right downstairs.” Dawn was puzzled, so I went on. “Ever since By and I got together, I’ve just felt like more pieces of my life have clicked into place. He doesn’t go around pushing me to define myself the way everyone else in the universe does. He wants me to be everything I can be, but on my own terms and in my own way. I feel like we make each other better people.”

Dawn smiled. “Sounds like this is a pretty serious thing you’ve got going there,” she observed.

I turned to look at her head on for the first time since I’d started talking to her, rather than yelling at her. “It is. I love that boy. I really do.”

“You do?” It wasn’t Dawn who spoke, but another figure, posing in the doorway. He was short and slouchy and had long shaggy hair and beautiful blue eyes. I loved every little bit of him.

I nodded at Byron and he blushed just a little. His eyes were shining. “I’ve wanted to tell you that for weeks,” I said after a moment. “Ever since…you know…” Dawn, who was still sitting on my chair, raised her eyebrows. I ignored her and went on. “But the time was never right.”

He looked at me seriously, but I could see that I’d made him happy. The shiny eyes were always a dead giveaway. He twiddled his thumbs for a moment, looking at them, and then turned back toward me. “I know,” he said. “Remember on Sunday when I said I’d never give up on you?”

Dawn stood up. “You two don’t need me for this conversation,” she said. Byron moved out of the way for her, and she turned back to me. “Come talk to me later, if you feel up to it,” she said. I nodded. She put one hand on Byron’s shoulder and smiled at him. “Nice seeing you again, Byron. Take good care of my brother.”

He smiled back. “I intend to,” was all he replied. She strolled past him and out the door. He turned back to me. “I wanted to tell you then. But the others were just there looking at us, and it’s not that I lost my nerve. I just…”

“You just knew something was going on with Adam and Tiffany and, for whatever reason, you decided not to say it.” By looked surprised that I had noticed all that. “Hey, I might have been closer to a zombie on Sunday, but I did catch some of what was going on.” He grinned. “Well, we’re alone right now, at least until Richard figures out we’re up here together. Why don’t you say it now?”

I’d put him on the spot and for a moment he froze. Then, with a backwards glance out the door to make sure no one would catch us, he came over to the bed. He knelt down next to it, just a little lower than I was, and spoke in a whisper. “I love you,” he said.

I took his hands. “I love you, too.” I leaned over and kissed him. I had to resist the urge to wrap my arms around him and pull him close. Heck, despite how tired I felt, I wouldn’t have minded ripping his clothes off and climbing into bed with him…if we’d been alone.

I stood up and offered him my hands again. He took them and I pulled him up. “Dessert?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Always. You know that.” I wrapped one arm around his waist and we started toward the hallway. “You know what?” he said. I just looked at him, although I was smiling for the first time I could remember in a while. “We’re even now. Back in Maine, you overheard me arguing with my brother while you were in the bathroom. Just now, I overheard you arguing with your sister while I was in the bathroom.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “The bipolar bisexual, huh?”

“Yeah, well,” I began, but I didn’t need to finish that. He put his head on the hollow between my shoulder and neck, sideways, and exhaled deeply. I knew I didn’t have to explain myself. Byron loved me just the way I was.

We went downstairs to devour some banana split pie, my arm still around his waist.

 Now I’m not looking for absolution Forgiveness for the things I do But before you come to any conclusions Try walking in my shoes Depeche Mode, Walking in my Shoes

Tiffany

I had spent most of Tuesday afternoon looking out the window, watching the “traffic” on McLelland. I was thinking about my life and how badly I’d screwed it up.

Adam had called me Monday night, asking how I was feeling and if I’d made any decisions. I don’t think he was getting it. This was big. It wasn’t just my life I was deciding for—it was mine and his and our baby’s. How could I make a choice like that all by myself…and so quickly?

I’d never thought much about my future. I’ve never really had a job—when I was in high school, I worked for part of a summer at a boutique but hated it and ended up getting fired. I have no idea what I want to do “when I grow up” the way Adam does. He wants to get a master’s degree and run his own business. Shannon’s going to be an actuary, whatever the hell that is. Even Maria knows she wants to go to medical school and work with old people. I have no goals, no ambitions. It makes me sound pretty pathetic. I’ve always had enough trouble with the present that the future hasn’t been too much on my mind.

On the same lines, I’ve never stopped to think about having a family. I can’t picture myself as somebody’s mom, and not just because I’m only nineteen, but that doesn’t mean I never want kids. I know a lot of girls who think about finding themselves a husband and popping out a kid or two, but I’m not one of them. I’ve never bought a magazine and looked at wedding dresses and engagement rings the way my friends from high school used to do.

Here’s what I did know that Tuesday as I was looking out the window. I didn’t want to disrupt Adam from his goals, his carefully planned future. He’d been nothing but great to me this summer. Without him, I don’t know what I would have done. Because he was such a stand-up guy, I knew he would do his part if I decided to keep the baby. Not only would he provide money and support, but he would be an active dad. But I knew that the only way he’d be able to do that was if he was able to finish his degree.

I was debating whether I wanted to keep the baby, same as the last four hours, when an SUV pulled up at one of the houses across the street. I watched a woman step out of the car without really paying attention. She disappeared into the house and came back out a few minutes later with a small girl with strawberry blonde hair. I didn’t recognize the woman at first, but I did recognize that little girl. I had seen her a couple weeks ago, at Adam’s place. Her mother was a friend of my sister’s, and she’d been at the Fourth of July party.

Without even thinking, I jumped up from the window and ran down the stairs. Kristy Thomas was still struggling to get her daughter into her car seat as I walked up her parents’ driveway. Harper, who is three, was crying a high pitched wail and wiggling around in her seat. “I don’t wanna go home!” she shrieked. “I wanna stay with Nannie!”

Kristy was patiently ignoring the protests and trying hard to wrap the seat belt around Harper, who kept moving her arms out of the way of the straps. “This,” she said with a sigh, “is why you need to take a nap, every day.”

I waited until she finally got Harper belted and then stopped her before she got into the car. “Kristy?” I said tentatively.

She turned around, looking weary. “Tiffany, hi. How are you?” Without waiting for a reply, she slung a diaper bag in the seat next to Harper’s car seat.

I shook my head. “I’m not doing so great. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

She caught my tone of voice and turned around, really taking a look at me this time. “Sure. What’s the matter?”

I almost lost my nerve, but I decided I needed to solder on. After all, who else did I know who had been in the same place I was right now? “What’s it like being a single mom?” I asked, looking at Harper, rubbing her eyes and looking pouty in her car seat, rather than at Kristy.

Kristy raised her eyebrow. “It’s rough,” she began. “Being a mom is hard in general. You’ve got this little person who depends on you for everything, and sometimes, you don’t know what she needs at that moment, or whether or not to give her what she wants. There’s no manual explaining how to raise a child to be good and patient and loving and strong and all the other things you want her to be.” She sat down on the edge of the SUV—not on the seat, but on the floor next to her bag. “And it’s harder when you’re doing it alone. When Harper’s dad is in town—which isn’t as often as either one of us would like—I can hand her off to him if she’s on my last nerve. But when he’s not here, there are plenty of days I want to throw as big a tantrum as she’s throwing.”

I nodded glumly, not liking the sound of any of that. “Of course, raising a kid is also rewarding. You get the satisfaction of making another person perfectly happy sometimes. You also get kisses and hugs and hearing someone say ‘mama’ and ‘I love you,’ for the first time. You get to watch her bloom from a baby to a toddler to a little person, with her own personality and way of thinking.” Kristy stood up and pulled a rag doll out of the diaper bag and handed it to Harper, who had finished crying. The little girl pulled it up to her face and put a thumb in her mouth. “What brings this up with you?” she asked me.

I shrugged, not wanting to tell her the truth. “Just wondering,” I mumbled vaguely. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I looked away from Kristy again. Harper had closed her eyes and looked like she’d be asleep before the car even got started.

Kristy startled my attention away from her daughter. “Oh, Tiffany,” she said, sounding more sympathetic than I’d ever heard her. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” I didn’t answer but I wiped a tear out of my eye. That was all the response Kristy needed. She sat back down on the edge of the car and tugged at her scrubs. “You’re dating Adam Pike, aren’t you? What did he say?”

I looked down at the ground and put one hand to my stomach, touching it gently. “He said he’d support me, no matter what.” Kristy nodded. “But I worry that having this baby will keep him from doing what he wants to do with his life.”

Kristy nodded a second time. “Well, Harper’s dad and I worried about that, too. We both had big dreams. I was planning to open a non-profit organization someday, and he is a genius at computer graphics. When we decided to keep Harper and raise her, we had to make some choices. I scrapped my plans to go away to university and got a two year degree. I don’t love being an x-ray tech, but until he finishes his degree at the end of this school year, I’ll make do.” She looked over and smiled as she realized Harper was asleep. “After he gets a job and is secure, we plan to get married and then I’ll be able to go back to school.”

“What made you decide to keep her?”

Kristy shook her head. “I can’t really explain that. For a couple months, we were intent upon giving her up for adoption. Then one day, I woke up and decided I couldn’t do that. I didn’t care if it was selfish.” She looked at me seriously. “It helped me a lot that my mom stood behind me, and that Harper’s dad actually wanted to be with me and be a dad.”

I leaned my butt against the car bumper. “I know Adam said he’ll stand by me, but I don’t think he’s thrilled about the idea of me going through with this pregnancy. He’s said before he’s not really sure he ever wants to be a dad.”

Kristy sighed, shaking her head in sympathy. “No eighteen year old guy really wants to be a dad or has any clue what being a dad even means.” She dug around in the pocket of her scrubs and produced a pen and notepad. She opened the pad up and scribbled on one page. “Let me tell you a secret, Tiffany. This is something not many people know. Your sister doesn’t know this, for example. Okay?” I nodded. “When Harper was conceived, her father and I were not a couple. I went to a party and had a little too much to drink. I lost my virginity to the first guy who hit on me…and ended up pregnant.” I raised my eyebrows. “Now, I got very, very lucky. He had hit on me because he’d had a thing for me for a long time, and he slept with me because he cared, not because he was drunk and horny. He vowed to stand by me and we decided to tell everyone we had been secretly in a relationship. By the time she was born, we really were together, and we’ve been together for more than three years now.” She stood up and brushed off her ass, the notepad still in her hand. “Do you feel like that’s something you could say about Adam?”

I thought about that. “I just don’t know. I know that if he had a child, he’d be involved in his kid’s life. But I’m not sure about beyond that.”

Kristy smiled gently. “I know things seem impossible right now for you. But you’ll make a decision that’s right for you. I’m confident of that.” She looked down at the notepad and tore off the piece she’d written on. “I have to get Harper home and make her some dinner. But if you need anything else, call me. I’d be glad to listen and give an opinion on anything.”

I looked at the paper. “Thanks,” I said, feeling just as confused as when I had walked over to her house.

“Any time. Good luck.”

***

I went back to my bedroom window and sat there for a few more hours. Maria came home on her bike, and then Mother came home a short time later. The two of them left again within half an hour. Mother had come to the door and told me where they were going, but I hadn’t really listened.

I finally moved away when I realized how hungry I was. I was digging through the fridge when Shannon came home. She didn’t stop in to say hello before she went upstairs. I made a sandwich that didn’t make me feel sick—I hadn’t thrown up yet, but all kinds of foods were making me come very close.

Just as I was finishing, Shannon came in to look for her own dinner. I hadn’t seen her in days, because she’d spent the weekend at her boyfriend’s place in Long Island. “Hey, Tiff, where’s Mom?”

I shrugged at her. “I don’t know. She and Maria went out somewhere.” I was still hungry and suddenly, orange juice sounded especially good. I dropped my plate in the dishwasher and went to look through the fridge again.

Shannon stood behind me as I dug in the refrigerator. “Hand me those carrot sticks,” she requested. I passed them over my shoulder. “Anything interesting going on in your life?” she asked me.

I didn’t turn back from the fridge as I dug even further back, to the very back. “Nope,” I said, not really wanting to get into a conversation with Shannon.

My sister did not seem to notice that I wasn’t really paying attention to her. “Adam and I went to a concert in the park on Saturday, and then on Sunday his parents took us out to dinner,” she said. “What did you and your Adam do this weekend?”

I barely listened to her. There was no orange juice anywhere in the fridge. I could have sworn I’d seen some earlier that day. All of my stress over everything came pouring out over one little, non-issue. I burst into tears.

Shannon looked shocked. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re all out of orange juice.”

“Orange juice? You’re sobbing out of control, and you tell me it’s about orange juice? What the hell is going on with you?” Shannon came over and stood beside me, putting her hand on my back.

I didn’t want to tell her, Miss Perfect, the queen of everything and the apple of my parents’ eyes. But I remembered two things. First was the fact that Shannon herself had bought the pregnancy tests that I’d taken and had presumably taken the missing one herself. Second was something Adam had said when we’d first gotten back together—when we’d gone out for a cup of coffee. He’d told me that he thought that if I took the time to talk to my sisters, they’d take the time to listen. I hadn’t believed him at the time. But I’ve learned he knows what he’s talking about most of the time. And I know that he’d basically had to make the time to talk to Byron when the two of them had been at odds, and it had worked out well. They were closer than ever.

I looked at Shannon. We look a lot alike. I’m a little taller than she is, and she dresses way more preppy and professional than I do. But anyone could tell we’re sisters. We’ve just never been close the way some sisters are. We don’t tell each other everything the way Adam does with Jordan, and we don’t go out of our way to spend time with each other. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be helpful at a time like this. And who else did I have to talk to?

I shut the fridge and turned to her. “I’m pregnant,” I told her, not quite believing I’d said it out loud.

Shannon took a step back. “Wow,” she said. She turned away for a moment, and at first I thought she was going to walk away. Instead she sat down in a chair with her carrot sticks and patted the seat next to her. I sat down gingerly, not sure how this was going to go. “How far along are you?” she asked.

“I think I got pregnant on the fourth.”

She looked a little surprised but said nothing about that. “That was about two and a half weeks ago. I’m guessing you had your period about two weeks before that?” I shrugged at her. I’d have to go upstairs and look at my calendar. Even with the pill, my periods are iffy at best. Half the time I get nothing but spotting anyway. But that sounded about right. “That means you’re about four and a half weeks. Still pretty early on.”

Leave it to Shannon to deal with numbers instead of emotions. “Yeah.”

She ate a carrot stick silently for a second, then reached out and gave my arm a squeeze. I was surprised, because that kind of gesture is uncharacteristic of our family and now she’d touched me like that twice. “You know, when I was a little younger than you—shortly before I turned nineteen—I thought I was pregnant. I was more than a week late. I took a test and it came up negative, and then my period showed up two days later.”

“I know,” I said, thinking about the box of tests hidden under the sink.

“You know?”

“Well, I didn’t know all of that. I guessed. I actually took the rest of the tests in the pack you bought.”

Shannon relaxed a little. “I was in a really bad place at the time. I had gotten into a short relationship. We’d slept together a handful of times before I realized he had problems I just didn’t want to deal with. Like dealing drugs type of problems.” I raised my eyebrows. Shannon didn’t normally associate with drug dealers. “I was really lucky to turn up not to be pregnant, so I’ve been extra careful ever since.”

I winced. “I know, I know, I’m an idiot,” I said, feeling like she was jumping down my throat for making a mistake.

She was chagrined. “Tiff, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to phrase it that way. You’re not an idiot, and anyway, if you were an idiot for putting yourself in a position where you could get pregnant, then so am I.” I looked at her and she smiled a little bit. “Who else have you told?” she asked.

“Adam, of course. And his brother’s girlfriend, Haley. The one who used to hate me?” Shannon looked confused for a moment, but I saw something click into place and she nodded. “And earlier today, I had a talk with your friend Kristy.”

Shannon bit her lip, and I couldn’t read her expression. “That was smart,” she said after a minute. “Kristy really surprised us all when she turned up pregnant. She was the last person you’d expect that out of—not only did she have her whole life planned down to the hour, but she also never dated. She’s still a go-getter. She works hard and, as you can see, she’s a great mom.”

I thought about that. “Even though she says it’s really hard and she spends most of her day completely out of control.”

Shannon nodded. “She makes the difficult look easy.”

I grabbed a carrot stick and popped it in my mouth, not because I wanted one, but because it gave me an excuse not to talk for a moment. I wasn’t exactly a go-getter like Kristy. Hell, I was about as far from that as you could get. It’s hard for me to get motivated and excited about my future. I’ve just never seen the point. If I had and kept the baby, would I be as good a mom as Kristy was? I would be in the same position she was—would my mom help support me until I found a job? Could I handle working and being a mom all the same time? Somehow, I didn’t think I could deal with all that.

Shannon had gone back to the fridge and pulled out some cottage cheese. “Want some?” she asked. I looked at the lumpy food and shook my head violently. She took a good look at my face and retracted the food so I couldn’t see it. “Oh, sorry, Tiffany.”

I turned away. “That’s okay,” I said, not really meaning it. This was actually the best conversation I’d had with Shannon in years. I wasn’t about to ruin that because I was not in the mood to look at her dinner. “Tell me something, Shannon. If you had actually been pregnant when you thought you were back in those days, what would you have done?”

She took a deep breath. “That’s a good question. I’ll be honest with you: I never got that far in my thinking.” Shannon looked away from the conversation, out the window in the kitchen for a moment. “I probably wouldn’t have kept the baby. I don’t know how that would have worked out, but I just don’t think I could have been a good parent and finish school.” She had emptied her bowl while she was thinking. “Tiff, don’t let that impact your decision in any way. I’ve heard many times over that you don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re in that position. If you decide to keep the baby,” she said seriously, “you’ll probably find a strength you didn’t know you had.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. Shannon excused herself to take a long, hot bubble bath and I sat alone in the kitchen. I was thinking again. Both Kristy and Shannon had given me some good advice, whether they knew it or not. I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and pulled up Adam’s entry. His sister Claire answered the phone. “I think he just came in,” she said. “Hang on a minute.”

Adam came to the phone and he sounded hoarse and anxious. “Tiffany,” he said quietly, “Hi. What’s going on?”

I couldn’t believe I was going to say the words I was about to say. “I decided. I’m going to make an appointment to get an abortion.”

 And each day I learn just a little bit more I don’t know why but I do know what for If we’re all going somewhere let’s get there soon Oh this song’s got no title just words and a tune Elton John, This Song Has No Title

Mary Anne

It’s been said that in two years as BSC secretary, I never made a single mistake. I never forgot to pencil in a class, appointment or lesson. I never double-booked a job or forgot to write one down.

I think that’s why Kristy was even more shocked than I was when I’d agreed to babysit for Harper at the same time I was scheduled to be at the doctor’s office. We weren’t twelve any more, and as Kristy pointed out, “That just isn’t like you, Mary Anne.”

I told her I’d find a suitable substitute, but that’s easier said than done. Kristy doesn’t let just anyone watch her daughter. They have to have a driver’s license and be CPR trained. Both of us look back at how people would let us care for their infants when we were in middle school and we’re astonished.

Jeff was my last hope. I’d already checked around with my old friends from my high school days. The few who were still around town were working. I figured if Jeff wasn’t free, maybe one of his friends—one of the triplets or Haley, maybe—would be willing to help out. It was only going to be a couple hours. In Jeff’s case, it would be a good way to get out of the house. I know he’s been going stir-crazy without a car of his own, having to rely on Dad and Sharon and Byron to drive him everywhere. I can definitely relate to that. Ever since Pete’s car died earlier this summer, it’s been dicey. Sometimes, I have to sit around for a couple hours just waiting for him to come pick me up.

Jeff hadn’t seemed too thrilled when I brought the idea up. “What am I supposed to do with a three year old for a couple hours?” he’d asked. I actually had a few concerns about him hanging out with Harper. He didn’t sound as depressed as he had just a couple days ago when Pete and I had seen him at Dad’s ridiculous ‘family dinner,’ but that didn’t mean he was really up to running through Kristy’s apartment after Harper, who had enough energy for five adults.

“Just make sure she doesn’t hurt herself, really,” I’d told him. “Honestly, she comes up with enough ideas to entertain herself. That child’s got a wicked imagination and enough toys to start her own toy store.”

He’d taken a deep breath and I was certain he was about to make up some excuse why he couldn’t. I was desperate. “If you do it, I’ll get you candy, whatever kind you want,” I’d tossed out.

Jeff had started laughing, just a soft chuckle at first. “Mary Anne,” he’d said after a moment. “I’m not twelve any more. That kind of bribe just doesn’t work on me nowadays.”

“Well, then, what kind of bribe does work on you these days?”

The chuckle got louder. “Liquor and condoms are always appreciated,” he’d joked.

I’d paused for a moment, almost seriously contemplating getting Pete to buy him a bottle of Schnapps. Almost. “C’mon, Jeff, I can’t miss this doctor’s appointment, and I can’t take Harper with me. You’re my last hope,” I’d pleaded.

Of course, in the end, he’d agreed to help. I’d taken Harper shopping for the morning and given her lunch in the back seat of the car while we’d driven around. Since my doctor’s office is out by Kristy’s place, I’d decided to pick Jeff up and drive him back to Kristy’s house. That way, Harper could play with all her toys and no one had to worry about baby-proofing for her.

Jeff was sitting outside waiting for me when I arrived. He was looking up toward the sky in a daze as I drove up. Harper was amusing herself with a stuffed horse when I stopped the car. “Hurry up, Auntie Mary Anne!” she called as I honked the horn. “My unicorn wants to fly some more and we need to move!”

Jeff picked up a duffel bag and scrambled over to the driveway. He climbed into the passenger’s seat and looked into the back seat cautiously, then back at me. “Hey, Jeff,” I said. “Thanks for agreeing to do this.” He shrugged and I started the car back up and turned over my shoulder as I backed down the driveway. “This is Harper. I think you’ve met?”

Harper looked at me and then Jeff, who was peering at her over the seat as if she might be concealing a bomb in the confines of her car seat. She frowned. “Who’s that?” she asked me.

“This is my brother, Jeff. You and Jeff are going to play while I go to the doctor.”

Harper eyed him suspiciously. “Uncle Jeff?” she asked.

Jeff shook his head and spoke directly to her. “Nope. Just Jeff.”

Harper leaned forward. “This is my unicorn. His name is Harry.” She held the horse out to Jeff.

Jeff took the toy seriously and looked it over. “Nice to meet you, Harry,” he said. Harper grinned at him and he handed Harry back to her.

I smiled at Jeff myself. “She likes you,” I said. “She’s normally a little suspicious of people when she first meets them.”

Jeff still looked a little nervous. “I’m pretty good with kids,” he said distractedly.

Harper went back to her game of unicorn play and I looked at Jeff. He was digging around in his bag, searching for something that he wasn’t finding. “How are things?” I asked.

He is an expert at shrugging. “What things?” he asked.

“Anything,” I shrugged back at him. “How’s Byron? How’s Dawn? How’s work?”

He smiled a little. “That’s a lot of questions,” he teased.

“You don’t have to answer them all,” I said with a smile. “I just thought it would make the trip more pleasant if we chatted.”

Jeff sighed. “Well, Dawn’s being a pain in my…” he paused and looked into the back seat, as if he’d forgotten Harper was back there.

I stifled a laugh. “Neck?” I suggested.

“Right,” he agreed. “I don’t know what her problem is, but she wants to know everything about my life. I mean, every last detail. She keeps asking about my stay in the hospital, my shrink, my meds.”

I nodded. “I think that she’s just trying to make up for missing a very important part of your life. She feels guilty for not being there for you.”

He shrugged yet again. “It’s not like she could have done anything anyway. I know I sounded mad at her the other night, but I’m really not. She was just picking at some open wounds at the time. I think it’s great she’s out there living her own life. I can’t wait until I get to do that someday. Of course,” he stopped for a moment and made a face, “knowing my parents, they aren’t going to want me living on my own. I might stop taking my meds, you know.” Jeff looked over at me. My main attention was on the road, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye. “Part of me figures I’ll just get through the next school year. I’ll work and I’ll suffer through the community college and save all my money. And next summer, I can move to North Carolina and get my own place.”

We stopped at a stop light and I looked over at him. “North Carolina?”

“Byron’s going to Duke,” he explained.

I smiled. That explained everything. In fact, he sounded like Pete when he and I were getting ready to go off to college. The only difference was that Pete and I had been dating for about three years, while Jeff and Byron had been going out for about three months. “I thought you said you’d never leave California,” I said.

“Hopefully this would only be for a few years. Temporary.”

I nodded. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get out from under your dad’s thumb. Why do you think Pete and I got married so young?”

I was only kidding, but he took me seriously. He didn’t comment on it, but his tone changed. “Is it hard being married while you’re still in school?” he asked.

I thought about that. “Yes,” I answered finally. “I can’t compare it to anything except being single. But it is tough sometimes. We have a hard time making ends meet on occasion, and during the school year we hardly see each other. I guess that’s the price we pay for going to school an hour apart from each other.”

He was silent for a moment. “Why did you decide to get married?” he finally asked.

I flicked my eyes over to him. “You’re starting to sound like Dawn,” I said with a small smile. “You’re asking all kinds of nosy questions.”

“Well, we are related,” Jeff joked with a smirk. I didn’t reply so he went on. “I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything,” he said. “I’m just curious. Most of the people I know who marry in their teens either have no idea what they’re doing in life, or she was pregnant and they ‘had to’ get married. You don’t seem to have either of those, uh, ‘qualifications.’”

I sighed. “No. I definitely wasn’t pregnant when I got married, and Pete and I both have goals and plans.” He kept looking at me quietly, so I went on. “I think it was just the next logical step. We’d missed each other a lot, even though we were only an hour apart.”

Jeff was serious. “Do you ever regret getting married?”

I thought about that for a moment. There were definitely days and times—usually when Pete and I were arguing—that I did indeed regret hurrying into the wedding. “Let me answer that by telling you something Kristy says,” I told him. I glanced into the backseat and looked at Harper, who was still playing unicorn with Harry. “When people ask her if she regrets having a baby at seventeen, she always says, ‘I never regret my daughter, but sometimes I wish she’d waited a few years.’” He smiled at that.

We arrived at Kristy’s place and I gathered all Harper’s things. “Jeff, will you get Harper out? I’ll get the door open.”

Jeff eyed her warily. “Sure,” he said, climbing out of the car and opening the back door. “Okay, Harper, time to go inside. Can you get out of your seat all by yourself?” Harper nodded and Jeff unbuckled her belt. “How about you let me hold Harry for you and then you and Harry can both fly into the house?”

Harper grinned at him and handed over the horse. I unlocked the door and held it open. Jeff grabbed her when she stood up and scooped her up under one of his arms. I smiled as he made whooshing noises and swept her into the house.

Jeff set Harper down on the floor and handed her toy back. She ran off. “I’m gonna go potty,” she called.

I watched her trot down the hallway. “Let me know if you need any help,” I said. I turned back to Jeff. “Harper’s room is the second door on the right, bathroom’s the first door on the right. She shouldn’t get hungry, but you can cut up an apple and put a little bit of peanut butter on it if she does. She’ll eat about two slices, so either eat the rest or put it in the fridge in a baggie.” I walked toward the kitchen and Jeff followed. “Emergency numbers are here. Call Kristy first if you need something, but if she doesn’t answer, you can call her mom. Her boyfriend is out of town, so don’t bother calling him. You don’t have to clean up after Harper as long as she keeps the toys in her room. If you decide to play in the living room, we’ll put everything away when I get back, before I take you home. Any questions?”

Jeff looked a little overwhelmed, but shook his head. “Emergency numbers on fridge. Apple and peanut butter if hungry. Try to keep toys in the bedroom. Think I got it under control.”

I smiled encouragingly. “I should be back in about an hour, maybe a little longer. I’ll call you if I’m going to be longer than that.” I checked my watch. “I’d better get going. Good luck.” Jeff shrugged. “Bye-bye, Harper! Be good!” I called.

She popped her head out of the bathroom door, looking disgruntled. “I’m always good!” she shouted back, and then slammed the door behind her. Sometimes, Harper is very much her mother’s daughter. I rolled my eyes at Jeff and opened the front door again. He actually smiled and I heard the door lock click into place after I left.

***

I don’t know what I expected to find when I came back sixty-five minutes later. Maybe Harper making a giant mess of her bedroom while Jeff was sitting in the living room, playing with whatever he’d been searching for in his bag. Instead, I came inside to find the CD player on, playing a nature CD I’d never heard at a low volume and no one in Harper’s room. “Hello?” I called, a little concerned.

I walked into the kitchen, where Jeff’s bag was sitting on a chair. “Jeff? Harper?” I called, a little bit louder this time.

A voice came from the living room. “Shh, Auntie Mary Anne! We’re sleeping in here!”

I followed Harper’s call and found the couch torn apart. A card table from the corner and the child sized table from her bedroom were set in the middle of the floor, covered in blankets and couch cushions. Harper’s face was peeking through a gap between two blankets. “It’s a tent!” she announced.

“I see that,” I replied. I looked at the tent with a bit of dismay for a moment, until I realized that the mess would literally take just moments to disassemble and put away. “What have you been doing with your tent?” I asked her.

“We went fishing and gathered firewood and then we were chased by a bear for a while!” she cried.

A couch cushion popped out from the other side of the table and Jeff shuffled out of the edge. “We fished in the tub with imaginary poles and fish, and then gathered up all her toys and tried to sort them all out and put them away. I figured if we decided to have a snack, we’d ‘roast’ the apple slices and eat them off forks.”

I thought back upon the mess that had been Harper’s room when I’d picked her up earlier in the morning and realized that, when I’d peeked in the door while looking for the two of them, it had been pretty clean. “I’m really impressed,” I said, meaning it.

Jeff looked embarrassed. “We were just having fun, and I thought we might as well make things a little neater while we were at it.”

I had left Harper’s travel bag—now that she was no longer in diapers, Kristy no longer called it a diaper bag—by the front door and set my purse on top of it when I’d come in. “Hey, Harper, do you want to leave your tent up? You can show Mommy when she gets home.”

“Yeah!” Harper had climbed back inside the tent and closed the flap behind her.

I sat down in front of the tent and opened the flap. “Okay, we can leave it up. But I need you to come out now. We have to take Jeff back home.”

Harper’s face turned stormy. “Nooooooo!” she shrieked. “I don’t want him to go!”

Jeff glanced at me. “I think someone’s ready for an n-a-p,” he said, rubbing one eye and looking like he could have been talking about himself.

I nodded. “I’m hoping she’ll s-l-e-e-p on the way back to your place.”

“No fair spelling things!” Harper cried.

Jeff looked at me and started to laugh. “C’mere, Harper, and I’ll teach you how to spell some words on the way back to my house.”

“Will you teach me how to spell poop and pee?”

I shook my head at him and he smiled an impish smile like he’d had when he was a kid. “Sure, and anything else you want,” he told Harper.

“Jeff!”

He ignored me and spoke directly to Harper. “Poop is spelled j-l-a-w.”

“Jeff!” I repeated. He looked at me. “If you’re going to teach her dirty words, at least teach them to her properly.” He grinned.

Harper let Jeff carry her back out to the car, as he spelled every assorted “dirty” word she could come up with. By the time we got back on to the street, Harper was singing, making up her own spelling to other words. “M-s-r-v-o spells Mommy, i-y-n-p-q spells Daddy,” she sang. But five minutes into the trip, she was already nodding off.

I turned to Jeff briefly as Harper went quiet. “You were really good with her. You ever think of doing that for a living?”

Jeff pretended to be confused. “What? Make tents in people’s living rooms?”

I didn’t take my eyes off the road. “You could work at a daycare or teach preschool,” I pressed on, despite his sarcasm.

“Right,” Jeff said, slumping down in his seat. “Because parents really want mentally ill gay men working with their children.”

I cringed. “Jeff, you will get your meds sorted out. It might take a while, but it will happen. After that, as long as you keep taking them, you probably won’t have too much trouble.” He didn’t reply to that, just slumped a little farther and tucked his head down. He reminded me of Harper just a little bit, when she’s getting ready for a really good pout. “Can I tell you something one of my professors said last year?” Jeff still didn’t respond, so I went on. “He said there’s a difference between having a mental illness and being mentally ill. Having a mental illness is a lifelong issue, but, for most people, if they follow their doctor’s orders, take their medication and keep up with therapy, they’re fine most of the time. You can’t tell what problems people have just by looking at them most of the time, can you?”

He looked at me sideways. “What’s your major again?” he asked.

I smirked at him. “Psychology. Remember, I’m going to grad school for a degree in play therapy.”

“Play therapy. Sounds like a good excuse to never grow up.”

“Hey,” I said, glad he was joking around with me. “You were the one who was just sitting in a tent made out of blankets. I know that was your idea, not Harper’s.” He held his head up a little and I could see he was actually smiling. “Anyway, I’m hoping to eventually get my doctorate. Dr. Mary Anne Black sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”

Jeff sat back up. “Yeah, it does.” He was back to being serious. “I wish I had half the idea you do of where I want to go with my life,” he sighed. “I feel like my life is a piece of sheet music right now…and I’ve never learned to read sheet music. I’m sitting here trying to play an instrument I don’t know how to play, and I don’t know the song.”

I pulled up to a stop light and looked him over. “I wasn’t kidding before when I said you should work with kids. I think you’d be good at that.” He scoffed and looked out the window. “I don’t think that your…situation…would really be a problem, but if you’re concerned, you could always get a job teaching older kids. There’s less concern there about someone’s sexuality because there’s little to no chance you’ll be changing diapers.”

Jeff turned to me as the light changed back. “Can you really see me teaching kids and ‘shaping the future of America?’” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or serious.

“Yes, I really can. If it’s something that you can see too, then go get a teaching degree.”

He looked straight ahead, his face set and expressionless. “Maybe,” he said eventually, not looking back at me.

We drove quietly for a while. Harper was still fast asleep when we pulled back up at Dad and Sharon’s house. Jeff hopped out of the car and turned to me. “I’m only in town for a couple more weeks, but let Kristy know that if she needs a sitter and I’m free, I’d be glad to help her out.”

I smiled at him. “Had a good time, huh?” I teased.

He smiled back a little. “She’s a really neat kid.”

I watched as he closed the car door and walked up toward the house. When he was halfway there, I rolled my window down and called out to him. “Hey, Jeff,” I said. He turned around. “I know you’re getting a lot of unsolicited advice from people, and I’m not a professional—yet. I’m just your crazy stepsister, who shows up drunk at holiday parties and got married way too young. But think about what I said.” He just nodded.

By the time Kristy made it home, I was late picking Pete up from work. The two of us decided we weren’t in the mood to cook, so we went out to eat. We got home and put in a movie, ready a quiet evening in front of the television. Pete poured some wine and got everything set up for the two of us, and I excused myself to change into something more comfortable. After I put on my pajamas, I took a quick peek at my email, which I hadn’t checked all day. There was only one new message, so I decided to go ahead and read it.

To: mablack83 From: superjeff15 Subject: thanks hey Mary Anne i just wanted to say thank u for the advice u gave me earlier. i might look into getting into a teacher program when i get back to california. think i could maybe teach middle school? thanks again for being supportive. i owe u one. love, Jeff

Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be There’s a shadow hanging over me Oh, yesterday came suddenly The Beatles, Yesterday

Adam

Tiffany’s never been what some people would call a mover and shaker. So when she called me Tuesday night saying she’d decided not to go through with the pregnancy, I fully expected not to hear anything about it again for a while. I’d expected to be the one doing research, calling to ask questions and make appointments.

So I was really surprised when she called me just after I got home from work on Wednesday. She’d gone online and found a place in Stamford that did “family planning” confidentially, for a reasonable fee. She’d already called them and found out that it was a two-step process: first you came in, filled out paperwork, did some lab work, had an ultrasound and talked with a counselor. Then you waited a week, and if you still wanted to go through with it, you got your abortion, just like that. It was relatively easy. Tiff said that, based upon the conversation she’d had with the woman on the phone, she thought they largely catered to young people who didn’t want their parents to know. That sounded a lot like us.

She’d made an appointment, too. The place was only open on weekdays, so her appointment was Monday morning. She’d seemed surprised that I’d wanted to come with her to the initial appointment, but I’d told her that we were in this together, no matter what. I thought she might need me. Plus, I kinda wanted to know what was going on and what would happen during the “procedure.” So I made the decision to call in sick to work on Monday and go with her.

I honestly hadn’t known whether to be nervous or relieved when Tiff decided on an abortion. I mean, I really, really didn’t want to be a dad at this point in my life. But at the same time, I felt like this was spinning so much out of my control. I usually have a tight rein over what’s going on around me. I’m always at the center of everything. Byron calls me a social director, which makes me sound like a cast member of The Love Boat, but I get the reference. I’ve always been a bit of a leader, although sometimes I pull the strings behind the scenes. I thought I could handle everything life could possibly throw at me.

But then Tiff had told me she was pregnant. I just didn’t understand it, because we’d been so careful. By now, I’d had about a week to think about it, and I’d realized it didn’t matter how it had happened. All that really mattered was that it had happened, and Tiffany had made up her mind about what she was going to do.

I couldn’t decide why I was so completely uneasy about it. If I’d been the one making the decisions, it’s what I would have chosen. I think it was the fact that Tiff hadn’t needed me after all. She’d made up her mind and gotten all the ducks in a row without really getting my input at all.

I found that I needed someone to bring all this to—someone to whom I could say the words out loud without judgment. In the past, Jordan and I had always talked about everything. I can’t exactly explain why I hadn’t said a word to him about this. It’s a combination of things. He wasn’t there when I first wanted to talk to someone—he’d been out with Haley. Then there’s the fact that he hasn’t exactly been the most supportive person in the universe about my relationship with Tiff. He wasn’t really keen on my picking up the relationship, and he wasn’t exactly happy for me when he found out Tiff and I had started having sex. I’m not sure if his problem was one of jealousy or whether he was legitimately concerned about me.

I’ve spent the last four years of my life seeing Jordan as my best friend, but as I stopped and thought about it, we’d never had a really serious conversation. The time when I’d told him about my sex life was the closest we’d ever come. I guess you could argue that it was because neither one of us had really had a serious problem before. But we had had issues, and we’d either made jokes about them, or we’d pretended they hadn’t existed.

More than a year ago, Jordan and I had all these plans. We were going to go to college together—or at least, near each other. We’d been mostly looking at schools in NYC. After I’d heard about the program at OU and had gotten excited about it, I’d tried to convince Jordan that there was a school out in Ohio for him. I’d sorta figured that the two of us would apply together and Byron would just kind of fall into place and follow us. But then we’d learned that Jordan was being scouted for his baseball skills. I was surprised because, although I knew on some level that he was a better player than I was (he put more effort into it) I didn’t think he was that much better.

But after a while, I’d realized that, even if the scout had been interested in me, I didn’t really want to play ball in college. That was the difference between me and Jordan. For him, before Haley came along, baseball equaled life. He lived and breathed ball most of the time. So I wasn’t really shocked when he’d taken a scholarship. What had surprised me was that, of the two schools that had tried to recruit him, he’d picked Florida. The other one was so much closer to home—and to Ohio. After that had happened, I hadn’t been surprised when Byron had decided on Duke. I’m not exactly a cartographer, but I was pretty sure that would put him closer geographically to Jordan than to me. On some level, I felt as if over the next few weeks when we left for school, I was losing my brothers—for good.

Sunday night, just about everyone was home for once. Margo had just come home from camp, and Claire wasn’t leaving for her camp until morning. Mallory was the only one who wasn’t home—she had gone to spend some time with her friend Jessi in New York City. My sisters were all downstairs playing a game of Monopoly and they’d somehow convinced Nick to join them. I think they were regretting that, because he was kicking their asses. Jordan was upstairs talking on the phone in our room. I knew exactly who he was talking to, because there’s only one person in the world he calls Honey (thank goodness.) He was trying to convince her that things were okay between them despite some incident that had happened earlier that day that I hadn’t asked about. He spends a lot of time doing stuff like that.

Byron had shut himself up in his room. The girls and Nick had asked him to join in their game, but he’d declined. He’d been walking around for the past week with a funny little smile on his face. I wasn’t sure what that was all about, but it was nice seeing him happy for once. I was a little reluctant to go talk to him about the abortion because I didn’t want to be the one to wipe that grin away.

I knocked on his door anyway. He opened it almost instantly, as if he’d been standing there waiting for me. “Oh, hey Adam,” he said pleasantly. “I was just about to head out. Jeff got a reprieve on his curfew, and we’re going to the drive in tonight.”

I raised my eyebrows briefly. The drive in had been closed down for years until the summer before. It always plays a double feature on Saturday and Sunday nights. You’d get there about nine and not get home until one or even later. That left plenty of time for—well, you get the picture. “Sounds like fun,” I said, not really feeling it. “Have a good time.”

I must not be any good at faking enthusiasm, because he saw right through me. “Come on in,” he said, looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “I’ve got a few minutes.”

I followed him in and saw that his room was, for once, not neat as a pin. I wanted to smile about that, because Byron had said recently that he cleans when he’s upset. I guess for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t spending his whole day worrying about everything. “Tiff made up her mind,” I told him. He edged his butt onto the side of his desk, trying to indicate he had all the time in the universe. “We’re going in for a visit before the… procedure.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t read his expression. I had worried a little bit about even telling him. Byron’s always seemed a little more conservative than Jordan and me; although I’m not sure if that’s just the clothes and the way he has of always doing the expected thing. I knew he wasn’t going to turn around and start telling me how to live my life, but the last thing I needed right now was someone giving me disapproving looks. “And how do you feel about that?” he asked, his face still carefully neutral.

I popped up on to Nick’s desk so we were looking at each other head on. “Relieved, for the most part,” I told him.

He nodded. “I can understand that. How’s the rest of you feeling?”

“What?”

“You said you were relieved for the most part. How about the…least part?” Byron chuckled lightly at the phrasing. “How is that part of you that’s not relieved feeling?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Irritated,” I said slowly. He motioned for me to go on. “She just went and planned all this without me, despite the fact that we said we would do everything together.”

“Ahh.” Byron’s eyes lit up. I frowned at him. “Now, I understand. It’s hard letting go of a sense of control, isn’t it? Putting something that’s important to you in someone else’s hands?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but I stopped. I was looking at Byron through completely different eyes right now. What happened to my brother who was scared of everything? He’d been replaced by a philosopher. He realized I was staring at him and he started to blush. Suddenly, the effect was gone. Maybe Byron wasn’t really that different after all—maybe he was just growing up.

In any case, he shook himself and, realizing I wasn’t going to reply, went on with his thought. “Think about this, Adam. You had told me a couple of things the other day, and I’m basically just going to spit them back to you with a different spin, okay? You told me that Tiff had wanted you to tell her what to do. Well, maybe she just realized that it’s time for her to make her own decisions and be responsible for her own life. That’s a great thing, and it’s at least partly thanks to you.” He subtly checked his watch, hoping I wouldn’t notice. “Also, you basically said this was what you were hoping for. Maybe you should be less worried about how it comes about and just be thankful that things are going the way you wanted?”

I sighed deeply. “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure he was so correct about anything, but it was easier to admit he could be right than to argue about whether he actually was right.

“I gotta tell you,” he said. “This has been a touchy situation, but you’ve been handling it like a mature, responsible man.”

“Instead of kicking and screaming on the ground like a toddler, which is what I want to do?”

“Right.” He shifted and was standing up. “When is the big appointment?” he asked.

I took the hint that the conversation was winding to a close. “We have a preliminary appointment tomorrow morning. They do some tests, check everything out, tell us what to expect. Then they make you wait a week so you have time to change your mind.” I had been silently praying that Tiff wouldn’t change her mind at the last second. “Now that everything’s decided, I have to ask you: I know you wouldn’t have said anything about it before, but you’re not...all anti-abortion, are you?”

Byron smiled. “No. I’m about as pro-choice as they come. Think about it: what right do I have to tell women what to do with their bodies when I don’t even want to touch them?” I almost smiled at that. “Besides, I’m very liberal in my politics in general. I’m for social services and obviously for gay rights. Being pro-choice just kind of fits in there. There are things that I’d like to do someday that were once considered illegal, and some that still are illegal.” I gave him a confused look. “I can’t really get married, can I?” he asked and I nodded in understanding. “I don’t want some politician telling me what I can and can’t do with my reproductive system, so I’m definitely not going to do that to anyone else, either.”

That made me feel a little better. “Thanks, man. I’ll keep you updated.”

He aimed a fake punch at my chin. “You’d better. In the meantime, I’ll be here tomorrow morning if you want to talk some more before you leave. Just come on in and wake me; it’s cool.” He grabbed his wallet and a couple of other things off his bed. “I think Jordan’s going to be here all night, so if you need anything while I’m gone, he’d probably be the best bet.”

Obviously, Byron didn’t know that Jordan didn’t know. “I should be okay.”

Byron picked up a pillow off his bed as well and stuffed it in his armpit. “Sorry to have to cut the conversation short, but I just can’t keep the man I love waiting. See you later.” He slid out the door.

I gawked at his retreating back. He’d slipped that one phrase in so easily that you’d think it was something he said all the time. But even though I knew Byron and Jeff were getting close and falling in love, I never expected Byron to be just so easy-going about saying it out loud. Hell, just a week ago, he’d stood in almost the exact same place I was standing right now and denied he even felt that way. Something had definitely changed for him.

I didn’t want to go be sociable with any of my family, so I sat down in Byron’s desk chair and looked at his desk. I knew he wouldn’t mind. During the school year, it’s usually stacked with books and notebooks and calculators and all kinds of other nerdy things, but all of it is meticulously organized. Now he just had three things: a checklist of what was allowed and not allowed in the dorms at Duke, with initials next to just about every allowed item: Bs for what Byron was bringing, Js for Julio; a course catalog for Duke, propped open to the required classes for biomedical engineering, with dates and comments written into the margins; and a map of the school, with his dorm and the buildings for all his classes highlighted. I almost laughed. Leave it to Byron to have the route to all his classes memorized weeks before he even moved into his dorm. This summer had been one of change for him in many ways, but he was still the same old Byron in many others.

I leaned back in his chair, putting his neatly organized future out of my mind. This summer had had some big changes for me, too. I had picked up an old relationship and finally lost my virginity—and now I regretted both of those things. I wasn’t sure I had actually changed at all, though. I hadn’t found ‘true love’ the way my brothers thought they had. I hadn’t discovered my mysteriously hidden purpose in life or anything like that. Other than getting a girl I liked pregnant, I really hadn’t done much at all…and that one thing wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.

I couldn’t wait for it to be morning so we could just get this over with.

***

I left my house more than two hours early for the appointment. Because I hadn’t told anyone but Byron, I had to keep up the appearance that I was going in to work. I drove aimlessly around town for quite a while, but I was still ridiculously early arriving at Tiff’s house. Despite that, Tiff was already waiting on the front porch.

I thought I looked bad until I saw her. We hadn’t seen each other for a week, ever since we’d left Haley’s house, and she looked like she hadn’t slept since then. She hadn’t bothered with makeup or combing her hair and her lack of expression reminded me of Jeff’s the last time I’d seen him. She rubbed one hand across her eyes as I pulled up to the driveway and I guessed that she’d spent some time crying. “Hi,” she said lifelessly as she climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“How are you?” I asked, completely pointlessly, as she put on her seatbelt.

She sighed and leaned her head sideways against the seat back and looked at me. “This has been the worst week of my life,” she said, still not displaying any emotion.

I nodded as I put the car into reverse. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Tiff continued to stare in my direction. Despite the fact that I was looking over my shoulder while backing down the driveway, I could feel her eyes on me. “I just want this to be over with so I can move on with my life,” she said morosely. “I can’t really deal with my feelings about this until it’s finished.”

I sighed a little, feeling a little bit more relieved. If she was desperate to get it over, then she was less likely to change her mind in the next week. “We’re going to be early,” I commented, just to say something.

She shrugged. “That’s okay. Maybe they’ll be able to get us in early. Anyway, I’m going to feel the same way whether we sit in my house waiting for the ‘proper’ time to leave or if we go now. We might as well go now.”

We were quiet the whole way to Stamford, until just before we arrived. I knew the general area where the clinic was located, but not its exact location. Tiff pulled a set of directions out of her purse and looked them over. I was more than a little surprised; she’s not usually that prepared. She saw me glance over at her and her lips twitched into an attempted smile. “Shannon printed this out for me,” she said, reading my expression accurately.

“You told her?” I was very impressed by the fact that Tiff and Shannon had had an actual conversation. From what I’ve seen, Shannon usually talks, and Tiffany either ignores her or is rude to her.

“Yeah. It was amazing. She said,” Tiff paused and looked up, struggling to remember the actual conversation, “‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ whatever that means. In any case, she said she stands behind me no matter happens.” I reached out my right hand to her and she took it and squeezed. “That makes two people in this whole universe that feel that way.”

We pulled up a short time later. I stopped the car and cracked the windows, concerned about the heat. Tiffany looked over at me expectantly, and I could see panic growing in her eyes. I think the whole appointment wasn’t really real to her until we stood outside the building, getting ready to go in. “What will other people say?” she asked generically.

I looked at the signs in the windows. “They don’t just do abortions here,” I pointed out quietly, “They do birth control and STD treatment and other reproductive health. For all anyone knows,” I said as I stepped out of the car, still looking at her, “You’re here to get a diaphragm or a birth control implant.”

She nodded and let out a long breath. “I guess you’re right.” She joined me in front of the car and took my hand again. I led the way into the building.

The waiting room was pretty busy; there went our chances of getting in early. We checked in at reception and Tiff was given a long pile of paperwork to fill out. She looked horribly overwhelmed. “I’d ask you to help with this,” she said as we took some seats, “but from what I can see, it’s all personal history. It might take me all the time until our appointment just to fill this out.”

She wasn’t kidding. As she began slowly and laboriously filling out all the blanks on the forms, I looked around. Most of the women in the place seemed to be alone. Some of them looked ill; others seemed to be brimming with health. I was right when I’d spoken earlier. You really couldn’t tell why each woman was there.

Tiffany finished the paperwork a little quicker than she expected and turned it into the receptionist. The two of us sat there, my hand clutched in hers, silently watching the parade of people who entered the door, were called back, and left through the same door.

Finally, just a few minutes after our appointment was scheduled, she got called. I got up and followed, just a step behind her, not sure I would be allowed to stick around through the whole appointment. But no one seemed to mind my presence; in fact, the nurse or whoever that brought us back to the office said Tiff was lucky to have someone with her.

The first part of everything was a pretty standard physical exam. They got Tiffany’s weight, height, pulse, blood pressure and temperature. The woman who had taken us back drew several vials of blood and then told us a doctor would be with us shortly. I expected to settle in for a nice long wait, but we were only seated for five silent minutes when a doctor came in.

He wasn’t exactly one of those pleasant, making small talk kinds of doctors. He verified Tiff’s identity and then barked a series of orders at her while I stood back and watched. He looked at her eyes, nose and ears and then listened to her breath. He then made her lie down and pulled her shirt up under her breasts while he felt her stomach. I was startled to note a small rounding of her stomach area already—very subtle, but definitely there. I had to look away from it. I felt the same way looking at that swell that Tiff had standing underneath the clinic sign: it was an obvious sign of what we’d done and what we were about to do.

Tiff and I didn’t talk any until we were ushered into another office. This one had no examining table, no medical mumbo-jumbo on the walls. No one said it to us, but this was clearly the counselor’s office. This was where all our questions would get answers. “Are you doing okay?” I asked quietly.

She shrugged. “As well as can be expected. This place kinda gives me the creeps. Everything’s so clinical. If you think about it, they’re basically going around murdering babies all day long.”

I shuddered and looked away from her. “I prefer not to think about that,” I pointed out. Tiffany shrugged again, not looking remorseful. “Anyway, that’s probably why they are so clinical. If they stop to think about what they’re doing, maybe it depresses them.” I worried a little about the way she’d said murder.

Before I had a chance to contemplate further what she’d meant by her comment, the counselor walked in. She was a young woman and looked like she might have been straight out of college. She couldn’t have been too much older than we were—not more than 25. “Hi, Tiffany?” she said in greeting. Tiff nodded. “I’m Martha. I’m going to tell you what to expect, answer any questions you may have, and refer you to any other additional services you may need. Who is this you have with you today?”

Tiff had begun chewing on one of her nails, so I answered for her. “Adam. I’m her boyfriend,” I said.

Martha smiled encouragingly and went on. “I understand you’re hoping to get an abortion. There are several types of abortion, but we only do one type here at this clinic, and we only do them up to twelve weeks of pregnancy. Anything further along than that and we refer you elsewhere.” She shuffled through some papers and pulled out one that seemed to be a summary of everything. “According to this, you’re about six weeks, so you shouldn’t have any problems. We’re waiting on your lab results, but the doctor wanted you to have an ultrasound—we don’t always require them, but in your case, he wanted us to check on something. I’ll go over a few things with you here while we’re waiting for the ultrasound machine to be free. I’m usually pretty thorough, but if you have any questions, stop me at any time.”

And, boy, was she ever thorough. I learned more about how an abortion is performed that day than I ever wanted or needed to know. From arrival to leaving, we were expected to be there between ninety minutes to two hours, but the actual procedure itself took no more than ten minutes. She explained every step, between how they’d give Tiff pain medication and a sedative if she’d like, to the actual medical procedure involved. It was too gross to even contemplate. Martha explained how long Tiff could expect to bleed afterward, and how it would be normal to feel sad or relieved or any number of things when it was over.

Tiff didn’t have any questions when Martha was done talking and quite frankly, neither did I. I’d expected to have just tons of things I still needed to know, but obviously, when you spend all day long explaining the procedure, you learned to anticipate exactly what people were going to ask before they even knew what they were going to ask.

Martha left to find out how much longer we would need to wait. Tiffany turned and looked at me for the first time since Martha had come in the room. One of her fingers was bleeding from where she’d ripped off a hangnail. I expected her to look even more freaked out than she had before the counselor had started talking—I know that’s how I felt. Instead she surprised me: her eyes had a determined quality like I’d never seen before. “Are you going to be able to take another day off work next week to bring me back in?” she asked. “Because if you can’t, Shannon said she’d do it.”

I looked away. “No, I’ll be able to take you.” I didn’t really want to come back here, ever. But I felt like this was a problem of my making, and I needed to be a man and see it through to the end.

Tiff’s expression changed. “You’re not having second thoughts about this, are you?” she asked seriously.

I turned back to her. “No.” And I wasn’t. The feeling of creepiness that Tiffany had encountered earlier had just shifted to me. I was sure I would get over it.

Tiff rubbed her hands together like they were cold. “I’ve always wondered what getting an ultrasound was like,” she said. “I saw an episode of A Baby Story once. They rub this gel on your belly. It looks icy cold and uncomfortable.” For a second I thought she might cry, but she shook it off.

She didn’t have to wonder much longer. A few minutes later, a woman came in and collected Tiff. She looked over at me. “I’ll be back for you when she’s ready. It’ll be a few minutes, okay?” She didn’t wait for me to reply.

Suddenly I was alone in a woman’s reproductive health clinic. Once again, I wondered what I had done so wrong that my life had spun so completely out of my control. I’m not a bad guy. I’ve never been arrested and I’ve never set out to purposely hurt anyone. I haven’t done much in my life that could really be labeled as horrible. Was this some kind of cosmic commentary on the choices I had made? I couldn’t imagine that were true.

When the woman came back for me, I jumped out of my seat. I was ready for this whole appointment to be over. I wanted to get in the car and drive away from this place and go home and take a long hot shower and wash the smell and feel of the clinic off me.

She led me to a long, narrow room. Tiff was lying on a bed wearing a hospital gown and looking nervous as hell. I was directed to go stand beside her head, which I did wordlessly. Tiff looked at me and I held out my hand, which she gratefully took. I watched and listened as a young man—the ultrasound tech—explained what he was going to do. He took out the gel and I saw Tiff cringe as he rubbed it across her lower abdomen. “The pictures will show up over here,” he said, pointing to some monitors pointed away from us. “My associate,” he continued, referring to the woman who had whisked us out of the counselor’s office, “will observe them. Normally during an ultrasound, one person would do both jobs, but we’ve found that most of our clients prefer not to see the images.” Tiff and I both nodded our agreement to that statement.

The man picked up a piece of the apparatus and started slowly moving it around on Tiff’s stomach, watching the woman. “Okay,” she said. He held it relatively still and she looked the screen over critically. She was mostly hidden from my view behind the monitor, but I craned my head to take her in. Her brow was furrowed and I couldn’t tell if she looked confused or concerned. She stepped out from behind the monitor and looked straight at Tiff for a moment. “Hon,” she said, “how far along did you say you were?”

Tiff wrinkled up her nose as she thought. “Almost six weeks,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.

The tech stepped back behind the monitor and looked at the screen again. She was silent for a moment, so when she spoke, she surprised me. “No,” was all she said.

I looked at her over the monitor. “What?” I asked, genuinely confused.

She came back out and stood beside Tiff. “No, you’re not six weeks along. If I had to guess,” she said, taking a step back and glancing back at the image on the screen, “I’d say you were closer to sixteen weeks.”

I glanced at Tiff, bewildered. Sixteen weeks was four months. We’d only been together for about two and a half. If she was sixteen weeks, that meant she’d already been pregnant that day back in May when we’d met up for coffee. It meant that this wasn’t my baby she was carrying.

Tiff looked even more stunned than I felt. “No, that’s not possible,” she said.

The tech looked sympathetic. “I could be off by a week or two,” she said, “but there’s a big difference between a six week ultrasound and a sixteen week one.” She picked Tiff’s file off the counter and read over something for a moment. “Unfortunately, hon, since you’re so far along, we aren’t going to be able to provide you with an abortion at this location. If you want, I can get one of our counselors to refer you to another clinic on the other side of town that can provide you with the services you need.”

Tiff shook her head and sniffled. I could see she was trying really hard not to burst into tears. “No,” she said quietly. “I’ll be fine.” The male tech had removed the piece from Tiff’s abdomen and now he was carefully wiping her belly clean of the gooey gel. I squeezed her hand, but she didn’t even look at me.

The female tech looked kindly on Tiff. “If you are going to go ahead with the procedure, you’ll need to do it soon,” she said. Tiff nodded her understanding. “Meanwhile, I’m going to give you an approximate due date of January 10th. If you’re going to go through with the pregnancy, I’m going to suggest you find an OB-GYN right away and get an appointment as soon as possible.” Tiff sat up and I let go of her hand. “I’ll take you to get dressed.” The tech turned toward me. “Someone will be right with you to take you back up front to the waiting room. Your girlfriend will be right up with you.”

As I waited, I tried to figure out what had just happened. Beyond feeling like I’d just stepped into a soap opera, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel now. Was it okay to be relieved because I didn’t have to worry about being a father anymore? I guess it didn’t really matter if it was okay to be relieved, because I wasn’t feeling relief. I was mostly just feeling anxious. What was Tiff going to do now? How would her ex—who must be the dad if I wasn’t—going to respond to this information? Was she going to have and keep the baby? Now that I knew I wasn’t the father, I didn’t feel like a burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I actually felt worse than ever.

By the time someone came to take me to the waiting room, Tiff was already there, settling up the bill. I didn’t ask how she was paying for it. I was almost too numb to speak. I had already decided to clean out my savings account to pay for the abortion if necessary. I guess that wasn’t something I needed to worry about any more though.

We silently made our way to the car, Tiff still not looking at me. I put the key into the ignition but didn’t start the car. I had found my voice. “Did you know?” I asked her.

She turned to me for the first time since the tech had sprung the news, and I could instantly see how stupid the question had been. “No,” she said, her voice surprisingly clear and steady for how tortured she looked. “I didn’t know. I would have never put you in this position if I’d known.” She took a deep breath. “Adam, I’m so sorry.”

I eyed her critically for a moment and then started the car as an excuse to break eye contact. “For what?” I asked. “It could have been my kid. I’m not mad at you over that. I’m just so confused.” That was the understatement of the year.

Tiffany looked at me as I pulled the car back onto the street. I continued to watch the road, not her. “I should have known,” she said. “I should have known I was pregnant way before now. Sixteen weeks is nearly half-way! How could I have missed that?”

I didn’t know enough about how a pregnancy progressed to really answer that. She went on without waiting for me to reply anyway. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, still never taking her eyes off me. “I can’t go for that abortion now.”

I glanced at her as we rolled up on a stop sign. “Why not?” I asked.

She put a finger to her mouth but didn’t start chewing the nail just yet. “I did some research. I picked this place because they only do that one type of abortion. The other type is so much more invasive. And after a certain point, they,” she paused and looked down, looking pained, “they have to stop the baby’s heart before they perform the abortion. I don’t care what you or anyone else says,” she said, looking back at me as if willing me to disagree with her, “at that point, it’s murder.”

I wasn’t about to disagree with her. “Okay, then,” I said as I turned back to the road and made a right turn.

She went on. “I have a bunch of things I’m going to have to do now,” she said, looking out the windshield, talking more to herself than to me. “I need to tell my mom. I need to decide if I’m going to keep the baby,” she went on. “And I need to talk to Eric.” Tiff tore at her nail for a moment and then looked at me. “That’s going to be the worst. He’s not going to be nearly as nice as you have been.”

I didn’t feel like I’d been so nice about this whole thing, but maybe I was better at covering than I thought. “Can I help you with anything?” I asked, maybe just because she’d called me nice.

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I think,” she said, biting her lower lip, “that it’s time for me to stand on my own two feet.”

I looked at her for a moment as we continued to drive forward. “I think you’re off to a good start on that,” I said, meaning every word.

 There you sit there, looking so cool While the whole show is passing you by You’d better come to terms with your fellow men soon Derek and the Dominoes, Tell the Truth

Byron

It had been a really long time since I had just sat in front of the television with no goal in mind. Sure, I watch movies and TV, but usually I sit down right before my show starts and get up right after it ends. So it was a nice change of pace to just plop down in front of the set that Monday without knowing what I was going to watch or how long I would be sitting there.

Mom and Margo had left around noon to take Claire off to camp. Before they’d gone, I’d gotten special permission to break the rules. Normally Jeff wouldn’t be allowed to come by without the two of us having a chaperone—anyone else in the family who followed us everywhere we went. Mom said that as long as we kept our hands to ourselves, we could watch television in the rec room, whether someone was there with us or not. Honestly, I think that rule is mostly directed at keeping Margo and Claire from walking in on stuff anyway. Nick was upstairs when I first sat on the sofa, but I’d heard him leave not long after. That just left Vanessa, who might be in the house somewhere, and Jordan. I wasn’t planning on undressing Jeff in a public area of my house anyway, but I knew that neither one of the two of them would object if Jeff and I decided to invade each other’s personal space or if they caught a little bit of quick making out. It was one of those times when I could actually justify breaking the rules just a little.

Jeff was going to come by sometime later in the afternoon, so I was in a holding pattern, waiting for him to show. He was leaving in a couple weeks, and then I would be the one leaving Stoneybrook just a few days later. We were trying to cram as much time together into these last few weeks as possible. Jeff didn’t seem to think we’d have any trouble keeping up a long distance relationship when I’d brought the subject up a few days before. Just like in the spring, we had emails and phone calls. But it was more than that—we had an actual relationship now. I knew that he loved me and that was enough to get me through the days when I didn’t hear from him. At least, I hoped so.

Hopeful was a very good word to describe me right about now. It wasn’t normally something in my vocabulary. But I had a lot to be thankful for these days, and I was hoping that would continue to be the case.

I was watching a soap opera—yeah, my television viewing was that aimless—and pondering that when Jordan came in and joined me on the couch. “What the hell are you watching?” he asked.

I wrinkled my nose. “I think it’s As the World Turns,” I told him. He raised an eyebrow. “Haley used to be big into soaps. I’m pretty sure that is…” I pointed to one of the characters, “…one of her favorites from when she was addicted. It gave her something to do last summer when I was working and she wasn’t.”

Jordan shook his head, although I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or at our shared favorite female. I wasn’t really paying attention to the show, but I didn’t really look over at him until he sighed loudly. I picked up the remote and turned the volume down, then set the remote between us. Without a word, I cocked my head at him and took him in. He looked depressed and I realized he hadn’t just joined me to find out how the world was turning. “What’s going on?” I asked, wondering when—and why—my brothers had started coming to me with their problems. Had it happened subtly, or had it come on suddenly and I’d just been too wrapped up in myself to notice?

Jordan slumped down into the couch cushions, looking as put out about the situation as I was feeling. “It’s about Haley,” he said.

“There’s a shocker,” I replied sarcastically. He gave me a disgusted look. “Oh, come on, Jordan, why else would you come to me? Seriously.” I was half kidding, but there was an element of seriousness to the statement too. I couldn’t think of a single thing that I would be able to help Jordan with during the summer months that wasn’t related in some way, shape, or form to Hay.

Jordan eyed me suspiciously. “If you don’t want to help me,” he said slowly, “then just go ahead and say so.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said seriously. He turned away, watching two soap characters in bed as an excuse not to look at me. “Look, I know you care about her. I have no doubt about that.” I had his attention again. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Hay. Don’t put me in the middle between you two. She’s really not so good about that sometimes, but that’s my terms. Now, what do you need?”

He nodded seriously. “Yesterday we were alone in her house while her parents went out. We were on the couch, right?” Jordan didn’t elaborate as to what they were doing, but I didn’t need him to. Any time I see him and Hay, they’re touching one another. He’s got his arm around her waist, or she’s grabbing his arm, or they’re just plain old making out. I could guess that was what was happening on that couch without any details. “So she told me I could take off her shirt. I started to unbutton it…” I must have made a face without meaning to because Jordan became agitated. “Byron!”

I shook myself. “I’m sorry, man! I can’t help it. I’m just a little squeamish about hearing about you groping my best friend.” He glared at me. “Go on. Please.”

He continued to give me stinkeye for a moment after that and then went on. “I got about three buttons in and she flipped out and made me stop.” Jordan sighed a long, frustrated sigh and pulled his knees up onto the couch.

I watched him for a moment, waiting for him to go on. When he didn’t speak during that time, I assumed he was done. “You know about her past,” I said quietly, wishing we didn’t have to have this conversation.

Jordan eyed me sharply. “Yes, I do,” he said, the pitch of his voice rising a little. “Believe it or not, I’m actually not upset about her stopping me. Yeah, I’m a little frustrated,” he told me, and I could imagine exactly what he meant by frustrated, “but that’s just because I want so badly for her to trust me.”

I nodded. “Well, then, what’s got you so bothered?” I asked.

Jordan turned to me and, when he realized I was taking him seriously, he began talking again. “We didn’t really feel like hanging out on the couch after that. So I asked her what she wanted to do instead. She said she wanted to go to the pool.”

A commercial started playing and distracted his attention, although I doubt he was really interested in the feminine hygiene product being advertised. After a moment, he picked back up his thread. “We both put our swimsuits on and met out front of her house with our bikes.” He pursed his lips. “After we get there, she took off her cover up to put on her sunscreen, and she’s wearing this itty-bitty bikini.” Jordan looked at me meaningfully.

I didn’t get the connection. “So?” I asked.

Jordan released a heavy puff of air. “So she’s got a problem with me unbuttoning her shirt—which she was wearing over another layer, mind you—but she’s got absolutely no problem with wearing a top that’s tinier than her bra and a bottom that’s probably smaller than her panties, in front of everyone and their brother at the pool.”

I looked at him for a moment without speaking. I understood what he was concerned about now; I just wasn’t sure how to proceed. “I see,” I said finally. He gave me a look, waiting for my magic words of wisdom. “I’m going to break my own rule a little bit and tell you something she told me in confidence, but only because I suspect I’m only confirming what you already know.” Jordan just grunted. “This has absolutely nothing to do with you. Somewhere, deep down, Hay knows you’re not going to hurt her, even if she can’t see that in the individual moment. This is totally and completely about her inability to give up control. She’s okay wearing that bikini because she picked it out at the mall, she put it on and she’s the one who took off that cover up.”

Jordan didn’t look convinced. “I don’t get it,” he said, without explaining which it he meant.

I shrugged, hoping a further response would clear things up a little. “When you touched her top, that wasn’t Jordan, her boyfriend, whom she loves, carefully removing her shirt because he wanted to see her body. It was someone doing something to her that she couldn’t control. Even though you stopped the second she told you to and proved you were trustworthy, she couldn’t get past the fact that the last time someone started off like that, they didn’t stop.” Jordan burrowed further into the couch cushions, looking wounded. I wasn’t sure if he was hurting on Haley’s behalf or if he was hurting because of her. “I can’t confirm this, but I think it will go better for you when you two get up the nerve to try it again. She’ll know that she can tell you to stop at any time and you will.”

Jordan sighed. “I don’t know about that last part,” he said, “but I’ll definitely try again sometime. Not so much because I want to see and touch her—although I definitely do want that.” I made another face, but this time Jordan actually cracked a little smile. “I’m more concerned with helping her get past this because I think it will make her happier and have all the bad stuff be less on her mind.”

I nodded slowly. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said seriously, and the partial grin went away, “but I think she needs therapy.”

Jordan and I looked at each other for a moment before he spoke. His eyes had been stormy through most of the conversation, but now he just looked sad. “I take that the way it’s intended,” he said, sitting up straighter on the couch, “I know it comes from a place of love, and that you love her as much as I do, even if it’s a different kind of love.” I smiled at him for the first time since he’d sat down. “I know that,” he continued, “because I agree with you.”

“If I thought she’d agree to go,” I told him, “I’d find out who Jeff sees. I don’t know the doctor’s name, but Jeff seems to really like her.”

Jordan looked surprised. “Jeff has a therapist?”

I know my eyes widened. I hadn’t told my brothers about Jeff’s bipolar diagnosis or about any of the other conversations we’d had on the subject. Adam probably wouldn’t have been astonished to learn that Jeff was seeing a professional, but Jordan hadn’t been there at Haley’s when Jeff had admitted to his suicide attempt. I pretended it was no big deal. “Yeah, and she’s apparently really good.”

It worked. Instead of acting like I’d left him out of some big secret, which is what I’d expected, Jordan just looked thoughtful. “I think you’re right. I can’t picture her voluntarily agreeing to see a counselor or anything.” He picked up the remote and, instead of changing the channel, turned the volume back up. “How do people follow these shows?” he asked me, making it clear he was done with our old conversation, “There have literally been about twenty people on screen in the time I’ve been sitting here.”

“All I’ve been able to figure out so far,” I told him, “is that these two are in love, but that’s not her husband.”

Jordan and I were still sitting there, attempting to follow the story, when the back door opened and then slammed shut. “Byron?” Adam called from the kitchen.

I didn’t pause to consider what he would think if he caught the two of us watching soaps; I just turned around. “Down here!” I shouted back.

Jordan was back to slumping down in the seat, almost hidden among the cushions. He didn’t look up or seem the least bit curious as to how Adam and Tiffany’s big appointment had gone. I, on the other hand, sat up straighter and watched Adam thump down the stairs. He had a dazed look and was kind of pale. I gaped at him. “Did she change her mind?” I asked.

“No,” he said, but then he shook his head. “Well, actually yes.”

I stood up and stared at him, brow furrowed. “Which is it, Adam? Is she going through with the abortion or not?”

Jordan sat bolt upright on the couch, but Adam didn’t seem to notice. “You’ll never believe this,” he answered, never taking his eyes off me, “but they gave her an ultrasound and she’s, like, sixteen weeks gone.”

I opened a mental calendar and counted backward. I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just shook my head. That meant Tiff had already been pregnant long before they first started dating again. “Wow,” I finally replied.

Adam didn’t look happy, but he did smile. “I think that’s the same thing you said when I first told you Tiffany was pregnant,” he commented.

Jordan found his voice. “Tiffany’s pregnant?” he asked, like he was just hearing the news. I thought he was joking until I got a good look at him. He had that look on his face I had expected him to pull out when he heard about Jeff. It was the ‘nobody tells me anything, and I’m mad as hell about it,’ look that Claire perfected oh-so-many years ago.

Adam blinked at him, looking a little crazed, and I took a step backwards so I wasn’t standing between the two of them—even though I wasn’t really between the two of them anyway. “Yes,” he said to Jordan, huffily, as if he’d missed the real point, “Tiff’s pregnant, and if you were following the rest of this conversation, it’s not my kid.”

Jordan opened his mouth and then closed it. He looked over at me and I went back to my old standby—I stared at the floor rather than make eye contact. Jordan turned back to Adam, his eyes blazing with fury. “You two went to get an abortion today,” he slowly summarized, “and you never even bothered to tell me about any of this?”

Adam was in quite a mood already. I think it was a combination of the past week of dad-to-be stress, coupled with the shock of discovering it all had been a lie. I probably would have been a basket case myself in his place. But I have a feeling there was a lot more going on in the background than that. So when Jordan came out of the gate swinging, Adam wasn’t going to back down from the fight. “That’s right,” he said, leaning over the edge of the couch. “Last time I checked, I didn’t have to run every little detail of my life by you.”

Jordan just couldn’t believe his ears. He stood up and inched toward Adam, never breaking his gaze. I was already backed up about as far as I could go without climbing onto a piece of furniture, although not because I thought they’d come to blows. I wasn’t really worried about that, even though I knew it was a distinct possibility. It had been a long time since the two of them had really physically fought and seriously meant it. I was more concerned about how vicious the words were going to get. “This is serious,” Jordan said to Adam. “This is probably the biggest thing any of us have ever gone through, and yet you didn’t even tell me!”

I was pretty surprised to hear his tone of voice. At first I’d thought he was just mad because we’d left him out of something. But he sounded so hurt and lost that I couldn’t look at him directly. In my head, I put him and Adam side by side and I could understand why they were arguing. Adam was pushing Jordan away because Jordan was leaving for school in a few days. I had the feeling that Adam thought it would be easier to be separated physically from the brother with whom he’d always shared everything if the two of them were more distant emotionally. Jordan, on the other hand, would be the first of us leaving, and I think he was looking at it from the opposite direction—he wanted to keep his ties to home as close as possible.

Adam just shook his head, disbelieving, although I was closer to Jordan’s side on this one. I couldn’t believe that Adam hadn’t told him everything—or even anything. But I wasn’t about to tell either one of them that. Jordan pressed on. “Is this how information runs in this house? From you to Byron, but not to me?”

Adam laughed a crazy, angry laugh. “Who died and made you the center of the universe, Jordan?” he asked.

Jordan took a step back. “I’m not trying to be the center of the universe. There are only three people in the world whose opinion actually matters to me,” he said, still upset but a little more calm. I think he’d realized that someone had pressed Adam’s insanity button and that he wasn’t going to get anywhere by trying to out-crazy him. After a moment, he continued, sounding embarrassed that he was admitting any of this out loud. “And two of those three are right here in this room.”

I don’t know about Adam, but I felt a little better after hearing that. Jordan and I had come to an understanding back in Maine, but that didn’t mean we’d become the kind of close that he and Adam shared. Having him come to me for advice and admit that he actually cared what I thought about him was a big step for the two of us.

Adam didn’t seem to be done with his angry words. “I don’t have to tell you everything,” he said. “I don’t tell Byron everything, and he’s never held that against me. Right, Byron?”

Why was he trying to drag me into this? He was telling the truth on most levels, though. I hadn’t even known Adam had lost his virginity until he told me Tiffany was pregnant. Honestly, I’d figured it was none of my business what my brothers were doing with their dicks…until Jordan had started dating Hay and, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stay out of that relationship. (Haley just would not let me.) So I hadn’t been the slightest bit offended by it.

But I couldn’t say I didn’t hold it against him that there was stuff I was left out of. There had been parties I hadn’t been invited to, despite the fact that half the school went. It would have taken Adam thirty seconds to say, “Hey, there’s a party over at so-and-so’s this weekend. I know it’s not really your thing, but do you want to go?” There were inside jokes that came up over and over at lunch through the years that I never understood, because I hadn’t been there when the joke originated and no one had bothered to explain it. I mostly blame myself for these things, but there was definitely a little resentment aimed at both of my brothers for not at least trying to share things with me.

“Don’t you drag him into this,” Jordan said when I didn’t reply to Adam’s last statement. “This is between you and me.” Adam scoffed but Jordan ignored that. “I’m not saying you have to tell me everything, but this is major. You thought you were going to be a dad, for fuck’s sake! How much bigger do your life problems have to be before you decide to share them with me?”

Adam turned around and buried his head in his hands. For a second I thought he was going to cry again—and I think he did, too. “Like you could relate,” he said quietly, muffled by the hands covering his mouth. “With your perfect relationship and your everlasting love. You and your noble ‘I’m going to wait for Haley until she’s ready for me,’ bull crap.”

Jordan’s eyes went wide when he caught the jealousy. “No relationship’s perfect,” he said, stating the obvious. “I was just telling Byron that Haley’s got hang ups big enough to snag ships out in open sea. And I’m sure she’s got plenty of complaints about me, too.” He wheeled around and plopped back on the couch, in the cushions. “Look, Adam, I’m sorry I came gunning for you. It’s just, of all the ways to find out about what you were going through!”

Adam finally turned back around. Jordan’s apology had helped diffuse a little of his anger, but he was still edgy. “Like there isn’t things you haven’t told me,” he said, sitting on the opposite arm of the couch from where Jordan was slouched.

Jordan looked thoughtful for a moment. “Actually, there is,” he said. Adam raised his eyebrows. “Me still being a virgin? Has almost nothing to do with Haley. It’s a promise I made to respect my body and wait until I was ready.”

I knew exactly what he was referring to, but Adam furrowed his brow and frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

Jordan sighed, like he had wanted to leave this last bit out. “I made a virginity pledge with the Faith League,” he said. “The pledge is to remain ‘pure until marriage’ but I’m just hoping to wait until I’m ready and she—whoever she is—is ready and the time is right. And now, none of those things are in place.”

Adam stared at Jordan like he’d never seen him before, but Jordan wouldn’t make eye contact. Finally, Adam chuckled and jumped over the arm of the couch so that he was sitting facing Jordan. “You, with the long list of girls in your wake, are going to be pure?” he said, half teasing.

Jordan flicked him off, but he smiled, realizing the fight was almost over if Adam was ready to make jokes. “Relatively,” he replied.

“I guess it’s my turn to apologize,” Adam said, “for not telling you anything about this. It’s was just…you weren’t exactly thrilled for me when I told you I’d been with Tiff. And you’d told me to be careful. I think I was just embarrassed to admit that we hadn’t been that careful.” He wrinkled his nose. “Plus I was afraid that if I told you, you’d tell Haley and her mouth, and then the whole world would find out.”

Without thinking, I replied, bringing focus back to me. “She already knew,” I said, “and she didn’t tell anyone else, as far as I can see.” I wasn’t really sure who Adam was so worried about Haley telling. Who else did she hang out with besides me and Jordan, most of the time?

Adam looked surprised. “You told her?” he asked me.

I broke eye contact again. “No, Tiff did, the same day you told me. I happened to overhear the conversation.”

“Wow. I didn’t know Haley had it in her to keep a secret,” Adam said. Jordan rolled his eyes at him. Adam shook his head and turned toward the television. The soap had ended while the two of them were arguing, but another one had started. “What the fuck were you two watching down here?” he asked. He turned to me, where I was still standing backed against the wall, trying to look nonchalant. “Byron, you’re going to have to come over and explain this one.”

I understood. He wasn’t really holding me completely responsible for the channel we were watching; he just wanted me to come out of the corner and join them on the couch. It was his way of apologizing for throwing me into the fray. I sat down on the middle cushion between the two of them and they moved their feet to make room and accept me in between them. I didn’t comment on the soap opera, and no one said a word about it. After a minute, Jordan did turn to me. “So,” he began, “what secrets have you been keeping from us?”

Adam sat up straighter and I bounced my head back and forth between them for a moment. There was no getting out of this; pointing out that they already knew my biggest secret (which was no longer a secret at all) wasn’t going to work. “Well,” I said to bide myself some time. “Remember those score cards you used to keep?” They both looked embarrassed for a moment but nodded. “I’m finally out of the negative.”

Jordan and Adam both leaned forward to look at one another, and then they both grinned. “I’m glad,” Jordan finally said. “Back when we were younger, before you started hanging out with Haley all the time, you always seemed so lonely, even when you were in a room full of people.”

Adam picked up the momentum. “I always wondered why you never went out with girls. You’d talk to them okay, and they seemed to like you more than they liked me or Jordan. I just figured you were shy about asking them out.” He settled back into the couch. “When you told me you were gay, it all made sense for the first time. I’m glad you came out and I’m glad you found someone to be with.” Jordan nodded his agreement.

I smiled. “Believe me, no one’s more glad than I am. It’s exhausting and lonely living a lie.” We started to settle back into the couch, the soap opera still blaring, but I felt the need to point out one more thing. “Oh, and Adam,” I said, “There was only one person who knew I was lying to the world, and she didn’t tell a soul—not even me—for three whole years. Does that sound like someone who can’t keep a secret?”

Adam made a face but Jordan guffawed. “That’s my girl,” he said proudly, but then he thought for a second. “But let me get this straight. She knew you were gay and hiding it the entire time you two were friends, and she never brought it up?”

“She was waiting for me to tell her,” I said, “and I don’t think it would have ever come out of her, except she was a little bit drunk.”

Adam finally found the remote control. “Anyone object if I change the channel?” he asked. “My life’s been soapy enough today to last me a lifetime.” He didn’t wait for a reply but just changed the channel. We sat quietly for a moment as a commercial played. When the ads ended, the Maury Povich show started and Adam quickly flipped the channel again.

Jordan made a single, sharp laugh. “‘You are…not…the father,’” he quipped. Adam blushed bright red.

He was still pink when the backdoor opened again. “Hello?” a voice called.

I smiled. “Down here, Jeff!” I shouted.

Jeff came down stairs. His demeanor was a far cry from how he’d been the last time Adam had seen him, when he’d been moving like he was in a fog and every movement hurt. Today, he bounded down the stairs, more hopping than walking, and his face lit up when he saw me. “Hey, By,” he said as he took in the three of us, sitting on the couch, watching PBS. “Adam, Jordan. This is more of a welcoming committee than I expected. What are you guys watching?”

Jordan answered as Jeff sat down by my feet. “We don’t know,” he said mysteriously. Jeff leaned up against my knees and gave him a strange look. “We’re not really watching it. We’re sharing secrets.”

“Secrets?” Jeff repeated. I slid down onto the floor next to him and he wrapped an arm around me and kissed my cheek. “What kind of secrets?”

Jordan smirked. “None of us is going to be a dad,” he replied.

“Oh yeah?”

I leaned my head against his. “I sincerely doubt that either one of us is pregnant,” I told him, and he laughed.

Adam curled his knees up into his chest and leaned off the couch. “And Jordan’s a virgin, so he’s not a father.”

Jordan went the other direction and stretched out his legs into the cushion I vacated. “And since Tiffany’s baby isn’t his, Adam’s not a dad either.”

Jeff raised his eyebrows and Adam, still hanging his head off the couch, shook his head, answering Jeff’s unasked question. “She was already knocked up when we first got back together.”

Jeff whistled and Jordan nodded in agreement. “We all shared secrets,” he said to Jeff, “What’s your secret?”

Jeff looked at each one of my brothers in turn and then replied. “I can’t imagine I have any secrets that Byron hasn’t already told you.”

Adam and Jordan looked at each other and then at Jeff. I pulled away from him just a little. “I don’t share secrets that aren’t mine,” I told him seriously. “I don’t gossip.”

Jeff smiled just a little. “By,” he said, putting one hand on my face. “It’s not gossip to tell the truth to certain people.” He tucked some hair behind my ear.

I looked at his serious expression. “My brothers,” I said, trying to follow his reasoning. He nodded. “Hay. And you.” Jeff grinned at the last word. “So do you want to tell them, or should I?”

He looked pensive. “Depends on what you want to share.” I shrugged. “Okay then. I guess I’ll talk.” He let me go and turned around on the floor so he was facing both my brothers. “On the small scale, I decided on a college major. On a bigger scale, I’m bipolar and I’m taking lithium for it.”

My brothers looked at each other and silently decided not to question the more serious information. “So what’s the major?” Jordan asked. He and Jeff had both started the summer without a major, and as far as I was aware, Jordan still hadn’t made any decisions in that respect.

“Education,” Jeff said lightly. “I’m hoping to create an army of young minions to do my bidding. Or teach middle school, whatever’s easier.”

Adam laughed. “That sounds like you.” With that, he flipped the station again. He eventually settled on what turned out to be a Law & Order marathon. “Anyone got a problem with this?”

Jeff turned and looked at me. He smiled his most dazzling smile and I kissed him, just once. I couldn’t resist.

Jordan leaned over Adam, who had stretched out in front of him. “If you two are going to keep that up,” he warned, “then you’ll need to get a room.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” I commented as Jeff and I settled back into leaning against the couch. “You and Haley can’t keep your hands off each other.” Jordan grinned at me.

We all fell silent after that. Jeff smiled at me again. I got it; he was not only glad that he’d told my brothers, but also happy that they’d been cool about it. I felt the same way about sharing with the two of them. Hard to believe that we—all four of us—were getting ready to leave for school soon, and yet we were closer than ever.

[tosybelle-blog]

The Boys of Summer, Chapters XVI-XX

I’ve seen this thing before In my best friend and the boy next door Fool for love and fool of fire Blondie, Maria

Maria

Thank heaven for carpools. Without them, I’d never go anywhere in the summer.

It was a Thursday in July, and I’d seen my mother for fifteen minutes since Sunday. My dad—well, if I’m lucky, I hear from him a couple times a month and see him much less often than that. And my sisters? Sometimes, I forget they even live here. But Shannon had promised to be home in time to give me a ride for the one thing I had really been looking forward to all summer.

She sounded really guilty when she called me and said she wouldn’t make it in time to pick me up. She promised to make it up to me, which I’m sure means bribe me back into her affections later. That’s what Mother always does.

I had been suggesting and suggesting a special event for teens to the public library for two straight years. They’d finally taken my suggestion and it was tonight. And I didn’t have a ride.

I would have had no problem taking my bike down there, but the event was supposed to last until long after dark, and the headlight on my bike was out. I’d called a couple friends, hoping someone else was planning to go. Everyone was either off at camp or on vacation. It looked like I was stuck.

I was just about start a really solid pity party—put a depressing movie in the DVD player and sob for a while—when I realized that Tiffany was home. She’s always been oddly quiet. I can tell when Shannon is home, because she plays music and sings along. Mom is always on her phone in the public areas of the house. But Tiff can pretty much sneak up behind you because she’s so silent. Sure, I can get her talking if I try. But she seems to think that she’s boring me when she talks, and I sometimes feel like she’s not really listening when I talk. Especially these days.

I found her in her room. She had a pair of sewing shears and she was trimming up her bangs. “My hair’s been growing crazy fast,” she noted as I entered the room.

I plopped down on her bed, taking care not to sit on the piles of clothes that were scattered everywhere. It seemed as if every item from her closet was set on her bed. “Having trouble deciding what to wear?” I asked.

Tiffany gave one final snip with the scissors and put them down. “Ugh. I must be bloated because none of my shorts fit today.” She turned around and faced me for the first time since I came in. “Your hips are a little wider than mine. Do you think you have something that would go with this top?”

I ignored the slam on my body shape—I’m an athlete and she’s a bag of bones—and considered the question. The top she was wearing was a pale yellow and low cut. To be honest, it kind of washed her out. With her fair skin and blonde hair, there was no contrast, no pop of color. I knew that telling her that would start a fight and be the end of any actual conversation we might have, though. “I have a pair of navy board shorts that might work.”

Tiff considered that as she plucked her eyebrows. “Sounds like that might be okay. Adam’s surprising me with what we’re doing tonight, but he said to dress casually.”

My spirits sank. I was really hoping that she would be driving, because then maybe she’d be willing to drop me off at the library on her way. I didn’t feel like I knew Adam well enough to try to bum a ride out of him. I sighed and Tiff looked up from her makeup job, giving me a questioning look. I took a different direction than I had planned. “What’s it like having a boyfriend?” I asked as she rolled her eyes up to the sky and lined them.

“Hmm,” Tiffany smeared the eyeliner with her fingers. “It’s great if you’ve got a good one.”

“And I’m guessing Adam is one of the good ones?”

She just nodded before she started applying mascara. “What are you asking me for, anyway? You’re not a little girl. Why don’t you just go out and get a boyfriend of your own?”

That was a good question. “I don’t know,” I said as I joined her at the mirror, looking at the differences in our looks. Tiff is light and I’m dark. She’s skinny, and while I’m not fat, my muscles make me seem quite a bit sturdier. She’s got a couple inches on me, too. “Boys don’t really go for me. I’m not sure why.”

Tiff tipped her head to one side and eyed me sideways. “I bet you intimidate them,” she said. “You have a strong personality. That’s not a bad thing, but it can scare guys sometimes.”

That’s true. I laughed a little bit. “Or maybe the guys I hang out with are just wusses.”

Tiffany hopped up onto her vanity, inspecting her chin. She smeared concealer on a non-existent blemish. “Nerds and game geeks,” she said with an almost imperceptible smile, “I’ve never understood why you always hang out with those guys instead of the jocks.”

The doorbell rang and Tiff eased herself back down from the vanity. “Can you let Adam in? I’m going to see if those board shorts fit.”

I trudged down the stairs, not looking forward to small talk. Shannon’s boyfriend, who is also named Adam—talk about confusing—always calls me Kid and then pretends I don’t exist. He’s kind of an ass and I have no idea what Shannon sees in him.

I opened the door and Adam smiled. “Hi, Maria,” he said as he came in. “Is Tiff ready yet?” I shook my head, suddenly feeling shy. “Still getting dressed? I’m not surprised.”

We went into the living room and I was just about to go check on Tiff when he started talking. “How’s your summer been?” he asked as he sat down on the couch. I shrugged, looking at the floor. I sat down on the arm of the chair by the door, ready to bolt as soon as possible. “What are your plans for the evening?”

I hitched one leg over the other and jiggled the bare foot. “Nothing much. I was supposed to go somewhere, but that fell through.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, eyeing me critically. He watched my foot move for a moment. I got uncomfortable and stopped it. “One of these nights, I think you should hang out with me and Tiff. You got a boyfriend? We could double date.”

I was still shaking my head when Tiffany started downstairs. I guess my hips must not be that wide because my shorts fit her perfectly. She’d changed tops, too—she was wearing a white shirt of mine. I scowled for a moment when I saw that.

Tiff entered the room and Adam stood up. “You look great. Is that a new outfit?” She just kissed him in reply and smiled. “We’d better get going. I have my dad’s car for the night, and the only way I could get him to loan it to me is by agreeing to drop Nick off at the library on the way. He’s sitting in the car now.”

I jumped off the chair arm as they walked by me. “Wait, you’re going to the library?” Adam looked at me, puzzled. “Can I hitch a ride with you?”

He looked at Tiff and she shrugged. “Of course. How fast can you be ready?”

“Is thirty seconds fast enough?” My purse and flip flops were right inside the door, and I didn’t need anything else.

Adam’s dad’s SUV was parked at the bottom of the driveway. I practically skipped down to the car. There was a boy in the backseat behind the driver’s seat, so I headed to the other side of the car, behind the passenger’s seat.

A couple boys rode by on skateboards. “Hey, Maria! Tiffany! How’s it going?” the shorter one called.

Tiffany made a half-wave back. “Hey, Bill! You know my boyfriend, Adam Pike?” Adam smiled as he opened the car door for Tiff.

Bill grinned in greeting and fell off his skateboard, landing on his butt. I snorted at him. The other boy rolled his eyes but turned back to us. “Pike? You’re Vanessa’s brother, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just rolled off. Bill gathered himself up and popped back on his skateboard, zooming off after his friend.

Adam watched the two of them go and then shook his head. “I wonder if that was Vanessa’s mystery man,” he pondered. Tiff gave him a look. “Never mind. You really don’t want to know.”

Adam’s brother didn’t look up when I got in the car. He was reading a novel that pointed the other way, so I couldn’t see the title, but I could tell from the back cover that it was a science fiction story. “Whatcha reading?” I asked, hoping to strike up a conversation.

He mumbled something and pulled the book closer to his nose. Adam got into the driver’s seat. “Maria, this is my brother, Nick. Nick, this is Maria.”

Nick pulled the book back and looked over at me. He looked a lot like Adam, but he was taller and lankier. He wore a pair of thick glasses that he peered over the top of. I could see that he had incredibly long eyelashes. He gave a brief smile before he pulled the book back to his face. And when he smiled, he was just about the cutest guy I’d ever seen. “Hi, Nick,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too eager—and probably failing epically.

Adam suddenly turned into a dad. “Nick, a pretty girl is talking to you,” he said sternly. “The least you could do is say hi.”

Nick blushed crimson and pulled his face even further in to the book, probably trying to hide it. I didn’t blame him; I felt my face turn red also. He whispered hello straight into the book, so quietly I barely heard him.

Tiff mumbled something to Adam and he laughed. “So, what takes you to the library tonight?” he asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

I scuffed my flip flop along the floor of the car. “They’re finally having a Doctor Who marathon,” I said, more into my chest than to the front seat of the car.

Nick finally put his book down. “You like Doctor Who?” he said clearly, looking at me sideways. He clearly didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me or couldn’t believe his luck. I nodded at him.

Tiffany smiled indulgently. “Ahh, another member of the Nerd Brigade,” she said, flipping her sunglasses up to the top of her head. “You and Maria should get along just fine.” She winked at me.

After that, Adam and Tiff seemed to forget there was anyone in the backseat. Tiff was trying to get Adam to reveal their ‘secret’ plans for the evening. Adam seemed to enjoy teasing her. After Tiff called him a nerd, Nick had picked his book back up and retreated into his own little world. I amused myself for the rest of the car ride by rating the Adams in my life. Tiff’s Adam was beating Shannon’s Adam by a whole bunch of points by the time we arrived at the library.

Adam dropped us off in front. “We’ll be back to pick you up a little after ten. If the library closes before then, maybe you guys can get coffee or pizza or something. But we’ll pick you back up right here.”

As he put the car back into gear, I heard Tiff yell out the passenger window, “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!” The two of them laughed as Adam drove away.

Nick and I stood on the library’s stoop and looked at each other briefly. Nick looked lost as he clutched the book—a Star Trek novel. “What do we do now?” he asked, going back to gazing everywhere but at me.

I sucked in a breath. Was he kidding? We were here to watch Doctor Who. “I guess we go inside and find seats. Are you meeting someone here?” He glanced at me blankly. “I mean, are you meeting some friends?”

He shook his head and I did a little jig inside. Nick might be hard to talk to and completely clueless, but it wasn’t every day I met a guy who liked Doctor Who as much as I did.

There were actually already quite a few people inside the library, and not all of them were teenagers. Nick and I found a couple seats right near the middle of the makeshift theater. He put his book down in his lap and took in all the sights and sounds for a moment. I decided that, even though I hate it, it was time for small talk. “Which Doctor is your favorite?” I asked.

He looked around for a moment, like he thought I was talking to someone else. When he was sure I was looking at him, he finally answered. “Tom Baker,” he said quietly.

“The fourth Doctor! Me, too. Did you hear that the show is coming back? I don’t know if it’s just a rumor, but…” I was off and running. Nick actually turned and followed the conversation as I babbled on and on about the alleged reincarnation of the series. I only stopped because the lights got dimmed, getting ready for the airing.

***

The library was scheduled to close at nine, and the seventh episode ended shortly after nine. None of us had wanted to leave, but the librarian running the event ushered us all out the door, promising to hold another soon. Nick and I soon found ourselves standing out front of the library again. “What are we going to do for an hour?” I asked aloud, more to myself than to him.

To my surprise, Nick replied. “Ice cream?” he said.

It was a hot night, so that wasn’t a bad idea. We walked a block or so before ducking into one of those chain ice cream places. One of the employees was ringing someone up, but the other greeted us. “Hello, what can I start for you today?” After a moment, she actually looked at us and her expression changed: first she looked surprised, and then annoyed. “Nick, what are you doing here?” she asked, irritated.

I did a double take. The girl was close to our age and she had the same chestnut brown hair Nick and his brothers did, pulled back into a ponytail. She also had…colorful… makeup and a nose ring. Nick sized her up and I realized he didn’t seem nearly as awkward with her as he did when he was talking with me. I knew she had to be a relative. “Getting some ice cream. You have a problem with that?”

She stepped to one side and was ready to toss a choice insult at him—a sister can always tell—when I saw her name tag. “Oh, so you’re Vanessa!” I cried.

I think Vanessa had forgotten I was even there. She turned back to me, surprised. “How do you know who I am?” she asked.

I shrank back under the glare. “Umm…Adam mentioned you earlier today.”

She was still glaring. “And who are you anyway?” she asked.

I took a deep breath, vowing not to look as scared as I was feeling. “Maria Kilbourne.”

“Ah, Tiff’s sister,” she smirked. “What are you doing letting my little brother corrupt you?”

I gave her a withering look. “What are you talking about? We just spent the last three hours watching TV and now we’re thinking about sharing a banana split. Ooh, calories. Scandalous.”

Vanessa laughed. “I like you,” she said, waving her ice cream scoop at me. She turned to her coworker. “Hey, Curtis, put my employee discount on this one. This is my kid brother.”

I hadn’t actually planned on having a banana split or sharing anything with Nick, but Vanessa piled all the toppings ridiculously high on a banana split before she handed it to Nick. We picked up two spoons and went to pay, but Curtis stopped us. “Employee discount. It’s free.”

Nick hadn’t said a word since he’d spoken to Vanessa. We got outside and sat side by side on—not at—one of the metal tables. “How does this work, logistically?” he asked, still holding the ice cream in his lap.

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said, eyeing the mound of whip cream covering all the toppings. “I have no idea why I said we’d split something.”

Nick chuckled. “Split something. I get it.” I groaned. I hadn’t made the pun on purpose. I was just about to say so when Nick spoke again. “I know why you said it. You wanted to stick it to Vanessa.” He took one spoon and dug it into the ice cream. “I like it.”

For the first time since he’d smiled at me in the car, he met my eye. I grinned. “I got two big sisters,” I said, “I know exactly what to say to drive ‘em round the bend.”

Nick handed me the second spoon. He scooted over a little and set the ice cream down between us. I took a big bite and he did the same. We were quiet for a moment. “What do you do,” I finally asked him, “you know, for fun?”

He took the spoon out of his mouth. “I read a lot and play some video games,” he said slowly. “And on Wednesdays, I play D and D.”

He had my attention. “You play Dungeons and Dragons?” I exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to play but never knew anyone with a game.” He raised an eyebrow. I barreled ahead, waving my spoon around as I talked. “Do you think I could come and watch one time? Or maybe even play?”

Nick wasn’t looking at my face; he was staring at my chest. I felt myself blushing for about the hundredth time that night. He noticed and turned away. “You just spilled chocolate sauce all down your front,” he informed me.

“Oh, shit!” I furiously wiped at the sauce with my napkin but just smeared it. Nick ran inside and returned with a cup of water. I dipped the napkin in the water and managed to lighten a few parts of the stain.

After we settled back down, Nick finally answered my question. “I don’t see any reason you can’t go to D and D with me, but I’ll have to check with the guys.”

I grinned and dug in my purse. I pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote my name and number on it. “Here’s my cell phone number. Call me when you find out, okay?”

Nick put the paper in his pocket and took another spoonful of ice cream. He smiled again and I just felt so hopeful. Maybe he wasn’t really ready for a girlfriend or anything, but at the very least, I’d found a friend…and a D and D game.

All in all, it had been a great night.

Tiffany

As Adam drove away from the library after dropping Nick and Maria off, he turned to me. “I hope they’re going to be okay,” he commented idly.

I gave him a look. “What do you mean? Nick wouldn’t do…anything…would he?”

Adam chuckled. “Naw. I don’t even think Nick would know what to do with a girl if he actually got ahold of one.” I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s not like Byron or anything. I think he’s just a little clueless.” He put on his blinker and made a right turn. “All I meant was, I tried to have a conversation with Maria and it was like pulling teeth. And trying to talk to Nick is even harder.”

I smirked at him. “All you need to do to get Maria talking is mention something nerdy. She and Nick will be fine.”

We made another turn and I tried desperately to figure out where we were headed. “Are you ever going to tell me where we’re going?”

He shook his head. “You’ll find out when we get there.” I pouted a little and he grinned. “I’ll give you a hint. We’ll be putting something in little cups.”

I tried to puzzle that out. “Oh, we’re doing shots?” I joked after failing to figure out what he really meant. He laughed.

After a few more turns—I think he was trying to throw me off the scent—we arrived at a miniature golf course. “Mini golf?” I asked, surprised.

Adam opened my car door for me. “Have you ever played before? I used to play all the time when I was younger. It took me years to realize how sexy the game could be.”

“Sexy?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and he looked up to the sky as if he were remembering. “Did I ever tell you about Kelsey Andrews? I taught her how to play one time in Sea City. Every hole, I helped her ‘perfect her swing.’ You can imagine how that works.”

I could imagine it all too well. “Should I be jealous?” I teased.

Adam took me seriously. “Considering I was twelve and I haven’t seen her since, probably not.” He grabbed me and gave me a kiss.

I was surprised to find out how much fun mini golf could be. Especially when Adam was standing behind me, leaned against me, guiding all of my motions. Adam was doing impressively well in his game, clearing all the holes in one or two shots. I was taking the full six shots at every hole—and not just because I’d never played before.

Even though we were having a good time, by the time we got to the eleventh hole, I was beat. “Can we stop now?” I asked, leaning against his back as he wrote on the score card.

“Stop?” Adam asked, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He glanced down at the score card. “Is this because you’re at 66 and I’m at…” he paused as he did some quick math, “seventeen?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m just tired. And hungry.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and nestled my face right into the nape of his neck.

He reached a hand over his shoulder and stroked my hair. “Everything okay, Babe?” he asked.

I kissed his neck before I let him go. “Like I said, I’m just hungry.”

He turned around. “How do you stay so skinny,” he teased, “when all you do is eat?”

I grimaced a little. “Good metabolism? I dunno.” He ran his hands over my hips. “Anyway, I don’t eat that much.”

Adam laughed. “Yesterday, at the movies, you ate, let’s see…a big tub of popcorn. You ate the whole thing; I didn’t even have one piece. Oh, and you had the world’s biggest box of Raisinets.” He wrapped his arms around me. “And I think you ate half of my Milk Duds, too.”

That’s not the way I remembered it. “Whatever. All I know right now is, in a fight between a golf ball and a big, juicy burger, the burger wins.”

“I know when I’m beat. You like the burgers at the Rosebud? I normally wouldn’t suggest it because Jordan’s working tonight, but I think they have the best burgers in town.”

***

The Rosebud is one of those places that’s always busy, but I understand why. The food is decent and reasonably priced, so it’s popular both with young people and old people. Jordan wasn’t the first person we saw when we walked in the door, but we did see him before we got seated. He practically ran by us with a whole pan full of dirty dishes, but he nodded an acknowledgment as he did.

We were seated over by a window, next to a group of teenaged boys who were—loudly— discussing video games. Adam had his back to them, but he perked up for a moment and listened. “Do you and your brothers play video games?” I asked.

He looked like he was thinking about that for a moment. “We used to play a lot of Mario when we were kids,” he said. “Now, Jordan and I’ll play the occasional shoot ‘em up if we have time. Nick plays a lot of RPG—role play games. I think it’s his excuse to escape from the family without leaving the house.”

I nodded. I could certainly relate to the idea of not fitting in with your family. “I’m trying to remember what Nick was like when we used to go out before. I don’t remember him being that…quiet.”

Adam grimaced. “He seems to get worse every year. Byron says that the kids in our family all stretch a little bit to find an identity. Sometimes he sounds like a textbook, but I think he’s right this time.” The waitress came and took our drink order and he picked right back up. “Vanessa goes through weird phases trying to stand out. She used to speak all in rhyme, and then she went through this Goth stage. I think she’s coming out of that now, so who knows what she’ll do next. Nick…well, we were pretty shitty to him when we were kids. Real asshats.”

I cocked my head. “Really? Big brothers being jerks to a little brother? I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know, right? For a while he just tried to be extra macho, so we would let him play with us. He and Byron got closer for a while when they started sharing a room, and when Byron started getting all weird himself. I know now that he was struggling with defining himself. He couldn’t even out himself to himself, know what I mean?” I giggled a little bit despite the serious nature of the statement. Adam gave a half smile. “But then Nick started losing all his friends. Two of them moved away about three months apart— one just a couple towns over but they lost touch with each other pretty quickly—and the other to live with his dad in Texas or Arkansas or something like that.” Our drinks arrived and he took a big sip. “He used to also be pretty close with Matt, Haley’s brother. Remember, he was the one at the pizza place?”

I know I blushed. That had not been a good night for me and Adam. It was my first time seeing Byron and Jordan in years, and I was meeting Jeff and Haley for the first time, and I’d wanted to make a good impression on all of them. Maybe Adam’s friends could be my friends too that way. But it hadn’t really worked out. I’d talked too much because I was so nervous and apparently, I’d insulted about half the table. I’d even said something about Matt, even though I didn’t know he existed. Even though Jeff and Byron and even Jordan hadn’t minded too much, Haley had gotten really worked up over an off-hand comment I’d made. How was I supposed to know she’d been raped at some point? Despite that, I really regret ever saying anything. I know that ever since then, Adam has carefully planned to make sure that we spend less time with Haley and Jordan. I know this bugs him, because he’s told me that he and Jordan used to double date all the time.

Adam was still talking about Nick and Matt. I picked up the menu and studied it, nodding to indicate I was still listening. “But Matt goes to a special school in Stamford where all the kids are deaf. And as he got older, he started hanging out less and less with hearing kids. I guess the deaf kids just understand each other better—and I don’t just mean that Nick wasn’t completely fluent in sign.”

Adam also picked up his menu and the two of us looked it over. “Which burger are you thinking, Babe?” I asked, looking from picture to picture. I was just about drooling.

“For me or for you?”

“For you. I’m going to have whatever you’re having.” I was hoping he was in the mood for a bacon cheeseburger.

It was like he read my mind. “I was thinking about a deluxe bacon cheeseburger, but if that’s what you’re wanting, I think you should go for the supreme. It’s smaller.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m going to have the deluxe. I’m extra hungry tonight.” As if to prove the point, my stomach rumbled.

“Okay, then, suit yourself.”

The waitress took our order and menus, leaving me with nothing to play with. “So you think Nick is so odd because he has no friends?”

Adam contemplated that. “No, he does have some friends. He just chooses to mostly hang out with people who aren’t really known for their social skills. In addition to being big into games, a lot of them are stoners. One night, some of them came over and they were so high they sounded like Beavis and Butt-head.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And you’re sure Maria will be alright with him?”

He leaned in close. “Yeah. He’s sober tonight. After Claire told the whole party about his habit on the holiday, Mal rode his butt about it for a while. He promised that he doesn’t do it in the house or anything. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth, but he didn’t have that glazed look to his eyes today like he sometimes does.”

We fell out of talking about his family after that for a while. Adam had given me a small indoor garden—six potted plants—and he wanted to know how my ‘babies’ were doing. I was explaining how one of the plants had had to be moved to another room where it got less sunlight when our food came. Despite how hungry I’d been when I’d ordered, I looked at the big, greasy burger and this wave of nausea swept over me. There were mushrooms on the burger—I hadn’t realized that. I couldn’t see them, but I could smell them.

Adam dove straight into his burger and didn’t notice that I wasn’t eagerly eating. I pulled the top bun off my sandwich and fished around with my fork for the mushrooms. Once they were gone, I put the burger back together and cut it apart. I picked at a few French fries before I managed to face the burger. I ate two bites and then I knew I was done. I went back to playing with my fries.

Adam continued to chow down for a few more minutes before he slowed down. By that time, I’d shifted all the French fries from one side of my plate to the other. “What’s the rest of your family doing tonight?” I asked him, desperate for any type of non-food distraction.

As I’ve seen him do a number of times when referring to his whole family, Adam ticked off on his fingers as he spoke. “Vanessa is working. Margo went to cheerleading camp for the week with her ‘BFF’ Karen.” He made the finger quotes dramatically and a little mockingly. “And Byron volunteered to take Claire out for the evening. Anything for brownie points with the parents, especially after what happened on the Fourth.” I nodded; I’d heard all about that. Adam had told that story almost like he didn’t believe it. “I’m pretty sure Haley went with the two of them.”

Well. There Haley was again. I sighed and put my elbows on the table on either side of my plate. “Oh,” I said, not knowing what else to say. Adam looked up questioningly. ‘Oh’ is one of those words that can mean just about anything, depending on context and tone. I guess Adam couldn’t decode my ‘oh.’ “She spends a lot of time with Byron?”

“Well, yeah. She is his best friend. Before he started dating Jeff and she started dating Jordan—pretty much the same day—they basically spent all their time together. Before I knew he was gay, I thought he was getting really lucky, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled but stopped as he got a good look at my face. “What’s bugging you now?”

I ran one finger around the rim of my plate. “So me not getting along with Haley means that I’m on the outs with both Jordan and Byron.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “Uh, no. You had a nice chat with the two of them at the party, didn’t you? They don’t hold grudges.” He paused and made a face. “Well, actually, they do. But not over this.”

I pursed my lips. “I just wish there was something I could do,” I commented.

“I told you before. You’re already doing it. Let Haley make the next move, and then once you’ve got her listening to you, tell her you’re sorry. Until then, you’re just going to have to wait her out.” Adam sighed. “Look, can we find something else to talk about? Anything. I don’t even care what.”

I furrowed my brow. “I thought you’d want to try to help me on this,” I pouted.

He looked torn a little. “I’d help you with just about anything. But I’m so sick of this conversation. I feel like we’ve had it too many times before, and you’ve heard my opinion on the matter.” He put one hand on his forehead and rubbed like he had a tension headache. “Besides, think about this for a moment. For years, Vanessa was always, ‘Haley this,’ and ‘Haley that.’ Then she became the only thing Byron ever talked about. And then Jordan. Now, every third conversation we’ve had has been about Haley.” He looked me dead on in the eye and his expression and voice softened. “I’m not blaming you, Tiff,” he said softly. “I think it’s great you want to get along with her, for my sake. You didn’t do anything so horrible that she needed to behave like she did.” He blew out another breath and said his final piece on it. “I feel like she’s ruining my life just a little bit.”

Well. That was pretty melodramatic. Adam took my hand across the table. I didn’t say a word, just looked down at our hands. His fingers are surprisingly delicate for a guy’s, long and lean. He was rubbing his thumb over my purple-painted thumb nail over and over again. I was fighting back tears a little. I feel like that’s been happening way more over the past few months than normal.

When I didn’t respond to that he reached across the table and stole a French fry off my plate. He took in the mostly-uneaten burger. “I thought you said you were starving.”

I couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not. “Those things are massive! I should have ordered a smaller one.”

Adam smirked. “Told you so.”

I shook my head. “I should just always just listen to you. You are always right.”

He leaned back in the chair and laughed heartily. “Music to my ears.”

***

Because we hadn’t finished our whole game of mini golf, we were done with his plans way early. The sun was just starting to set, so Adam drove the car to a park. We sat down on a swing set and watched the sun go down together, swinging higher and higher. We took turns pushing each other and then finally sat down side by side, holding hands as the sun finally dipped from sight.

We picked Maria and Nick up in front of the library just before ten. Maria was telling a story, complete with overzealous hand gestures and what appeared to be sound effects. Nick was hanging on her every word, laughing hysterically as we pulled up. Adam looked over at me as we pulled up. “Well. Looks like we didn’t have to worry about the two of them after all,” he commented.

The two of them looked up when Adam honked and they zoomed over to the car. Nick was still chuckling a little as he got in on the passenger’s side. Maria was holding Nick’s book and there was a large brown stain down her front. “What’s on your shirt?” I asked her.

She looked over at Nick and he started laughing anew. “It’s blood,” she said conspiratorially, leaning forward as if she were letting me in on a secret.

I studied the spot as she steadied herself by leaning her arm on the armrest between the two front seats. “It looks more like chocolate sauce,” I observed.

Nick spoke out. “Blood, chocolate sauce, what’s the difference?” Maria started giggling uncontrollably, but only she and Nick understood why exactly that was funny.

Adam rolled his eyes. “Oh, no you two don’t,” he said, “No inside jokes in the car. Do you want me and Tiffany to start whipping out our pet names for each other? No. It’s sickening. Cut it out.”

Maria sat back in her seat and did up her seat belt. I leaned over onto the armrest she had just vacated. “What pet names?” I whispered.

He glanced over at me briefly before he turned his eyes back to the road. “Didn’t I tell you we have pet names?” he asked in a muffled tone.

“Nope. That’s news to me.”

“Huh.”

We got back to our house very quickly. Maria handed Nick back his book and said, “Remember, find out and call me!” Nick waved at her and nodded as she skipped back to the house.

I gave Adam a quick kiss across the front seat while Nick was still watching Maria. “Call me, too,” I said, giving him a knowing look.

Adam chuckled and shook his head. “I will. Night, Tiff.”

I was beat. I moved up the driveway a lot more slowly than Maria had. By the time I got inside, she’d dropped her shoes and purse in their usual spot and was walking barefoot to the kitchen. When she saw me, she stopped in her tracks and turned to me. “Oh. My. God,” she said, leaning against the door frame and fanning herself with one hand. “Nick is just so cute and funny! You don’t think he has a girlfriend, do you?” She didn’t wait for an answer—I think she already knew—but went straight into babble mode. “He goes to D and D every Wednesday, you know. He’s going to ask his friends if I can come.”

This whole ‘Nick and Maria’ thing was weirding me out. Wouldn’t it be really awkward if the two of them started dating? It’d be even more incestuous than Adam thinks Jordan and Byron’s relationships are. I was glad to see Maria so happy, but this was just plain screwy. “Be careful around him,” I warned, “Adam says he’s a loner and a pot-head.”

Maria shrugged that off. “So what? No one’s perfect.” She turned back toward the kitchen. “I’m hungry. I think I’ll go make a grilled cheese.”

I watched her pad her way down the hall. “Didn’t you and Nick have something to eat earlier?”

She called over her shoulder. “Just ice cream and I need something else to go with it. Did you want one?”

My nearly empty stomach contents sloshed around and I found a funny taste in my mouth. “No thanks. I’m totally nauseous.”

Maria had disappeared into the kitchen, but she popped her head back out of the doorway, a piece of American cheese, still in the wrapper, in her hand. “You’re always nauseous,” she said, smirking. “Maybe you’re pregnant. Ha ha!” With that joke, she disappeared into the pantry to find some bread.

She might have been kidding, but her statement made my blood curdle. I tried to remember back to health class—what little of it I’d paid attention to—when they’d talked about pregnancy. Nausea and extreme tiredness were definitely on the list of symptoms. And I had to admit that Maria’d been right when she’d said I was nauseous all the time. Maybe she was right about the other part, too.

I shook my head. There wasn’t any way I could be pregnant, was there? Adam and I had only been together three times, and we’d used a condom all those times.

No, wait. I’d forgotten about the Fourth. We’d been at Adam’s house that night, and I’d left my stash of condoms back at home. Adam had been sure Jordan must have some somewhere, but he’d rifled through all his drawers and hadn’t found anything. We’d decided to just go ahead anyway. After all, I’d been on the pill since I was about Maria’s age. But I remembered now reading something about how, if you didn’t take it the same time every day, it wasn’t as effective. And if we wanted to be completely honest, I was lucky if I remembered to take it at all some days. But that was less than two weeks ago. If I’d gotten pregnant then, I wouldn’t be feeling the effects from it yet…would I?

I was even more sick to my stomach now, and for a whole different reason. I don’t even remember walking upstairs, but the next thing I knew, I was in the bathroom, the one I share with Shannon and Maria. About a year before I’d been digging through the cabinet under the sink when I’d come across a box of pregnancy tests. I remember being intrigued, knowing they must be Shannon’s. I’d never asked her about them, but a few weeks ago I’d come across them again and checked to make sure there was still only one missing. My guess is that Shannon had found herself in a similar situation to mine sometime back. Knowing that Shannon, the golden girl, the one whom my parents always held me up to when they were telling me how much I disappoint them, had stood here with that box in her hand made me feel a little bit better.

I picked the box up and slowly read the instructions on the back twice to make sure I understood them. They were pretty straight forward. Pee on stick, wait ten minutes. How was I actually supposed to survive ten minutes waiting for the answer?

I went to my room and started taking off my makeup slowly. I began rubbing my eye makeup and fought back tears. I started making promises. To God. To myself. I vowed that if the test came back negative, I’d try harder. At everything: school, friendships, family relationships. If the test came back negative, I’d take my pill on time every day and never go without a condom again. I’d make sure this never happens again.

After I changed into my pajamas, I glanced at my clock. Eight minutes. Was that enough time? I went into the bathroom and glanced over at the stick. I’d left it face down. I wanted to be totally sure, so I needed to wait the full ten minutes. I picked up my toothbrush, my hands shaking, but somehow I managed to finish brushing.

I picked up the stick and looked at it.

 Not a day goes by That a man doesn’t have to choose Between what he wants What he’s afraid to lose                                                                                       Robert Cray, Consequences

Adam

Being a counselor at a day camp was harder work than I had expected. I’d picked the gig because I expected it to be easy. I have four younger brothers and sisters; it was supposed to be like babysitting them when they were eight and nine. Actually, it was like babysitting…multiplied by five. Most days I came home and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. I’d never really thought about having kids before, but breaking up ridiculous fights and tying shoes for kids who should know how to tie their own and a million other petty things had made up my mind. I never, ever wanted to be a dad.

It was Friday—last day of the working week. Camp had ended at five and Mal had picked me up about five-twenty. I had her drop me off at Shane’s house; the guys were getting together there to plan this blow-out party Robby was going to have. We hadn’t invited Jordan to the planning because the party was going to be the weekend before he left for school. We’d decided to have it as a goodbye party.

I was only at Shane’s for an hour because he had a date for the evening. After a block or two, Robby and I said goodbye and I walked home alone. Even though it’s never really quiet outside, it was like silence to me. Between the ruckus that was camp and the noise that was home, the sounds of cars and the wind and even the occasional child screaming was a sanctuary.

When I got home, I found a surprise waiting for me. Tiff’s car was parked outside the house. She was leaning against it, chewing on one of her fingernails in a savage fashion. If she wasn’t careful, she was going rip open a hangnail and end up bleeding. I approached cautiously; she only bites her nails when she’s nervous about something.

She saw me coming and jumped upright, removing her hand from her mouth. “Where have you been?” she asked, her voice strained, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “I wish you had a cell phone. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You knew I had to work today,” I began.

“I know,” she acknowledged, not sounding any less crazed, “but this is an emergency.”

I wondered briefly what counted as an emergency in her eyes. I knew it must actually be at least a little serious, because I’d never seen her leave home without makeup on before. “An emergency, huh? Why don’t you tell me what’s the matter?”

Tiff looked around. “I will, but not here. Let’s go somewhere private.” She dangled her keys from the hand she hadn’t been chewing on. I realized her hands were shaking and that’s when I actually started to get worried.

“Okay,” I said, reaching out to grab her shaking hand, “but maybe you had better let me be the one doing the driving.”

I expected her to fight with me, but she just handed me the keys. She got in the passenger’s side door and picked a paper bag off the floor, clutching it close to her chest.

I got behind the wheel and found that, much like after Byron or Jordan drives our shared car, I didn’t really have to adjust the seat or the rearview. I grimaced internally over that. I’ve heard that guys keep growing until they’re twenty one and I’m hoping to get another inch or two in that time, at least.

I drove toward the heart of town but couldn’t think of any place to go that would be private. I ended up stopping at the park and we walked to the far end, away from the playground and the people, to an area where no one hangs out. It’s overgrown and not particularly pretty. There has been an ongoing debate across town as to what should be done with the land, but nothing had been decided.

Tiff was still holding the paper bag tightly to her chest. We sat down on the rough grass, making an indentation in it. She crossed her legs and brought her spare hand to her mouth, getting ready to tear into a nail again. Three weeks of camp had made an instinct out of my next act: I reached out and pulled her hand away from her mouth. “Stop that,” I said gently. She pulled her hand back but didn’t start biting her nail again. I was getting slightly annoyed. “Are you going to tell me what’s the matter or not?”

She didn’t say a word. Instead, she just pulled the bag away from her chest and held it out. I took it in one hand, but I was still watching her closely. I’d seen her be…well, crazy…before, but I’d never seen her look like this. It was almost as if she was struggling not to burst into hysterical tears. It was a look I’d seen on Byron’s face before…and on Jeff’s, for that matter. But never on Tiff’s face.

“What’s this?” I asked, even though I didn’t think she’d answer me. Indeed, she just shook her head and pointed at the bag. As I gingerly opened the sack, not knowing what was inside, she pulled her arms around herself tightly, both literally and figuratively trying to hold herself together.

I shook the single item out of the bag and still didn’t know what it was. It was a long plastic stick with a thin tip on one end, covered in a clear plastic cover. In the middle, not too far below the cover, was a small circle. Two blue lines ran through the circle, forming a cross. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “What is it?” I asked again.

Tiff took a deep breath and tried to answer, but all the came out was a sob. I turned the plastic stick over and over again, trying to figure out what could possibly be making her this upset. I finally realized there was raised writing on the back side of the stick—white on white, so I hadn’t seen it. I turned it and held to the light at an angle so I could read the words. It said “Early Read Pregnancy Test” in clear letters.

I dropped the test on the ground and scooted away from it. I took a deep breath and then, realizing I was acting like an idiot, sat down beside Tiff and looked at the stick again, still lying where I dropped it. “Does this mean what I think it means?” I asked in a low voice.

Her breath was still ragged but she had control over it enough that she could speak, at least a little. “It’s positive,” she said quietly.

I looked at the stick again and found that my heart was pounding. It was just one little piece of plastic—but I felt like that one piece of plastic had changed my whole life in a second. “Are you sure?” I asked, knowing the answer to the question. “I’ve heard sometimes these things are wrong.”

She sniffled and, lacking a tissue—she didn’t even have her purse with her—she wiped her eyes and nose on her shirt sleeve near her shoulder. “It’s the third one I’ve taken,” she said, not meeting my eye, “and they’ve all said the same thing.”

“Wow.” I couldn’t think of what else to say. She had been avoiding my gaze ever since I’d pulled her finger away from her mouth, but now that I wasn’t looking at her, I could tell she was looking at me. “What are we going to do?” I asked, almost rhetorically.

“We?” she said, surprised.

I looked up at her sharply. “Yes, we,” I repeated, reaching out for her. She scooted closer and leaned up against me and I wrapped my arms around her the way she had wrapped her own arms around herself a short time earlier. “It takes two to tango. It takes two to argue. It takes two to make a…” I faded out.

“Baby,” she finished, and she started to sob fresh. I was just about to join her—her saying the word out loud had made a vague idea so much more real—but I managed to hold back. I’d agreed to see Tiff back in May because she sounded lost and alone. I’d thought, hey, maybe I can help her out. And her loneliness and neediness had been a factor in deciding to start dating her again. Every guy wants to be the hero to the damsel in distress, right? I see some of that in Jordan’s relationship with Haley, and I can even see it a little in why Jeff likes Byron—if you could call Byron a damsel. In any case, I didn’t think letting her see me fall to pieces was going to help anything.

“I thought,” she said as she sobbed, making the words unclear and forcing me to pay close attention so I caught everything she said, “that you’d blame this all on me.” I understood her thought process—not because she was right, but because it’s the same way she always thinks. She blames herself for how things went with Haley. I know she blames all her past breakups on her own actions. I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought that her parents splitting up was all her fault. She had what Mallory and her one college psychology class would call a persecution complex.

“Tiff, Babe…” I trailed off for a minute because I was starting to get choked up despite my promise to myself. I caught the tears and willed them not to fall. “I’m behind you, no matter what. Whatever you decide, I’ll stand by you.”

“Whatever I decide?” She looked mystified, as if I’d just suggested she needed to make a highly powerful political decision.

“Your body, your choice,” I spouted the cliché, sounding like a pamphlet they gave kids who made terrible mistakes. Kids like us. I ran one hand down her hair, which was loose, and then soothingly rubbing her back like you’d do with an upset eight year old.

She turned to look at me. “Yeah, but we’re also talking about your kid. And your future. What would you do if I said I wanted to keep the baby? Would you drop out of school? Would we move in together? Would we get married?” Tiff was off and running, looking out toward the tree line again. “And what if I said I wanted to get an abortion or give the kid up for adoption? Would you hate me? I need to know how you feel.”

I could see she meant that. But I also had the feeling that, if I were honest with her, she’d just take what I said and run with that, just so she wouldn’t have to think for herself. “I don’t have any answers for you, Babe,” I said. “I wish I did. I’ll tell you what I do know and that is this: I won’t hate you no matter what you decide. But I can’t make this decision for you. Tell me which way you think you’re leaning, and we’ll make plans together.”

She looked up at me, more hurt and confused than I’d ever seen her look before. So much for being her white knight, huh? I’d really fucked things up big time. We both took a deep breath, almost at the same time. “I don’t know either. I guess we both just need some time to think,” she said.

“Good idea,” I replied, “Maybe we should take the weekend to think and talk about this again on Monday? I don’t think we had any plans yet for tomorrow or Sunday.”

Tiffany had stopped crying, but she was still sniffling. “I was meaning to tell you,” she said, “that we actually do have plans Sunday night. Haley called me.” I raised my eyebrows, surprised. “She invited us to her house to watch a movie with her, Byron and Jeff. She said it was a ‘peace offering.’ I was so surprised that I said yes without stopping to consult with you.”

“I told you that would work itself out. And, believe it or not, so will this.”

I didn’t have to explain what I meant by this. “Yeah, but this is so much bigger than feuding with your brother’s girlfriend,” she observed.

She wasn’t going to get an argument from me on that point.

 She’s got a wall around her no one can climb She lets her ladder down for those who really shine I tried to scale it, but to me she’s blind So I lit a firecracker, went off in my eye Juliana Hatfield, My Sister

Matt

I really hadn’t wanted to go to camp this year. Just like last year, my mom and dad signed me up without asking. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy camp so much as there was just so much more going on at home these days. Now that I was in high school, I had a bunch of friends who could drive—and a girlfriend. I was afraid of what would happen if I left Lydia alone for a couple weeks. After all, I know that most of the guys at Stamford School for the Deaf thought she was a real catch.

I’d had my goodbye with Lydia and the guys the night before. I was leaving first thing in the morning. Mom and Dad were out running “last minute errands.” In other words, they were shopping for all the stuff that I needed that I’d refused to cooperate with—clothes, mostly. I’d thought I was alone in the house—usually on a Saturday Haley is either at work or she’s with Byron or Jordan.

This deserves the italics for a specific reason. Ever since Haley started hanging out with Byron, she hasn’t had the time of day for me. It’s actually pretty backwards if you think about it. Before that, she spent a lot more time out of the house. And when she was home, she had a ton of friends that were always hanging around the house being girly with her. But she’d still managed to find time for us to do stuff together.

That wasn’t true anymore. I can’t think of the last time when she’d voluntarily spent more than five minutes in the same room as me when there wasn’t a dinner table between us.

I’d been packing what I could—trying to get as much of that over with—when suddenly the floor began vibrating. That could only mean one thing: Haley was home and she thought she was alone. She’d turned the volume up as high as it would go on the downstairs stereo.

I made my way downstairs to see what she was doing. She wasn’t in the living room or dining room. I finally found her in the least likely spot—the kitchen. My mom says one of these days she’s going to finally teach Haley the difference between the oven and the stove.

So it was pretty surprising to find her standing over the stove, stirring something when I entered the kitchen. I tapped her on the shoulder and she startled, flinging her spoon and causing something hot and chocolaty to splatter everywhere. She gave me an annoyed look for a moment. “Jesus, Matt,” she signed, “You scared the shit out of me.”

I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said, looking over the mess she’d made. I grabbed a sponge. “What are you making?”

“Fudge.”

“Why?”

She wiped at a splatter of fudge on her forehead, changing it from a tiny dot to huge smear. I tried not to laugh. “Jordan and I are going on a picnic and we decided to make all our own food.”

I swiped the wet sponge at a chocolate spot on the back splash and then pointed out the window. “You’re going on a picnic today? It’s supposed to rain all day.” Everything outside was gray and dreary and the humidity was about 100 percent. I was surprised it wasn’t already raining.

“I know.” Haley picked the spoon off the floor and rinsed it. “We decided to have our picnic in the living room on the floor on a blanket.”

I didn’t tell her how stupid I thought that was. Instead I asked, “What else are you making? Can I help?’

She stirred her fudge some more, frowning at the consistency, then turned back to me. “You really want to help?” she asked me.

No, not really, but it was an excuse not to pack. Plus, maybe I could actually get her talking. “Sure. What do you want me to do?”

She gestured to the collection of sandwich ingredients on the other counter. “Make some cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for me?” she asked.

I eyed the cream cheese and jelly. The problem with ASL is that you can’t talk and do stuff at the same time. Haley had been trying to stir and talk to me all at once, and she’d been doing more talking than stirring. I couldn’t really talk to her as I made the sandwiches unless I wanted there to be as much cream cheese strewn everywhere as there was fudge. With a small sigh, I nodded. “How many sandwiches do you want?”

Haley waited until I was done signing and resumed stirring, gesturing over her shoulder. “Four. No, five.”

I flew through the sandwiches and stacked them on a plate before Haley poured her fudge into a pan to cool. She poked at it with one finger. “I got this recipe from Vanessa,” she said, “We made it one time when we were little. But somehow, this doesn’t look right.” She was right; it was pasty and not smooth the way fudge batter should be. I shrugged at her. I wasn’t too surprised, to be honest. “Oh well. At least Jordan can cook. He’s making cookies and bringing some chips. I think all we’re missing is some lemonade.” She opened the freezer and pulled out a can of concentrate. “That’s something even I can’t screw up.”

She poured the lemon goop and water into a pitcher and began stirring, but I knew she could see me out of the corner of her eye. “If you know Jordan’s bringing cookies, why’d you even bother trying to make fudge?”

Haley grimaced. “I really love fudge?” she said, but the look on her face told me that that wasn’t the whole story. I shook my head at her and crossed my arms across my chest. “Okay, okay,” she said, looking irritated. “I’ve got terrible PMS and chocolate is the only cure.”

I made a disgusted face and she almost smiled. “Hey, you asked. Be glad you’re a guy and don’t have to deal with that.” She stirred the lemonade a few more times and then put it into the fridge. Haley’s tiny twitch of a smile grew a tiny bit bigger. “How much do you want to bet I didn’t get all the chunks of lemon stirred out?” she asked. I grinned back at her.

I rinsed the sponge I had used earlier and swiped at more chocolate stains spread everywhere. Haley threw all the extra ingredients into the fridge and then watched me work. I couldn’t read her expression. “Why are you doing this?” she finally asked.

“You made a mess. I’m just cleaning it up for you.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Why are you helping me?” She stared me down.

I couldn’t figure out why she was so defensive. “You have a problem with me wanting to spend time with you?”

Haley raised one eyebrow. She looked suspicious. “What’s in it for you?”

Did she seriously think I was only spending time with her to get something out of it? “The pleasure of your company? I never see you anymore.”

She didn’t seem moved. “Yeah, well, that’s because you’re always too busy for me,” she signed.

What was she talking about? I gave her my best puzzled expression. “I think you have it backwards. You’re the one who never has time for me. Ever since you started hanging out with Byron, it’s been like I don’t exist.” My family has made signs for frequently used names. Byron’s is a book made out of two letter Bs, opening and closing. Haley spends a lot less time at dinner talking about Jordan—I don’t blame her; I don’t talk to Mom and Dad about me and Lydia, either. But in any case, Jordan didn’t have a sign yet.

She turned her head to one side, looking me dead on. She looked a little sad, but like she was trying to hide it. “I know I kinda pulled away right at that time. I went a little bit nuts but it didn’t have anything to do with Byron.” I gave her a look. “You’re going to have to trust me on that, okay, Matt? But anyway, by the time I got back into my right mind, you were off with your new friends.”

I thought about that. That was the year I started seventh grade and moved from the elementary school building to the high school building. There were so many more activities there—sports and clubs. I’d joined the soccer team and met a whole bunch of interesting people. Haley was right; I could remember one day when she’d come to my room and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with her and I’d told her that I couldn’t. And then the next weekend I’d been too busy to help her with something else. “I guess you’re right,” I admitted.

Haley sighed. “You’re right, too. There were times I definitely didn’t want to talk to you. You had such an interesting life sometimes, compared to mine. You were making friends and going to parties and coming home with hickeys,” she emphasized this by poking me in the neck. “Meanwhile, I was at home, locked in my bedroom, afraid of the world, trying to poke Byron out of the closet.”

I frowned a moment before I was able to translate that. Another problem with ASL is that it’s not set up the same as written English. Haley had literally signed that Byron was in the closet, as if someone had locked him into the kitchen pantry; it took me forever to realize she was using a euphemism. She’s fluent but sometimes she throws me for a loop like that; it’s not something a deaf person would have done. After I managed to work through that, I went back to something she’d said earlier. “What in the world do you have to be afraid of?”

She collapsed into a chair. “Everything,” she said. I gestured to her to go on, but she shook her head. “Please, don’t ask. I don’t have the energy to explain. Let’s just say that I’m scared of everything you have.”

Haley rubbed her eyes and I could see she was getting ready to cry. “What do I have that you don’t these days?” I asked. She had me totally bewildered.

She shook her head and put her hands to her temples. After a moment of avoided eye contact, she looked back at me, her mouth twisted up. She started shaking and then I realized she was laughing. “You’re right!” she announced. “I even have the fucking hickey. Want to see?” Before I could say no, she pulled her t-shirt away from her neck and bared her breastbone, where she did indeed have a small hickey. I shook my head at her, pretending I was so disappointed. She stood up from her chair and gave me a hug. “I love you, little brother,” she said. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m not a total failure at life.”

Despite the fact that she was no longer upset, she’d squeezed out a couple of tears. I pointed to her face. “What’s with the crying?” I asked.

Haley wiped the tears out of her eyes. “I told you. PMS. The only upside to it is that you can use it as an excuse for everything.” She turned away from me for a minute and looked at the clock on the stove. “Jordan’s going to be here in about twenty minutes. Did you want to join us for our picnic?”

I turned my head to the side for a moment. “You’re really going to have an indoor picnic? I assumed when you said that that it was just an excuse to have sex on the living room floor.”

She reached out and smacked me playfully. “Matt! Ew!”

I ignored the whack to the arm. “Why not? I’d do it.”

It was her turn to ignore me. “So do you want to join us or not? I’ll teach Jordan a few signs so you won’t be left out of the conversation.” Something was distracting her and she was talking without paying attention. “He’s really good with his hands.” Something must have changed on the music she was listening to, because Haley started bouncing her head in rhythm and she looked like she was whistling.

I waited her out. “If Jordan’s that ‘good with his hands’ then I don’t think I want him around my big sister.”

Haley ignored me again. She started singing along with the music this time. A short time later she quit and looked at me expectantly. “I’ll come to your picnic if you do me one favor.”

I had her full attention now. “I’d say, ‘Sure, anything,’ but you’ve been scaring me slightly today. What’s your demand?”

“Make Jordan a sign so I don’t have to keep spelling his name.”

She smiled. “That’s easy.” She made fists and stuck out her pinkies. She drew a heart shape on her chest with them. She’d literally said that Jordan was a heart—and I knew she meant her heart. I made a gagging face and she wrinkled her nose. “Hey, if you wanted something less mushy, you should have been more specific.”

I opened the door to the fridge. “If I’m going to eat with you, we’re going to need more sandwiches.” Haley was once again ignoring me, but this time it was because she wasn’t paying attention rather than because I was being dirty. She was singing again. I stopped and watched her. After a while she noticed me staring and became self-conscious. Not only did she stop singing, but she closed herself off, holding her body away from me. I smiled at her. “I really wish I could hear you. Everyone says you have a beautiful voice.”

Haley didn’t change her posture. She did sigh. “Just my luck, huh? I only have one talent in life and I can’t share it with you.”

I pulled the sandwich fixings out of the fridge again. “I’m sure you have lots of talents, Haley. Maybe you just haven’t found them yet.”

She bit her lip and shook her head. Rather than responding to my point, she changed the subject. “Do you like football?” she asked.

I tried to follow her thought process and failed. “Yes, but why?”

“I was always trying to get Byron to go to football games with me. And while he never minded watching it on television, I could never get him to go out to the school to watch one in person. I’m bound and determined to go to every home game this year. You wanna be my football buddy?”

I nodded and was going to answer that when the lights flashed. Haley’s face lit up and she smiled in a way I hadn’t seen her smile in a very long time. “He’s early,” she signed.

I watched her walk out of the room. I wondered what happened to the Haley I remembered—the one she had been for a fleeting second just now. I guess it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I was going to get a chance to know the Haley she’d become…and I was going to start as soon as I got back from camp.

 If there is a load You have to bear that you can’t carry I’m right up the road, I’ll share your load If you just call me Bill Withers, Lean on Me

Byron

I was all alone in my bedroom for the first time in a while. I hadn’t been spending much time there unless I was sleeping, partly because Nick had always been holed up inside… unless he was downstairs playing video games. But today he’d begged my mom to take him out. She’s been trying to get him to get a haircut and some new clothes, and he actually took her up on the offer. I’d heard a small part of the conversation, including the words “Maria” and “impress.” I’d shaken my head and moved on, having a hard time believing my ears.

I’d realized I had less than a month until I left for Duke and I’d had a minor panic attack about that. Mom was trying to find a day when Jordan, Adam and I could all head down to Kitchen & Bath together. They had a service where you pick out everything you need for college and they deliver it to the store near your school. Mom was hoping to deal with all three of us in one fell swoop. I had a feeling she was overestimating how easy this would be.

It made me wish I had someone to talk to at that minute. Hay had invited everyone over to watch Clerks—one of her favorite movies which she had insisted Jeff and I had to see— but Jordan was scheduled to work. He’d joined her for the afternoon before he had to go to the Rosebud and had forbidden the rest of us from arriving until after he left. I knew her parents had taken Matt off to camp and would be gone all day. I shuddered to think about what Jordan and Hay were doing all alone in her house.

And then there was Jeff. Ever since we’d gotten in trouble, he’d been shying away from me. I ached inside over it. We’d gotten so close—both physically and, I thought, emotionally—and I could only guess what he was thinking now. At first he’d been grounded, but his stepdad had set him free almost a week ago. He hadn’t called me in all that time, and when I’d called him, he’d found an excuse to get off the phone as quickly as possible.

At first I thought that maybe he was mad at me. I mean, I did fall asleep in his bed and cause this whole mess, right? But then I’d stopped being self-centered and taken a step back. Everyone at work was talking about him. Shari in bedding mentioned that he never smiled any more. Joanie—one of Hay’s “favorite” coworkers—commented that Jeff was sullen and unpleasant, but then again, Joanie never had anything nice to say about anyone. Even “Lissa the insane” came out of her own little world and asked if something was the matter with him.

I was in a brooding, introspective kind of mood and I needed someone to bounce it all off—my fears about school, my worries about Jeff, even my concerns about Hay and Jordan. I wondered if Adam was home. He’s always a good listener, and his advice is usually at least 51 percent accurate.

I was just about to head down the hall to Adam and Jordan’s room when someone knocked on my door. “It’s open,” I called half-heartedly. I fully expected it to be someone who wanted me to drive them somewhere—I get that a lot—but I was a little surprised.

Adam peeked his head through the door. He looked absolutely wretched, like he hadn’t slept in a couple days. “You got a few minutes?” he asked. His hair was sticking out at all angles like he hadn’t combed it, and that’s how I knew that, whatever his problem was, it was serious. Adam’s one of those guys who can’t be “seen” if he’s not properly groomed.

I gave him my most serious look. “For you? Always. Come on in and have a seat.” I had been pacing, but I took a seat in my desk chair. Adam came all the way in the door and closed it behind him.

He looked around the room before he chose Nick’s bed as a seat. “Why is this room so neat? You trying to make the rest of us look bad?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been hiding in here being angsty all morning. When I angst, I clean.”

Adam looked tense. “What do you have to be angsting about anyway?” he asked.

I shrugged again. “Nothing I can’t handle in time. You, on the other hand, look like death warmed over. Want to tell me about it?”

He flopped down on the bed, spreading himself all across Nick’s bedding. I might have cleaned the room, but I didn’t change the sheets on that bed. If it were me, I wouldn’t have wanted to touch those sheets, but it definitely wasn’t the right time to mention that. Adam popped one hand over his eyes and lay there for a moment, not answering. “I’m not sure you can relate,” he said finally, “but then again, I don’t think I know anyone who can really relate to this.”

“Try me.” He didn’t move, and even though he still had his eyes covered, I could read his expression clearly. He didn’t want to say it out loud. I think I must have looked the exact same way when I managed to come out to him in the spring. I leaned forward in my seat. “Adam, spit it out. Trust me. Whatever it is, it’s easier once you say it.”

He sighed and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “Tiff’s pregnant.”

I sat back hard in my seat. “You’re right,” I said, even though I was not sure I’d heard him right. “That’s not something I can really relate to. I’m pretty sure that I’m about the last person who would ever have that problem.”

Despite his severe discomfort, he snorted. “Right,” he agreed. He sat up a little bit and finally moved his hand off his eyes. He looked at me for the first time since he’d come in the room and I could tell why he’d covered his eyes—they were red and he looked ready to cry.

I couldn’t think of the last time I’d seen Adam cry. I want to say it was when he’d broken his leg when we were—was it twelve or thirteen? I was the one prone to sobbing out of the three of us, by far, but Jordan was known to occasionally tear up when he was especially upset about something. I don’t know if Adam just bought more into that macho bull crap society sells, or if he was just more even keeled than Jordan and I were. Or if he just wanted everyone to think he was.

In any case, it was definitely my turn to play even keeled. Adam looked completely miserable, and my getting worked up definitely wasn’t going to help him. “Pregnant,” I repeated. He winced. “Are you sure?”

He looked away, his forehead crumpled. “She took three tests,” he announced to the wall.

I looked up at the ceiling. Adam wasn’t making eye contact, so I figured it didn’t matter where I threw my gaze. “What did Tiff say about…this?” I asked.

Adam lay back down. “Not much,” he admitted. “She was really too upset to get too many words out.”

“Did she manage to tell you how she’s leaning? Does she want to keep the baby?”

I heard a muffled sound and I looked back at him for just a second, just to confirm he was actually crying. Then, out of respect for him, I looked away again. I turned completely away and found myself staring at the photo of me and Jeff on my nightstand. That wasn’t helping—seeing Jeff smiling, my arms around him.

It was only a short time before Adam cried himself out and sat back up. He wiped his eyes and then went on as if he’d never shed a tear. “I just don’t know, man,” he said, “I just don’t know what I’m gonna do.” I turned back to him, listening intently. “And I don’t think Tiffany knows what she wants to do, either. I really think she wanted me to tell her what to do.”

He was quiet for a moment, so I spoke. “What did you say to her when she told you that?”

Adam gathered his knees up in front of him. “I told her that it was her choice, but when she decided what she wanted to do, I’d be there for her one hundred percent—we’d make plans and do it, whatever ‘it’ was, together.” He put his head down on his knees and spoke into them, muffled. “She’s taking the weekend to make up her mind.”

“Sounds like you said all the right things,” I noted. He mumbled something into his knees. “Tell me something, Adam,” I continued. He looked up. “If you didn’t have to consider anything else—Tiff’s feelings or school or Mom and Dad or anything else—what you want right now? What would you decide to do if you were the one who just found out you were pregnant?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, trying to decide what he wanted and then whether I was up to hearing it. “I’m not ready to be a dad,” he said miserably. “I’m not sure I ever want to have kids, ya know? It comes from being raised as—how did you say it?—oh yeah, as part of a herd.” He sighed. “Anyway, I just don’t know about me and Tiff.”

“What do you mean?”

He jumped up off the bed and started pacing the room. “Jordan told me he loves Haley. Did you know that?”

“Yeah. Well, actually Hay told me that she loves him, but I’m pretty sure he said it first.” I watched him making the same circuit I had been making not ten minutes ago.

He stopped for a moment and watched me. “And what about you and Jeff?” I looked at him blankly, not sure what he meant. “I see how you look at him. I know you—you may not have said it to him, but I know you feel it.” I shook my head, not really disagreeing but not really agreeing either. Adam sagged for a moment and then resumed pacing, tenser than ever. “I didn’t start a relationship with Tiff for…that. I was just looking to have some fun.”

I smiled very briefly, remembering Jeff removing my clothes carefully but quickly that night—eager but also sensitive. “Well, I can definitely understand that,” I said.

Adam eyed me sharply. “Sex fucks everything up,” he observed. “Hang on to your virginity, dude. That is assuming you still have it…?”

I didn’t answer that directly. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, deflecting the attention back to the real issue. “Why does how serious your relationship with Tiff is matter?”

He sat back down again, on my bed this time. I had to turn around in my seat so I could even see him. “When we were talking,” he began, once again hunched over his knees, “she asked me some questions about what would happen if she kept the baby. She made it sound like she wanted to keep the kid…and she wanted us to get married. I don’t think I could do that, no matter what happens.”

I took a moment to bury my own head in my hands and took a deep breath before I looked back at him. “Well, if she decides she wants to keep the baby, then you’ll just have to sit down with her and hash out all the details. Tell her that. It won’t be the end of the world.” Adam looked over at me, his look indicating he thought I was clueless on this. “Look, are you going to Haley’s this evening?”

He nodded. “I didn’t want to go, but Tiff insisted. Even with everything we have going on, she’s still desperate to get on Haley’s good side, and since Little Miss used the words ‘peace offering’ to Tiff, there’s no way she wanted to pass that up.” He sighed. “And despite what I said, I can’t deny her what she wants. Especially now.”

Adam stood to leave and I joined him. I clapped him on the back and opened my mouth to say something inspiring or soothing. But I had no words, really. This was pretty serious and I had a feeling that no matter what way it went down, he was going to end up with a lot of pain.

He stopped in the doorway. “You know what the worst part is?” he asked me. I shook my head. “I didn’t want to start up anything serious this summer because I didn’t want to leave my heart behind in Stoneybrook, the way Jordan has to.” He rubbed his eyes. “But, depending on what Tiff decides, I may have that problem anyway.” With that, he walked away.

***

After Adam left, I had one more worry to add to my bank, but I pushed it all aside and focused on the one I felt I could do the most with. I picked up the phone in the hallway and retreated to my empty room, dialing a number from memory. Jeff’s mom answered. “Hello, Mrs. Spier,” I said.

“Byron? Jeff’s right upstairs. I’ll get him for you in a second.” Jeff’s mom sounded much the same way I felt. “Before I do though, can I ask you for a favor? We’re having family dinner on Tuesday. Mary Anne and Pete are coming, and Richard and I would like it if you were there with Jeff.” I was stunned. I sucked in a breath but Mrs. Spier went on. “To be honest, Byron, I’m a little worried about him. I’ve seen Jeff be happy and sunny before, and I’ve seen him be angry and sullen. But I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like he’s not feeling anything at all.”

“I know. I see it too.”

“I knew you did. Being with you always makes Jeff seem so much more alive. Plus, I’d like to get to know you better. So will you come?”

I thought about my work schedule. “I think I’m free. I’ll have to double check, but if I’m not working I’ll be there.” It might be awkward, but I figured if we were forced to sit down for dinner, we would have to talk.

I could hear her smile. “Great! Let me go get him.”

She set the phone down and there was silence for a while. Jeff picked the phone up quietly and for a moment I didn’t even realize he was there. “By?” he said faintly, “You still there?”

“I’m here.” Jeff usually starts phone conversations with statements like, “What’s up?” He didn’t do anything of the sort this time, though. He just waited for me to go on. I went straight to the point. “Are you coming to Haley’s to watch the movie with us?” I asked.

He sighed. “I wasn’t planning on it.” It was about four p.m. and he sounded like I’d woken him up.

I plowed on. “Well, why not? You got a better offer?” I was picturing him sitting at home, making small talk with his mom and stepdad—something I know he’d been trying to do as little as possible all summer long.

Jeff didn’t answer for a moment. “I just don’t feel like hanging out today. I’m just not up for it.”

“What’s the matter? It seems like you never feel up to hanging out these days,” I observed. This was answered by complete silence. “C’mon, Jeff,” I pleaded, “For me? I just need to be with you for a couple of hours. We can share a couch cushion on Hay’s couch. You don’t have to say a word beyond ‘hello.’” It was a low blow and I knew it, but I was desperate at this point. “Please?”

Jeff sucked in a breath. “You are the only person I would let get away with emotional blackmail,” he said morosely.

“So you’ll come?”

“Yeah. For a little while. No promises beyond that.” He yawned. “I gotta go.”

“Yeah, me too. Take care, Jeff. I…” I was cut off by Jeff hanging up prematurely. I finished my sentence out loud to myself, just needing to say it. “I love you,” I told the phone.

Jeff sounded lifeless, and I pictured him looking as unhappy and uncomfortable as Adam had just now. If we were going to assume that Tiff was also going to be miserable, this was going to be one fun evening.

***

We were supposed to be at Haley’s after five, but Adam appeared in my doorway again at quarter till. “Ready to go?” he asked. He’d fixed his hair, albeit half-heartedly, with a lot less product than he usually uses. Instead of his usual tight clothes, he wore a baggy t-shirt and a loose pair of jeans. I’m not sure if he’d raided Jordan’s closet or what.

I gathered up all my belongings. “We’re going to be really early,” I commented.

Adam shrugged. “I’ve got all my shit together,” he said tersely, “and if we wait fifteen minutes that may no longer be true.” I nodded at him, knowing he wasn’t referring to any physical items.

We stood outside Hay’s front door for a moment before we rang the bell. The house was wide open—Hay’s a big fan of fresh air when there’s a breeze. We could hear voices coming from the living room in the front of the house. There were some curtains in the windows—all my time at Kitchen & Bath had taught me that they were called sheers—the thin, translucent kind. Hay and Jordan were standing inside the window and, although they were hazy through the sheers, I could see that he had his arms around her and they were smooching on and off. “I’m going to miss you,” I heard Hay say.

Jordan kissed her again. “I’m going to miss you more,” he replied.

“No, I’ll miss you more.”

Oh my God. They were purely nauseating. This is the kind of thing Adam hates, but when I looked over at him, waiting for him to comment, I realized he wasn’t even listening. He had his hands clenched in front of him and was squeezing the left hand so hard with the right that it looked like it hurt. I finally realized it was up to me to end the goop going on inside the house. “She can’t miss you if you don’t leave,” I called out in a sing-song voice.

The curtains parted and Hay’s face appeared in the crack, with Jordan’s right behind her. He put his arms around her waist, looking put out. She, on the other hand, appeared amused. “You’re early!” she pouted, hiding a smile. “The door’s open. C’mon in.”

By the time we made it into the living room, a whole thirty seconds later, Jordan and Hay were back to making out. She was wearing very little clothing—a camisole and a short, thin skirt—and yet she and Jordan were both covered in sweat. I raised an eyebrow at Adam and he shrugged.

Jordan pulled Haley closer to him one last time and kissed her forehead. “I gotta go, Honey,” he said as he ran his hands down her back.

She blew him a kiss as he moved to the door. “Love you,” she called. He grinned at her just before he exited. Hay turned to us, a smile etched into her face.

Adam had plopped down on the couch and was looking over the large assortment of remote controls on the side table. Hay’s mom doesn’t know what most of them are for, but she won’t throw them away in case they come in handy. Hay’s pretty sure one of them is to a TV they threw away before they moved to Stoneybrook…eight years ago.

Haley looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Tiff coming?” she said. I had trouble believing that she brought Tiffany into the conversation so casually. Obviously she didn’t know what was going on with Adam and Tiff, but last time I’d heard her refer to Tiff aloud, there’d been a few choice curse words thrown in.

Adam nodded distractedly. “This is the largest collection of remotes I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Hay giggled. “Matt wants to start a museum with them.” She sounded giddy and the smile was still on her face. “Hey, By, can you help me in the kitchen? I’ve got chips and popcorn, but because you guys were early, they’re not ready to go.”

I was still standing in the vestibule. “You got it, Honey,” I said, mocking Jordan just a little. She rolled her eyes at me and headed into the kitchen. I followed, more slowly.

She was in a sickeningly chipper mood as she handed me a bag of popcorn and gestured wordlessly to the microwave. “What did you and Jordan get up to today?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know. I started up the microwave.

Hay raised an eyebrow. “You sound like me,” she said, almost laughing. I just looked at her as she dumped some Munchies into a bowl. “I was teaching him some yoga moves,” she said finally.

“I’ll bet.”

She waggled her eyebrows at me. “You’ve definitely been hanging around with me for too long,” she said with another spate of giggles. Her hair was pulled back on the top half of her head into a ponytail, while the rest of her hair was loose. When she turned to me as she tossed the Munchie bag in the trash, she looked like she was glowing.

“You didn’t…” I faded out and let that hang there. I knew she knew exactly what I meant.

She smiled again. “I told you. We were doing yoga.”

“I always do yoga in a short skirt.”

Hay pretended to look shocked. “I’d pay to see that,” she quipped. I stopped the microwave and crossed my arms in front of my body. She tipped her head toward me and bumped her hip into my leg. “We went to yoga class, and then we practiced a few of the moves in the living room. Then I changed out of my workout clothes, because I was totally sweaty and gross. And then, maybe, Jordan and I made out on the living room floor for a while…”

I pretended I hadn’t heard the last part. “You dragged Jordan to a yoga class?” I repeated.

She smirked. “Actually, he asked if he could come. He said he needed to mellow out a bit.”

I raised my eyebrows to that. “As if you two didn’t get mellow enough when you got back here.”

Hay giggled again. “What has got you so nosy these days?” she asked. “Usually, when the topic of Jordan and me comes up, you put your hands over your ears and hum something that sounds…churchy.”

I had to smile at that, because it was at least a little bit true. “I worry about you, you know.”

She cocked her head to one side, and I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or what. In any case, she sobered up, losing the giggly smile. “Why? I can take care of myself,” she said seriously.

“I know. But I have a feeling you told the same thing to Vanessa before…” I paused and bit my lip. Even I couldn’t believe I’d just said that, but it had slipped out. It was basically the culmination of three months of worry, always in the back of my head. Even though I knew Jordan was treating Haley like a china doll, I’d heard stories about him and other girls. Lots of stories.

Hay pursed her lips. “That was different,” she said, looking downward and not making eye contact.

“Oh yeah?”

She looked up and tried to read my expression. I don’t know what she saw, but for some reason she softened. “Jordan isn’t Dominick, By. Not by a long shot. For starters, he knows the meaning of the word ‘no.’” She gave me a hug and let go. “Look, earlier today, when we were really sweaty, Jordan suggested I should just take my shirt off.” I raised my eyebrows. “I told him no and he was completely okay with that. It’s not that I’ll never take my top off for him. It’s just,” she paused and made a face. I wasn’t sure if she was shying away from the idea of what she was going to say or if the actual thought made her slightly ill. “It’s just that I didn’t get to decide when any of my firsts were. Dominick never took my shirt off, so I get to decide when that happens. And it has to be my idea.” Now that the words were said, she smiled again, a little happier.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, “because I told Jordan that if he ever hurt you, I’d kick his ass. But you and I both know that if I ever tried, I’m the one who’d get beaten to a pulp.”

The smile from before started to creep back across her face. The doorbell rang—both an audible ding-dong and a flashing of lights. “Adam, can you get that?” Hay called. She gave me a bowl and I finally removed the popcorn from the microwave. We gathered up all the snacks but then she stopped. “I have one last comment that should make you feel even better on that topic, okay? Jordan…” she stopped, shaking her head. “This was said to me in confidence, so you can’t tell anyone, alright? Jordan and his friends from the Faith League took virginity pledges. He and I promised each other that we’re going to take things very slowly and make all these decisions together. Does that sound like someone you have to worry about?”

Hay didn’t wait for me to answer; instead she took the popcorn and Munchies and stacked them on top of each other and waltzed into the other room. “Hey, Tiff,” she said casually, as if there were no bad blood between the two of them.

I followed at a more sedate pace, trying to sort out what Hay had just said but also observe the situation ahead of me. Tiff and Adam were standing near the door in a quick embrace—nothing like the steamy little scene Hay and Jordan had made earlier in nearly the same spot. Tiff just briefly rested her chin on Adam’s shoulder and he buried his head in her hair, and then they separated. “Hi, Haley,” Tiff said, polite but more than a little stiff. She plastered a fake smile on her face as she moved from Hay to me. “How’s it going, Byron?”

I smiled gently at her. “It’s going,” I said generically. She was a little better at hiding her discomfort than Adam was, but it was right there if you knew what you were looking for. She wore less makeup than usual, and I’d never seen her not have her fingernails painted some crazy color or another. Even though it was maybe 95 outside, she wore long pants—not capris but long jeans—and an oversized shirt. There was also some tension written in the corners of her mouth and eyes.

Haley set the snacks down on the end table that wasn’t covered in the Braddock Remote Museum. “Make yourselves at home,” she said casually, but she raised her shoulders as she spoke, telling me she was just a little bit anxious about everything after all.

Tiff took Hay at her word and sat down on the other end of the couch. Adam sat down next to her feet on the floor. I sat down next to the snacks—someone had to, after all. Hay looked at the set up and, not quite feeling the love enough to sit down right next to Tiff, perched on the edge of the oversized chair that faced the sofa. We all sat there silently for a moment and Hay looked at me pleadingly. I knew she’d read Adam and Tiff correctly enough to know that something was up, but I wasn’t sure exactly what she thought that might be. She mouthed the word ‘help’ and squeezed her hands together, but I shrugged helplessly at her. I had no idea what to do either.

Tiff looked around the room. “This is a nice house,” she observed, saving the day without knowing it.

Hay smiled lightly. “We like it,” she said gratefully.

Tiffany continued to glance around. “Although,” she said, her eyes falling to the end table, “I’m not sure how many electronic devices one room really needs.”

Hay laughed. “You don’t know my mom,” she said, which didn’t seem to follow the conversation—but actually, was a logical statement in this case. “She must have been a Boy Scout in a previous life. Her motto is definitely ‘be prepared.’” This was true. Hay waved her hand in the direction of the collection Tiff continued to take in. “You never know when MacGyver might come by and find a use for one of these suckers, along with a pair of tweezers and a piece of chewing gum.”

Adam looked intrigued. “MacGyver, huh?” he said. He got up on his knees and inspected the remotes also. “Do any of these actually work?”

Hay nodded. “One for the stereo, TV, cable box and DVD player. Matt marked all of those with sparkly pink nail polish.” Adam raised an eyebrow and she shook her head. “I was going through a phase, okay? I couldn’t tell you what most of the rest of those are for.” She hopped up and started fiddling with the DVD player.

We were quiet for a moment again, less awkwardly this time. After she set up the DVD, Hay returned to her chair. “Jordan got his roommate information this week. Did you two get yours yet?” she asked me and Adam.

I nodded. “I’ve actually already talked to mine on the phone a couple times. His name is Julio Fuentes and he’s an engineering major, too.”

“Julio?” Hay repeated. I shrugged. “He sounds…”

I glared at her. “If you say gay…”

Hay rolled her eyes. “Of course not, By. I was going to say…” she faded out again, but she started giggling. I had no idea what she was going to say, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to finish her sentence.

I was desperate for a topic change. “How about you, Adam?”

He looked distracted. “I went online and found a guy. We got to talking about OU and decided to be roomies. His name’s Colin.” He put his hand up over his shoulder onto Tiff’s knee as he spoke. She looked uncomfortable with the conversation about him leaving town. I noticed she kept touching her stomach—she wasn’t being obvious about it, but she’d done it maybe five times since she’d sat down. I don’t even think she noticed she was doing it.

Hay didn’t notice. “You met your roommate online? Isn’t that kinda dangerous?”

Adam looked over at Tiff, who shrugged. He was about to respond, but I replied first. “Hay, you have got to stop learning all of your life lessons from episodes of Degrassi,” I sighed. “Like letting a computer pick your roommate for you—like Jordan and I did—is any safer.”

Hay giggled again. Tiff perked up. “What is Degrassi?” she asked.

Before Haley could say anything, I spoke up again. “Degrassi is the worst television show in the history of the world,” I said.

Tiff and Adam looked at each other again. “Oh, come on,” Hay exclaimed. “Don’t ever listen to By. He just doesn’t appreciate fine Canadian teen drama.”

I slouched back into my seat and took a handful of Munchies. “Bah, humbug,” I said. “That show isn’t realistic in any way. That’s my problem with it.”

Hay raised her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? Like you aren’t Marco and I’m not Paige,” she said with another giggle.

By this point, Adam was shaking his head. “Ignore the two of them when they get this,” he told Tiff. She smiled, just a little.

I ignored him. “If you’re Paige,” I told Hay, “then Jordan must be Spinner.” Hay looked disgusted. “Enough said.”

Hay stuck out her tongue at me, not about to let me have the last word. “No, one last thing. Is Jeff Dylan?” She giggled briefly, and then her words caught up to her. “Speaking of Jeff,” she said as she glanced at the wall clock, “he’s late.”

I looked at the clock, also, and sighed. “He said he would be here,” I noted. “Can we give him five more minutes? If he’s not here by then, I’ll go over and drag him out of his house.”

Hay noticed my tone of voice. “What is with him these days?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. I had promised, back in the spring, not to tell anyone about Jeff’s troubles and I had faithfully kept that word. But even with that knowledge in my head, I still couldn’t explain Jeff’s behavior.

Jeff only made me wait four out of those five minutes. Just as I was tying up my Converse to cross the street to his house, he rang the doorbell. “It’s for you,” Hay said, and since I was right inside the door anyway, I opened it.

He might have been standing on the stoop, but he looked like his brain was on another planet. I stepped outside to meet him. “You made it,” I said, gathering him into a hug.

Jeff hugged back, though not as enthusiastically as I would have liked. “I’m here,” he said. I waited for more of a response—maybe a “Can I leave now?”—but I knew he wasn’t in the mood for joking. Unlike Adam and Tiff, his style of dress wasn’t changed in any way, but he just didn’t look like his usual self, either. There were bags under his eyes and he just looked blank.

I took Jeff’s hand and pulled him up the steps. Hay was nowhere in sight. Jeff looked at Adam and Tiff and, taking my statement from earlier literally, greeted them with a single word. “Hey,” he said. He sat down in Hay’s vacated chair. I eyed the seat and decided that I might fit into it with him. After all, I had promised to share a cushion with him. Jeff scooted to the side and put his head down on the padded arm of the chair. He kicked off his sandals and pulled his feet up in front of him. I sat down at the edge of the seat gingerly and squeezed one of his feet.

Haley came back with a couple cans of soda. “Hey there, Jeff,” she said, genuinely smiling at him. He gave her a glance but barely responded, just raised one hand slightly as if it was too much effort to actually wave at her or to talk to her. Hay looked at me with concern in her eyes. I gave her my most helpless look and she raised her eyebrows. I saw Adam and Tiff look at each before they both turned to me.

Jeff closed his eyes, ignoring all the eyes that were aimed our way. I was feeling more and more panicked each second everyone was looking at me. “Maybe we’d better start the movie?” I suggested.

Hay was still holding the soda; she hadn’t moved since he’d greeted Jeff, but now she slowly unfroze. “Sure, in just a second.” She handed Adam and Tiff each a can. “By, Jeff, do you need anything? Drinks?”

Jeff didn’t move, so I answered for both of us. “We’re fine for now. And if that changes, I know where the kitchen is.” I’m practically a member of the family at Hay’s house, so I’m used to helping myself to things in the kitchen. I wiggled my butt farther back into the seat until it reached the back of the chair. Jeff’s hip was poking into my side and he didn’t seem to even notice that. I shifted until my hips were at the same angle as his and wrapped one arm around his waist, leaning in his direction.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Still standing, she meandered over to the remote controls and picked up the one to the DVD player. The movie was already cued up on the television screen; she just had to hit play. “Any of you ever see this before?” she asked.

“Clerks?” Tiff said, looking at the screen. “I think so. It’s in black and white, right?”

“Yeah.” Hay curled up in the far corner of the couch, where I had been sitting earlier. Adam hopped up in between her and Tiffany and snuggled up to the latter. I noticed that he put his hand over her stomach, same as she’d been doing.

Adam shook his head. “I’ve heard about it before, though, and I’ve seen a couple of the other movies in the same universe.”

Hay sighed happily. “We own the whole series, so let me know if you ever want to borrow any of them. I just love them all.”

She started the movie up, and we soon came to realize just how much she loved the movie and how many times she’d seen it. No matter how many death glares Adam shot her, Hay just couldn’t seem to stop reciting the dialogue along with the characters. I’m used to that out of her; she watches movies over and over again and can quote large chunks of a couple dozen or so. But Adam really hates it when someone talks during a movie, and I know she had to have been on his last nerve. Hay got so into watching the movie that she barely even noticed.

After only about ten minutes, Tiff called a time-out. “Where’s your bathroom?” she asked Haley.

Hay made a face. “If you need to wash your hands or get a tissue, there’s one on the other side of this wall,” she said, pointing to the wall with the television. “Otherwise, you have to go upstairs, second door on the left. The toilet down here is on the fritz.”

I shifted in my seat and felt my knees creak; I hadn’t realized how tensed up my whole body was. “Again?” I said to Hay. She shrugged. Tiff ran upstairs and I eased my way off the chair. Jeff hadn’t moved at all since he’d sat down in the chair, but he had opened his eyes when the movie began. I knelt down in front of his face and placed one hand on his cheek. He turned his eyes to me, waiting for something profound to come out of my mouth. I didn’t have any words that grand—and even if I had, I wouldn’t have wanted to say them in front of Adam and Hay. “Do you want something to drink?” I asked him.

He shook his head and went back to staring into outer space. I didn’t want to get up, but I did so anyway. I moved ridiculously slowly in the kitchen, digging through all the cans of cola, looking at all the best by dates, despite the fact that they all came from the same 24 pack.

When I got back into the living room, Tiff was back on the couch and she and Haley were commenting on a scar Adam has on his right ankle. It’s actually two scars from two separate injuries: a small crescent that had required stitches when he was five, and two puncture marks from I don’t even remember what, several years later. Put together, though, they form a happy face smiling up at the world. “That’s just plain weird,” Hay observed. She turned to me as I tried to squish back into the chair with Jeff; despite the fact that he didn’t seem to mind sharing the seat with me, he wasn’t making it easy for me to get in with him. “Do you have any odd scars, By?”

I shook my head. “I got a few scars, but they’re pretty boring.”

Hay looked thoughtful. “What about Jordan? Obviously, I’ve seen his legs and arms, but is he hiding anything interesting under his clothes?”

Adam looked at her like she was crazy. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised to hear that she’d never seen Jordan without his clothes, or if he was just annoyed with her in general over the movie dialogue. “Why don’t you ask all the girls who’ve actually seen him with his clothes off?” he asked snappishly.

Hay recoiled like he’d hit her. She looked a little hurt, but hid it by reaching over for the remote. “Are we ready to start the movie back up?” she asked.

No one answered her. Tiff put a soothing hand on Adam’s knee and threw him a glance. I could read her exactly: She knew just what was bothering him and didn’t want him taking it out on Haley. He settled down just a little bit but didn’t say anything. Hay pressed the remote control a little harder than necessary and then tossed it down the crack of the couch, between her and the arm.

The movie started back up and even Hay was silent for a while, but sometimes she really just can’t help herself. Just a few minutes later we were watching a scene about a couple arguing over how many guys she’d gone down on. Hay piped up with what I knew must be lines from later in the same scene. “‘My girlfriend’s sucked thirty-seven dicks.’ ‘In a row?’” I rolled my eyes fondly at her and Tiff snickered. Adam, on the other hand, was not amused. We managed to keep watching without bloodshed for now.

At forty-five minutes, Hay paused the movie again. “What did you want to do for dinner?” she asked us. “I was thinking Thai food. We could get it delivered.”

Tiff lost all color in her face and put her hand to her mouth. I was expecting her to get up and run out of the room, but she took a deep breath and slowly went back to normal. I glanced at Adam, who looked vaguely freaked out. I looked at Hay. “Not Thai, Hay,” I said, “Can we stick to something more…bland?”

Hay pouted. “You love Thai food. You love all food,” she said to me. She’d obviously missed Tiff’s reaction to her food choice.

“I do,” I replied, “but maybe not this evening.”

Tiff was about to say something but her expression changed as she looked over toward the door to the kitchen. “Aw. Haley, I didn’t know you had a cat. I always wanted a cat, but my mom wouldn’t let me have one.”

A small calico cat stood in the doorframe, watching us curiously. After a moment, she walked in. Tiff made little noises with her lips, trying to get the cat’s attention, but the cat strutted past her without a glance. Haley looked amused. “Sorry. I have to warn you, Hermione has a total mind of her own.”

“Hermione?” Adam asked.

Hay shook her head. “Matt used to have an Emma Watson fetish,” she said. “Anyway, Hermione only has eyes for one person in the whole world.” As if to prove the point, Hermione jumped up onto the arm of the chair I was sitting in, the arm Jeff wasn’t resting his head on. She looked at me until I sighed and shifted, and then she climbed into my lap. Haley smiled.

Adam gave me a sick little grin and I knew he was about to say something pretty inappropriate. I didn’t give him the opportunity. “I think I just have a really soft lap,” I observed.

Jeff finally moved for the first time in about an hour. He shifted and stretched and turned over so he was facing me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and whispered in my ear, then settled his head onto my shoulder. I blushed scarlet from his words and everyone sat up and stared at me. Adam smirked. “I wanted to say something to embarrass you, but it looks like Jeff beat me to it.”

Hay leaned forward with a silly look on her face. “What did he say?” she asked slyly.

Jeff just closed his eyes and leaned onto me a little more. Hermione got jealous and stalked off, hopping up onto a shelf on the entertainment center, licking her wounds and her tail. I shrugged at Hay and the group as a whole. “That’s between me and Jeff,” I commented, wrapping my arms around him and resting my cheek on his head.

“As far as I can see, there isn’t a whole lot between you and Jeff,” Adam teased. “Do you two need a blanket so you can grope in some semblance of privacy?” I didn’t dignify that with a reply.

Hay returned to an earlier topic, knowing that she wasn’t going to get too much more of a rise out of me on the current subject. “So what about dinner?” she pressed.

Adam looked at Tiff, who looked a little green again. I noticed that, although Hay and Adam had been eating the snacks, she hadn’t touched them. Adam went from being his usual self—throwing out dirty jokes left and right—to the more sedate guy he’d been most of the day. “Why don’t we finish the movie and then we can decide what to do for dinner?” he suggested.

Hay shrugged her assent and picked the remote back up. “Before you start that, pass one of those snack bowls over here,” I called. She passed me the bowl of Munchies and then the movie came back. Hay shoveled popcorn into her mouth at an alarming rate—I think she was a little hungrier than she wanted to admit, hence her insistence on dinner.

The movie had only been back on for a few minutes before Adam started getting annoyed again. The popcorn was quickly gone and then Hay was back to her old tricks. Her eyes were so thoroughly glued to the screen that she was completely oblivious to the irritation growing right next to her. Adam balled his hands up as Hay continued to spoil lines.

Shortly before the end of the film, Hay said the words ‘thirty-seven’ again with a laugh. Adam had had enough. He turned to Haley and looked at her, distracting her attention from the television screen. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend how many girls have sucked his dick?” he snapped.

It pretty much came out of nowhere in Hay’s eyes. Her mouth formed an O for a moment and then she shook herself. “What?” she said as she clicked the movie to a pause.

“You heard me.”

Hay frowned. “I heard you just fine, Adam Pike,” she said. I could tell how irritated she was because she only whips out the last name when she’s thoroughly annoyed. “What I wanted to know was what you meant.”

For the first time all evening, Jeff sat up straight, unwrapping his arms from my neck and instead placing one hand on my shoulder where his head had been. “Uh-oh,” he said slowly, in a very soft voice.

I disentangled myself from Jeff and looked at him; he looked as if he had slept through everything, although I knew he’d been awake. His eyes had that bleary, sleep-filled look, and the rest of his face was slack. “Yup,” I replied morosely, not sure I liked where this conversation was headed.

Tiff definitely didn’t like it either. “Maybe that’s a conversation that’s better had between you and Jordan,” she suggested to Haley.

Hay looked like she wanted to cry. “Maybe I will,” she said defiantly, flashing angry eyes at Adam rather than Tiff.

She picked up the remote and I slid out of my seat, pointing up the stairs. “Don’t wait the movie on my account,” I said. Hay was too frustrated and annoyed to even reply. I didn’t see her start the movie back up, but I did hear it start playing. I looked back at her through the doorway and I could see she was doing that thing where she was willing herself so hard not to cry that she didn’t even notice that tears were already falling.

I hadn’t realized so little of the movie was left. By the time I was washing my hands after using the bathroom, two sets of feet were coming up the stairs. I was just about to open the door to let the next user in when I heard the beginnings of a conversation.

“I’m sorry about Adam being an ass just now,” Tiff said in a low voice that I barely caught. “You haven’t been crying, have you?”

That’s how I knew she was talking to Haley. “No,” Hay lied.

Tiff plowed on. “I’m not going to make excuses for him or say he was right in any way, but he’s under a lot of stress right now. He’s…” she paused and I imagined that she was trying to find the right words. “Let’s just say I’ve put him in an awkward spot.”

Hay snorted. “Right,” she said sarcastically. She banged on the door to the bathroom. “Hurry up, By!” she shouted at me.

I dried my hands a second time and went to open the door but Tiffany went on. I didn’t want to interrupt any reconciliation attempt the two might be having, so I pulled my hand back from the door. “You guys only have one bathroom here?” she asked.

“Aside from the broken one downstairs, there’s one in my parents’ room,” Hay replied. “I’m going to use that one, but I need to grab something from here first.” She groaned loudly. “Ugh, my stomach is so upset right now. I shouldn’t have eaten all that popcorn. I could just barf.”

There was a brief pause and then Tiff spoke seriously. “Every time I’m near you, you’re always ready to throw up,” she said. “Any chance you’re pregnant?”

I sucked in my breath. I knew the answer to that was a big fat no and I waited for Hay to exclaim her innocence but instead she sighed. “Why does everyone think I should be pregnant?” she asked. I was so surprised by her statement that I could only guess how Tiffany felt about that. There was a pause and then Hay restated her position. “No, I’m definitely not pregnant. First, I’m on my rag right now. Second, Jordan and I have not been doing anything that would result in pregnancy anyway.”

“Oh,” Tiff said, and she sounded…disappointed? The reason for that became clear in a moment. “It’s just that I just found out I’m pregnant and I thought if you were too, maybe we’d have something in common.”

This was met by complete silence for a while. “You’re pregnant?” Haley finally echoed.

“I found out on Thursday,” Tiff said quietly.

Hay muttered something that sounded like, “Well, that explains Adam, then,” before she returned to Tiffany. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. It didn’t come across as rude, just matter-of-fact.

Tiff clearly took it the way it was meant. “I don’t really have any female friends, so I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. Adam, well, he’s a wreck, and I definitely can’t talk to him about this the way I would a girl friend. He keeps telling me it’s all my choice to make and typical guy stuff like that.”

Hay drew in a very deep audible breath. “I guess, if you ever needed to talk, you could give me a call. At the very least, I could be an objective listener.” There was another quiet moment and then Haley said, “Is this where we’re supposed to hug?”

Tiff actually laughed. “Let’s not push our luck,” she said.

I decided it was safe to open the bathroom door. One look at Hay told me that, not only did she know I’d heard all of that, but she also knew I’d purposely waited until they were done. But she wasn’t about to tell that to Tiff. “Oh, my Lord, By,” she sniped as she pushed past me into the bathroom. “What the fuck were you doing in here that took you that long?” She reached into a decorative box on the counter and returned with a tampon. “Never mind that. I do not want to know. Just scoot out of the way; you’ve been making Tiff hold it for forever now.”

Both Hay and I exited the room and let Tiff through. “Thanks, Haley,” she said.

Hay waited until the bathroom door was shut and then called back after Tiff. “Don’t mention it,” she said, and then scooted down into her parents’ bedroom.

Adam was stretched out on the couch when I came back, trying to goad Jeff into a conversation and getting absolutely nowhere. “I told you back during spring break, man. Red Sox all the way to the Series. Now the Dodgers, they’re actually doing decent this year, but there’s no way they can beat the Sox.” Jeff had leaned back over the arm of the chair while I was upstairs, and while he was actually looking at Adam as he spoke, he didn’t appear to be following the conversation. “Yo, Schafer, you listening to me?”

“I don’t blame him if he’s not,” I said breezily as I sat down on the other arm of the chair. “You and the Sox. That’s all you ever talk about these days,” I lied. “Aren’t they pretty much hopeless? When was the last time they won the Series?” I smiled at Adam, who actually tried a smile back. Baseball was, in his mind, a great distraction from his troubles. “Is there a team out there that’s never won the Series? I think I’ll root for them.”

Jeff reached over and pried my hand that was closer to him off the couch and squeezed it. “How about the Cubs?” he asked, speaking the first full sentence he’d said aloud since he’d come inside the house. “They last won in…what was it?” He looked up at me and while he wasn’t smiling or anything, he did appear to be more than half-awake for the first time all evening.

Adam finished Jeff’s sentence. “1908.”

“1908,” I repeated, never taking my eyes off Jeff’s. “Sounds good to me. I got a thing for lost causes.”

“Lost causes,” Jeff said with a sigh. “Like me.”

I put a hand on each side of his face. “Never,” I promised him. “You’re only lost when everyone gives up on you. I’ll never do that.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Adam shifting uncomfortably. I suddenly got what he meant when he said that he could see how I felt about Jeff. I’d said ‘I love you’ before because of what Adam said and because of the way Jeff usually ends phone calls with a generic ‘love ya.’ But for the first time, I thought that I might actually be able to say it to Jeff and mean it. I felt like he was slipping away recently, and I’d realized how much that hurt. It hurt more than if it were one of my brothers and sisters. It hurt more than if it were Hay. And I’d told all of them, at some point or another, how much I loved them. (Yes, even Nick.) But I had yet to say it to Jeff.

But this was definitely not the right time. I couldn’t say it in front of Adam, especially the way he’d poured his heart out earlier. He hadn’t said so, but even though he said he wasn’t looking for love this summer, I had the feeling he was jealous of what Jordan had with Haley. He might not have wanted to exchange ‘miss you mores’ in an extremely sickening fashion, but I could understand being jealous of the goodbye kiss and ‘love you.’ I was a little bit jealous of that myself, to be honest. Especially with Jeff the way he was right now.

Tiff came back into the living room as Jeff answered. “You say that now,” he said to me, “but we’ll see how easily that kind of promise is broken.”

I kissed the top of Jeff’s head, not replying to his statement. There wasn’t much I could say to it; only time would tell. Adam sat up at one end of the couch and Tiff sat by his side. “You got Jeff talking!” she said, as if I had performed some kind of miracle.

“Yeah,” I replied, “but he’s talking crazy talk over here.” I slid down into the seat next to him and put an arm around his shoulder.

Tiff looked at Adam yet again. “This is one of those times when I should ignore them, isn’t it?” she asked.

He took her hand and kissed it. “Oh yeah.”

Hay thundered down the stairs—for someone so petite, sometimes she moves like a small elephant. She stood in the doorway and took in the scene. Without a word she strode through the door, stopping in front of Jeff and me. She ruffled Jeff’s hair and grinned at him and then perched on the arm of the chair where I had been sitting until a moment ago. Adam let go of Tiff’s hand and took in the three of us sharing one seat. “So, are we still thinking dinner? Tiffany, you hungry?”

It was Haley’s turn to turn slightly green. Tiff noticed and shook her head. “Not particularly.”

Adam looked concerned. “You need to eat,” he said.

Hay looked Tiff over and shook her head. “Don’t not eat on my account. If you’re hungry, feel free to order something. I’ll eat later if I feel like it.”

Adam looked from her to Tiffany, confused. “Tiff?” he said.

She shook her head again. “I’m not hungry right yet, Adam. Don’t worry, though. I’ll eat something eventually.”

Jeff was following the conversation, confusion clear onto his face. He turned to me and gave me a questioning glance. I shook my head at him. “Later, okay?” I whispered. He nodded.

Hay jumped off the chair and moved to the end of the couch with the remotes. She flipped the television off and the stereo on. “Give me a minute here,” she said. “I have to change CDs before we can listen to anything. The one that’s in there now is something Vanessa gave me. It’s depressing as hell.”

Jeff seemed intrigued. He leaned forward in his seat, coming out of my grasp. “On a scale of one to ten, how depressing is it?” he asked.

Hay frowned. “Give me some reference points,” she demanded.

He thought for a moment. “One is your usual la-la-la self. Five, maybe you need some Prozac. Ten is slit your wrists.”

I turned to him, shocked. “Jeff!” I exclaimed.

He wrinkled his brow. “What?!”

“I don’t think that’s funny.”

“Who said it’s supposed to be?”

The other three had been watching this warily. I saw Hay and Tiff exchange a glance this time, while Adam just scrunched up his face—he could see this wasn’t going to lead anywhere good. “Byron,” Tiff said tentatively after a minute, “you didn’t cut your wrists, did you?”

I took a deep breath, not sure how to answer that. Of course I hadn’t. But I was afraid that if I pointed that out, everyone would know the truth.

“No, I did,” Jeff said after a moment. He looked on me angrily. “Are you happy now?” he asked. I shook my head, but Jeff wasn’t watching me anymore. He jumped out of his seat and bent down to pick up his sandals. Without stopping to put them on, he ran out the door without a backward glance.

Everyone else was looking at me. “Jeff, wait,” I called. I was wearing my socks without shoes but I didn’t think about that. I just ran out the door after him. Despite my track experience, he’d had the element of surprise on his side and as such he’d gotten quite a head start on me. By the time I reached the sidewalk, he was across the street. “Jeff,” I called again.

He ignored me and cut across the lawn to his house. I flew across the street, without even checking traffic, desperate to catch up to him, but it wasn’t meant to be. By the time I made it to his house, cutting across his lawn in a brand new pair of white socks, he’d made it inside and locked the door behind him.

I rang the doorbell, hoping his parents were home, but no one answered. Both of their cars were gone and I realized that Jeff must be home alone. I banged on the door. “Jeff, please let me in,” I shouted, but I knew he wasn’t going to. I’d been willing him silently all evening to show some emotion and now that he’d finally done it, I wasn’t very happy about it.

I wanted to go straight back home and into my bed, but I’d left my shoes at the Braddocks’. At the very least, I needed to stop back at Hay’s to pick them up, but I really wasn’t looking forward to three pairs of eyes staring at me.

I guess I should have been pleased, then, when I got back to Hay’s and Adam and Tiff had left. “Tiff suddenly decided she was hungry after all,” Hay said quietly when I came in the front door. She was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, my shoes sitting in front of her. “But I think that she just didn’t want things to be all awkward.” She stood up and took me in. “You heading home, or do you want to come upstairs and have a bitch session with me?”

If Tiff and Adam had still been there, I would have definitely left. But I looked at Haley and she looked as exhausted as I felt. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Hay’s bed is twin sized, but we both stretched across it on our backs, side by side. We were silent for about five minutes before she started talking. “How long have you known?” she asked.

I drew in a deep breath. “You’re going to have to be way more specific, Hay.”

She rolled over and looked at me. “Jeff,” was all she said.

“You mean about him threatening to slit his wrists?” All the response I got was her looking at me like I was a moron. “Since spring break. He didn’t want me to tell anyone and I respected that.”

She pouted, not her usual cheerful but manipulative pout, but a legitimately unhappy face. “I’m not just anyone,” she pointed out.

I rolled over too, so we were facing each other. “No, you aren’t. You’re my best friend. But you’re also Jeff’s friend. If he had wanted you to know, he would have told you.”

Hay conceded the point. “I just don’t like it,” she said finally. “We’ve never kept secrets from each other before.”

I laughed bitterly and she gave me a suspicious look. “You know that’s not true,” I said. She looked blank and I laughed again, more kindly this time. “Gay,” I said, pointing at myself. I then pointed to her but didn’t say a word. I knew she got it.

Hay grinned in spite of herself and shook her head. “Yeah, okay, you’ve got a point.” She shifted her weight and sighed. “Well, I know about it now…” She faded out.

I sighed back. “There’s not too much to tell you. I just know he held the blade to his wrist and threatened to cut. His dad called the cops and he ended up hospitalized for a couple weeks. He’s been seeing a therapist ever since.” Hay made a sympathetic noise. “I think he struggles all the time with some unseen demons.”

She reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. “I know things will work out, By. Just stick with him.”

“That’s the plan,” I said. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I love him, Hay. It’s taken me a while to see it, but I do.”

“I know,” she said soothingly. She returned the squeeze and let go of my hand. She started to speak again, then bit her tongue.

“What?” I asked, instantly suspicious.

Haley shook her head. “I was going to say something, but you’re right about how some things aren’t meant to be repeated.” She pulled her knees up towards her chest in the fetal position. “How about another topic, something I know you know about: Adam and Tiffany. I know you heard what she said while you were camping out in the bathroom.”

“Yup.” I rubbed my temples with my thumbs. “Actually, Adam told me earlier today.”

“That whole thing sucks,” she said, aptly summarizing the situation. “What are they going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “and I don’t think they know either.” Hay nodded. “I’m going to be there for Adam and be a sounding board if he needs it, but at this point, I refuse to take on any more of anyone else’s problems. I got enough of my own to worry about.”

Hay grabbed her knees and pulled them tighter into her chest, giving herself a hug. “I know what you mean,” she said quietly.

I watched her for a moment. “What are you talking about? Things seem to be going well for you over all. What problems do you have?”

She didn’t answer that directly. “What’s this about Jordan and other girls that Adam was talking about?” she asked instead.

I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time. “He was just mad because you kept ruining bits of the movie for him,” I said.

Hay pressed on. “Yes, but he wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”

I felt trapped in the one place that I had never wanted to be: between my brother and my best friend. “I think Tiff was right,” I said diplomatically. “This is a conversation that is best had between you and Jordan.”

Hay’s eyes were moist. “I know that,” she said quietly, “but I just need to know what’s going on. I feel like I’ve been missing some giant piece of the puzzle of my life. Jordan’s not cheating on me, is he?”

“Hay…”

“I have to know,” she repeated.

“No, he is not cheating on you, to my knowledge,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t stop until I at least confirmed that. “I only hear him talk about two things these days: college and you.” The conversation was so awkward that I turned flat onto my back as an excuse to break eye contact.

It didn’t work. She hiked up onto her elbows and leaned over me. “But he’s talked about other girls before,” she said.

“Yes,” I confirmed, “Over the past eighteen years, he has referred to other girls once or twice.”

“Byron, please stop being obtuse.”

I covered my eyes briefly. “You are putting me in a very awkward spot,” I told her as I lowered my hands. She just looked at me, genuine sadness in her eyes. “Okay, look, I’m not going to pass along gossip. I’ll give you what facts I have, but it’s not as if Jordan I were super-close during the time period I’m covering.” Hay looked marginally happier, but I wasn’t sure she would stay that way. “When they were fourteen, Adam and Jordan started a contest. They made up this scorecard with all the things you can do with a girl leading up to sex. Sort of like the bases that you’re so fond of, only a lot more of them. I think there was something like 16 different things on the list, and each one had a point value.”

Hay’s mouth was hanging open. “Why would they do that?” she asked.

“Because they were fourteen? In any case, for a couple years, you could go into their bedroom and there were three scores on a chalkboard. Whenever they did something with a girl—even if they’d done that thing before—they added more points onto their tally. For the first year or so, Adam was way in the lead.”

Haley wrinkled her nose. “You said there were three scores?” she said.

This part was worse than telling her about Jordan. “They put my name down and gave me a negative score. As time went on and I refused to play, they kept lowering my score. After we started hanging out all the time, they erased me, probably because they thought that I was actually way ahead of them.” She shook her head. “Anyway, not long before we turned sixteen, Jordan pulled ahead in the score, and for the entire rest of the time they kept playing, Jordan was ‘winning.’”

Hay rolled over onto her own back, probably so I couldn’t see her expression. “So Jordan’s been with a lot of girls,” she summarized.

“I didn’t say that,” I told her. “All I know for certain is that he’s definitely done a lot of the things on the list. And for a while, he bragged about it quite a bit. But he stopped keeping track and stopped talking about it right around the start of 2003. This part I can’t verify, but I feel confident enough to say it anyway: it was right around that time that he started to have feelings for you. It’s like the contest and other girls became unimportant in comparison to you.”

She didn’t seem to have heard the last part. “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked.

I didn’t answer that because I didn’t know. “Well, did you tell him everything you’ve ever done?” I asked, turning it back on her.

That made her even more distressed. “I haven’t done anything, though. You know that and he knows that.”

I sighed again. “The last thing I do know is that he hasn’t…done that final step. That’s something you two have in common. Maybe someday you’ll both be ready to lose your virginity together.”

She was silent. “I don’t know,” she said and at first, I wasn’t sure what she meant. “I don’t know about that,” she repeated. “I don’t feel like I have the right to that anymore.”

I sat up and stared at her. “Are you saying that you don’t think you’re a virgin?” She shrugged. “Haley. Virginity is something you give someone, not something that someone takes from you. You didn’t give that to anyone, so you can still say you’re a virgin.”

She sniffled for a moment but didn’t reply to that statement. “I just don’t know,” she said again, but the look on her face was different this time. “I don’t know if I can trust Jordan after this. I mean, I don’t have a problem with him having girls go down on him in the past. Just the fact that he totally and completely lied about it.”

I shrugged at her. “I can’t answer that for you, although I will point out that, until Adam said that, you were one-hundred percent team Jordan,” I said frankly. “You really need to talk to him. And, because I know you, I’d like to point out that it will not help things if you go in looking to pick a fight.”

Hay managed a small smile in response to that. “But I’m itching for a really good fight, now that I’m no longer enemies with anyone,” she joked, but then her face sagged. “Maybe I should just have taken my mom up on her offer,” she sighed.

“What offer was that?” I was still leaning over her in a semi-menacing manner, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“She wanted to take me to the gyno and get some birth control.” Hay scrunched up her face. “You know my mom. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.”

“And would you having sex with Jordan be a best or a worst?”

She actually laughed. “By. We’re talking about my mom here. In her mind, I’m still ten.” I was going to reply to that but she turned serious again. “You know, I can’t say that I’m thankful about what happened to me back then or anything. But I’m thankful for who it changed me into.”

I shifted so that I was slightly lower, on one elbow. “What exactly do you mean by that?” I asked her, genuinely curious.

Hay’s brown eyes shone up at me. “I won’t say I was on a crash course when I was younger, but there wasn’t much I wouldn’t try if someone offered me the opportunity. I think that, if I hadn’t been…you know…I might have been a little slutty. Not stealing someone’s boyfriend and getting pregnant slutty,” she paused and I rolled my eyes, knowing she was referring to her favorite television show again. “But I definitely would not be seventeen and not have done anything. And I don’t just mean sex either.” She smiled a little bit. “You and your rules made me want to be a little more cautious in life. I think that if you hadn’t been around, I probably would have smoked some cigarettes and a few joints and probably had sex in the back seat of some guy’s car this weekend. Instead, I had a picnic with Jordan and Matt on the living room floor yesterday.” Her grin became bigger. “I think that if Jordan and I had hooked up in that alternate universe, I’d be just another notch on his bedpost.”

“A few more points on his scorecard,” I added.

“Exactly. And while me getting raped had a lot to do with that, I could have totally gone the other way and become a crazy boyfriend stealing whore, too. But you’re the reason I didn’t do that. So thank you.”

I lay back down beside her and enveloped her in a hug and she closed her eyes. I could almost have fallen asleep like that—although I am much more careful about where I fall asleep since the debacle at Jeff’s—but she popped her eyes back open and looked at me. “I know now’s not a great time,” she said seriously, “but you never did tell me what happened with you and Jeff on Independence Day.”

I should have seen it coming; to be honest, I was really surprised that she had waited several weeks to bring it up. I propped myself up and returned the look. “Do you want a video, Hay, or will a timeline of events do?”

She started to really smile. “There’s a video? Ooh, kinky.”

I ignored that. I’d promised to keep her updated on my (alleged) sex life some weeks back, something I’d regretted almost instantly. “Well,” I said, stretching out a pause until she sat up and leaned forward. “I just…” I knew I was blushing and I couldn’t get any words out after that.

Hay inspected me. “Must have been amazing to get this type of reaction out of you,” she said. I just nodded. “Well, since you seemed to have lost the power of speech, how about we play Twenty Questions?” I shook my head at her but she pressed on. “Did you guys take your shirts off? How about your pants?” I didn’t reply but instead looked away and she took that as all the answer she needed. She made a high-pitched squeal. “C’mon, By, how far did it go?”

I found my voice. “Give me a break, Hay.” She just cocked her head and gave me a look that said she was never going to let this go. “Okay, okay. One detail and that’s it.” I leaned over, as if there were someone else who might hear. “I’m not at thirty-seven, but I can start a count, okay?”

“Thirty-seven,” Hay said, sounding amazed. “Do me a favor. Try to keep your count lower than that, okay?” She grinned.

“You do me a favor, then. Try to go easy on my brother when you talk over his past with him, hmm? Don’t tear him a new asshole or anything.”

Hay wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure I can completely promise that. All I can say for certain,” she said, more relaxed than when the topic had first come up earlier but not as calm as when she’d been just a few seconds before, “is that I won’t give him any worse than he deserves.”

The problem was that that was exactly what I was afraid of.

 I know you’re an emotional girl It took a lot for you to not lose your faith in this world I can’t offer you proof But you’re going to face a moment of truth Billy Joel, Matter of Trust

Jordan

I can’t explain what it is, but something about walking into Kitchen & Bath gives me the creeps.

It’s not that most of the employees are women, or even that the store is full of giggling brides registering for china patterns and choosing color schemes. Unlike Adam, I want to get married someday, put together a home and have a couple kids. I think my apprehension is closer to the fact that I’ve heard so many stories about some of the employees that I was afraid to say something that might give away what Haley and Byron had been saying about them.

As goofy as it sounds, I actually stood outside the doors and took a couple deep breaths before I braved going in. Just as I thought I might be able to handle going inside, Jeff came out. He was wearing a lightweight jacket with the collar turned up—it was at least ninety out—and his head was down, but it was definitely him. I sighed in relief at seeing a familiar face. “Yo, Schafer!” I called as he walked down the sidewalk toward the next store.

Even though I know he had to have heard me, he didn’t even look up; he just got into the car with his stepdad. I stood there gaping as they drove off. What the fuck was the matter with him these days? No wonder Byron had been moping around the house like the weight of the world was on his shoulders recently.

After that little snub, I figured I could handle just about anything—even the giggling brides. I squared my shoulders and walked inside the store. It was Tuesday, just before rush hour, so not exactly their busiest time. Haley was scheduled off in about twenty minutes, but I wanted to catch her while she was still on the clock so she didn’t slip by me unseen. I wanted to surprise her. Tips had been good the last week or so, and I wanted to take her somewhere nice for dinner. I’d even dressed up—Byron had loaned me a pair of khakis and I’d found an unworn button down shirt in the back of my closet. Hell, I’d even ironed.

The china department that is Haley’s home base was in the back of the store. I didn’t really look at the merchandise as I walked back there. Mom was going to bring Adam and me back here tomorrow to do college shopping. I had a feeling she would want to look in every department. I didn’t see what the fuss was—get me some sheets, a blanket, a couple towels and some way to feed myself and I’d be set.

The china caught my attention though. In a family with eight kids, we use plastic dishes most of the time. I don’t think I’d ever seen fancy china before. The first set I saw cost almost one hundred fifty dollars for one person to eat. I don’t think all the dishes in my house would add up to that much money.

I must have looked really out of place because nearly the second I set foot into the department, a snooty looking woman swarmed on me. She was middle aged and had blonde hair that had to be dyed that way—no one’s hair is naturally that shade. I knew who she was before she even got close enough for me to read her nametag. So this was the infamous Joanie. “Are you shopping for a wedding gift, or are you looking to register today?” she asked.

“No thank you,” I said politely.

Joanie took a real look at me and did a double take. She went to say something but shook her head. “You must be Byron’s brother,” she said finally.

I always forget that not everyone knows that I’m a triplet. Just about everyone important in my life knows, and while it’s not one of the first things I usually tell new people, it usually comes out before too long. Either Byron didn’t feel the same way about it, or he just hadn’t had occasion to talk to Joanie enough to mention it. If it was the second, I really didn’t blame him. “I guess I must,” I replied.

She gave me an odd look. “If you’re looking for him, he works up front,” she said. “However, I don’t believe he’s here today.”

I shook my head. “I’m not looking for him. Is Haley working?” It was a stupid question because I knew she was there. Her car was outside and she always tells me her work schedule.

Joanie paused. “Is that H-a-y-l-e-i-g-h or H-a-i-l-e-e?” she asked.

What the hell? “Neither. H-a-l-e-y.”

She looked confused. “I don’t believe we have a Haley with that spelling.”

It was my turn to be confused. I thought for a moment about it and had a revelation. “I think you’d know her as Hay,” I finally said.

“Oh, Hay,” Joanie said. “I sent her to clean some shelves. She should be in duvets.”

There wasn’t exactly a map of the store in front of me. “And where would that be?”

She sighed. “Go straight down this aisle and it’s on your right. There’s a sign.”

Those weren’t the most helpful directions ever, and then when I finally found duvets, Haley wasn’t even there. I wandered around for a little while before I found her sitting on the floor in the sheet room, surrounded by satin sheets. She was wearing her pinstriped “work pants” with a really pretty lavender button-down shirt I’d never seen before. Most of her shirts are brighter colors—primaries and bright pinks and purples—and this made her look older. She’d also pulled her hair out of her eyes to one side in a clip with a metal rose on it. “Hey,” I called from the main aisle.

She looked up sharply and I could tell I had surprised her after all. “What are you doing here?” she asked me. She sounded a little disgruntled.

I ignored the tone. “Looking for you. What are you doing?”

She held up a spray bottle and some filthy paper towels. “Cleaning the shelves,” she said in a monotone.

I looked at the towels she was using as she went back to scrubbing. “I’m not sure how clean those shelves are coming if your paper towels are that dirty,” I observed.

“Hmm,” Haley said as she did one last swipe. She turned her eyes up to me and they looked sad. “What did you want, Jordan?” she asked.

I was back to feeling confused. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was mad at me. “I wanted to take you out to dinner,” I told her.

She shook her head slowly. “I’m not feeling up to it today,” she said. She tossed her rag down and began putting sheets back on the shelf, using the actions as an excuse to break eye contact.

Something must be very off if she was turning down an offer of free food. “What’s the matter?” I asked, squatting down beside her.

Haley pulled more sheets off the next shelf and answered without looking back at me. “Nothing. I’m just tired and dirty and have a headache. I don’t feel like going out to eat.”

I stood up and took a step back, looking her over. She glanced over at me warily. I could tell just from the way she was holding herself—she’d purposely turned her back toward me so that she was looking over her shoulder—that there was more going on than she was letting on. She only does that when she’s trying to protect herself from something. “Something’s bothering you. I can tell,” I told her. She didn’t reply. “You told me once,” I said slowly, “to never lie to you because you’d always know.”

Something flashed across her eyes and then it was gone. She grabbed a roll of paper towels and ripped off a few fresh ones savagely, tearing across the towel instead of on the perforations. “Well, it definitely didn’t stop you, did it?” she asked quietly as she picked up her spray bottle.

Okaaaay. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I stopped and ran through our recent conversations and found nothing that could be construed as a lie. I’d worked a double at the Rosebud yesterday, so we hadn’t spoken. And Sunday had been absolutely amazing. I’d had her all to myself all morning and afternoon. She’d been all smiles when I’d left her. “What does that mean?” I finally asked.

Haley sighed and started wiping down the shelf. “Go home, Jordan,” she said, not answering my question. “I’m supposed to be working. I have to finish this whole row before I can leave. I’ll talk to you later.” With that she got up on her knees and turned her back to me entirely, letting me know the conversation was over whether I liked it or not. And it was definitely a ‘not.’

What’s a guy supposed to do, though? I watched her for a moment more, suddenly feeling incredibly sad. I walked back up the aisle—in the opposite direction from the way I’d come in—and got back in the car. As I started the engine, I could feel frustrated tears burning my eyes, but I pushed them back down. Unlike a certain brother of mine, I try to keep that kind of thing private.

I’m surprised I didn’t get a speeding ticket on the way home. I can’t say how fast I was driving, but I got home a lot quicker than I got to Stoneybrook Corners in the first place. I parked the car in its usual spot and headed into the kitchen. Mom was in there alone, making dinner. She frowned at me. “I thought you were taking Haley out for a night on the town,” she said.

“I thought so, too.”

Mom winced on my behalf. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Want to tell me about it?”

“I would,” I said as I opened the fridge, pulling out a container of orange juice, “if I knew what the matter was. I think she’s mad at me, but I don’t know why.”

Mom nodded sympathetically. “Well, you know about girls, Jordan. They don’t process information the same way guys do. You could have said or done something you thought was totally innocent, and she could have taken it in a completely different way than it was intended.” I opened the cabinet and pulled out a glass, and she gestured at me to grab another for her. “Take Vanessa, for example,” Mom said.

I poured two glasses of juice. “Do I have to?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

Mom swatted me with her spatula. “Your sister is not that bad,” she insisted.

“If you say so.”

Mom ignored that one. “She and Nick kept getting into those fights over privacy. Once Vanessa actually sat Nick down and explained to him what she meant by respecting her privacy, he was better able to do it, so they stopped fighting.”

“Or,” I suggested, “he was better able to hide when he wasn’t respecting her privacy so she didn’t catch him at it.” I drained my juice.

Mom sighed. “There’s that, too.” She picked up her juice and sipped it. “In any case, if Haley’s mad at you, you need to get her to tell you what’s wrong. And if she’s anything like most girls, you’ll probably need to act like the whole thing is all your fault and promise to never do it again…even if you don’t think you actually did it in the first place.” It was my turn to sigh. Mom turned back from the stove. “Are you going to join us for dinner?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m going to go try to talk to Haley again soon. She should be home within half an hour.”

“Then you have just enough time to set the table for me before you head over there,” Mom said.

I grimaced. “How many?”

She thought for a moment. “It’s a small crew tonight. Adam’s at Shane’s, but he says if Tiffany calls, I’m supposed to call him right away. Vanessa went to Charlotte’s. Margo’s still at camp, but Claire should be home soon and Mal is around somewhere.” She paused and added pepper to whatever she was cooking. “Who am I missing?”

I thought about that. “Nick and Byron.”

“Right. Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?”

“It’s Tuesday.”

“Okay, so Nick should be home. But Byron is having dinner at Jeff’s. He called it ‘family dinner’ and seemed really nervous.” Mom looked at me meaningfully. “Dinner with the parents. Big deal time.”

I whistled. “Yeah, that’s serious.” I gathered up a stack of plates.

“Yup,” Mom agreed. She watched as I puttered around for a moment before she spoke again. “So when you and Haley get things straightened out, I want you to bring her by for dinner one night.” I stopped and stared at her. “I told Byron the same thing before he left. We’ll pick a time when there aren’t too many siblings around—maybe next week when Claire is off at camp—and you can either do two separate nights or invite them at the same time.”

I gathered all the dishes and walked away from her. “Maybe,” I said, uncertain.

She followed me out of the kitchen. “What’s the matter?”

I shrugged. “I feel like inviting her to dinner is a bit like torturing her.”

Mom shook her head. “Jordan, Haley’s eaten with us before, many times over. She’ll survive.”

I set out silverware. “But this would be different,” I suggested. “It won’t be the same as her coming as someone’s friend. This is me declaring that I love her and consider her family.”

Mom raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything about my phrasing. “We won’t treat her any differently, though.”

“Weren’t you the one who just said it didn’t matter how we intended it, but how she takes it?” I said.

Mom grinned. “You’re a smart young man.”

I finished the table and gave Mom a peck on the cheek. “I want to catch her before she gets home. Let’s see how this conversation goes before I commit us to a Pike family dinner, okay?”

I beat Haley to her house, but just barely. No one else was home, which was for the best. I sat down on her back stoop and waited. I occupied my mind by going over my whole history with Haley, from the moment we’d first kissed. I’d done that before at night to help me fall asleep, and it always calmed me down and gave me good dreams. I’ve never told anyone that though. I’d hate to get a reputation as a secret romantic—though I’m afraid it might be accurate.

Haley came home only a few minutes later, before I had a chance to finish our story. I stood from the stoop as she got out of her car. This time, she didn’t seem surprised to see me. “I knew I’d find you here,” she said glumly.

She moved toward the door and I scooted out of her way. Haley unlocked the door and went in and, for a moment, I thought she was going to slam it in my face. Instead, she held it open wordlessly and I followed her into the kitchen.

She dropped her purse—not the big one she’d taken to Maine but a wallet on a cord—on the counter and sat down, eying me warily. I remembered what Mom had said about how her mood could be the result of a simple miscommunication and decided to get straight to the point. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you so upset, but please tell me so I can fix this.”

I think I surprised her a bit—like she’d expected me to blame her and her crazy hormones for all our problems, whatever they might be. She quickly shifted gears. “Did By or Adam talk to you about Sunday?” she asked.

What the fuck? What did that have to do with anything? “No,” I said slowly. “I haven’t spoken to Adam since then, and all Byron’s told me today was that we were out of toilet paper in the bathroom.”

Haley nodded but didn’t say anything. I sat down next to her and eyed her. She looked away and bit her lip. “What is this about?” I asked again.

She wrapped her arms around herself in another protective gesture and answered without looking at me. “What’s this I hear about you and other girls?” she asked quietly.

“Other girls?” I was bewildered. “I haven’t even looked at another girl since I kissed you. What makes you think I have?”

“No. I know that.” Haley finally looked over at me but I couldn’t read her expression. “I’m talking about girls you dated before me. The ones you got naked with and ‘had a good time?’” She held my gaze for longer than I was comfortable with.

I looked away first. “What about them?” I asked, and now it was my turn to look uncomfortable.

“How come you never mentioned them before? How come you never mentioned that you’d done that with girls before?”

I took a deep breath. “I thought you knew,” I told her. She threw her arms up in the air and I knew she was about to go off, so I finished that thought. “I thought everyone knew. There were so many stories going around school.” It wasn’t exactly my finest moment, but I’d spent awhile in the center of the school’s rumor mill. I hadn’t minded at the time, because I was sixteen and stupid. Being “a jock” and “a stud” were two of the biggest things that make kids popular, and it was one of the easiest ways I could find to get people to notice me. It had taken me a while to realize that it wasn’t a good way to get people to notice me.

Despite the hand gestures, Haley was a lot calmer than I expected. She put her hands on the bottom of her shirt and balled it up in her left hand, then twisted it around. She only does that when she’s distressed, but it could have been much worse. Normally she’s prone to solid histrionics. “How would I know about what everyone was saying? I’ve never exactly been part of the gossip chain, have I? Who would tell me stuff? Byron? When’s the last time you heard him gossip?” She laughed unhappily. “He won’t even talk about himself that way most of the time.”

As she spoke, I realized it was the truth. I know Byron hears a lot of gossip and stories— you can’t sit at our table at lunch and not hear a lot of bullshit about who’s doing what to whom—but I’d never heard him repeat any of those stories to anyone. I don’t think he believes half of them are true (and for a number of the guys we hang out with, most of them probably aren’t true anyway). And until we got together, I’d barely seen her hang out with anyone else. I tried to look her in the eyes, but she was looking at the hem of her shirt. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed anything. I just…” I paused and she actually looked up at me. “Those weren’t exactly my proudest moments. I don’t really like talking about it, so I guess I figured that if I presumed you knew, we’d never have to have this discussion.”

Haley let go of her shirt. It was rumpled and wrinkled and looked like hell. She was still looking at me, though I expected her to break eye contact again any moment. “I guess I can understand that,” she said slowly, “because I have stories that I don’t like to tell either.”

That surprised me too. Not that she had things she didn’t like to talk about—I’d already encountered one topic which she’d promised to talk about later and never had—but that she was going to be understanding about what she considered lying. That topic she never wanted to talk about involved her getting raped. I don’t blame her because I’m sure it’s a very unpleasant memory. But it also seems to me that she has a hard time trusting anyone on anything because of it. She seems to feel like I’m going to lie to her around every corner or do something to break her already fragile trust. I’d never wanted to do that to her—but I’d managed to do it anyway. “Well, we’re talking about this now. We might as well exhaust the subject. What did you want to know?”

She raised her eyebrows. “How many?”

I sighed. “If we’re talking about the same thing, then seven.” She cocked her head to one side. Her hair was slipping out of the rose clip and it fell in front of her eyes. Out of instinct I reached over and tucked it behind her ear. I expected her to flinch or pull away, but she didn’t. Maybe she was tougher than I thought—or maybe she was just less mad at me than she’d seemed.

“Seven,” she repeated quietly. “Seven girls.” I nodded miserably. Haley stood up and went to the fridge, which she opened without a word. She came back and set a cola in front of me and opened her own drink. She doesn’t drink anything with caffeine after noon because she says it keeps her awake at night. Today she had a cheapo store-brand strawberry soda.

We drank quietly for a while. I was waiting for her start up again because I wasn’t naïve enough to assume she was done interrogating. I had almost finished my drink when she finally spoke again. “Why?” she asked.

“Why what?” I had no idea what she meant.

Haley gave me the look she usually reserves for Byron when he’s being especially dense about something. She set her can down and I reached out and took her hand. She let me. “Why them?” she asked, the question she didn’t say hanging in the air.

Guys and girls might communicate differently, like my mother says, but I understood the hidden question right away. She wanted to know why I would…in her own words, ‘get naked and have fun with’…other girls but not with her. I decided to answer that instead of what she really asked. “Haley, you’re not even ready to take your top off for me. I respect that. You told me when we first got together that we’d make all our decisions on stuff together, and so far that’s worked great for us. Those other girls,” she looked up at me, waiting for the rest of that, “they were ready for that. In fact, I had to stop some of them from going farther.”

She pulled her hand back from mine, not fast and angry, but slowly. She placed it briefly on her forehead and then pulled it back down toward her heart, almost like she was about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Something changed in her expression, though, but I couldn’t read her. “Well,” she said after a moment, running her fingers around the top button on her shirt, which was undone, “what if I just take my shirt off now? Then we don’t have to worry about my hang ups anymore.” She worked her fingers to the second button and started to undo it before she even stopped talking.

I didn’t even think about it; I just reached out and stopped her. “Honey, don’t.”

Haley looked unhappy with me. “Why not? Give me one good reason why not.”

My hand was still on top of hers, just over her heart. “With those other girls, there was no future. I went out with them for a couple weeks or months and then we were done. I don’t want this relationship to be like that, so we have time. I want you to be sure before you do something, because you can never take that back.”

Her body gave an involuntary shudder and I thought she was about to cry, but she just shook her head. “I may never be completely sure about anything. Some times when we’re together, I feel like I’m ready to do anything. Then a few minutes later, I’m afraid of everything.”

I put my other arm around her and put my hand on the back of her neck. “I know,” I told her quietly. “None of this is fair to you. It’s not your fault.”

She sniffled. “But it’s really not fair to you, either.”

I shrugged. “I’m in for the long haul, if you’ll have me. I can put up with any ups and downs you may have.”

Haley squeezed me back and I let go of the hug. “Are you sure about that? I worry that things may get worse as time goes on and the things I’m worrying about get bigger.” She sat back down and picked up her soda, which was still half full. “Like what if you take my pants off someday and I just flip out on you?”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it, okay?”

She sighed. “Let me tell you something, Jordan. You’re the first guy I’ve so much as kissed in almost three years. The last guy I trusted was completely the wrong person. I went out with him three times and on the third one, he refused to listen to me. He held me down while I screamed and did what he wanted, not what I wanted.” I sat beside her and nodded. “I can’t really compare that to the kind of rape most people think of, because thankfully that’s never happened to me. But I somehow think that this is worse. Walking down the street and being snatched is one thing but when you voluntarily get in the car with someone who treats you like that, it is so much worse.”

I thought about that. “You feel like it is a commentary on your judgment,” I interpreted.

She looked surprised. “Yes. Exactly.”

“I know you’re not going to believe me,” I told her, “but that doesn’t say anything about you at all. It’s all him. You had the sense to tell him to stop when you wanted to stop. Anything that happened after that is about him being a raping son of a bitch and nothing else.”

Haley almost smiled. “What did I do to deserve you standing up for me like this?” she asked.

I put a hand on the side of her face. “You kissed me,” I said. She actually did smile after that. We sat like that for a moment. “Where are your parents?” I asked.

She thought a moment. “Mom works late on Tuesdays, but Daddy should be home any minute. Before he comes home, can I tell you something?” I nodded. “When Adam first mentioned you and other girls, I was so mad at you. I thought you were a liar and a hypocrite. But I realized I couldn’t say much about it because it was before. I have no claim on that time.”

“Honey,” I said, “I am sorry that I didn’t mention it to you. It wasn’t fair to have it be a surprise from someone else.” She reached for my hand this time. “You might not have any claims to my past, as you say, but you can claim my present, and if you want it, you can have my future.”

Haley had a small smile playing on her face. “And next time we’re alone together—when my dad isn’t on his way—we can see what I’m ready for now. I’ll wear this shirt again and maybe you can unbutton it for me.”

I smiled back at her. “I’d consider that an honor.” She perked up and I kissed her once, gently.

Haley ran a hand through my hair. “Daddy’s probably bringing home a pizza. Want to stay?”

“Extra time with you? Do you even have to ask?” She laughed. “Listen, I’m going to go to the bathroom.” I stood up and caressed her shoulder before I walked off.

I silently climbed the stairs and quickly used the bathroom. Before I went back down I paused to straighten out the collar on my shirt. I don’t know how Byron stands to wear these stupid button downs every day. But after I got myself straightened out, I realized I was looking straight into Haley’s bedroom.

She usually keeps the door closed, so I’d never seen it before. I couldn’t help but be a little bit nosy. I stood in the doorway and looked around. The first thing I was struck by was the fact that everything was so white. Haley’s a colorful girl—she’s loud, she wears bright shades and she’s not afraid to cuss like a dude. I would have expected the walls to be something she picked out when she was a kid—a bright raspberry pink, for example. But the walls were white, the furniture was mostly white and the bedding was pure white. There was even a stuffed lamb in the middle of her pillows that looked like she’d had it since she was a baby. It was an oasis of calm.

The second thing was the one blank wall. Her bed lay against one wall, and a desk and window took up most of another. The third wall held a dresser and closet door. But the wall next to the door was completely devoid of furniture. It did, however, have a purpose. The words ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world,’ were scrawled across it in big letters. At first I thought Haley had written on the paint until I saw a place where the surface was torn and realized it was a giant sheet of butcher paper. In various sizes and places all over the paper she’d written the kind of things you’d find on inspirational posters and greeting cards. It seemed to me that any time she’d seen a message she wanted to remember, she’d recorded it on her wall.

I took a closer look, carefully stepping inside her door. As I was reading all the messages, I realized they weren’t all in Haley’s writing. Byron had written a few of them himself. I saw one in his handwriting that said, ‘My life is a work in progress.’

I wanted to add something heartwarming and uplifting to her wall, but I found I didn’t really have words that were good enough for her. I stood there for longer than I should have—if her dad caught me in her room, I’d be in trouble with both him and Haley—but I really wanted to be part of that wall. I could tell in meant a lot to her.

Finally I found a message that came straight from the heart. I picked up a Sharpie from on her desk and scrawled the message in a corner in small but readable writing. Just as I finished, I heard the back door open and Haley greeted her father. I quickly put the marker back and crept out of her room, joining the two of them in the kitchen.

[tosybelle-blog]

The Boys of Summer, Chapters XI-XV

Found myself today Oh I found myself and ran away Something pulled me back The voice of reason I forgot I had Hilary Duff, Someone’s Watching Over Me

Byron

The Monday after the disastrous date (which Jeff later referred to as Haley v. Tiffany, round one) was the first day of final exams. Not only did I have to sit through the agony of calculus and physics, but I also had to go to work afterward. Lucky me.

Now that Vanessa had her license, Mom had put up a calendar specifically for the five of us who could drive to put up our work and social schedules. Mal was working during the day, and Adam’s job as a camp counselor would also be Monday through Friday, nine through five. The two of them had already worked out a schedule that would let them both get to work, and even get me to work if I needed to be there during the day. That just left fighting for the nights, when I did most of my work, and both Jordan and Vanessa were working.

I was at an extreme disadvantage, because, unlike the other two, I couldn’t walk or bike to work, and there was no bus out to Stoneybrook Corners, where the Kitchen & Bath store was located. So basically, if someone beat me to the car, I was screwed.

So were the circumstances that Monday. Luckily for me, Hay volunteered to drive me to work. I’d asked and she’d said it was a slightly better way to spend her time than studying for her Spanish final, but she was kidding. I hope.

We’d been in the car for about two seconds when Tiff came up. I’d been waiting for it. Hay’d pursed her lips and then barreled ahead. “So…what do you think of Tiff after this weekend?”

I grimaced. Hay’d called me Pollyanna last week because I’d decided to give Tiffany a chance. I couldn’t even call it a second chance, because that would imply that I’d gotten to know her the first time she and Adam had dated. And yeah, she’d pretty much blown it. But anyone could have a bad night, especially when she was meeting a couple new people and dealing with a couple others who could have been really nasty to her. Right?

I pretended to read road signs for a while, trying to decide how to respond. Hay saw right through me. “Oh, my God,” she said incredulously, “You’re going to give her another chance, aren’t you? After she said that you needed to get a life?” She was on a roll and there was no stopping her. “And that Matt escaped from an institution? And made fun of Jordan? And made that joke about—” Hay finally stopped, not because she’d run out of breath—she can go at least twice that long—but because she didn’t want to say the word rape.

I wrinkled my brow. “When did she make fun of Jordan?” I asked, carefully steering the topic away from the taboo. She shrugged, looking like she’d said too much. “Anyway, Hay, she didn’t know. If she knew I was the world’s biggest nerd, who until recently thought he’d never get laid…” I paused for a moment, hoping Haley’d smile. She did. “…then I doubt she would have said anything of the sort.”

Hay threw her left hand in the air. If she hadn’t been driving, both hands would have gone up. “I can’t believe you’re defending that big mouth,” she said huffily.

I leaned forward and let my sunglasses fall down my nose, then looked at her over the top. “Hay, I love you. You know I do. But you have absolutely no right to call anyone else a big mouth.”

She tried hard not to smile—to maintain the serious nature of the discussion. “Yeah, but…”

“Yeah but nothing. She made a mistake. I’ve said the wrong thing once or twice in my life, too. I can get over it.”

“I’m still not going to be friends with her.”

“Who’s asking you to? Just be civil. You can do that, can’t you?”

Haley pulled into the parking lot, still making a lemon face over Tiff. I was ridiculously early for my shift, so she pulled into a parking spot and turned the car off. I took off my sunglasses and made a quick survey of the employee cars and groaned. “I forgot I have to close with Helen tonight.”

Hay put one hand over her eyes. “Oh, fuck Helen! What are you complaining about, anyway? Everyone knows you’re her pet.”

I wrinkled my nose at the thought. “It’s disgusting the way she plays favorites.”

“So says her favorite. You should try being on her shit list.”

I groaned again, louder and longer. “Can we not talk about Helen anymore? I want to enjoy my last couple minutes before I face the firing squad.”

Hay nodded. “Can we go back to an old topic of conversation?”

“Please, not Tiff. I’d rather talk about Helen.”

“No, God. Nooooooo!” She dragged it out so she sounded like she was howling. After a moment, she grinned and turned to me. “You said something about you getting laid?”

I blushed instantly. “No. What I said was, I can actually picture it happening, someday. As opposed to this time last year, when I was so far in the closet, I didn’t even think there was a way out.” In spite of myself, I smiled a bit.

“Still. How far have you and Jeff gotten?” She leaned up against the window and turned toward me, folding her legs under her on the seat. “How do you even measure that? Do you guys have bases, like we do?”

“Haaaaa-leeeeey!” I grabbed her by the shoulders so that she was looking at me, and pretended to shake her. If she was trying to embarrass me, she’d succeeded. “I don’t want to have this conversation with you, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

She made a whimper like a wounded puppy and stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “Aren’t I your best friend? Don’t you trust me?”

I rolled my eyes. “Doofus. Yes and yes. But I know that if we start this topic, the next thing out of your mouth is information about you and Jordan. Ew, ew, and don’t want to know.”

Hay relaxed. “Would it help you to know,” she began thoughtfully, “that Jordan isn’t doing a whole hell of a lot that you wouldn’t be?”

I tried to sort that out for a moment. “Wait, what?”

She laughed. “I mean, he’s not getting any more pussy than you are. We’re strictly above the waist, and we like it that way.”

I pretended to be grossed out for a moment while she laughed some more. Secretly, though, I was glad. For a couple reasons. First, it meant that Jordan wasn’t pressuring her into anything she wasn’t ready for.

The second reason was more selfish. Hay and Jordan had started dating right around the same time Jeff and I had. It was reassuring to me that they weren’t getting any farther than we were. I worried a lot about sex—I spent more time worrying than I did actually doing anything sexual.

“Honestly, though,” Hay said, arching her back over her legs in a stretchy, yoga-like move, “I feel like Jordan and I passed a giant hump this weekend, even though we never took off any clothing or anything.” I raised an eyebrow at her and she straightened back up. She was looking happier than she had during the whole ride. If I’d known talking about her and Jordan not having sex would make her so happy, I’d have done it a lot sooner. “I told him I loved him.”

The second eyebrow went up to join the first. That was serious. And on a selfish note again, it was something I’d never told someone and meant in that way. Of course, Hay and I tell each other we love each other all the time, and we do mean it. But it’s not the same. And while I was jealous, I was also a bit worried. “What brought that on?”

She looked a little hurt. “I didn’t just say it because of one thing,” she defended herself, wrapping her arms around her chest. “I mean, there was a couple things that were immediate. I told him I wasn’t ready to tell him about—you know. Dominick,” I nodded, knowing she was referencing her date rape, “and he was cool with that. He didn’t question, he didn’t judge, he didn’t try to force details out of me. And it didn’t hurt that he said it first.” She looked at something out the window, towards the store, which I couldn’t see. “And I really do think I love him.”

I was going to reply to that, but before I had a chance she turned around in her seat so she was facing forward and started the car. She lowered the passenger window. I gave her a quizzical look. “Thought we’d need some air,” she said, looking sneaky.

A moment later, a pair of hands reached out and landed on my shoulders. I jumped high and put my arm out to defend myself, until I realized I recognized the touch. Jeff put his head inside the car and gave me a quick kiss before I saw it coming. “Hey, Haley,” he said, grinning. He turned back to me and gave me another kiss. I was better prepared this time. At the very least, I was able to actually kiss back.

Hay was highly amused. “Keeps you on your toes, doesn’t he?” she laughed.

I wasn’t looking at her; I was gazing at Jeff, who had turned his freckled face toward me. “You have no idea,” I told Hay.

Jeff leaned on the side of the car and wrapped one arm around my neck. “What are you two doing sitting here in the parking lot?”

Haley turned the car back off and turned back toward us. “We’re talking about sex,” she told Jeff in a stage whisper, one hand cupped conspiratorially against the side of her mouth, as if there were someone in the back seat that she didn’t want to hear.

“Haley!”

“Well, we were,” she said defensively. “Sorta.”

Jeff laughed. “Well, we are teenagers. Isn’t it every adult’s opinion that we’re talking and thinking about sex all day long, anyway?” He leaned his head against mine.

“Pretty much.” Hay shifted her weight around in her seat. “So Jeff, how far have you and Byron gotten, anyway?”

I turned to glare at her, and she gave me her best cheesy grin, the kind she saves for when she’s annoying the crap out of me and she knows it. Jeff took her question semi-seriously. “How much detail do you want?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes fondly at him, though he couldn’t really see it. “Jeff, please don’t encourage her. She’ll only get worse.”

“No, no, my good man.” Jeff was laughing. “Let’s not leave the girl dangling.” He pretended to ponder her question for a moment, rubbing his chin with his spare hand. “Hmmm. Let’s just say, I have no complaints.”

It was Hay’s turn to groan. “That is so not a real answer!” she whined.

I sighed. “If I give you a ‘real answer,’ will you let the subject drop?”

“Depends. Probably.”

Jeff let go of my neck and turned to me. “Is that the best we’re going to be able to get out of her?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yup.” I repeated Jeff’s ‘pondering pose’ and he laughed again. “Let’s just say, Hay, that I’m not getting any more dick than you are. Okay?”

Jeff tilted his head to one side and looked Hay over, trying to interpret that. She, on the other hand, was thrilled. “Okay. The subject is closed for now. But I need to know when that assessment changes, okay? Best friend’s privilege.” She looked at her watch. “Sorry, By, but I’m kicking you out of my car now. I really do need to study for my Spanish exam. Jeff, you need a ride?”

He shook his head. “Nope. It’s family dinner night and my ‘brother-in-law,’” he emphasized that with air quotes, and I understood immediately. Pete is his stepsister’s husband, and he’s only met him a few times, “is coming to pick me up. He’ll be here in probably about thirty minutes.” Jeff turned to me, grinning. “Just in time for you to clock in.”

I climbed out as Hay started the car. She made a big show of revving the engine and peeling out of the parking lot. “She’s clearly compensating for something,” I joked as Jeff and I watched the car squeal away.

When we were alone I started to walk toward the store, but I stopped after I realized Jeff wasn’t following. He just stood there, watching me seriously. I gave him a questioning glance. Unlike when we’d fought over the weekend, Jeff was full of emotion today, but I’d realized he was like a pendulum that swung at different speeds every time. You never knew what you were going to get out of him from one moment to the next. I walked back to him, concerned, but he wiped away my worry with a dazzling grin. “I do have one complaint,” he said, coming to meet me.

“Huh?”

He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer. “I told Haley I had no complaints about our sex life. But I lied. I do have one.”

My mind raced to a bunch of bad places. Here it was: he was going to tell me I was a lousy kisser. Or I had no ass. Or something even worse. “Oh?” I said, not able to form a more coherent sentence.

Jeff must have read my mind; it was probably written right across my face. He pressed me against him and spoke right into my ear. “We don’t get enough time alone together. That’s my complaint.” He kissed me right above the ear. “What, did you think I was going to insult you while I was getting ready to kiss you? That’s a great turn on.” He continued kissing around the back of my ear onto my neck. “You need to relax, By. Seriously.”

I returned a few of those kisses. “I think this is helping me in that respect,” I joked. It was the last thing I said for a while. The rest of my air was used up in a furious make out session—as furious as you can get, standing in the middle of a parking lot. We were concealed from view from most angles by a huge SUV and a minivan.

What Jeff said about us not getting enough time together was completely true. My house is always a zoo, and while my parents are cool, they won’t let us be alone in any room together. The rules at Jeff’s house are looser, but still kind of a problem. By the time I get off school, we run the risk of his mother walking in. I’d once joked that we needed to find a motel that charged by the hour, but at the time I was afraid that Jeff would take that idea seriously. But the longer we were together, the more I actually liked the idea. And If I ever wanted my “assessment” to change—if I ever wanted to get past just kissing—we were going to need some privacy.

And privacy was something we were definitely not getting in that parking lot. I don’t know how long we were out there—I kinda lost track of time—but right after I placed both hands on Jeff’s butt and pulled him so close that our hips were practically fused, I heard a voice. I knew instantly who it was, and she did not sound happy. “Jeff? Byron? What are you doing?”

A small sliver of me wanted to turn on Helen and reply, “What does it look like we’re doing?” But that’s never really been my style. Instead, I let Jeff go and took a step backward, ducking my head. Jeff looked guilty, but he kept his head up and looked Helen in the eye.

She went on. “This is not really appropriate behavior at the work place,” Helen chided. She wasn’t actually wagging her finger, but if she hadn’t had her keys dangling on one hand and her purse clutched in her other, she might have been.

Jeff looked defiant as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Neither one of us is on the clock,” he pointed out, “and we’re not wearing our name tags. No one knows we work here.”

Helen raised her eyebrows. “Some of our regulars recognize most of our employees on sight,” she informed him. This might have been true, but Jeff and I were summer help—neither one of us was really recognizable. “Byron, I think you’d better go inside. You can clock in early and start by cleaning out the old customer holds. Jeff, I think you’d better head home.”

Jeff opened his mouth, and from the set of his face, he was going to say something that he—and I—would regret. I reached out and put a hand on his arm, subtly shaking my head at him. He furrowed his brow at me but stopped before the words came out of his mouth. “I’ll go right in, Helen. Let me just say goodbye to Jeff.”

Helen sniffed. “It had better not be like that ‘hello’ I just saw there,” she said as she walked out from between the cars toward her own little convertible.

Jeff moved to follow her and I grabbed him by the waist and held him. “She’s not worth it,” I cautioned, “and besides, she’s kinda right. We probably shouldn’t be doing this here.” Jeff started moving his lips, rapid-fire, without any sound coming out, but I caught most of it anyway, because it was just about every four-letter word imaginable. I was still completely mortified at being caught making out—by an authority figure, nonetheless— but when he was done, I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Feel a little better?” I asked.

He sighed. “No. Not really. But I have an idea that might help.”

“Oh?”

He put one broad palm on the side of my face. “What are your Independence Day plans?”

I shrugged. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Still have graduation and all that shit first. Usually, Adam, Jordan and I go watch the fireworks downtown and meet up with whoever happens to be there.”

Jeff nodded, and I could see the corners of his mouth turn up a little bit. “Well, this year, why don’t you come make some fireworks with me instead? Mom and Richard are invited to some picnic. They said I could come with, but it sounds dead boring. It goes all night basically. They won’t be home until really late. We’d have the whole house to ourselves.”

Well. How could I resist an offer like that? I couldn’t even find the words; I just nodded. Jeff put his other hand on my shoulder and gave me a brief hug and even briefer kiss. “You’d better get in there so you can get the hold bin emptied before Her Royal Crabbiness gets back from her lunch break.”

I shook my head sadly as I started to walk toward the store again. I had just walked out from between the cars when I stopped and turned around. “How am I going to wait until July fourth?” I asked Jeff.

He cracked up. “You’ve been waiting eighteen years,” he pointed out. “What’s a few more weeks?”

I waved to him and walked out of his sight. I had gotten about half way up the parking lot when he popped out into my vision again. “Hey,” he called.

I turned around. “What?”

Jeff grinned again. “Good luck trying to concentrate on your work while you’re thinking about us…alone…together.” Right as I started to blush, a car horn honked and Jeff turned to wave at the driver. “My ride. See ya later.” And he was gone.

 While he wishes he could escape this But it all seems so contagious Not to be yourself and faceless In a song that has no soul Our Lady Peace, Innocent

Jordan

Final exams were over. In just two days’ time, my brothers and I would finally be high school graduates.

I’d managed to make a decent showing this year. My grades were in the okay-to-good range. I’d gotten a baseball scholarship to a pretty good school, even though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to study there. I had a solid group of friends. And of course, a girlfriend I loved. How could you beat that?

I had needed to unwind after exams ended, so I took a basketball and went out behind the house to play alone. Haley was working, and Adam was out with Tiffany. Byron had gone straight to Jeff’s after school. Vanessa was meeting Mal at her job and they were going shopping. Mom and Dad had taken Claire, Margo and Nick out to celebrate the end of the year. They’d invited me, but I’d declined. Sometimes, you just need to decompress, and that’s not easy to do when you’re surrounded by a bunch of crazy brothers and sisters.

So I was all by myself, bouncing the basketball, making free throw after free throw. It’s easier not to think when you just keep a steady rhythm. I don’t know how long I’d been out there—long enough that the sun had shifted, but not so long that I felt sunburned—when I heard the telltale sounds of the Civic pulling up to the curb in front of the house. I was trying to remember if Adam or Vanessa had driven off in the car after school when Adam came back up the driveway. He was alone. “You’re home early,” I commented.

He shrugged. “Tiff’s mother came home,” he said. Despite the half-hearted reply, he looked like he had enough energy to power us both. It was almost like his muscles were twitching below the surface. I tossed him the basketball and he threw it into the hoop from where he was. “Horse?” he asked.

“Sure.” I actually usually don’t like playing horse with Adam. Despite the fact that I’m generally a better shot than he is, he does all these complicated maneuvers that I can’t duplicate. He wins every time.

Sure enough, he had beaten me twice before he started talking. At first it was commentary on graduation and exams and the parties our friends were having. He had just tossed me the ball when he dropped the bomb. “I slept with Tiff today,” he said, trying hard to slip it in casually. I dropped the ball on my feet and it rolled away. Thank goodness we weren’t bowling.

I used the basketball as an excuse to not look at him. I chased it all over the place, purposely kicking it into the hedge so I had to dig. I know Adam knew what I was doing because I saw him raise an eyebrow out of the corner of my eye. “Jordan? Did you hear me?”

I retrieved the ball. “Yeah, I heard you,” I said, also trying to sound casual, “I just thought maybe you were joking.”

He was hurt; the change in his stance was subtle, but you share a room with someone for eighteen years and you learn to read them pretty well. “Oh, so you’re going to go with your little girlfriend on this one? Hate Tiff because she does?”

Now my hackles were raised. Sure, Haley and Tiffany definitely did not get along when they first met. But honestly, Tiff had given Haley a lot of good reasons to dislike her. I knew they’d get past it someday, but there was a fair shot that ‘someday’ might not be any time soon. Adam should have been able to understand that; I know he was just as aware of the social faux pas that Tiff had made as I was.

Add to that the ‘little girlfriend’ crack and I think I had a right to be ticked off. Haley might be tiny, but to me that’s an upside. “No…I am not going to hate Tiffany because Haley does,” I said drawing it out like you might talk to a five year old. “I don’t hate Tiff at all. I think she just had a nasty case of verbal diarrhea. I can understand that. You should ask Haley about our first real date and what came out of my mouth.” All of that was completely true.

Adam snatched the ball out of my hands. “My turn,” he said. He turned around backward and made a one-handed toss over his shoulder. It bounced off the rim and over toward me. I grabbed it. “So what the hell is your problem then?” he asked.

I stood back farther from the hoop and made an exaggerated underhand throw, almost from the ground. It sailed into the net. “I don’t have a problem,” I told him shortly. “I don’t have any problems at all. In fact,” I pulled out my best sarcastic teen girl voice. “I’m so happy for you! Yay!” ” I clapped my hands and jumped up and down.

Adam watched me, his expression blank. “All right, Asshole. Move out of the way so I can match your shot.” He gave me a shove with this side.

We didn’t talk about his virginity again until he’d beaten me once more. I grabbed two cans of cola from the fridge and sat down at the picnic table, looking out toward the driveway. I opened one can and Adam sat down next to me. “Isn’t it a bit sudden? A little bit…quick?”

Adam knew exactly what I meant. “What are you talking about? Aren’t you the guy who got head from Amy Fowler on the first date last summer?”

I drew in a deep breath. I knew he was going to bring that up. Amy wasn’t the first girl to give me a blow job, but I’d been dating all the others for a while before it had happened.

Amy was a year older than me, and I’d asked her out a few times before she’d agreed to a date. After our date, she’d said she’d call me. I’d waited a whole week before I’d called her, but she’d refused to talk to me. I’m still not sure if she’d gone out that night with the intention of it being a one-time thing or if I’d done something wrong. But that night had gone a long way toward helping me make the decision to take a purity pledge. The whole night had felt so…pointless. I didn’t think sex was supposed to be like that. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I needed to wait for the right girl before I went any farther.

I looked over at Adam. “There’s a big difference between head and going all the way.”

He chuckled. “‘Going all the way?’ What are you, forty?”

I bumped him with a hip. “Seriously, though. What made you decide it was the right time?”

Adam surveyed me for a moment. When he realized I wasn’t being sarcastic—I just seriously wanted to know—he looked thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he said, “I think everything just kind of fell into place.” He took a swig of soda and turned to me. “Why? You and Haley thinking of following in my footsteps?”

I didn’t answer that. Instead, I just kicked at the ground. “So. Think you’re the first out of the three of us to…” I searched for a euphemism that didn’t sound middle aged. Or disrespectful. Everything I came up with sounded worse, so I just went for straight forward. “…have sex?”

He shook his head. “As long as you’re still a virgin, then yeah. There’s no way Byron has gotten that far. I mean, he worries so much about everything. He’s so uptight, you could stick a coal up his butt and he’d poop out a diamond.” I flashed a brief smile at that. “Jeff’ll probably have to pry Byron’s jeans off of him while he’s kicking and screaming. I can’t believe I ever thought he was getting anywhere with Haley. He chuckled a moment and then realized what he’d just said. “Sorry, dude.”

I shrugged. “You know I thought the same thing as you did, so no need to apologize.”

Adam crushed his empty soda can and tossed it in the vicinity of the recycle bin. It landed in the grass a few feet in front of the receptacle. “So what about you and Haley?”

“What about us?”

“Don’t play stupid.”

“We’re having a good time.” I hadn’t told Adam about the purity pledge, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell him now, since he’d basically just told me that he’d done the exact opposite.

He took my empty can and tossed it. It bounced off the side of the recycle bin. “Yes, but how good of a time?”

I gave him a neutral expression. “You want the God’s honest truth?”

“Before I die.”

I was going to obscure facts again, or be deliberately obtuse. But when it hit me how awful that would be—promising God’s truth and then lying—I blurted out the reality. “I’ve never gotten in her pants and she’s never gotten in mine. Hell, I’ve never even seen her boobs—I always touch them under a shirt.”

I think Adam thought I was joking at first. He looked like he was about to laugh, but something stopped him. “She’s cockblocking you? Dude, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “You’re okay with a glacial pacing? What’s with that?”

I debated how much to share. I ended up being a little bit chicken and just connecting a few dots for him. “Remember what made Haley storm out of the date?”

His face clouded over. “I know, I know,” he droned. “It was Tiff and her…what did you call it? Verbal diarrhea?”

“No. I mean, specifically what was said.”

Adam looked at the sky briefly as he recalled, from his point of view, what had happened. “Tiff made a comment about rape. Haley got offended and took off.” He made a face. “I get that some girls get a little sensitive when people make jokes about rape, but I don’t get why Haley had to take that harmless little comment so personally.”

I sighed. “Adam…Haley has the right to take rape personally.”

He furrowed his brow. “What does that even—oh!” A flash of inspiration crossed his face. There was a pause as he digested that. He looked a little disgusted, then thoughtful. "Well. That explains a few things. Like why she’s such good friends with Byron. Try to find a less threatening guy.”

“That thought had crossed my mind.”

We sat quietly for a moment. “So you two are taking things slow,” Adam finally commented, rephrasing his earlier words. I think he was desperate to stop thinking whatever had been running through his mind.

I nodded. “I love her. I’m willing to go as slowly as she needs.”

Adam looked surprised. “I guess I didn’t realize how serious things were between you two,” he said slowly.

I turned to him. “I could say the same about you and Tiff.” He grinned. “So can I ask what it was like?”

The smile faded some. “Awkward,” he said, breaking eye contact.

I wrinkled my brow. “What does that mean?”

“Just what I said. Awkward.” He got up from the bench and picked up the soda cans. When he reached the recycler, he turned back. “I know that the basic moves of sex are instinctive, but I don’t think some of the other stuff is. Like how to get a rhythm going, or what to do when. Basically, how to be any good at it.”

Wow. That was pretty honest on Adam’s part. I’d been expecting him to say, “It was fucking fantastic!” But hearing that things were not as beautiful and easy as the movies made it look solidified my decision to wait. “Maybe you just need practice,” I said, half joking.

Adam nodded seriously. “That’s what Tiff said. She said it usually takes a few tries.”

“So Tiff has…experience?” I struggled for the right word.

Obviously Adam thought I’d made a poor word choice. “She’s not a slut or anything.”

“I didn’t say she was.”

He was on the defensive again. “She’s just slept with a couple dudes before. One in high school and one this past year. How many girls have you gone with? You really have no right to judge anyone.”

By now he was really agitated. I took a cue from Byron’s play book. Instead of replying, I just looked away and took a deep breath and then another. It worked. Adam came and sat back down next to me.

After a moment I decided it was safe. “Have you noticed,” I began, “that all three of us are dating blonds? I wonder if that means anything.”

Adam gave me a funny look. “You thinking it might be genetic or something?”

“I doubt that. I mean, what else to Haley, Tiff and Jeff have in common besides being blond?”

He nodded. “It’s not like I date Tiffany for her hair anyway,” he commented.

“Why do you date her?”

I expected him to get offended again. Instead, he cocked his head to one side and thought. “She was the first person to ever really think I was funny. And these days, I have the feeling she needs someone just for her. She needs me.”

I let out a puff of air that was almost a sigh. “I just hope you’re being safe,” I said finally.

“Oh, we are. We used a condom, and she’s on the pill.” He shifted on the hard wooden bench and lay across it so his feet were pointed toward me. “Okay. Turnabout is fair play. Now you have to tell me what you like about Haley. To me, she’s still that nine-year-old who thought we had cooties.”

“Well,” I began, “there’s this energy to her. I don’t just mean the way she practically bounces when she walks. She’s just got this strong spirit, ya know? Plus, she’s totally honest. She tells it like it is.”

Before Adam could reply to that, we heard footsteps coming up the driveway. “Byron?” I guessed.

Adam shook his head. “Vanessa. Byron doesn’t walk; he shuffles.”

He was right. A peeved Vanessa rounded the corner a moment later and, even though we didn’t deserve it, glared at us. “Where’s Mal?” I asked.

“Where’s Mal?” she mimicked. “Who cares? We’d been at the mall for ten minutes when we ran into Stacey McGill.” Vanessa gestured to the house behind ours, where Stacey’s mom lives. “After that, Mal and Vanessa’s shopping time turned into Stacey and Mal’s shopping time. Lame. I had them drop me off back at home. Last thing I heard, Stacey knows a bar where she thinks she can get Mal in. Like she’d pass for twenty-one.”

Adam and I exchanged glances. I’d never thought of Mallory’s life as interesting, but I guess sometimes it actually is.

Vanessa went on. “What are you two losers doing out here? Don’t you have girlfriends you could be hanging out with?”

Adam seemed amused. “Yes. Unlike some people we won’t name, we do indeed have someone to kiss goodnight.”

Vanessa scowled. “Ha, ha. You’re a laugh riot, Adam.”

I raised an eyebrow. “See Adam? Tiff isn’t the only one to find you funny.” He was still lying on the bench and he kicked me with one foot.

Vanessa didn’t bother to respond to that. “So are you two just out here male bonding? Having a boy-to-boy talk?” She didn’t wait for a reply to that; instead, she sat down on the picnic table itself. Her feet were dangling off the side near Adam’s head. Her message was abundantly clear: she planned to join our bullshit session, whether we liked it or not. I turned around on the bench so I was facing her.

And yet, there was no bullshitting going on. We sat there and looked at each other. Adam’s expression made it clear that our conversation about him and Tiff hooking up was over. We had absolutely no idea what to talk about with Vanessa. Especially when she was in such a mood.

Finally she put us out of our misery. “I learned another little gem from Mal tonight,” she commented. “Apparently, she’s having a party on the fourth, here at the house.”

I was surprised. “Mal? A party? I wonder who she’s inviting.”

Vanessa sniffed. “Who else? She doesn’t bring her friends from high school or college around here. I guess I understand, because we are pretty embarrassing. So there’s only one answer: The Monkey Sitter’s Club.”

Adam propped himself up on his elbows. “Are you calling yourself a monkey, Vanessa?”

“No, no. I am calling the rest of you monkeys. I am a more evolved species.” She dragged her knees up in front of her on the table. “In any case, I know she’s hoping that all of us will am-scray during her party. So I’m hoping that the two of you will invite your girlfriends and Jeff over. And Margo should bring all her cheerleader friends by, and Claire’s crew could all come.” She paused. “And maybe Nick could even make himself a friend or two and convince them to come over.”

I ran down the family tree. “And what about you? Where will you be during this?”

“Anywhere but here. Think I want to be around all those crazy people I just mentioned?” She smiled. “Actually, Charlotte and Becca invited me to go to the fireworks with them. We’re going to go scope out the cute boys.”

Adam grinned wryly. “Anyone in particular?” Vanessa looked irritated, but Adam cut her off before she could comment. “No, no, you wanted to sit in on our male bonding. Before you came up, we were talking about girls. Unless you’ve followed Byron’s footsteps when we weren’t looking, you’d be more interested in boys. So share or go away.” Knowing he was kidding, I laughed, and Vanessa relaxed a little bit. Adam went on. “Dish, girlfriend!”

We didn’t expect Vanessa to oblige, but as she does so often, she surprised us. “Well, there is this one guy,” she said slowly.

I shifted so that my feet were pointed toward Adam’s on the bench and my hands were bracing me. “Who?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

Adam and I looked at each other. Again. Only Vanessa could like a guy and not know who he was. “How could you not know?” I asked the obvious.

She looked annoyed, but more with herself than with me. “We met at the DMV. He said he remembered me from somewhere, but he wouldn’t tell me where. And he wouldn’t tell me his name.”

Adam looked thoughtful. “Describe him. Maybe we’ll figure out who he is.”

Vanessa looked thrilled. “Well. He’s tall. Olive skin. Dark hair and eyes. Gorgeous.

I sighed. “Tall and dark? That’s not much to go on.”

“You forgot handsome. Tall, dark and handsome.”

“Sorry, Vanessa,” Adam said, saying exactly what I was thinking, “You’d have to run that criteria by another brother. Jordan and I aren’t exactly checking out other guys for their studliness.”

Vanessa shook her head. “You guys are totally hopeless.” With that, she jumped down off the picnic table. “I’m getting eaten up by mosquitos. I’m going inside.”

After the door slammed behind her, I looked over at Adam. “I think Vanessa had a good idea.”

He faked a look of surprise. “You think that we should start checking out how hot other guys are?”

“No, jackass. I think we should invite Haley and Tiffany over for Fourth of July. It’s a good excuse to get them back together in the same room and see if they can survive the night without trying to kill each other.”

Adam sat up. “I’ll do my best to make sure Tiffany is on her best behavior. I know she really does want to be on good terms with you guys. Do you think Haley can control her mouth for a couple hours?”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. But you know what? I wouldn’t have her any other way.”

 Plus I always wanted you You liked to rock it in your car You said you didn’t understand me Because I tried to see too far Stars, Reunion

Shannon

I’d been home from school for nearly two months and I hadn’t run across any of my friends from the Babysitters’ Club in all that time. It had been so long since we’d been a club, and I hadn’t gone to school with them, yet I’d stayed friends with a few of them through high school. Kristy and Abby lived on my street, and sometimes Stacey or Claudia would invite me shopping with her. And senior year they’d started having get togethers—anyone who was free would show up on Friday or Saturday night at Mary Anne or Kristy’s for a couple of hours, and then we’d all go on our way. But we’d scattered for college that next year, and by last summer, the parties had all but stopped. There was no one to get together with, most of the time.

But out of the nine of us girls who had been members of the club, seven were going to be in town for Independence Day, and Mallory Pike had sent an email to everyone, inviting us to hang out. My boyfriend Adam had family obligations that day, and I hadn’t wanted to tag along. His family’s pretty unfriendly most of the time, and I’d made a showing at the Memorial Day barbecue only to be ignored by just about everyone. I wasn’t desperate for a repeat.

That’s why I was warming up my car on that July afternoon, hoping the AC would turn on quickly. Abby’d sent me a text message begging for a ride and, since she lives right there, of course I’d said yes. Abby’s sister Anna is a good friend of mine, but she was at Julliard this summer as part of an exclusive program. I’d spent less time with Abby, but enough time to know she’s a little unpredictable. You never know what’s about to come out of her mouth.

When she showed up, she greeted me like an old friend. “Hey, Shannon. Good to see you!” I gave her a quick hug. “Sorry I’m late, but I have a feeling that even running late, we’ll still be the first ones there.”

“You’re probably right.”

Abby threw open the passenger door. “It’s a little weird for us to be going anywhere together without Kristy along, isn’t it?” That’s exactly what I had been thinking.

The day was pretty hot, but the air finally kicked in after about a mile. Either Abby was trying to be polite, or she was really interested in NYU. She kept asking all kinds of questions. I tried hard to remember where she was going to school—some place small further up north, maybe in Maine or Vermont.

There were a number of cars already parked outside the Pikes when we arrived. I recognized a few of them. Claudia’s beater was there, and so was Kristy’s SUV. But I focused in on one car in particular. It looked just like Tiffany’s. “I think that’s my sister’s car,” I commented idly.

We weren’t the first to arrive at the party, but no one seemed to be bothered that we were a little late. The first person we saw was Mal’s youngest sister, Claire. She was chasing a little girl with strawberry blonde pigtails. Abby recognized the toddler first. “Hey, Harper!” she called.

The little girl heard the voice and turned her running toward us. “Auntie Abby!” she yelled.

Abby scooped her up in a big hug. “Harper, you don’t remember Auntie Shannon, do you?” Harper frowned and shook her head. Abby turned to me. “Everyone is Harper’s auntie or uncle.”

I smiled at the little girl. “Harper, where’s your mommy? Auntie Abby and I want to say hi.”

Claire had come up behind us. “Everyone’s out back,” she said, puffing a little from the chase.

Abby let Harper go and the little girl bounced away. “C’mon, Care! Chase me!” she cried.

We headed behind the house and found the backyard transformed into party central. There were drinks in ice, a barbecue running and foods set all over the picnic table. Everyone seemed to be sitting in one corner, where a bunch of lounge chairs were set up. Claudia spotted us. “Come on over!”

A round of hugs and exclamations went around. Claudia was sharing a chair with our hostess, while Kristy and Stacey were each spread out on another chair. Claud’s hair had grown even longer since the last time I’d seen her. Today, she wore it long and loose, tucked behind her ears. She’d been famous for crazy outfits back in the day, but today she just wore a pair of paint-splattered jean shorts and a yellow t-shirt.

Mallory wore her hair, which was normally curly and unruly, in a ponytail, but she’d tamed it with tons of product. She wore a tank with a gauzy white shirt over it, paired with a pair of white capris. Kristy, who had always been a jeans and t kind of girl, was wearing… jeans and a t-shirt. Stacey, who goes to NYU with me and shops in fancy boutiques that even I don’t enter, was dressed down as well.

I took a seat on one of the empty chairs, while Abby sat by Kristy’s feet at the end of her chair. “Where’s Mary Anne?” I asked.

Stacey rolled her eyes. “She and Pete are surviving with only one car. She’s waiting for him to get home from work so she can come by. Both Claudia and I offered to pick her up, but she’s being stubborn. She’ll be here probably in another hour or so.”

Mary Anne had dated her husband pretty much all through high school. When they’d decided to get married, most of us had tried to talk her out of it. Not because we didn’t like him or didn’t think they were good together, but because they were so young. She was still one month shy of her twentieth birthday when she tied the knot. I think she resented us for our opinions, so she was trying really hard in front of the BSC to look like everything was going perfectly in her relationship.

Abby surveyed the group. “Nobody brought their guy? I mean, I’m running single these days, but don’t some of the rest of you have men you could have brought?” She looked pointedly at Kristy. “Where’s your better half?”

Kristy shrugged. “He had to go out of town for some conference this weekend. You know he’s got that internship in New York this summer, so he’s been commuting every day. It’s killing him slowly. I told him he could just come home on weekends, but he wants to spend as much time with Harper as possible before he has to go back to school.”

Stacey put on a pair of sunglasses and leaned back in her chair. “Jackson said he wouldn’t be caught dead in Connecticut. I hope he was just kidding. In either case, he’s at his parents’ place in Chicago and has to work tomorrow, so he wasn’t going to be able to make it.”

I pulled my feet up onto my chair. “Adam had a family event today that he couldn’t get out of.”

“I don’t subject Ray to my family,” Mal added.

Claudia raised an eyebrow. “Your family’s not that bad,” she commented. Mal just shook her head. “Anyway,” Claud continued, “I didn’t bring a guy because I have so many that it wouldn’t be fair just to pick one.” We all laughed.

I looked around the yard. I could hear the occasional squeal from Harper and Claire in the front yard, but other than that, it was pretty quiet. I turned to Mallory. “I have to ask. Is my sister here?”

She looked surprised. “Yeah. Tiffany’s been here since about noon. But I wish she wasn’t.” I must have made a face at that, because Mal went on. “Nothing against Tiff personally. I just asked all my brothers and sisters to get the hell out for the day. Most of them did, but the triplets seem determined to camp out. It’s just Adam and Tiffany upstairs right now, which is totally against my parents’ rules. I told them I didn’t care as long as they kept whatever they were doing quiet.”

I felt as if I were missing something. “Are Adam and Tiffany seeing each other again? She doesn’t tell me anything.”

Mal nodded. “She seems like she’s not the most communicative person on the planet. I tried to talk to her earlier this week when she stopped by to pick Adam up, but I couldn’t get a conversation going with her.”

We were interrupted at that moment by someone walking down the driveway. A blond boy, who looked familiar, appeared around the corner. His head was down and he looked like he was concentrating hard on something. It wasn’t until Claudia shouted, “It’s Jeff Schafer,” that he even noticed we were there.

Jeff went a little wide eyed when he saw us all sitting there, and even more so when Claudia jumped out of her chair and gave him a big hug. “Hey, Jeff,” she said, “If you’re here, does that mean Dawn’s in town, too?”

I suddenly placed why the boy looked familiar. Not only was he Dawn’s little brother and Mary Anne’s stepbrother, but I’d also seen his photo recently. He and Mal’s brother had gone to prom together. That explained why he was at the party also.

Jeff shook his head. “No, I don’t think she’s coming to Connecticut at all this summer.”

Claudia let him go. “That’s too bad. She was a lot of fun all through high school. I think I’m still banned from your mom’s house from that time your stepdad caught the two of us smoking pot in her bedroom.” I hadn’t thought it was possible, but Jeff’s eyes got even larger. “How’s she doing these days?”

“I don’t know. She studied abroad this year. Guatemala, I think. Anyway, I haven’t talked to her in a while.” Jeff looked away from us, unhappily.

Just as Jeff looked like he was ready to bolt, Mal sat upright. “Oh, Jeff, I almost forgot. I have a message for you.”

“For me?”

“Well, for you or Byron. You’re supposed to call Haley and let her know it’s safe to come by.”

Jeff looked crazed. “Call Haley?” he repeated. “I don’t know her number.”

Mal laughed. “This is the Pike family. We have a whole phone book’s worth of numbers on a notepad on the fridge. Check the second or third page of the notepad and her number’s near the top of the page.” Jeff nodded at her. “See if you can convince Adam and Tiffany to go over to Haley’s, though after the message Haley left, I’m not sure that will fly.”

Kristy raised an eyebrow. “What was the message exactly?”

Mal looked up at the sky for a second. “She said, and I quote, ‘I refuse to be alone with that bitch.’”

Jeff escaped into the kitchen. I turned to Mallory. “‘That bitch.’ That would be my sister, wouldn’t it?” She shrugged, looking rueful. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time Tiff’s been called a bitch, and it probably won’t be the last.”

Claudia laughed. “Haley? Is that Haley Braddock? I haven’t seen her in years.”

Mal nodded. “Obviously, you haven’t been hanging out at the Pike house for years. She’s practically been living here for a while. She’s dating Jordan these days, and for the longest time before that, we all thought she was dating Byron.”

Kristy made a face. “You thought she was dating Byron? But she really wasn’t?”

Stacey sat up. “Sounds like there’s a bunch of triplet drama going on.”

“You have no idea.” Mal laughed.

I interjected. “I read the newspaper article about Byron. Anyone else catch that?”

A bunch of blank looks followed. Mal laughed again. “I need a piece of paper and a marker to draw pictures to explain all of this properly. Long story short: Adam is dating Tiff. Jordan is dating Haley. And Byron is dating Jeff.”

A few eyebrows went up, but everyone was quiet for a moment after that. Finally, out of nowhere, Claudia turned to Mal and said, “Did you ever play the ‘how far have you gotten’ game with your brothers?”

Mallory looked disgusted. “No way. I don’t want to know and I definitely don’t want to share. It was bad enough when we used to play that game.”

Stacey laughed. “Remember how we started playing when we were, like, 14, and we all had only kissed? And we just basically sat around waiting for someone to get further with a guy.”

Kristy grinned. “Remember that time at the beginning of senior year when I refused to play, and you guys thought I was embarrassed because I didn’t have anything to share?”

Abby shook her head. “I remember that. I drove you to pick up a pregnancy test later that night. Remember how Anna came running in, thinking I was murdering you, because you screamed so loud when it came up positive?” They both started to laugh.

I chuckled. “Did you ever think, Kristy, that you could look back on that and laugh?”

She wiped a tear from her eye. “Back then? Absolutely not.”

We were all still laughing when two more people appeared in the back yard. The boy was clearly a Pike, and he was holding hands with a short blonde girl. Based upon the earlier conversation, I had to guess that they were Jordan and Haley. Mallory confirmed that. “Hey, Jordan,” she called. The two of them stopped. “Do me a favor, okay? Can you grab the burgers and dogs out of the fridge and bring them out here? The barbecue’s about ready. They’re all on a tray.”

Jordan disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Haley standing in the yard, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Uh, hi guys,” she said.

General words of greeting went her way. Jordan reappeared with a tray of meat. “Did you also want the tray with the tomatoes and onions and cheese and stuff?” he asked Mallory. She nodded. “Honey?” he said to Haley, who disappeared into the kitchen without another word.

Kristy raised an eyebrow as Jordan set the meat over next to the potato chips. “Honey?” she repeated in a low voice so he couldn’t hear her. “What is he, fifty?”

Mal smirked. “I’ll ask him that later.”

After Haley set the second tray next to the first, Jordan put his arm around her shoulder. “Where are the others?” he asked Mal.

She shrugged. “Before Jeff got here, Adam and Tiff were upstairs in your room. I don’t know where they are now.” Jordan nodded and they started to walk to the house. Mal called after them. “Keep the orgies to a minimum in there. We don’t know when exactly Mom and Dad will be back, and I’m not going down for your hormones.”

Jordan looked horrified. “Ew, Mal!” he cried. He and Haley disappeared into the house.

Abby looked after them as the door closed. “Guess we know one of your brothers isn’t getting any,” she cracked.

We all laughed again.

***

Adam

Tiff and I had been watching television on the little set in the room I share with Jordan when Jeff showed up. He seemed jumpier than normal. “Hey, Adam. Tiffany.” Despite the tension we’d had on our group date a couple weeks back, Jeff didn’t seem to hold any grudges. He’d told me that, after the way his life had been for the past couple years, he couldn’t judge anyone. It wasn’t something he’d explained, so I’d just nodded.

Jeff joined us on Jordan’s bed. “When’s Byron getting off work?” I asked.

He grimaced. “He’s there till close, so probably six-thirty.”

Tiff leaned across me and wrapped her arm around my waist. “That sucks. At least they’re closing early.” Jeff nodded.

I flipped the channel when a commercial came on. “Jordan and I were thinking we’d stick around here long enough to annoy Mal and her friends and eat up a fair chunk of their food. Then, right before it gets dark, we’ll head down to the park for the fireworks on foot. Sound okay to you two?”

Tiff nodded immediately, but Jeff shook his head. “By and I are heading out after we eat. We have…” he faded out, sounding like he didn’t want to finish that sentence.

Tiff completed it for him. “Other plans?” she said. Jeff nodded again, pulling his knees in toward his chest. She smiled gently at him. “Must be some great plans.”

Jeff’s face showed a clash of emotion. I could see that part of him wanted to grin and agree with Tiff, but another part of him looked like he was scared out of his wits. I raised my eyebrows. If Jeff and Byron’s night was going to be as good as all that, I didn’t want to know about it.

We watched television pretty much silently for a minute or two before I heard feet on the stairs. At first I thought one of Mal’s friends had come upstairs to use the bathroom, but I heard a voice and realized it was probably Jordan and Haley. “We’re in here!” I called.

Jordan arrived in the doorway, looking a little nervous. He glanced around to see who was inside. “Hey,” he said with a generic wave. He pulled his desk chair over to the bed, which was pretty full. By this point, Jeff was sitting in among Jordan’s pillows, while Tiff and I had spread out across the rest of the bed. I’m not sure exactly which happened first, to be honest. Jordan looked a bit disgusted about the setup. “Please tell me you two,” he said, pointing to me and Tiffany, “haven’t been doing…anything…on my bed.”

I smirked. “Oh, but Jordan, we were afraid we’d roll off my bed!” Jordan now looked absolutely disgusted, even though he knew I was kidding.

Tiff laughed and sat up. “There’s room for you on the bed,” she said. I know Tiff is really hoping to get along with my brothers and their dates—even Haley—so if she thought that jumping off the bed and sitting on the floor would have helped, she’d have done it.

Jordan shook his head. “Naw. Me and Haley will sit over here. Thanks for the offer, though.” He plopped heavily down on the chair. “What are we watching?” he asked.

I shrugged. “We’re flipping. There’s literally nothing on today.”

Jeff had been staring at the television and not really paying attention to us. Finally he shook himself and looked over at Jordan. “Where’s Haley?” he asked.

Jordan looked uncomfortable. “She said she had to go throw up.” Jeff raised his eyebrows. “I think she was just being overly dramatic,” he added, “but in any case, she’s in the bathroom.”

Tiff shifted again and looked down at the ground. I put my arm around her and smiled. She smiled back weakly.

Haley’s blonde head appeared around the door a short time later. Jordan jumped off his chair and smiled benevolently at her. “Hey,” he said, “Come sit in my lap.”

Haley shook her head. “I bet I could fit next to you in the chair if I tried,” she said faintly. I did a double take. Her face was lined with worry and she did look kinda gray. Maybe she hadn’t been kidding about throwing up.

Jordan sat down on the chair and mushed himself to one side. Haley daintily sat on the other edge and pointed her toes toward the floor. She looked over at those of us on the bed warily.

Jeff looked at Tiff and me and then at Jordan and Haley. He raised his eyebrows. I could tell he was waiting for someone to speak, and he didn’t want it to be him.

I sighed. Jordan thought he’d done his part by getting Haley in the room at all. Why did it always fall to me to smooth things over? I sat up straight on the bed. “So Haley, how’s work going?”

She eyed me critically and then took a deep breath. “Brides, brides all day long,” she said after a moment. “Some of the older women I work with take bets on how long they’ll be married. It’s pretty sick, actually. There was this couple yesterday, and Joanie was working with them. They were apparently arguing about colors for their kitchen and it got heated. She came over to where I was wrapping gifts and said, ‘If they make it six months I’ll be surprised.’”

Jordan seemed to have heard the story, or one just like it, before. “How many times has Joanie been married?” he asked. Jeff, who worked with Haley, snorted.

Tiff looked thoughtful. “It’s kinda sad,” she said slowly, trying to watch her words. “Because they only have about a fifty percent chance of staying married. But I don’t think it helps to have other people guessing they’ll get divorced.”

Haley looked surprised. “Right! That’s what I told Joanie, but she just laughed and went back to encouraging them to put more china on their registry.” She shifted forward in her seat and Jordan, who has been smushed against the arm of the chair, breathed a sigh of relief and put an arm around her. “Honestly, though, if they are going to get divorced, they should probably go ahead and do it after six months anyway. Then they won’t have any kids to throw in the middle.”

Jeff tilted his head at her. “Waddya know about divorce, Haley?” he asked. “Your parents are still married.”

She sighed. “Well, they split up for almost a year when I was eleven. I didn’t think they were going to get back together, but they did.”

Jordan looked at her in surprise. “You never told me that.”

“I’ve never told most people that. I bet By doesn’t know that.”

Tiff looked at me questioningly. I nodded. “My parents split a couple years ago,” she said, “but they never got divorced. It’s frustrating as hell. They did counseling for a while but it didn’t seem to do any good. I don’t even think they’ve spoken to each other in at least a year, so I don’t know why they just don’t divorce already.”

Haley was about to say something in reply when Claire appeared in the doorway. “Hey,” she said, “Mal says that if you want to have burgers and hot dogs, you’d better come down now and get them while they’re hot.”

Jeff was the first one up. I think the divorce talk was getting to him. “Is Byron here yet?”

Claire shook her head. “Nope. Mary Anne’s still coming, too. But some of the people outside were on the hungry side. They put aside some meat for when they show up.”

Jordan clapped his hand down on Jeff’s shoulder. “Do you really think that Byron could show up and not come straight up to see you?”

Jeff had made a fist and was nervously squeezing it over and over, yet he smiled for a moment. “There’s a backyard full of food, and we all know that food is By’s first love.”

***

By the time we got to the table, Mal and her friends were already eating. They’d crowded around one end of the table, leaving the other end to the six of us, including Claire. Claire sat down first without a thought, plopping down next to Stacey. I surveyed the set up and sat down in the middle of other side of the bench. I patted seat next to me and Tiff sat down there, putting her across from Claire. Jordan sat across from me and Haley sat next to him. That left Jeff with the seat on my other side—and enough room for Byron to scootch a chair up on the end, if he ever showed up.

Mal was seated at the far end of the table. “Help yourselves,” told the assembled crew. “Although, Jeff, I don’t know what there is here that you’ll eat.”

Jeff shrugged. “I’m not really hungry anyway,” he said.

Kristy sat across from Mal with her daughter in her lap. “That,” she said to her friends, “is something I never thought I’d hear a teenaged boy say.”

We’d just dished out the meat and were starting on the sides when we heard voices from the driveway. “I hope you didn’t start without us!”

The pair rounded the corner. “I told you they’d already served the food,” Byron said. He looked embarrassed. Jeff’s stepsister Mary Anne was with him.

The girls all jumped up to squeal over Mary Anne and Byron stepped out of the way, afraid of being trampled. He came over to the table and stood next to Haley and Jeff. “Girls,” he said to Jeff, who grinned at him.

Haley poked him. “Hello, best friend. I am a girl, you know.” He patted her on the head and she scowled at him.

Claire ran inside and returned with a couple dining room chairs, which she plopped at either end of the picnic table. The BSC members returned to the table, Mary Anne carrying little Harper piggy back. They all began to settle back in at their end of the table. Byron gave Jeff a kiss and sat down in the chair. “Any burgers left?” he asked quietly, trying not to attract the attention of the other end of the table.

We settled down quickly to eat at our end of the table—Byron had already grabbed a plateful of food—but the girls at the other end of the table were still gabbing on. “I would have been here sooner,” Mary Anne told the assembled group, as she took the plate Mal offered her, “but I ran into Byron as Pete dropped me off. I had to stop and talk with my future brother-in-law.” Jeff turned as red as a boiled lobster and Byron ducked his head over his food.

I saw some of the girls looking at Mary Anne like she’d grown a second head. Usually, she was a lot quieter and more sensitive than that. Stacey leaned over Shannon and Kristy. “Mary Anne, are you drunk?” she asked incredulously.

Mary Anne waved away her concern. “No, I’m not drunk,” she said easily. “I’ve just had one glass of wine and that’s it.”

I leaned over to Tiff and whispered in her ear. “Wonder how big that glass was.” Tiff shushed me, although she did look amused.

I saw Kristy and Stacey look at each other meaningfully. Tiff saw it too, and she waggled her eyebrows at me. I stifled a laugh, which Mal heard. She gave me a death glare and I turned back to my food.

Abby was less stern on Mary Anne than her friends. “Give the girl a break. Sometimes, you just need to let your hair down,” she said, waving a water bottle in front of her for emphasis.

Claudia reached up and ran her hands through Abby’s close-cropped curls, like she was building static electricity. “When was the last time you let your hair down?” she teased.

With that, everyone let the subject drop and got down to eating. Claire got successfully distracted by explaining her seventh grade science fair project to Stacey and Claudia, leaving my brothers and me to our own conversation with our dates. Well, Byron and Jordan got into a conversation with Tiff, in any case. Jeff was doing that thing anorexics do—he pushed potato salad around his plate but didn’t eat any of it. Haley was picking apart a hot dog bun with her fingers. From what I could tell, she’d eaten a whole two bites of hot dog and not touched anything else on her plate.

Jordan had just started explaining how he’d cleared a table where someone had been finger painting all over the dishes with mustard when Haley jumped up from the table and ran inside. Byron turned around in his chair, surprised. “What’s she doing?” he asked.

Jordan looked after Haley with his brow furrowed. “She said earlier she was throwing up,” he said. For a moment he looked conflicted—should he get up and follow her or settle back down and finish eating? He sighed and picked up his fork.

Byron raised his eyebrows—and his voice. “She’s throwing up? And you’re not going to follow her?” Claire, Stacey and Claudia, sitting closest to us, turned around to follow the conversation.

Jordan turned defensive. “You know Haley,” he said, looking directly at Byron. “She’s a bit of a…what was the phrase you used last week? Oh yeah. ‘World class melodrama queen.’”

A giggle escaped from Claire, but when the five of us all turned on her, she looked the other way. Jeff spoke for the first time since Byron had sat down to eat. “It’s kinda true,” he said. “Remember back in Camden when she said she was going to drown herself in the bathtub?”

Jordan nodded. “And yesterday at the mall, she said she was going to throw herself off the second story because they were playing shitty music on the p.a.”

Tiff’s mouth was hanging open a little bit as she followed the conversation. She didn’t know Haley prior to our last get together, which had ended in Haley stalking off, shouting and crying. I think she was getting a bit of an education as my brothers and Jeff talked.

Byron considered that point. “True,” he said, “But there’s a huge difference between saying you’re barfing and threatening to attempt suicide.”

I finished off my burger and turned to my friends. “You know,” I said, maybe just a shade too loud, “you’d think someone as sensitive to comments about rape as Haley is would be a little bit more politically correct about suicide jokes.”

Conversation at the table came to an abrupt stop as everyone turned to look at us. Jordan’s eyes went wide. “Adam!” he exclaimed.

I shook off his comment and stood up. “No, seriously. She wants to get all pissed off over one, unintentionally hurtful comment, then she shouldn’t go around making comments that could offend someone else.”

Tiff’s expression changed, and I realized that she’d finally put two and two together. She looked remorseful.

Byron put down his fork and stared at me. “Adam,” he said warningly. He doesn’t get upset very often, but when he does, watch out. Jeff put one hand soothingly on Byron’s arm, but Byron didn’t seem to be much calmed.

I leaned down the table and was about to let him have it when Tiff stood up. “Adam… Babe,” she said in a low voice, “If even I’m telling you you’re being a prick, then you’re being a prick.”

I sat back down. I looked at my brothers, who were ready to beat my head in, and then back at Tiffany. “And are you telling me I’m being a prick?” I asked her, cocking my head to one side.

She leaned over and looked me in the eye. “Yes!”

I laughed. “Okay then. I’ll stop.”

Tiff shook her head at me. “You are something else,” she said as she sat back down, but a hint of a smile appeared on her lips.

I looked down at Byron and Jordan. Jordan still seemed disgruntled, but Byron settled down a bit. “Hey, uh, Shannon?” he called, “Could you pass the burgers down here?”

The tray of hamburgers made its way down the table, and everyone returned to their eating. Things had just started to settle back to normal when the back door opened and closed. Haley stood in the fading light just outside the door. Thirteen sets of eyes turned toward her. She looked vaguely freaked for a moment.

Kristy went into motherly mode. “Are you okay, Haley?”

“I’m fine,” she said, sounding puzzled. She rejoined the table and Jordan hugged her with one arm for a moment. He then went back to his food.

I stirred around my potato salad with a potato chip for a moment. Haley focused in on her plate, but she definitely wasn’t eating any more. Instead, she started swirling various salads together on her plate, making a disgusting mess. I know Jordan noticed, because he kept looking over at her, opening his mouth and then closing it again. He seemed conflicted over whether to bring more attention to her.

I waited for Byron to say something, but he had eyes only for Jeff. “Did you have one of the tofu dogs?” he asked.

“Tofu dogs?” Jeff repeated.

“Yeah.” Byron puckered his lips. “I bought some tofu dogs for you. Didn’t they make it to the table?” He stood up. “Mal? Did you cook up any tofu dogs?”

Mal raised an eyebrow. “Nope. Never saw any. Did you want me to make them now? The grill is still hot.”

Jeff shook his head. “Thanks, but no. I’m actually done eating.” He shoved his plate aside, the food completely untouched.

Byron, who was still standing, looked at his half-eaten burger and then over at Jeff. He considered for a moment. “I’m done, too,” he said. “Ready to go?” He held his hand out to Jeff.

Jeff took a deep breath and then let Byron pull him out of his seat. Mallory watched the two of them. “Where are you going?” she asked.

Byron was trying really hard to hide a smile. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be home before midnight,” was all he said. He’s generally a pretty terrible liar, and I guess he figured he wouldn’t even try to tell a story.

Mal’s friends all watched them go. “Ooh-la-la,” Claudia said, “Wonder where they’re going in such a hurry.”

Claire was decorating a hamburger bun with condiments. “They’re probably going to make out or have sex or something,” she commented idly.

Mal whirled around on her. “Claire!” she exclaimed, shocked.

“Well, they probably are,” she replied huffily, “I would if I had a boyfriend. You can’t do anything in this house. Our parents are such fascists.” She stabbed the empty part of her paper plate with her plastic fork. “You don’t have to hide things from me anymore. I’m not a baby.”

Jordan leaned across the table toward me. “Despite what her behavior might sometimes lead you to believe,” he said. As if to demonstrate, Claire leaned over and smacked him hard in the shoulder. “Ow! See what I mean?”

Claire went on as if Jordan hadn’t spoken. “I know all your secrets anyway, so I don’t know why you bother keeping them secret. I know you smoke,” she said to Mal. “I found Nick’s dime bag in his jeans one time when I was doing laundry, and Vanessa doesn’t have a very good hiding place for her stash of condoms. I know all about you two.” She pointed menacingly at Jordan and me. “And I knew Byron was gay before anyone told me. Hell,” she turned and spoke seriously to Stacey, who was trying hard not to laugh, “Byron never actually bothered to tell me he was gay, and he just ran off to have sex with Jeff. Can you believe that?”

Mallory sized her up. “Maybe,” she suggested seriously, “that was because he knew you already knew.” Claire shrugged, conceding the possibility.

Kristy stood up with some effort. Harper had fallen asleep on her shoulder. “On that cheerful note,” she said, “we need to head out. Someone is a holy terror when she doesn’t get to bed on time. Thanks for wearing her out, Claire.”

By the time Kristy had gathered all her belongings—I guess small kids require a lot of stuff—everyone had finished eating. Mal surveyed the mess on the table. “You know, if everyone takes one bowl or tray or several plates, cups and forks, I think we can clear this table in one trip. There’s still dessert—strawberry shortcake.”

“And Tiff made cookies,” I piped up as I picked up the tray of hamburgers.

Shannon already held a bowl of macaroni salad. “You did?” she asked her sister. “When?”

Tiffany was surprisingly cheerful. “This morning. I just had this craving for chocolate chip cookies, so I made twelve dozen.”

“Whoa,” Claudia had picked a whole pile of paper plates. “Don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate. But that is a shit-ton of cookies.”

Tiff grinned. “Well, I have to admit that between Maria and me, we ate at least a dozen earlier today. And I left a dozen at home. But there’s enough to go around and everyone can probably take a few home.” She picked up all the bags of potato chips.

We lined up and snaked our way into the house. Jordan pulled out the trash can for all the garbage and Mal opened the fridge and started taking bowls and trays from people, finding space for them inside. After Mal had taken my tray, I opened the pantry and took the chips from Tiff. “Hey,” she said, grabbing me by the waist. “Do you have a bathroom on this floor?” she asked, her nose pressed up against mine.

Abby saw us as she tossed some serving utensils in the sink. “Hey, you two, none of that in here,” she called with a smirk.

I ignored her. “Yeah, next to the laundry room over there. But it looks like it’s occupied.”

She gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll go upstairs.”

Mallory’s friends had mostly returned to the backyard, leaving just Mal and Mary Anne washing dishes. However much wine Mary Anne had had to drink, she seemed to have settled back into her usual self—only she would have volunteered to load the dishwasher instead of joining the others in the backyard. Jordan went down into the rec room to gather blankets and stuff for the fireworks, leaving me alone with the two girls. I decided to use the bathroom before we left also, so I stood next to the door while my sister told Mary Anne all about what her friend Jessi was doing in New York. They were getting boring, so I tuned them out.

Suddenly I realized there was a horrible retching noise coming from inside the bathroom. I looked out the back door. Claudia, Stacey, Shannon and Abby were in lounge chairs Mal had set out, and Claire was running around, catching fireflies. That left just one person who could be in the bathroom puking. “Haley?” I called out, knocking on the door, “Are you okay?”

Mal and Mary Anne turned around, looking surprised. I shrugged at them. I didn’t get a response from the bathroom right away. After a while, the toilet flushed and the door peeked open. “Adam?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I leaned against the door frame. She left the door most of the way closed. “So you really have been throwing up?”

Emotion flashed across her face, but I couldn’t tell if she was irritated or frustrated. “Yes, I have. Did you think I was making that up?”

I didn’t tell her it was Jordan who doubted her. “Well, you are sorta prone to exaggeration.” She didn’t reply to that; she just sat back upon the toilet seat and let the door swing open. “Anyway, what’s the matter? You getting sick, or did you get food poisoning from Mal’s cooking?”

Mal was rinsing the last of the utensils and she took a serving spoon and flung it at me. She missed and it hit the floor in front of the bathroom door. Haley looked at it and then back at me. “No, it’s Tiff,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows. “Tiff? What do you mean?”

Haley was wearing a red and white striped t-shirt that hung down low, almost to her knees. She took the front of the shirt in both hands and started twisting it in front of her like she was wringing water out of it. “The idea of talking with her and making nicey-nice has just been tying my stomach up in knots.”

Well. That surprised me. I did have to admit, Haley had been on her best behavior all night. She hadn’t said a single rude thing to Tiffany, although she definitely had opportunity. I’d just had no idea what it was costing her. “Wow,” was all I said.

She went on. “I know this is important to Jordan, and I don’t want to cause any trouble for him. If I can’t get along with Tiffany, then he has to choose between me and you. I don’t want him to have to make that choice, and not just because I think he’d choose you.”

I stood there watching her play with her shirt for a moment and then I walked into the kitchen. Mal and Mary Anne had headed outside and I hadn’t even heard them. The left over cups from dinner were sitting next to the sink. I filled one with water and brought it back to the bathroom. “Here. Swish that around in your mouth and then spit it out.” For once in her life she followed instructions without arguing about them. “Now. Keep your mouth closed for a moment and listen to me.” Haley looked put out but didn’t say anything. “I want to thank you—for trying so hard and for being so good to Jordan. So I’m going to do you a little favor. You and Jordan go to the fireworks together. And Tiff and I will stay here, and maybe go by ourselves later. Okay?”

Haley took another sip of water and looked me over. When she spit it out, she turned back to me. “Sounds like a plan,” she said, sounding defeated, though I wasn’t quite sure what had her down. Shouldn’t she be happier that she didn’t have to fake nice anymore?

I stepped out of the bathroom and saw Tiff in the doorway from the kitchen to the rest of the house. She raised her eyebrows. “How much of that did you hear?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Enough.” It was only about eight p.m. but she looked exhausted. She’d been expending just as much effort as Haley had—maybe even more—and it looked like it was costing her just as much. “I think you made the right choice,” she said. Tiff grabbed my hand, dragging me into the living room where Haley was less likely to hear us. “I’m glad that we had an evening where we all got along, at least.”

Jordan came thundering up the stairs. “I found a blanket and some bug spray. Are we ready to head out?”

I kissed the top of Tiff’s head and walked into the kitchen. I didn’t expect her to follow me, but she did. “Hey, I think Tiff and I are going to stay behind here. Maybe you and Haley can meet up with Vanessa and her friends?” Jordan looked over at Haley, who still looked shaky from her time puking, and then nodded.

Tiff grabbed a container off a pile on the counter. “Why don’t you take some cookies with you? Haley, I saw you didn’t eat much at dinner. Maybe your stomach will feel better later?” She handed the cookies to Haley, who took them and even tried to smile.

Jordan tucked the blanket under his arm and the bug spray into his back pocket. “Hey, Haley, want to watch me make someone’s day?” He opened the door and shouted out. “Claire? Wanna go to the fireworks with me and Haley?”

I couldn’t see out the door, but I could hear the squeals. “Really? You mean it?”

Jordan held the door open and Haley stepped out. Tiff and I followed them and stood in the doorway. She wrapped her arms around my chest and I put one hand on her neck. Mallory was looking at Jordan and using her best big-sister voice. “Hey. You may not have a curfew, but Claire does. Either find Mom and Dad downtown and make sure she leaves with them, or have her home by eleven.”

After the three of them left, Tiffany and I went back into the living room. She sat down on the couch, facing into the room. I raised my eyebrows and sat down at the other end of the couch so I was looking at her. “What’s the matter?”

She sighed, looking lost. “I’m just so tired of being the bitch all the time.”

I scooted a little closer. “What do you mean? You haven’t done a single thing that could label you a bitch.”

“Babe, seriously. I’m glad you see me through those eyes. But I’m not so sure the rest of the world agrees with you.” She leaned back a bit. “Haley sure doesn’t.”

I did the same so we were both looking at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t worry about Haley. She’s coming around. She’s really trying to make a go of it.”

“Adam. I make her physically ill.”

I sat back up and crawled down the couch so I was facing her. “Like I said, give her time. I really think you made some headway today.” Tiff looked at me and scoffed. “Anyway, why do you care what Haley thinks?” I kept crawling down the couch, over her feet and down by her hips.

She kicked at my legs as I kept moving. “For the same reason she cares about getting along with me. I like you and I don’t want to cause issues between you and your brother.” I got to her chest and put one hand on either side of her shoulders and spread my legs on either side of her hips. “Adam! What are you doing?” Tiff started to laugh. “There are six people outside who could walk in here at any time to use the bathroom.”

I ignored her last comment for a moment. “I wouldn’t worry about me and Jordan. Seriously. We’re big boys and we can handle this without real issue.” I kissed her once, quickly. “As for our sisters and their friends…well, how about we go upstairs and find out whether or not we’ll actually roll off my bed?”

She shoved me off of her and I fell to the floor. “Okay, Mister,” she said, giggling. “Lead the way.”

***

Jeff

It was the beginning of a very long summer twilight when Byron and I left his house. Despite the hurry in which he’d practically pulled me out of his yard, once we got to the street, he settled down to a leisurely stroll. We held hands and walked along quietly down Slate Street. I don’t know about By, but I was quiet because I was thinking.

And thinking. And thinking. And worrying.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to our evening together. It was more like there was a combination of reasons that, separately, I might have worried over for maybe a minute. But when they all came together, it was like the perfect storm of worry.

This was going to be my first time with a guy. I didn’t know exactly what Byron had planned for the night, but I’m pretty sure it involved removing some clothing. It was like going back to when I was fourteen and I first got a girl to take her shirt off, but then I hadn’t known what to do with her after that. That was worry number one.

Then add in the fact that this was Byron’s first time ever, and there’s added pressure. A guy wants to leave a good impression, and he’d waited a long time for this. I didn’t want By coming away from this night thinking, “Is that all it is?” That was worry number two.

And worry number three was the worst of all. With the girls of the past, I’d worried about what they’d tell their friends or what the whole school would find out about what we’d done or whether I was any good about it. I knew I didn’t have to be concerned about that this time, because who was Byron going to tell besides Haley? (And I knew he would tell Haley, and I was completely unconcerned about that.) But this time was different for other reasons. Basically, I wanted the night to be special because Byron—and our relationship—was so special. I had stronger feelings for him than I had had for all of those girls put together. Worry number three was screwing our relationship up by doing something wrong.

I know, I know. I sound like Byron. For a guy who has no real problems, he sure does worry all the time about everything. But maybe there’s something to be said about worrying. All I know is that Byron’s been doing it all his life and he’s turned out pretty amazing.

We reached the corner and Byron stopped to check for traffic before crossing. Only he would do that; that intersection is pretty dead and you hear cars before you see them. Still, there isn’t a rule written that Byron won’t follow, so I completely humored him.

Standing there at that intersection, I marveled at how small Byron’s world is in many ways. We were standing in front of Haley’s house and from there you could see both my house and Byron’s. All of his favorite people lived within a block of him.

When we reached the other side of the street, By looked around. “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Hmmm,” I assented with an exhale of breath and a brief nod. By gave me a questioning look but didn’t comment on my lack of communication skills. He didn’t attempt conversation again, either.

As we approached my mom’s house, I did a double check of the cars. Mom and Richard had left in his car, and he always parks it in the same spot. Mom’s car was there—parked a little bit crooked, but that was actually my fault—but Richard’s spot was empty. I breathed a sigh of relief that I know Byron heard. I led him up the walkway to the back door and pulled my keys out of my pocket.

There’s definitely a downside to worrying: it makes you a bundle of nerves. I dropped the keys not once but twice before By bent down and picked them up. “Which key is it?” he asked, more kindly than I probably would have in his spot. Before long we were inside.

I’m sure that you’re not surprised to learn that Richard doesn’t like to run the air conditioning if he can avoid it. Because there had been a small threat of rain earlier in the day, he’d closed all the windows in the house. Add those two together, and the house was hot and stuffy, despite the sun beginning to set. I flicked on the lights and looked around. Mom had been making…something…to take to her party with her, and obviously Richard had not come through to clean up when she was done. I would guess, from the bags sitting on the counter, that it had been quinoa and spinach salad. I hurried around the kitchen, gathering all the dirty dishes in the sink and throwing away all her wrappers.

Byron stood in the doorway and watched me, amused. “If you ever have the urge to come over to my house and do that after dinner, my mom would love you forever.” I made a face but didn’t stop cleaning. I grabbed a dishrag off the counter and started swiping at the stove. By came over and grabbed the cloth from my hand. At this point, he no longer looked amused, but instead concerned. “Jeff, what’s bugging you?”

I shook my head at him and he furrowed his brow. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t eat anything for dinner and you’ve barely said two words all night. Now you’re avoiding me by cleaning up the kitchen. If you changed your mind about tonight, just tell me. I’ll understand.”

I couldn’t look at him. “No, that’s not it.”

He moved so that he was inches from my face and I had no choice but to look at his blue, blue eyes. “There are a lot of things I’m willing to forgive. But lying isn’t one of them. So tell me what’s going on. Just, please, be honest with me.”

I reached out and touched his face. “I’m just worried…about everything. I just want everything to be perfect tonight. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

He pulled me into a hug. I could hear his heart beating and feel every breath he took. I held him tight. We stood that way silently for a while. Finally, he spoke. “Oh, God, Jeff,” he said, and from the tone of his voice I thought he was crying, even though I would have been able to feel that. “I have no expectations for tonight. Whatever comes, comes. I just want to be here…with you. That’s all I care about.”

I felt some of the tension leave my body and I hugged him even tighter. “So you won’t care if we do do something and I’m absolutely terrible at it?” I blurted out.

I could feel him start to laugh before I heard it. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. I shrugged. I wasn’t, but if he wanted to think I was, then maybe that was for the best. “Oh, man. No, I won’t be upset. How would I know if you’re terrible or not, anyway?” When he put it that way, it did sound kind of stupid. I smiled a little bit and pulled back from the hug enough to see his face. He was grinning at me in a way I’d never seen him smile before. “Besides, I’m beginning to think perfect doesn’t exist.”

I let him go and took a step back, cocking my head to one side. “What?” he asked, a little panicked.

I put one hand on my chin. “Whoa,” I said, pretending to sound shocked, “Who is this Zen Master, and what have you done with my boyfriend?”

The grin came back. “Now that,” he said, “is the Jeff I know and love.”

Based upon the expression Byron made briefly after he spoke, the words just slipped out, but somehow I still felt he meant them. “Yeah?” I said, taking his hand in both of mine. Despite the fact that I’m a couple inches taller, his hands are pretty much the same length as mine, though his fingers and palms are more slender. I gave a little lopsided grin and he brushed his spare hand across my lips. I was just about to kiss him when he surprised me by making the first move. He kissed me before I even saw it coming, and I worked my hands free from his and put them behind his back. I balled up his shirt in both hands as he eased his arms through mine and up toward my shoulders, where his fingers dug in.

It was probably the most intense kiss I’d ever had in my life—and I think it all had to do with that one little word he’d said. I quickly found myself feeling exhausted—and with a crick in my neck. I broke the kiss but not the embrace. “Upstairs,” I breathed into Byron’s ear, “I left the window open and the fan on when I left. It’ll be much cooler.”

We got upstairs and I opened the door to my room. It was a lot cooler in there. I turned on my bedside lamp but left the overhead light off. Byron looked around. “Did you clean up in here just for me?” he asked.

“Yup.” I gestured around vaguely. “I made the bed and put everything away. I even vacuumed.”

“Wow. You sure know how to make a guy feel special,” he joked. He was wearing a plaid short-sleeved shirt over a plain white undershirt. He unbuttoned the shirt and folded it in half, leaving it on the back of my chair. “Where were we?”

“I think we were just about to have a seat on my bed.”

“Yeah?” By sat down. I watched him carefully. His right knee was shaking. I knew it; he was just as nervous as I was but he was better at covering it up. I sat next to him and put a hand on that knee, silently acknowledging what I’d seen.

Byron smiled a quiet, wavering smile—so much less secure than the grin from earlier. Because of this, I started things off slowly. A few minutes later we were stretched out on my bed, side by side. Byron’s undershirt had come untucked, and I put my hands directly on his skin, pushing the shirt up as I went. Eventually, it was bunched up into his armpits. He pulled back and, without a word, removed it. I gazed at him long enough that he became self-conscious and started to blush. “Payback for all the time you spent staring at me,” I teased. He buried his face in one hand. “Well, fair’s fair,” I said. I think he thought I meant the staring—until I took off my own shirt.

He leaned in for another kiss and the touch of my skin against his was thrilling. I pulled one arm across his bare back and put the other hand on the small of his back, near the waistband of his shorts. I stopped all the worrying that had been plaguing me all day and I just relaxed and enjoyed every moment.

I wasn’t sure By was feeling the same way. “Everything okay?” I asked.

“Hmm.” His breathing was rapid but steady. I didn’t get any more answer than that but I felt reassured. I ran my hand along his waistband until my fingers worked their way underneath. I waited to see if he had a reaction. He shifted the arm underneath me so that it reached my neck. I ran my hand farther into his shorts, feeling the curve of his ass through the thin cotton of his boxers.

Byron rolled me over onto my back and I looked up at him. Both of his arms were supporting him over me. I wiggled my hand free and fumbled with his front of his shorts. “Okay?” I asked. He nodded tentatively.

***

Sometime later, I sat on the edge of the bed, looking for my boxers in the mess of clothing on the floor. Byron lay on the bed still and he was being extremely quiet. I located his underwear before my own and handed them to him. “Are you okay?” I asked him for about the twentieth time that night.

He sat up and took his clothes. “Yeah. It’s just…a lot to process, you know?”

Boy, did I understand that. “I know.” We hadn’t done anything too spectacular, but at the same time, it felt like we’d climbed a mountain.

By wiped a tear out of the corner of his eye and stood up, putting his boxers back on. I finally located my own and put them on also. We stood there looking at each other and he turned a little shy, probably because he was still crying a little. I put an arm around him and he smiled through the tears. They were the quiet sort—no sobs or even sniffles—and I knew he couldn’t help them. It was just his response to all the emotion.

After a moment he relaxed, the crying coming to an end, and turned to me. “What do we do now?” he asked.

I smiled. “Well, if one of us was a girl, she’d probably want to cuddle for a while. My parents won’t be home for a while yet. Why don’t we just get under the covers and relax?”

We didn’t put any more clothing on, because it was still warm in the room and we were pretty sweaty anyway. I turned off the lamp and put my arms around him and we lay side by side, both facing the wall. I listened to the sound of his breath for a while and he put one of his hands on top of both of mine, which were interlaced on the front of his chest.

Out of nowhere he started to talk. “Hey, Jeff, remember when my brothers and I used to spend the night in your room at your old house?”

‘The old house’ had burned to the ground some years back. Mom still lived on the same lot; she and Richard had just built a new house. “Yeah, I remember.”

He went on. “Adam and Jordan always slept on the floor in sleeping bags, but I always shared your bed.” He breathed deeply and he was starting to sound drowsy.

I smiled at the memory. “Do you remember why that was?” I asked. Byron slowly shook his head. “The very first time you came over, my mom could only find two sleeping bags, even though we had three. She said someone would just have to sleep in the bed with me.” I put my chin on his shoulder. “Jordan said I shouldn’t let you sleep with me because you would wet the bed.” He cringed just a little. “And then Adam dared me to sleep with you for that exact reason. I was pretty sure you weren’t going to wet the bed, so I took the dare.”

He gently bumped my head with his. “Why did you keep letting me sleep with you? Why didn’t you take turns after that?”

I bumped him back. “I don’t know.” By the next time the triplets had spent the night, Dawn had found the third sleeping bag and put it with the other two. Yet when they’d come over, I’d only taken out two.

“You know,” By said sleepily, “I liked you even then. I didn’t really know that I was gay then, or realize what those feelings meant. But I know that the happiest times from back then were when you lived here or when you came back to visit.”

I kissed his cheek but didn’t reply to that. Before long his breathing became slower and I realized he’d fallen asleep. I should have woken him up or at least set an alarm so that he would be up at midnight, but I didn’t think of that then. Instead I shifted my head a little more onto the pillow and listened to him sleep for a while. I waited until I knew he was completely out and wouldn’t hear me. “Love you, too,” I whispered. Then I closed my eyes and joined him in his slumber.

And we both slept through until the morning.

 Hey, dad, look at me Think back and talk with me Did I grow up according to plan? Simple Plan, Perfect

John

I was supposed to have July fifth off from work, but I had a few pieces of paperwork that I hadn’t finished on Friday so I went in to the office to finish them. I left early before anyone else was awake, figuring I’d be able to spend most of the day with as much of my family as I could.

I got home around ten thirty in the morning to find the lawn looking shaggy and miserable. One of my sons is supposed to mow it every weekend, and clearly it hadn’t been done. I stopped to think about whose turn it was so I knew who to be irritated with. Nick had spent most of last weekend avoiding the job, only to do it in the dark on Sunday night. That made this weekend Byron’s turn.

I remembered now. Byron had been scheduled to work both Saturday and Sunday, so he’d promised to do it first thing Monday morning. Here it was, approaching noon on Monday, and the lawn was still untouched. That wasn’t like Byron, but maybe he was still asleep. It wasn’t too unusual for him to sleep until eleven, especially if he’d been up late the night before.

I entered by the back door and went upstairs to Byron and Nick’s room, planning to rouse him from his sleep. The room was empty, both beds unmade. There was nothing unusual about that. As I was walking back to the stairs, I heard voices from Adam and Jordan’s room. Thinking maybe Byron had stopped in for a chat, I knocked at the door and entered without waiting for a reply. Jordan was alone, on the phone. He looked mildly annoyed that I was in his space. “Seen Byron?” I asked.

He went on talking to whomever was on the other end of the line. “I won’t be able to go on that trip this year. I leave for college right after the start of August. We’ve got some kind of training camp before school actually starts.” Jordan made eye contact with me and shook his head. I headed back out and closed the door behind me.

When I’d entered the house earlier, I’d heard Dee having a ‘discussion’ with Margo in the living room. As I went to head back downstairs, Margo came stomping back up the stairs. I moved out of the way to let her pass and she went into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I’ve learned it’s pointless to tell her to cut it out when she’s behaving like that, so I just shook my head and joined Dee in the living room.

She was furiously dusting the coffee table, working out her aggression with each swipe. “Let me guess,” I said, and Dee looked up at me. “It was the belly button ring again, wasn’t it?”

Dee rolled her eyes. “I told her we’ll talk when she turns sixteen, and she told me I was ruining her life. Again. Good to know she’s consistent, at least.”

I shook my head again. “Did you see Byron go out this morning?” I asked.

She blew some stray hairs out of her eyes. “Let me think. Vanessa left about thirty minutes ago. She said she needed Haley’s help with a ‘top secret mission.’ I told her I didn’t want to know.” She picked up the can of Pledge and moved on to the next piece of furniture. “And Mal and Adam went to work first thing this morning. That’s all I’ve seen leave.” She paused. “You might want to ask Nick, though. He’s in the rec room, and if the shouting coming from there sporadically is any hint, Claire’s down there annoying him.”

Sure enough, Nick was playing a video game and Claire was sitting on the other side of the couch. The set of his jaw told me that he’d rather she weren’t there, and I soon understood why. “Oh my God,” she said, leaning toward him. “How much time have you spent playing this game, and you still can’t pass this level?” she taunted.

Nick growled and was about to let her have it when he realized I was there. “Oh, hey Dad,” he said. Claire scooted back to her own side of the couch.

I surveyed the two of them but decided to let them solve their own petty squabbles. Nick would be sixteen in a few days, and Claire was nearly thirteen. They were old enough to deal with it without trying to kill each other. Instead I just got straight to the point. “Nick, did Byron tell you where he was going when he went out this morning?”

Nick hit the pause button on the video game, and that’s when I knew he was serious. “Dad, Byron didn’t come home last night. Or if he did, he didn’t sleep in his bed.”

I think my heart skipped a beat. Had it been one of the other two triplets, I’d have assumed that he’d just spent the night out with a girl. Both Adam and Jordan have been grounded in the past for coming home well past curfew. But Byron was always home when he said he would be. Admittedly, before this summer, if he’d been out, he’d always been at Haley’s house and he could be home in thirty seconds if he needed to be.

I thought back to the night before when Dee and I had come home from the festival downtown. It was about eleven thirty and Mallory had been the only one up and about, emptying the dishwasher and refilling it. “How’d your party go?” Dee had asked her.

She’d smiled. “Great! It was good seeing everyone again and catching up,” Mal had closed the dishwasher and started wiping down the counters, doing the last of her clean up. “Let’s see here,” she’d said, anticipating my next question. “Mrs. Brewer dropped Margo and Nick off about ten thirty. Jordan took Claire with him to the fireworks, and they got home just after eleven, with Vanessa. Oh, and Byron said he’ll be home by midnight.”

I had mentally counted the kids. “What about Adam?”

She had made a face. “He never left. I think the triplets were trying to annoy my friends and me as much as possible, so he and Tiff spent the whole evening here. They were supposed to go with Jordan and Haley to the fireworks, but I get the feeling that the girlfriends don’t get along.” She’d thrown the sponge back in the sink. “I’m headed off to bed now. Night.”

After that, Dee and I had gone off to bed. Had one of the younger kids still been out, I would have waited up, but I had no worries that Byron would make it home safely. Now I regretted that move.

I walked back into the living room. “Dee, Nick says Byron never came home last night.” She raised an eyebrow to the news and started dusting the pictures that lined one wall. “I’m concerned. Do you think I should call the hospitals and police?”

Dee looked at me over her shoulder. “John, he’s a teenaged boy. Granted, he’s a well- behaved, well-mannered teenaged boy most of the time, but honestly, he’s eighteen. If he didn’t come home last night, you should call Jeff’s house first.”

“Yeah, but…”

Dee was now straightening all the photos. There were eight columns of photographs—the top one a hospital photo of a newborn baby. Below that, a picture taken on the child’s first day of kindergarten and another on the tenth birthday. All the columns but the last— Claire’s—featured a thirteenth birthday photo, and the first four columns had graduation photos. Dee’s joked that she’s going to put wedding photos under there, and that someday she’s going to clear another wall to put up photos of our grandchildren. “No buts, John. There are two places Byron would go, and we know he’s not at the Braddocks’. Carolyn would have sent him home by now. First check Jeff’s house, and if he’s not there, then you can worry about calling the morgue, okay?”

Sometimes, I think Dee gets so into Mom-mode that she has a hard time coming out of it, but in this case, I realized she was right. I went into the kitchen and flipped through the notepad full of phone numbers. One page was completely full of numbers for the kids’ friends. The page was so old that near the top it said Braddock (Haley friends with Vanessa, Matt friends with Nicky) I scrolled down to an entry that said Schafer (Jeff, Dawn) and then a phone number. After that was written in Spier (Mary Anne). I picked up the phone and dialed.

A male voice answered the phone. “Spier residence.”

I struggled for a moment to remember what Jeff’s stepfather’s name was before I finally said, “Mr. Spier? This is John Pike, Byron’s father.”

“Well, hello! How can I help you today?” He was trying hard to be pleasant, but he sounded a little nervous that I would be calling.

I took a deep breath, trying to dissolve the worry that was building in my gut. “I was hoping to speak to Jeff. Byron didn’t make it home last night, and I’m worried. I’m hoping Jeff can give me some information.”

I could hear him jostling the phone. “I believe Jeff is still asleep. I’ll go wake him and bring him to the phone.”

He set the phone down with an audible thunk. Quite a while passed and I became concerned that maybe I’d been forgotten. I was just about to hang up and call the police, even without speaking to Jeff, when the phone was picked back up. “I’m sorry that took so long,” Mr. Spier said, “but I think I solved your problem. I found Byron asleep with Jeff in his room. I assume you’d like me to send your son right home?”

I don’t even remember what I said next, other than to thank him. I returned to the living room to find Jordan talking with Dee. “So Shane’s thinking of having a huge party in two weeks or so. I told him I’d go as long as there’s not a keg. I really hate when everyone gets stupid drunk.” He stopped when he realized I was there. “Hey, Dad.”

I didn’t even acknowledge the fact that he was having a conversation with his mother that he would have never knowingly had with me in the room. I simply reached into my pocket and pulled out all the cash I had on hand. “Jordan. Take your brothers and sisters out. Use my car.”

Jordan looked surprised. “What do you want me to do with them?”

“Take them to the movies. Or out to lunch. I don’t care. Just get them out and don’t come home for at least an hour.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Ooh, someone’s in trouble.”

Dee turned to him. “Get going or it’ll be you in trouble!” Jordan skedaddled down into the rec room. “He was at Jeff’s, wasn’t he?” she asked. I didn’t bother answering her.

Instead I went upstairs and knocked on the girls’ door. “Margo, out now. You’re going out with your brothers and sister.”

Margo threw the door open. She recognized the tone of voice and did what she was told without argument. She met Jordan, Nick and Claire in the kitchen and picked up her purse from one of the chairs. “What’s going on?” she asked her assembled siblings. “Who’s in trouble this time?”

Nick looked at her over his shoulder. “I don’t think you’d believe me even if I told you,” he said as Claire opened the back door and the four of them filed out.

I heard the car roar to life—Jordan drives with a lead foot—and I returned to Dee. “The Spiers sent Byron home on foot,” I informed her.

She smiled a bit smugly. “I told you that you didn’t need to call the police.”

The front door opened and timid footsteps came in. It was either Vanessa or Byron, and Vanessa usually wears heavy boots, even in these warm summer months. Plus, she would have had no reason to walk so cautiously as that. “We’re in the living room, son,” I called.

Byron came in the door slowly. His hair was uncombed and his clothes were rumpled, and his eyes were still half asleep. But a quick look at him indicated that he was filled with dread for what was about to happen.

Dee hadn’t seemed too upset by the turn of events, but seeing her son look like he was punishing himself before we could get to him was clearly softening her heart even further. I took a deep breath and assessed how mad I was. Technically, Byron hadn’t really broken any rules—he’s eighteen and a high school graduate, so he has no curfew. Most of the rules in the house are about keeping sex, violence and illicit substances out of the house. If I’d walked in and found Jeff in Byron’s bed, it would be one thing. But I wasn’t sure what to do about this.

While I was still internally debating, Byron spoke up. “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry. Jeff and I were hanging out at his place last night and I just fell asleep. Jeff didn’t want to wake me, so he let me sleep there. I had every intention of being home when I said I would.”

I gave him a stern look. “And what were you and Jeff doing before you fell asleep?”

Byron paused, and that was when I realized just how different the triplets can be. I’d asked basically the same question to both Adam and Jordan in the past. Adam had carefully maneuvered me around the question by answering something different than what I’d asked. He’d told me all about his dinner and movie plans for earlier that evening. Jordan had gotten angry and yelled, “What do you think we were doing?!” Byron just let the pause grow until it became obvious that he didn’t want to lie to me, but he wasn’t about to say what he’d been doing, either.

“Never mind that.” I could see Dee’s eyebrows knitting together out of the corner of my vision. Despite her commentary on teenage hormones, she still thinks of our sons as little boys. The idea of Byron—the latest of our late bloomers—crawling into someone’s bed was breaking her heart.

I sighed. “I have to tell you,” I said, directing my attention fully back to Byron, “that I’m disappointed in you. You have four younger brothers and sisters, and your mother and I expect you to model appropriate behavior for them. You have to understand that staying out all night is not the same as not being home when you said you would be. Nick knows you didn’t come home last night, and Claire heard when he told me. Once Claire knows something, everyone in this house knows it. And I do not want my children thinking that staying out all night is an option.”

He hung his head all through my speech and I could see he was struggling not to cry. “Okay. Lecture over. I suggest you get the lawn done now, before Jordan brings everyone home. I have the feeling you’d rather not be around when they get back.”

Byron paused, as if waiting for more, and then ran out of the living room so fast I’m surprised he didn’t trip on his way up the stairs. Dee eyed me critically. “Weren’t you awfully easy on him?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Something about my tone of voice stopped her from going into a tirade. “Let’s face it though, Dee. For four years, I haven’t had to punish him once. So yeah, when he did screw up, he screwed up big time, but I believe him when he says he fell asleep. Besides, I don’t think he’ll do it again, do you?” Dee nodded, conceding the point. “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a bit afraid to go to Jeff’s all together for a while.”

Dee was contemplative. “That would be a shame, actually. I’m really trying to encourage this relationship with Jeff. Byron’s always been sort of uncomfortable in his skin, and it seems like everyone’s always trying to make him be something he’s not. His brothers want him to be more athletic and less afraid. His classmates want him to be straight. From what I’ve seen and heard, Jeff just kind of takes Byron for who he is, warts and all. It’s nice for him to get that kind of validation from someone other than Haley.” She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Did you know, John, that Carolyn told me this winter that she was seriously worried about what Haley was going to do when Byron left for college. I think she’s still worried, but not nearly so much, even though Haley will now be losing Byron and Jordan.” She chuckled. “Hard to believe our boys have been such a positive influence on someone.”

I heard the lawn mower start in the backyard, and then sputter to a stop. Byron let loose a string of expletives that would have made a sailor blush. Dee let out a laugh that almost could have been a sob and plopped down on the couch, patting the seat next to her. I sat down as the mower started a second time, more successfully.

We’d only been sitting there for a moment or more when Vanessa appeared in the doorway. “Can you explain to me,” she asked, half-serious, half-mocking, “why Byron is out in the front yard, sobbing his heart out as he mows the lawn? Mr. Braddock thought he’d cut his hand or something, but I told him only emotional pain makes Byron cry. So, did the mower insult him or what?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just walked back out of the room cheerfully.

I watched her go. “Think she’ll end up as positive an influence on Haley as her brothers?” Dee asked.

I pretended to ponder that. “No. Honestly, the more time she spends with Vanessa, the more likely she is to get arrested.”

Dee pretended she wasn’t laughing. “John! What a horrible thing to say about your own daughter!”

I shook my head. “Naw. She and Haley will be fine. Vanessa might be a little…different… these days, but you know she’ll turn out fine in the end. After all, she’s one of ours, isn’t she?”

 I won’t say life’s a bitch and then you die Because I do the best to enjoy mine You can’t bring me down to a world of self pity Beastie Boys, Get Over It

Haley

I can’t say I love working at Kitchen & Bath or anything, but I do love a couple things about it. One of those is freight crew. The freight crew works Monday through Friday for two weeks straight, seven through four. This might not sound so great, but think about this: in retail, you don’t get too many weekends and nights free; plus, for part-timers it was a boon because it was forty solid hours. When we’d heard about it, By and I had signed up to be considered. We finally got chosen for the shortened session that started July sixth.

I was a little early on that first Tuesday and had to wait outside for the manager to show up. Shari, the bedding manager, arrived about five minutes later. “Wow, Hay,” she said as she unlocked the door, “You’re eager to get started, aren’t you? Well, lucky you, we got in about four hundred towels yesterday. I’m going to put you and one other person on that. Any preference who I send over to join you?”

I guess I don’t have to tell you who I picked. I was already buried in chili pepper hand towels (can anyone tell me why they name all the towel colors after foods?) when my sullen best friend came up behind me and picked up a pile of vanilla wash cloths. “Why’d you have to volunteer me for towel duty?” he asked morosely as he plopped them onto a folding table.

“Well, hello to you, By,” I said, raising an eyebrow to his demeanor. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been almost giddy as he’d left the party with Jeff. He hadn’t told me what he was planning to do after leaving, but Jeff had mentioned a few days before that his mom and stepdad were going out for the evening on the holiday. He didn’t need to draw me a picture after that. “What’s a matter with you?”

Byron was slamming the wash cloths around as he folded them. Had they been breakable, they all would have been in shards. This wasn’t normal behavior for him; usually when he got mad, he just retreated. After a minute, he looked at me. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is peachy.”

“Oh, so this is regular old By behaving like nothing’s wrong, huh? What did those face cloths ever do to you to deserve getting mashed around like that?”

He didn’t answer that. Instead, he set the wash cloths where they belonged on the shelf and pulled out a bag of bath towels—these ones were called yolk. “Show me how to fold these properly,” he said.

I sighed as I put a pile of hand towels aside and walked over to his folding table. I briefly demonstrated the procedure without a word, and then watched as he copied it on a second towel. “Seriously, Byron. What bug crawled up your butt and died?”

I don’t know if it was the use of his whole name or the fact that he was just itching to spill his guts. He sagged. “I kinda got in trouble,” he said vaguely.

I pushed my folding table next to his and moved aside all the excess chili pepper towels. Out came some eggplant bath sheets. “What kind of trouble? Does this have something to do with your plans with Jeff the other night?” My mind ran off to all kinds of crazy places. Most of them were pretty dirty, so I shook them off and waited for the truth.

He didn’t make eye contact as he spoke to his towels. “I fell asleep at Jeff’s. His stepdad ended up finding us sleeping in his bed in the morning.”

I stopped in the middle of folding. “Really?” I made a mental note to ask him for details on what exactly had happened before he’d fallen asleep, some other time when he was in a better mood and we weren’t surrounded by other ears.

He nodded morosely. I waited for more details on what kind of trouble this had caused. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d hate for my mom to find out that Jordan had spent the whole night in my room. But I was trying to imagine what kind of punishment By’s parents would mete out for that. “What happened?” I prodded. He finally looked at me again and raised his eyebrows. I could only assume that he thought I meant the other type of ‘what happened’, the type I’d vowed to wait to later for. “I mean, what happened after his stepdad came home?”

By set his towels aside. I grabbed both his and mine and stocked them. He restocked both our tables. Finally, when there was nothing else to distract him, he continued with the story. “Well, I guess my dad had called Jeff’s because he couldn’t find me. So Jeff’s stepdad sent me home. Both Mom and Dad were waiting for me.” He picked up the blueberry hand towel he was folding and looked it over. He’d folded it wrong, so he shook it back open and started over again.

“Yikes.” I cringed over the image. My parents like to do that too—I think it’s a parent rule that punishment is three times as bad if it’s given by both parents standing together with their arms crossed. “So how bad’s the punishment?”

He looked at me over his towel, which was still wrong. “Punishment? Dad gave me a lecture. I’m supposed to model appropriate behavior for Nick and my sisters, don’t you know.” He shook the towel again. “What am I doing wrong here?”

I addressed the towel before I addressed him. “Fold it in fifths, then in half.” He nodded and finally folded the towel properly. “You just got a lecture? What’s the problem, then?”

By had started folding a second towel and he dropped it. “Hay, my dad told me he was disappointed in me. He’s never said that before.” He looked slightly sick to his stomach as he said that.

I stared for him for a moment as he went back to the towels. “Are you kidding me? That’s what’s bothering you? My dad must tell me he’s disappointed in me at least once a week.” I quickly maneuvered through a stack of wash cloths before I spoke again. “Seriously, By, you haven’t been doing your teenaged years right if your parents aren’t disappointed in you on a regular basis.”

He frowned. “You don’t understand at all,” he said with a sigh.

I shook my head. “No, I really don’t.”

We fell silent for a while. I knew he was brooding over my comments, but I didn’t care. I actually did understand where he was coming from. He spends all his time trying to make everyone else happy and be what’s expected of him. He studied hard to get good grades to make his parents and teachers happy. He accepted the big brother role more often than Adam and Jordan did because he knew it would please his parents. Hell, he even did things sometimes just to make me happy, like going to the mall with me—not that I didn’t appreciate that.

But really. How are you supposed to figure out who you are—not who your parents want you to be—if you don’t sometimes do things your way instead of their way? No wonder it took him four years to come out of the closet. Sheesh. I think sometimes Byron just needs a good, swift kick in the pants to realize what’s good for him. And I was dishing out some tough love here, whether he liked it or not.

I maintained the silence for a while before I tried to put him out of his misery. “So let me tell you about the fireworks Sunday night,” I said, not waiting for him to sigh that he wasn’t in the mood or anything else of the sort. I spun the tale of how I’d ended up sharing the blanket downtown with Claire, and how Jordan had wound up sitting in the grass. Byron raised an eyebrow as I began to speak but listened silently. He had no reply when I finished.

We lapsed back into quiet because I was tired of expending the effort. About fifteen minutes before the store opened, Jeff came to join us in the towel room. “Hey,” he said to both of us. “I just finished top-stocking about twenty five popcorn poppers, and Shari sent me to ask you if you needed any help over here. Lindsey’s supposed to be in at nine, and then I’m back off to the waste land.”

I gestured vaguely to the bins and bins of towels surrounding us. “Sure can use the help. I think we’re going to be at this all day, even with Lindsey.”

Jeff grinned and pulled a pack of asparagus bath sheets from the nearest bin. He inspected them from all angles. “I have no idea how to fold these,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Watch me and I’ll show you.” I demonstrated the towel folding procedure once again and Jeff watched carefully.

Jeff cheerfully began slinging the towels around, seemingly oblivious to Byron’s somber mood. Yet after a minute, I realized he kept watching By out of the corner of his eye, waiting for some acknowledgment. For all By responded, Jeff might as well have not been there. That took a lot of the oomph out of Jeff’s personality, and I realized he was playing it up for Byron’s benefit.

I was just about to comment on that when the overhead speaker crackled and Shari’s voice boomed from the heavens. “Byron, Lissa just called and said she’s running late. I need you to open the customer service counter until she gets here.”

I expected Byron to roll his eyes and grumble, but instead he dropped the towels and ran off without a backward glance. Jeff looked over at me and his eyes were serious, his expression guilty. “How mad at me is he?” he said in a low voice.

I shrugged. “I think he’s more mad at himself than he is at you,” I suggested.

Jeff let out a long breath. “He sure got away from me fast enough this morning.”

I repeated the previous gesture. “I don’t think that had so much to do with you as with me. I kinda told him off a little while ago.” He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry about that right now. What happened this weekend?” Jeff’s other eyebrow went up. I rolled my eyes. “I mean, with your stepdad.”

Jeff ducked his head as he continued folding towels. “That was the most embarrassing moment of my life,” he said. I shook my head sympathetically. He continued. “I got shaken awake from the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had to my uptight stepdad standing over me, looking totally disapproving.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.” Jeff sighed. “Did By tell you what happened to him after he got home? He looked so scared when he left my house, and I know that wasn’t just from Richard being crazed when he sent Byron home.”

I nodded as I grabbed yet another pack of towels. “Yeah, he got the ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ lecture from his dad. But why didn’t you just call him last night and ask him about it?”

Jeff tried to smile but failed. He looked lost. “Because I got grounded.”

I laughed in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

He shook his head. “Wish I were. I’m grounded for a week: no phone, no guests, no going anywhere but work. My mom has about five rules and I broke two of them. Richard said that, since I’m not eighteen for another couple weeks and I’m living rent-free in his house, I’m not too old to ground.” He actually managed a tiny, sheepish smile. “After that, I have a midnight curfew and I’m not allowed to have guests in the house when no one else is home anymore.”

“Wow.”

Jeff stuffed his finished towels into the display. “So you’ve heard about me. What’s this about you telling By off earlier?”

I stacked the extra towels that didn’t fit out on the shelves. “He wanted sympathy for his predicament and I refused to give it to him.” Jeff started to speak but I cut him off. “I just don’t think that his dad being disappointed in him is that horrible a thing. How often do you hear that your dad is disappointed in you?”

Jeff thought about that for a moment. “All the time,” he admitted.

“See? And yeah, it sucks. But it’s not the end of the universe. By needs to figure that out now, you know?” I ripped open another bag of towels.

Jeff turned a little testy. “But, Hay, you of all people know how sensitive he is to this type of thing. I can’t believe you would tear him down like that.”

Inside, I stewed for a moment. Who was he to come and criticize my relationship with By? Oh yeah. By’s boyfriend. I took a deep breath. “It’s really good to hear you stand up for him like that,” I commented.

He smiled despite his irritation. “Yeah, well, let’s just say that after this weekend, I’m more sure about my feelings for Byron than I’ve ever been about anything.”

I gaped at him for a moment, and then started to grin myself. “Ooh, Jeff! Did you get a chance to tell him?” Jeff shook his head. “Well, once he gets over himself and gets out of his snit, you totally should. I might be ‘tearing him down,’ like you said, but you can be the one to build him back up.”

I would have gone on, but Lindsey appeared out of nowhere and took in the view of the towels. “What is going on here?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure whether she meant the giant mess of towels or the conversation we were having. I hadn’t really had any cause to spend time with Lindsey, but Jeff had warned me that she was the nosy sort, so I tailored my answer to keep her out of our business. “It’s a towel party and you’re invited!”

She scowled slightly. “Why do the towels always come in in bulk?” She dug around in the bin, stirring the towels but not really doing anything useful.

Jeff eyed me over Lindsey’s head and shook his head slightly. I rolled my eyes. “Well, I need to head back to receiving, and see what’s coming in in bulk today. Talk to you later, Haley.”

As he walked away, I slung some more towels onto my table. “You can use the other table,” I said as she continued to play with the towels but not work.

She looked at me, like she couldn’t believe I was giving her instructions, but finally got to work. She pulled out some dark brown towels and looked at the tag on them. “Chocolate. Why are all of the towels named after food?”

Even though she was annoying me with her work ethic, I snorted. “I asked myself the same thing for the entire time I worked in this room.” I lifted the hand towel I was working on. “Espresso.”

Lindsey folded the towels slowly and methodically, like it was tiring her out. I’d folded two bags of espresso in the time it had taken her to complete two towels. After a few minutes, she attempted conversation again. “You’re friends with Jeff and his boyfriend, right? What’s his name, Byron?”

I raised my eyebrows. It’s not like By and Jeff keep their relationship a secret, but they also don’t go around crowing about it, either. I’ll bet most of the staff doesn’t know. “Yes,” I said, not sure where this was going.

She tossed hair out of her eyes in a gesture that was so natural that I’m sure she did it twenty times a day. “I feel like I’ve seen you both somewhere before.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I kept working. Lindsey went on, not really noticing how awkward I was feeling. “I lived in Stoneybrook until I was eleven or so. Do you remember me?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

She looked put out. “Maybe you remember my brother, then? His name’s Ham, but everyone used to call him Buddy.”

“Buddy Barrett?”

“Yeah, that’s right! You remember him?”

I put a stack of towels back into an empty bin. “He was friends with my brother Matt and Byron’s brother Nick.”

Lindsey put her towel down and I cringed. It was about 9:10 and she’d done maybe two minutes worth of work. She barreled on. “Nicky Pike? Byron’s Nicky’s brother?” I nodded. “Oh, my God, he was so cute! Is he still that adorable?”

I wanted to guffaw. I had never thought of Nick as anything close to adorable. But Jordan and I had had a conversation about what makes someone attractive. It can’t all be about looks, because otherwise, anyone who was attracted to any of the triplets would find them interchangeable. Nick’s not bad looking—he looks a lot like his brothers when he wears his contacts, and he’s already a couple inches taller than the triplets. But he’s been so reclusive and odd the last few years that he would never even register on my radar. “I guess,” I said.

Lindsey was off and running. “Oh, you have to tell him I said hi. I wonder if he remembers me. Listen, I’m going to go to the bathroom. Watch the room for me, will ya?” She walked off without waiting for my reply. I looked at her folding table. She’d folded a whopping three towels.

I chuckled with disbelief. I was still shaking my head when Byron came back from customer service. “We work with a bunch of nuts,” he said, probably referring to Lissa, who is often known as “Lissa the insane” behind her back for her weird behavior.

“You don’t even know the half of it.” I was surprised he was talking to me after my comments earlier. Either he had realized I was right, or he’d decided it wasn’t worth getting so huffy about. I decided to accept the peace offering either way. “Did you know Lindsey thinks your brother is adorable?”

By made a disgusted expression. “Adam?” he asked.

“No, Nick.”

It looked as if a wave of nausea passed by his face. “I’m going to say it again. We work with a bunch of nuts.”

[tosybelle-blog]

The Boys of Summer, Chapters VI-X

Now it’s morning but last night’s on my mind There’s something I need to get off my chest And no matter what may come to shine The dream will always be mine 311, All Mixed up

Jeff

I hopped on an airplane as soon as possible after graduation. If I could have, I would have left directly from the ceremony and skipped all the celebrating bull crap. I didn’t think it would ever happen, but I was actually happy to leave California this time—to leave behind all the gossip and hard feelings and misery.

Plus, I was headed to Byron. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I was pretty quiet on the plane ride. There was this pretty girl sitting next to me in the middle seat. She was a brunette with long, tan legs and a tinkly laugh. She kept trying to engage me in conversation, and at first I’d tried to flirt back with her, but it was just too exhausting. After a while I just pulled out the photo of Byron and me on the beach in Ogunquit and introduced him as my boyfriend. Vanessa had snapped it our last night there, after he’d come out to the whole town by standing on a picnic table and shouting.

This is something for which I am very proud of him.

Anyway, after that the girl lost interest. I was able to stare out the window and not think for a while. I watched the landscape change from desert to mountains to plains before I fell asleep. I only woke up because the flight attendant was shaking me. Everyone else had already left the plane.

Ever since I hit my teen years, my mom has let me get my own luggage and met me on at the curb with her car. So I went through baggage claim and waited on the sidewalk outside arrivals. And waited. And waited. My mom is notorious for being late, but it was starting to get ridiculous, even for her. I was beginning to think that maybe she’d been in a wreck.

To pass the time, I started watching the other cars go by. There was this one beat-up blue Honda that kept passing. After a few circles, I started counting, but after the sixth go- round, I lost track. A short time later, the Honda pulled up at the curb a ways ahead of me. A short young man with shaggy brown hair and mirrored sunglasses stepped out of the car. I barely noticed because I was looking for my mom again.

“Jeff! Jeff!” Someone was calling my name. I looked around and saw the young man jumping up and down and waving at me. He took off his sunglasses and I squinted into the sunlight at him.

It was Byron.

He ran my direction and started talking a mile a minute. “Your mom had a last minute client meeting, so she asked Mary Anne to come get you. But apparently, Mary Anne’s husband’s car broke down but he didn’t tell her that he took her car to work. So Mary Anne was all in a panic…”

He must have taken Haley’s drug of choice. I just watched him lethargically as he continued to relay the whole story of how he’d come to pick me up. He was wearing a pair of jeans that had seen better days and a plain gray t-shirt that read “SHS Honor Society,” but he’d paired it with a dazzling smile. Byron’s so serious most of the time that you sometimes have to work to make him smile. But that just makes the end result all the more worth it.

The smile faded as he got a good look at me. “Jeff? What’s wrong?”

I didn’t reply. Instead, I simply held my arms out to him. Byron had picked up one of my suitcases, but he instantly put it down and took a few steps to me, returning the embrace. I put my head on top of his and we just stayed like that for a moment. Finally, I murmured, “God, I missed you.”

He didn’t laugh and tell me we’d just seen each other last weekend; he just pulled me closer. “Tired?” he asked. I nodded and he let me loose, picking back up my suitcase. I grabbed my other bag and we headed back to the car.

So it turns out that the Civic is the car Byron shares with his brothers and sisters. The interior was pretty much what you’d expect from a car driven by five teenagers. The floors were littered with fast food wrappers and other junk and the seats were covered in crumbs. The cup holders and the areas around them were sticky and the air smelled of stale cigarette smoke. I made a face and Byron grimaced. “Mallory,” he said in explanation for the smell. “She seems to think the rest of us don’t notice.”

Byron put the car into drive and carefully merged into the traffic leaving the airport. He’s a very cautious driver and he hugs the speed limit, but I don’t mind. If you think about it, letting someone drive you somewhere is putting your life into their hands. I don’t think there’s anyone else I’d trust quite as much as Byron in that respect. I closed my eyes and we drove quietly for a while.

After a while we were on the highway heading back to good old Stoneybrook. I opened my eyes and watched the familiar road go by. “So, how’s school been?” I asked.

By had put the sunglasses back on, so I couldn’t see his eyes, but there was no mistaking the wrinkled nose. “Same as ever, except we have a lot more stuff due over the next few weeks,” he said. He then checked over his shoulder, put on his turn signal, and changed lanes.

“And how about the other kids?”

He took a deep breath and turned to look at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. Byron held the breath so long that I thought he might die. Finally, he answered softly in a puff of exhaled air. “They’ve actually been better than I expected. A lot of kids came up to me after the article was published and told me they thought I was pretty brave, and I’ve actually had two kids come out to me. But I’ve also gotten a few who want to quote the Bible at me and a couple notes stuck into my locker calling me things I’d rather not think about.”

I had seen “the article.” A few days before, an envelope had arrived at my house, addressed to me. I didn’t recognize the return address although I knew who must have sent it; the name ‘Braddock’ on the address gave that away. Inside was a cut out newspaper article with a photo. Above the headline at the top of the page was a margin, where, in girly, loopy handwriting were the words, “Thought you’d like to have this. See you in a few weeks. Love, Hay.”

Quite frankly, the text was pretty much what I’d expected. It was a human interest puff piece, making something out of nothing. Byron and I went to prom together. The school hadn’t cared. The school district hadn’t cared. Most of the student body hadn’t cared. But someone at the newspaper cared and they’d written a story about it. Byron hadn’t wanted to talk to the reporter, but I’d answered a few questions.

I was beginning to wonder if this was a mistake.

I felt that way for several reasons. First of all, the story was pretty crappy and pointless. And second, I hadn’t even told my mom and stepdad I was going to prom with a boy in general or Byron in particular, and I know they must have seen the article as Richard reads the paper every morning without fail. The headline called us gay teens. I still don’t have a label on what I am, though most days I’m leaning towards bisexual. My dad didn’t react really well when I told him, and my stepmom just plain pretends I never said anything. I don’t know if, for Carol, it’s easier to play that I’m straight so she doesn’t have to deal with my dad’s unhappiness about it or if she’s just waiting for a definitive answer on my sexuality. If she is, she’ll have to keep waiting.

I was not looking forward to telling Richard I was dating a boy, but somehow I think him finding out from me would have been better than him finding out from a newspaper.

I changed the subject to something I knew would perk By up. “And how’s Haley doing?”

Sure enough, he smiled again. “Great! Getting together with Jordan has done wonders for her. She’s back to Happy Hay again.” He chuckled a little. “We got jobs working for the same place for the summer. She started a couple weeks ago and I start Monday after track practice.”

“Where’s that?”

Byron laughed again. “Girly Central. That’s not the real name, but that’s what Jordan called it when he found out where I was working.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “And what is Jordan doing this summer?”

“Bussing tables. Apparently, that’s good, manly, straight guy work.”

We looked at each other for a second and it was my turn to laugh.

***

I must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing I remember was waking up as the car came to a stop in my mom’s driveway. “Morning, Sleepyhead,” Byron teased, giving a lopsided little grin. He cupped my chin with one hand and leaned in for a tentative kiss. By always starts off very timidly with his kisses, as if he’s afraid that they won’t be returned. I met his kiss and pulled him farther toward me. He grabbed my waist and basically climbed over the seat so that he was able to reach me better. I ran my hands up and down his side, shucking his shirt up in the process. I eased my lips apart and his tongue gently entered my mouth.

Byron might be inexperienced, but he’s a fast learner.

We had been in the driveway for about five minutes when he pulled back for a breather. “I feel sort of exposed,” he said as he pulled his shirt back down into place.

I cracked up. He was wearing way more clothes than you would at the beach and we were surrounded by the house and garage on two sides and by a hedge on a third. By look wounded for a moment. “No, I’m sorry,” I said as I struggled to catch my breath. “I know exactly what you mean. We could go inside, if you like.”

He went from hurt to horrified in ten seconds flat. “Inside your house? When are your parents getting home?”

I thought about that. Both Mom and Richard are self-employed these days and they come and go throughout the day. I wasn’t anxious for Richard to come in while we were half dressed. Or worse.

Come to think of it, I didn’t particularly want to have Richard come in while By and I were playing Parcheesi, either. I needed to talk to him and Mom before I subjected Byron to them. “Yeah,” I said with a sigh, “Maybe not a good idea today. But I’ll call you tonight and we’ll make some plans, okay?”

He lit up. “We,” he said, sounding amazed. “I like the sound of that.”

I laughed again. “You’ve heard the word before.”

He grinned back at me. “Yeah, but I’ve never been part of the ‘we’ before.”

I opened my car door and he jumped out his side. “Get used to it, my friend.” I paused as he popped open the trunk. “Or should I say my boyfriend?”

By’s blue eyes shone. “Yeah. I like that one.”

***

I walked into the empty house with my bags. I left most of my stuff at the bottom of the stairs without walking through the house or looking around, and headed straight to my bedroom. I felt as if there was no personality in the room—the space did not say Jeff. When Mom had first moved in, I’d been ten. It’d been done up in superheroes. As I’d outgrown the heroes, they’d been taken down and I hadn’t bothered to replace them with anything. I’d spent as little time as possible at Mom’s in the last few years, so it hadn’t mattered. Now, I wanted this room to feel like home. Like a place I wouldn’t be embarrassed to bring my friends.

Friends. I kinda felt the way about that word that Byron did about ‘we.’ I had friends back in Palo City, but Risa and I had played the “yours and mine” game when we’d split. Seeing as I hadn’t been in the best mind set back them—it was about two months later that I ended up hospitalized—a lot of people had chosen her side over mine. I could say that I had made headway in reforming those relationships, but it was nothing compared to the ease with which I always slid back into my friendship with the triplets. Now I could add Vanessa and Haley to my list of friends, too.

I opened my duffel bag and dug among the items I’d taken on the plane with me for something in particular. One item that had been in the room all these years was a bulletin board. It was covered in blue paper at this moment and not much else—though there was a picture of me, the triplets and their brother Nick from the day we’d decorated the room, taken by my stepsister. I left that up and gathered my envelop of photos and a bunch of thumbtacks. Up went a photo of me and my sisters, taken the day Gracie was born. Next to that went a photo of Gracie taken a couple weeks ago. I added a picture of a few of my Palo City friends making muscle poses at the beach and a couple pictures from spring break: Haley sticking her tongue out at the camera and the triplets and I standing under the sign at the teen club in Ogunquit.

I stepped back to take a look at the room as a whole. It needed a color overhaul. Everything was tan and white, like my stepdad had picked it out. Which, come to think of it, he probably had.

I was mentally deciding the cheapest way to add some color to the room when the front door closed and Richard’s voice came through the house. “Jeff? Are you here?”

I opened the door to my room, which I had closed out of habit. “Yeah. Up here.”

He appeared in the doorway a moment later. “You made it home successfully, I see. Mary Anne called me all in a tizzy.” Only Richard would use the word ‘tizzy.’ “But I was in meetings all day so I couldn’t get to the airport. Who ended up picking you up?”

“Byron.”

“Ah, I see.” Richard adjusted his tie and looked at the ground, distinctly uncomfortable. “And is Byron your boyfriend?”

I shifted, feeling awkward. “You could say that.” I had, in fact, said that earlier that day. Twice.

Richard still seemed uncomfortable, but he looked me straight in the eye. “Okay, then. Here are the rules. They’re the same ones Mary Anne had when she was your age.” He began to rattle off a list of pretty standard dad stuff: no overnight guests, no curfew but call if I’m going to be home after midnight, no boys in my bedroom when no one else is home. To my surprise, the rules were less strict than at Dad and Carol’s.

I gaped at him. “You mean,” I began, with the sense that I’d missed something, “You don’t have a problem with me dating a boy?”

His eyes widened. “No. Why would I?” He looked bewildered. “Are you happy? Are you healthy? Are you following the law? Then you have my seal of approval.”

I wanted to hug him, so I did. I think that surprised him more than anything else.

***

I helped Richard make dinner while we waited for Mom. I fried up some eggs and Richard chopped tomatoes and shelled some peas. We made fried rice, which we divided into two bowls. One bowl was for Mom and me; in the other, Richard added fried pork. This was for him. Also, Mary Anne and her husband, whom I’d met twice, once at their wedding, were stopping by later that evening to catch up with me and to eat leftovers.

Mom was home on the later side that night. By that time, I was practically drooling over the food, which was slowly cooling in the fridge. She gave me a hug and exclaimed over how tall I’d gotten. She does this every time she sees me, although I think this time she’d forgotten that it had only been a week since the last time I was in Connecticut.

We sat down for a quick and pretty quiet meal. Mom asked me how graduation had gone. She’d wanted to go to the ceremony, but I’d told her not to bother. I hadn’t even wanted to go. Plus, when she had gone to Dawn’s graduation, she and Dad had gotten into a big argument that the whole family, both sides, had witnessed.

It hadn’t been pretty.

So she’d grudgingly accepted my request for her to stay away. I promised to show her pictures when I got them and told her the whole thing, overall, had been pretty boring. Richard saved me from squirming under Mom’s evil eye by talking about the case he was working, in as much detail as he was allowed to share. I’ve found that when Richard speaks legalese, I just need to smile and nod, because I don’t understand any of it. I once made the mistake of asking him to explain something, but the explanation was even more confusing than the original statement, so I’d never done that again.

After we ate, Mom went upstairs to change into something more comfortable. I helped Richard clear the table and when we were done, I followed Mom to her bedroom. The door was open and she was in the master bathroom, brushing her teeth. I sat on her bed, waiting for her to come back out. She did a moment later, and she jumped when she saw me sitting there. “Jeff,” she gasped, “You scared me witless.”

If it had been anyone else, I would have told them they didn’t have any wits to begin with. Sadly, with my mom, sometimes I think it’s just a little too accurate, so I bit my tongue. Instead, I stretched out across the bed as Mom “tidied” things by moving items on her dresser around. After a moment or so I finally spoke up. “Mom, about prom…”

She smiled at me. “Did you and Byron have a good time? I saw your picture in the paper.”

Something was off here. This was not the response I was expecting. It was as if Mom and Richard had been replaced with alien lookalikes or something. Dad had been all rude and sarcastic about me dating a boy, and By’s parents had gone all concerned when he’d come out to them. “Um, yeah. We did,” I stammered, trying to figure out how to broach the subject in the way I wanted.

Mom turned around to face me. “I’m so glad. It’s good to see you happy again.” She sat down on the end of the bed. I was lying on my stomach with my head propped up, facing that way. “I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me you were going with Byron in the first place,” she said as she smoothed the quilt out in front of her with one hand.

Ah. That wasn’t the way I intended to broach the subject, but it worked. “I didn’t think you’d take it well,” I said, looking at everything but her.

Mom stared me down. “And why not?”

I shrugged. Even though I had wanted to get this conversation over with, it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable discussion I’d had all day. I’d had an easier time talking to Richard, for crying out loud. “Well, Dad didn’t take things well,” I began, “And I didn’t really have any answers for you. To questions you might ask, I mean.”

She looked alarmed. “What kind of questions?”

“You know. ‘Are you gay?’ ‘Is Byron your boyfriend?’”

Mom relaxed. “So you have no answers to those questions?” she asked.

I finally looked at her. “Sorta. I have no definitions for myself. My doctor says that’s okay, and that I don’t need to rush into a label if I’m not sure.” She nodded, urging me to go on. “And when you agreed to purchase some tickets for me, I would have said ‘no’ to the second question. But now….”

Mom rubbed my back, the way she used to when I was small. “Now you can say yes.” I nodded. “I know you’ve been having a tough time the last year or so. And I think anything that is going to help you be closer to the young man you were—stronger, maybe more self-aware—is a positive step in your life, and I support that.”

I turned back toward her again. “Why can’t Dad feel that way?”

Mom made a face, and after a moment I realized she was biting her tongue, both literally and figuratively. “I think your father is just uncomfortable with not knowing. He’s always preferred specific facts.” She sighed. “Maybe this is one time where it is best for you to just give each other some space. Give your father some time, and maybe someday you’ll have a few of the answers he’s looking for.”

I furrowed my brow. “Richard said he was okay with me and the way things are, but he also seemed really uncomfortable. I’m not going to run into problems with him, am I?”

She chose her words carefully. “Richard and I talked things over after that piece appeared in the newspaper. I don’t know if he’s…happy…for you, but he respects your right to date whoever you want. You won’t have an issue with him.”

That sounded strange. “Then why did he have such a hard time talking to me about it earlier when he gave me the rules?”

“I think,” Mom said with a small laugh, “he was a bit afraid of laying down the law for you. Dawn always had a problem with him setting boundaries with her when she was your age, and it became an ordeal after a while. I think he was just afraid you would follow in her footsteps.”

Before I could reply to that, the front door opened and a voice called out, “Hello! We’re here!” It was Mary Anne and Pete.

Mom looked at me. “Ready to go downstairs and probably answer some more questions that you don’t want to answer?”

I smiled. “Lead the way.”

 So no of course we can’t be friends Not while I still feel like this I guess I always knew the score This is where our story ends Garbage, Cup of Coffee

Adam

This had been the most awkward cup of coffee I’d ever drunk.

When I’d arrived at Starbucks a few minutes after seven on that Thursday, Tiffany was already sitting at a table. She had the largest size of some iced drink in front of her, but she wasn’t drinking it. She was staring off into space and there was a paper napkin in front of her. Most of it was torn to shreds and she held the last little piece in between her fingers. “Tiff?” I called after I ordered my drink.

She looked up at me. In most ways, she looked the same as she had when we’d broken up three years before. Her hair was a little longer and her bangs a little shaggier than I remembered. The makeup was a little heavier, too. She wore a turquoise shirt that was so long sleeved that all that showed of her fingers were her fingertips with bright orange fingernails. Tiff had paired the shirt with a pair of extremely short white shorts. I’ve never understood why girls do that—wear tiny little shorts with long sleeves. Don’t their legs get as cold as their arms?

Back to Tiffany, though. Even though she looked good from a distance, I could see that not everything was alright. It wasn’t just the shredded napkin or the way one of her knees was shaking in a jittery way, like she had too much energy or nerves. What really gave me the hint was when she finally smiled at me and answered. “Hey, Adam,” she said, but she didn’t really look happy. The smile was brief and only hit her mouth. Tiff’s eyes were sad and tired.

I got my drink and joined her at the table. She watched me sit but didn’t say anything. “So…how are things?”

Tiff shrugged but stayed silent. I took a sip of my coffee and tried to come up with a topic of conversation. I mean, I didn’t know what Tiffany was into these days. When we’d dated, she’d been huge into gardening, to the point when there were times I’d kiss her just to shut her up on the topic. I decided to take a stab at it. “Still gardening?”

She shrugged a second time. “I won a couple awards last year at the county fair. But this year I’ve been so busy with school that I didn’t have a chance to plant.” For the first time since I walked in, her expression changed and she looked regretful. Ugh. Subject change time.

“So, you go to Stoneybrook University?”

A head shake. “No, the community college.” Tiff went back to twisting the napkin.

“Oh.” I didn’t have a reply to that that wouldn’t come out as condescending, so I took another sip of coffee.

She looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “What about you? Where are you headed next fall?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Ohio University.”

“Ohio?” Tiff had finished shredding the napkin, so she dropped the confetti that was left over and played with the straw in her drink. “What’s so interesting in Ohio?”

“They have a business program. I’m hoping to get my MBA eventually.”

“Oh.” It was her turn to not know what to say.

We sat there looking at each other for a while, completely awkwardly. Tiff actually reached across the counter and grabbed my napkin and started shredding that.

I was getting ready to find an excuse to leave when Tiff spoke up. “Well, this is really awkward, isn’t it?”

Well, what could I say to that? It was true. I started laughing. Tiffany looked surprised for a moment, but when she realized I wasn’t laughing at her, she smiled for real, looking more like she had back in the day. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

I shook my head at her. “No, no, don’t be sorry,” I said, picking up my coffee again. Now that the ice was broken, I decided to go for it. “I came out for coffee with you because you sounded like you needed a friend when you called. Why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

I expected her to be defensive. Instead, she just sagged. “Where to start?” she asked. She picked up her drink and, for the first time since I sat down, actually took a sip. “Dad cheated on Mom, so she kicked him out. I never see him anymore, and she’s so busy that when I see her, she just barks orders at me and doesn’t actually talk to me.” I nodded. “I think I flunked algebra. I have no friends. My garden’s ruined. My boyfriend cheated on me…” she faded out.

I was a little surprised at the litany of woes. Life in the Kilbourne house always seemed like it was a little bit dysfunctional, but this was something else. “Wow,” was all I could think of to say.

She smiled another half-way smile. “I know, right?”

I looked at her orange fingernails as she resumed tearing the napkin. “What about your sisters?” I asked.

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “What about them? Shannon’s still the perfect daughter in every way. And Maria’s still super swimmer, plus she’s got this whole other group of friends from some club she joined at school. They don’t have time to talk with me.”

Here’s what you need to realize about Tiff’s sisters. They’re always really super busy. They got so thoroughly into their activities because things were so bad at home; I could tell that back when I was dating Tiff, and Maria even actually said so once. She was only about twelve or so at the time.

But to me there was more to Tiff’s statement than that. She reminded me of something Byron had said once. I’d actually been getting ready for a date with Tiffany at the time. Jordan had just left with a group of our friends.

Byron was sitting on the couch in the living room, sulking with a book when I’d come down to wait for Tiff. Mom and Dad had gone out for the night, and Vanessa (who was still in middle school and therefore still “normal”) was babysitting Claire.

Byron made a sound that was close to “harrumph” when I sat down. “What’s eating you?” I’d asked him.

He closed the book, which he hadn’t been reading anyway. “Everyone just went to hang out without me.”

I knew what he meant right away. Over the past couple months, ‘our friends’ had gone from meaning ‘the triplets’ friends’ to ‘Adam and Jordan’s friends.’ Some of the guys didn’t really like hanging out with Byron much those days. In a few cases, it had a lot to do with Dan Reiber and the trash he liked to talk. Freshman boys aren’t exactly known for their maturity. But most of the guys just thought he was kinda weird. He was quiet at school, and he would just sit and watch conversations instead of joining in. I knew that he was just taking things in and processing them, but some people found it a little creepy.

I turned to Byron, who looked both irritated and a little sad. “Well,” I began, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible, “when was the last time you invited any of them to do anything? Do you ever call Scott up and ask if he wants to come over? Or Robby or Shane or anybody?”

He grimaced and I could see I’d made my point. “Okay,” he said, “I get it.”

The doorbell rang and I jumped up. “It’s Tiffany,” I explained as I started toward the door. Byron had picked the book back up. I moved to continue our conversation, but Tiff leaned on the doorbell and there was no keeping her waiting. I left, regretting the things I hadn’t said.

I came back to the present and looked Tiff over. She looked as if she were moments from crying. "I bet,” I said slowly, “if you made time to talk to Shannon or Maria, they’d be willing to listen to you.” She rolled her eyes again and then rubbed her right sleeve across one eye, trying to stop the flow of tears. “Even if they don’t have time for you, I’m here. We can be friends, right? Having a friend would solve one of your problems.”

Tiff did one of those teary laughs that girls are so good at. “Oh, sure,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve got nothing better to do than sit around with your ex-girlfriend and listen to her cry.”

I reached across the table and put a hand on top of one of her jittery hands. “I’m here right now, aren’t I?” I asked. “And what are we doing now?”

Tiff pulled her hand back. “Okay,” she said, sniffling back a few more tears, “but can you really picture me hanging out with the rest of your friends?”

I stopped and actually tried to follow through with that. I thought about sitting in the pizza place with a group of my friends from the baseball team. There were usually several girls with us, and I was picturing one of them reaching over and touching Tiff’s top and asking her where she bought it, with Tiff laughing and the two of them blathering on about shopping afterward. I pictured her sitting on the couch watching TV with me and some of my brothers and sisters, everyone arguing over what to watch next and Vanessa throwing popcorn at the others, while Tiff decorated Vanessa’s hair with kernels of popcorn in return. I also imagined her sitting in the backseat of the car when I drove somewhere with Byron and Jordan (and maybe a few other people crammed in), making jokes and being a backseat driver. I didn’t see any reason why any of it couldn’t happen. “Sure. Why not?”

Tiffany looked surprised. She picked up her drink and toyed with it some more. The expression on her face gave away an internal debate, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on. Finally, she stood up and tossed her drink in a nearby trashcan, even though it was still mostly full. I stood up slowly and watched her as she swept most of the napkin confetti into one hand. I thought she was going to walk away without another word, but she turned back to me after she dumped the paper into the trash. “Walk me to my car?” she said.

For some reason, she’d parked four blocks away. I felt like we were halfway to her house by the time she stopped in front of a car, jiggling a key ring on one hand. “Adam?” she began before she unlocked the door.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For everything.” Tiff reached over and kissed my cheek. I stopped her before she could pull away, putting a hand on each shoulder. Before I realized what I was doing, I pulled her back in for a kiss on the lips. It only lasted a few seconds, but that was plenty.

I let her go and looked at her, wild eyed. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

She smiled, looking legitimately happy for the first time all night. “Don’t be.” She grabbed the key fob and unlocked her car, opening the door behind her. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” she said as she sat down in the car. I watched as she put the key into the ignition. Before she started the car, she rolled down the window. “See ya, Adam,” she called as she drove away, leaving me on the sidewalk, not sure what had just happened.

 It seems to me I could live my life A lot better than I think I am Rush, Working Man

Jeff

About a week after I arrived in Stoneybrook, Mom came home early and we went out shopping for bedding and accessories for my bedroom. Mom had been thrilled when I asked, I think because me redecorating meant I actually planned to spend enough time there for it to be worth it.

I had planned to just go to Wal-Mart, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it. She’s working as an interior decorator these days and I think she thought it would be the end of her career if someone found out her son’s bedroom was done up in Wal-Mart style.

So instead she took me to some bedding store in a new shopping strip that had sprung up since the last time I’d spent the summer in town. We’d headed straight to the comforters, where I’d picked out one in navy and burgundy rugby stripes. Mom had found a couple sheet sets and all the other bedding pieces that apparently are necessary, although I’ve never quite understood why someone needs a bed skirt or even quite what a euro sham is.

On the way out, Mom made me pick up a job application. She went into a couple of clothing stores in the area to do a little shopping and I sat outside and filled out the application while I waited. When she didn’t reappear after half an hour, I went ahead and turned the application in. Apparently, bedding and kitchen supplies is a big business. I got an instant job interview, left the store with a job in the receiving department.

And so I arrived at Kitchen & Bath at one in the afternoon that Saturday for my job orientation. The store was crazy busy, but I had been instructed to head to the customer service counter and introduce myself. The girl working the counter was a tiny blonde named Helen. I waited until she was not with a customer. “Hello. I’m here for orientation.”

She smiled. “I’m expecting a Lindsey and a Jeff,” she said, pushing stray hairs out of her face. “You must be Jeff.”

I smiled back. “Yup.”

“Well, I’m Helen, in case the name tag didn’t make that clear. I’m the front end manager. I’ll actually be running your orientation.” She glanced at her watch. “You’re a few minutes early, but in my book that’s a good thing. One of the cashiers is going to be running the counter for the afternoon, but he’s not back from lunch for about five more minutes. Why don’t you look around and I’ll call you back up here when he’s back and Lindsey’s here?”

I didn’t really want to look around; I was afraid of getting forgotten, quite frankly. Instead, I headed around the corner and started looking at bridal greeting cards. Who knew there were so many different reasons to get a card for someone getting married? I got tired of that after about two minutes. I came around the corner from behind the cards, planning to look at the merchandise next to the customer service counter and I ran smack into Byron.

He looked surprised, but in a good way. “Hey, Jeff! What are you doing here?”

Before I could answer, Helen came around the corner with a sturdy, tall girl with dishwater hair that I guessed must be Lindsey. “Byron, good timing! I’m just about to start orientation. Lissa will be joining you up here in half an hour, and Morgan will be in to relieve you at five.” I gaped as she talked to Byron like an old friend…until I realized he was wearing a Kitchen & Bath nametag. This must be what Jordan called Girly Central.

Helen barreled on, not noticing my surprise. “Have you met Lindsey and Jeff? Lindsey’s taking over Hay’s old spot in towels, and Jeff’s in receiving.”

Byron smiled at the other girl. “Nice to meet you, Lindsey,” he said.

Helen eyed him critically. “You and Jeff already know each other?”

I grinned. “You could definitely say that.”

By ducked his head and I knew he was blushing as he rubbed his hand across his forehead. Before I could say any more, he looked over my shoulder. “Customers waiting. I’ll call if I need backup.” And with that, he scurried away.

Helen looked at me oddly. “What’s with him?” she asked. “Never seen him behave like that before. There’s a good reason that he’s only been here a week and I’ve already got him running the counter. You guys good friends?”

It was my turn to blush a bit. “Yeah. You could say that,” I repeated.

Lindsey looked around as we walked down the aisle toward the back of the store. “Whoa, bride central,” she said as we walked into a large area full of fancy dishes and gifts made of breakable materials.

Helen beamed. “This is our new fine table department that we just opened a few weeks ago. Our bridal consultants work out of here. Most of them are on the older side and have been married for a while, although there are a few exceptions.”

It was then I discovered how big of a loudmouth that Haley can be. She came barreling out of nowhere and enveloped me in a big hug. “Jeff! Are you here to see your sweetie?” Hay let me go. While most of the employees were wearing jeans, sneakers and casual shirts—even the managers like Helen were in relaxed attire—Haley wore a pair of pinstriped pants, black shoes and a white blouse. Her name tag said ‘Hay.’ “He just got back from lunch and I think he’s working customer service for the rest of the day, but I bet you could get a chance to say hi if you stopped by up there…”

Haley suddenly realized that Helen and Lindsey were staring at us; she quit smiling as Helen stepped forward. “Hay? Don’t you have a bridal couple to attend to?”

Haley backed away. “They’re taken care of for the moment,” she said, almost meekly, but when Helen didn’t stop staring at her, she continued to back up. “Maybe I’ll just go check on them anyway…” Hay added, almost running off.

Helen diplomatically pretended she hadn’t heard anything Haley said. She continued giving Lindsey and me a tour of the store as we headed back into the room for orientation. We got into the back room and Helen had the two of us take a seat and start filling out employee paperwork. “I’m going to get you two name tags and lockers while you’re working on those. Let me know if you need anything.”

Almost the second Helen left the room and the door closed behind her, Lindsey looked up from her papers. “That guy at the customer service counter…was he your boyfriend?”

I didn’t stop filling out my forms or look at her. “Yup.” I could feel her eyes still on me so I gave her more information, knowing she wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted. “He only started work about a week ago and I didn’t know he was working here. This was just the first place I applied.”

Lindsey went back to her papers but had a thoughtful look on her face. “You know, he looked really familiar,” she said. “I lived in Stoneybrook until a couple years ago and I feel like I’ve seen both your boyfriend and your friend before. Name Byron sounds familiar too.”

“Hmmm.” I said, noncommittally.

Before Lindsey could go on, Helen returned. “Almost got those done? Good! When you’re finished, put on your name tag and I’ll start you into the boring videos…”

***

At five, we got a lunch break—although I’ve never understood why they call it lunch at dinner time. Lindsey and I got to play with our lockers for a few minutes before we clocked out, trying to get the combinations to work. I was having a little trouble with mine, because it felt like someone had stuck gum in the mechanism. After Lindsey left, I was still trying to get mine to open when a wave of people came through the door, getting ready to go home. Haley was near the back of the pack. She snuck up behind me, though I’m not sure on purpose. “Need some help with that thing?” she asked, making me jump.

“Geez, Haley,” I wheezed, “Is today Give Jeff a Heart Attack Day? Or is it Make Jeff Die of Embarrassment Day?”

She blushed a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here for orientation. Why didn’t By tell me you’d gotten a job here?”

“Because he didn’t know. I also didn’t know you two worked here.”

Haley smiled a bit. “Okay, then. I am sorry, you know. But I guess now we’re even for that time back in Ogunquit.”

I remembered how I embarrassed the hell out of her by telling everyone she’d been making out with Jordan. “Oh, yeah.” I finally got the lock to pop open. “Success! Has By come through here yet?” The room had cleared out, but I hadn’t seen him.

Hay shook her head. “I think Morgan’s late again, and he can’t leave till she gets here or someone else relieves him. Why don’t you go clock out and I’ll treat you to dinner? We’ll eat with you before we go home.”

I stopped in the doorway to the break room. “Two more things.”

She didn’t look up from her own locker. “Shoot.”

“Why does your name tag say Hay?”

Haley looked at me over her shoulder. “There are already two other Haleys, and they don’t call them by their last names or by first name-last initial. They go by spelling. I didn’t want them spelling my name every time they needed me, so I asked that everyone just call me Hay instead.”

I nodded. “Okay, makes sense. So what’s the deal with Helen? She seemed really nice until we ran into you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That,” she said with a sigh, “is a much longer story. Over dinner? At Papa Sandwich? You ever eat there? You’ll love it; they put sprouts on all their sandwiches. Jordan is working tonight, so I need time with the boys.” Haley looked reflective for a moment. “The other boys.”

I grinned at that. “I’ll meet you and Byron up front in a minute.” Before I wrote my time on the clock in sheet, I thought about Kitchen & Bath for a moment. I’d only been working there for four hours and I’d already run into a hornet’s nest full of drama. The real question was whether By and I working in the same store was going to be an issue.

I clocked out and headed to meet my friends in the front of the store.

 Can you remember what you’re looking for Was it the answer of love? Can you tell me where you’re coming from Protect the naked life Mob Rules, Unknown Man

Vanessa

I was sitting in the waiting area of the department of motor vehicles, waiting to take the driving portion of my license test. I had just turned seventeen a few days earlier.

I was scared shitless.

I had been waiting alone for about ten minutes when he showed up. Dad has some goofy-ass rules, and one of them is that, if you’re old enough to get your license, you’re old enough to do everything that is involved in getting the license all by yourself. It actually kinda makes sense from a dad point of view. But, while I generally don’t really look to my parents for much, I’d almost had the urge to yell, “Daddy, don’t go!” when he walked out of the DMV.

Almost.

So enough about my dad. I have to tell you about this guy. I didn’t even notice he had sat next to me at first because I was too busy doing shit like trying to remember which one was the blinker and which was the windshield wiper on my dad’s SUV. I was looking down at my hands while I was thinking and suddenly this face appeared in front of me and surprised me. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked.

I jumped, and it wasn’t just because he’d scared me. I mean, yeah, that was part of it. But the other part was he was absolutely gorgeous. Haley, back before she started hanging out exclusively with gays, would have called him Hottie McStudly. He had an olive complexion, with dark hair and eyes. His eyes were set just the right distance apart and they danced as he spoke. He had an easygoing expression and you could tell from the little lines in the corners of his eyes that he smiled a lot. And his mouth…well, let’s just say that I wanted to kiss him and I didn’t even know him. He could have been a lip model if such a thing existed. Not only were his lips luscious-looking but they were unchapped and much more manicured than most boys I know keep theirs.

I’m starting to babble, but I just want to make sure you understand how good looking this guy was. I had to seriously double check and make sure I wasn’t drooling before I answered him. “Um,” I said helpfully. I swallowed and gave him a more coherent response. “I’m sure we haven’t met, because I know I’d remember you.”

Mystery Guy raised an eyebrow to that one. “I think you’re wrong,” he replied.

I stared him down, trying to recognize him. “Maybe,” I said slowly, “I’d remember where we’ve met if you told me your name.”

He began to look mischievous, and the expression suited him. “Nope,” he said firmly. “It’s way too much fun, watching you squirm as you try to figure out where you’ve seen me before.” He snapped a rubber band around his wrist and I got a good look at his clothes for the first time. He wasn’t wearing anything spectacular, just a t-shirt in dark green and a pair of camo pants. I’d never thought much of camo before, but suddenly, it was my new favorite thing. The guy spoke again. “As for me, I may not remember your name, but I do know where we met. And no, I’m not going to tell you that either.”

I rolled my eyes at him, trying to pretend I wasn’t that into him anyway. He grinned back and shifted one leg up onto the other knee so that his toe was pointed at me. “This your first time taking the test?” I nodded. “It’s my third. I keep fucking up the driving part. My dad told me…” He put on his best stern Dad expression and although his voice was already pretty deep, he made it deeper. “…‘You screw up again and you have to wait another year before I let you take the test again.’ I’m not really that scared, because he loves to threaten and then not follow through. And even if he does actually keep his empty threat, I’ll just get my mom to take me instead.”

My eyes were pretty wide by that point. “You’ve failed three times?” I asked.

The guy got indignant. “Not three times! No, I’ve failed twice. If I fail again, it’ll be three.” For a moment he got deadly serious and I could see that he was actually worried he might not pass again this time.

I wanted to offer some words of comfort. I wanted to say something soothing. Hell, I would have even settled on asking for his phone number so I could call him and find out how it had gone. But before I had a chance, a woman came out of a back office. “Vanessa Pike?” she called. I jumped up.

The guy looked triumphant in learning my name. “Good luck, Vanessa Pike,” he called, “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

I turned back to the guy and opened my mouth, ready to speak, but the woman spoke up again. “Miss Pike,” she said impatiently, “I haven’t got all day.”

I took a deep breath and followed the woman. When I met my dad an hour later, I had my license in my wallet. “Did you get it?” he asked.

I was still thinking about Mystery Guy. “Nope.”

Dad furrowed his brow. “Don’t worry. We’ll practice some more. You’ll pass next time.”

I shook myself out of my boy-induced haze. “What?”

“Your license. I’m sure you’ll pass the second time.” Dad looked at me like I was nuts.

I opened my wallet and flashed it at him. “What are you talking about?”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “What are you talking about, Vanessa?”

I shook my head. “I think,” I said, “that you’d rather not know.”

I just had to find that guy again.

 Now that I’m filled with emotion you’re dispassionate You only live for yourself while I live to regret But don’t ever think that I could easily forget The Posies, I May Hate You Sometimes

Haley

I’m still not quite sure how it happened.

I really thought that a triplet date would be a good idea, when Jordan first broached the idea to me. He didn’t seem really thrilled about it, though. At first I thought it might be residual bad feelings over the Byron/Jeff thing, but I soon changed my mind. And it was By who changed it.

I was between customers in the bridal department, so I had been sent to clean the front doors. By was pricing candy at the registers. He looked up at me and smiled. “You and Jordan get sucked into this date thingee, too?”

I made a face. “Date thingee?” I repeated.

By wrinkled his nose. “You know what I mean. Me and Jeff and Adam and Tiff and you and Jordan?”

I wiped at the window, looking the other way. “I knew exactly what you meant. I was just making fun of your amazing word skills.” He didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he dumped a bin of candy onto the counter and began putting the new chocolate bars on the bottom. Sometimes, razzing By is not as fun as it should be. He’s figured out that he’s way more irritating to me if he doesn’t react in any way, so he just pretends not to hear anything I say. “Okay then. So who is Tiff, exactly?”

By sighed. “Adam is apparently attempting to get back together with his ex. I’m not quite sure why. She totally broke his heart back in the day, though he wouldn’t admit it.” He’d put all the candy back in the bin and started on the next box.

I stopped wiping and looked over at him. “So…I’m guessing you didn’t like her much, then?”

He looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t know her very well, so it’s hard to like or dislike her.” Damn him. He’s always so diplomatic. “I will say, however, that I didn’t like what she did to Adam. But that was three years ago. If Adam’s willing to give her another chance, I am too.”

“You are such a Pollyanna,” I said as I took one last swipe. “Oh, the sky is so blue. Oh, I’m going to give everyone another chance.” I threw the dirty paper towel away in the trashcan behind By’s register. He threw a Snickers bar at me. “Watch it,” I warned. “Those things are lethal.”

“I’ll get you one of these days,” he threatened.

I repeated my Pollyanna voice. “Oh, I am so scared!”

***

And so Jordan and I found ourselves standing outside Pizza Express the Friday before exams started. He was wearing a pair of jeans that looked like they were a size too big and a pair of ratty sneakers that I’ve heard that his mom has tried to throw away…several times. I don’t date Jordan for his fashion sense. He’d paired those clothes with an old t-shirt that was my favorite of his—but not because it was any more fashionable than anything else he wears. He was wearing it the day we first kissed, and after we got back from Maine, he loaned it to me. I slept in it for a week before I gave it back to him.

It was a little chilly that night and I’d stupidly decided to wear a tank top and a pair of capris. “Ugh!” I moaned. “It’s the middle of June. Why is it so freakin’ cold out?”

Jordan laughed. “To mess with your pretty little head.” I bopped him on the arm with one of my icy cold hands and he pulled me into a big bear hug. “This is snuggle weather,” he explained.

I burrowed into his armpit where it was nice and warm. “Snuggle? You are such a girl.”

He laughed again. “No, I am definitely a guy. Would you rather be doing this with a girl?” And then he kissed me.

We were still kissing when Adam walked up. “Okay, okay. Break it up you two, or I’ll turn a hose on you.”

“Ugh!” I shivered as we broke our kiss. “Adam! This is not a wet t-shirt contest, so keep your hose to yourself.” Both Adam and Jordan looked at me funny and then started laughing. “That’s not what I meant.”

Jordan gave Adam a high five over my head. “So, where’s Miss Hot Stuff?” he asked.

Adam grimaced. “You’re not going to say stuff like that to her, are you? You’re not going to make fun of her to her face all night?”

Jordan made a “who, me?” face. “No,” he said, “I plan to make a subtle mockery of her while she’s here and then make fun of her ‘like that’ behind her back after she’s left.”

Adam looked disgusted but I laughed. “Jordan,” I fake-chided, hoping to find something humorous to add. Before I could come up with anything witty enough, a model of a girl came walking up.

The girl was tall and skinny, with long blonde hair. She had high cheek bones and a delicate face shape. Her hair was immaculately done and her makeup was perfect. Her clothes looked like they came from a fancy boutique—or a fashion magazine. They probably cost more than my whole wardrobe put together.

Somehow, I knew right away she was Tiffany.

She made me feel like—well, like a child in comparison. She was tall and willowy, almost as tall as the triplets, with decent sized boobs. I’m a little over five feet and can barely scrape up a b cup. Not to mention that my clothes, instead of coming off a runway, come from the kids’ department.

Adam greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “Hey.”

“Sorry I’m late.” She flashed a million-watt smile.

He returned the grin. “You’re not late; you’re right on time.”

Tiffany turned to Jordan and me, standing just a few feet away. “Hi, Jordan,” she said with a small waggle of her fingers.

Jordan took one hand off my back and waved it in a big arc, vaguely in Tiff’s direction, but he didn’t say anything. Adam glared at Jordan, but he just put his hand back and pulled me closer.

As for me, well, no one had introduced me to Tiff, so I said nothing. My teeth were starting to chatter. If it had been socially acceptable, I would have climbed up into Jordan’s shirt with him.

If looks could kill, Jordan would have been dead by then. I think that if half the school— and Tiff—hadn’t been there, Adam would have gone off on Jordan. Instead, he composed himself and said, “Tiff, have you met Jordan’s girlfriend, Haley Braddock? Haley, this is Tiffany Kilbourne.”

I thought about what By said about Adam giving Tiff another chance. I looked at her. Despite her glamour, she was kinda hunched over, biting a fingernail. She looked insecure and unsure. I smiled at her, hoping it would help. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

She smiled back tentatively, looking instantly a little bit relieved. “You, too.”

Adam had stopped glaring at Jordan, but he still looked anxious. “Where the hell is Byron?” he asked. “He’s never late. You can set your watch by him most of the time.”

I snorted back a laugh, mostly because it was true. Tiff raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I need to explain,” Adam said, turning away from me and toward her. “Our little crew here is a bit…incestuous.” Jordan made a sound along the lines of “pshaw” and Adam turned back to us again. “Not literally, of course. Pervert. Anyway…” His head ping-ponged back to Tiffany. “See, Haley is Byron’s best friend. And our childhood best friend, Jeff, is dating Byron now.”

“Speak of the devils,” Jordan said, looking over Adam’s shoulder. Byron was hurrying down the sidewalk. He had Jeff by the hand and he was practically dragging him behind him. Jeff was not at a good angle for me to see him, but By looked agitated.

The two of them came a little bit closer and I got a look at Jeff. He looked sullen and petulant, and he was clearly unhappy that By was pulling him along like a child. Then again, something about his expression made me think of a toddler about to throw a tantrum, so maybe Byron had the right idea.

“Sorry we’re so late,” By said, letting Jeff go. He went over to Tiffany and gave her a one armed hug, which she gratefully returned. “How are you, Tiff?” he asked. She smiled at him and shrugged. “This is Jeff,” he said, taking Jeff’s hand again, more gently this time. “He’s my…” By trailed off, looking unsure.

Jeff tried to school his annoyed expression, but he wasn’t too successful at it. “Boyfriend,” he finished. “You can say the word. It won’t hurt.”

By pursed his lips, and for a second I thought he was going to direct an insult Jeff’s way. Instead, he shrank a little bit and let go of Jeff’s hand. “Boyfriend,” he repeated.

I looked up at Jordan, interested in his take on the display in front of us. He shrugged at me, but took a bit of control of the situation. “Can we head inside? Haley’s just about cold blooded and I think she’s freezing her ass off.”

Byron poked my arm with one warm finger. “Maybe if you wore enough clothes for the weather, you wouldn’t have this problem.” I noted that both he and Jeff were wearing jackets.

“Good advice, Dad,” I said with a roll of my eyes. Jordan laughed, and after a second, Adam and Byron joined him, followed by me and Tiffany. Even Jeff smiled a little bit.

Jordan let me go and opened the door. “After you,” he said to the group in general.

I walked in, with Tiffany right behind. The guys followed. Jeff was right in step behind Adam and Tiff, and the three of them walked over to the menu board. Jordan let the door go and smoothed down my hair as he passed. “Honey, you coming?” he asked.

I nodded. “Give me a second.” Jordan nodded back and threw a glance over at By, who was still standing blocking the door.

I grabbed By by the arm and pulled him out of the doorway. “What is going on?” I asked.

“Hay…” By looked like he was about to cry, but he just shook his head. “Later, okay? It’s nothing. Just a little disagreement.”

I wrinkled my brow. “Let me guess. Jeff said something and you blew it out of proportion and got all ass-hurt about it. Then, instead of telling him how you felt, you said something without thinking and Jeff got all ass-hurt about that. Am I close?” He didn’t reply, but the look on his face said it all. “Oh, By,” I said, and I squeezed his arm. “Just wait until you two leave tonight and tell him you’re sorry. He’ll get over it.”

He sniffled. “This whole night sucks already, and now we have to sit down and play nice so Adam can prove to Tiffany that we don’t hold a grudge against her.”

I bit my lower lip. “We better get to that part, then. Get it over with.”

When By and I joined the group, they were all discussing pizza toppings. Adam turned to us. “Please, you two, break the stalemate. We’re thinking two pies, but we can’t decide what to get on each. Any input?”

I walked past Jordan to where Jeff was trying to hide. I slid my arm around his and gave a tug, gently pulling him into the discussion. “Two? Are you kidding? Byron can eat a whole pizza by himself. Better make it three.”

By made a face, but everyone else nodded. “Okay, that will work,” Adam said thoughtfully. “One with peperoni for Tiffany and whoever else wants that. One fully loaded. And one with…Jeff, what are you thinking?”

Jeff shook his head. He no longer looked ready to toss a fit, but instead, tired and emotionless. “Whatever. Cheese. Veggies. Whatever,” he repeated, his voice flat.

I smiled at him. “How do you feel about mushrooms?” He shrugged but didn’t protest.

“Oh, yeah,” Adam piped back up. “I’d forgotten about Haley’s obsession with fungus ‘nads. Always have to have some mushroom slices.” I wrinkled my nose at the gonad reference but said nothing. “Okay, are we ready, then? Let’s order and see if there are any seats left.”

The guys all got in line, but they nominated Tiffany and me to go find seats. It had been decided that “the men” would pay and split it evenly, and I had been dying to see who out of Byron and Jeff was going to pay, but I walked off with Tiff instead.

There was only one table free, and when we got to it, Tiff made a face. I thought at first that she was unhappy with the fact that the table hadn’t been bussed and there were a few wrappers and crumbs on it, but that notion went away before we ever got our pizzas.

Adam cruised by with two cups, one of which he handed to Tiff. “Come pick your poison with me,” he said, and he dragged her off the bench by her free hand. She laughed and joined him.

And so I found myself sitting alone at the table. I started to get impatient because I worried they’d forgotten about me. What about my drink, dammit? Jeff was the first one back, and he seemed to be skirting By as much as possible. “Jeff,” I said in a low voice, “What did he do that’s got you so upset?”

Jeff put his head down on the filthy table. “Ugh,” he said. He left his head down for a moment, and then looked at me. “Nothing that terrible,” he admitted, “but it totally came out of nowhere.”

I was about to reply when By and Jordan joined us at the table. Jordan held a cup out in front of me. “Half lemonade, half 7Up. No ice.”

I beamed, my irritation over being left behind forgotten; he’d remembered my drink preference. “Thanks!” Jordan slid onto the bench next to me and put his own cup down. He was so close I could hear his heart beating, and he put a hand on my back. Byron sat down across from Jordan. Before Jeff knew what was happening, By draped his arm around Jeff’s neck and put his face into the hollow between Jeff’s shoulder and head. Jordan and I pretended to look the other way for a moment. Some words must have been exchanged, but I never heard a thing. I just saw Jeff lean over a little bit and kiss By’s forehead, and I knew they’d be alright. At least for the rest of the night.

Adam and Tiff returned a moment later. Adam strategically sat next to Jordan, putting a friendlier Byron next to Tiff. He looked over at By and Jeff and raised his eyebrows but didn’t say a word. Byron sat up straight but kept his arm on Jeff. “So…” he said, hoping to start a conversation.

We didn’t get a chance to find a topic. We were interrupted by a spate of noises from the booth in the corner, just two tables away. It sounded like a group of geese honking, only three times as loud. Jeff and Byron briefly turned around, but seemed largely unconcerned about the sounds. Tiff, on the other hand, lingered more on the group of teens making the noises. She looked annoyed. “What asylum did they escape from?” she asked.

I felt my whole body stiffen. “They didn’t come from an asylum,” I hissed. I reached across Jordan and tapped Adam’s shoulder. Without a word, both brothers got up, and I walked over to the other table.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tiff watching me. I reached the table and touched one of the boys sitting there on his shoulder. “What’s she doing?” I heard Tiff ask Adam.

The boy turned around and grinned at me. He greeted me, his fingers flying. I gave him a small hug and returned the greeting and spoke to the table at large without saying a word. “That’s her brother,” Adam said, pointing to the boy I’d hugged, “and he’s deaf. I’m guessing all his friends are, too.”

I didn’t get to see Tiff’s face, but she didn’t respond verbally to that. After learning that Matt and his friends had just come from a soccer game where they’d kicked the other team’s ass, I returned to my table. Adam and Jordan stood again to let me back into the booth. I looked at Tiffany. She seemed absolutely mortified. I was ready to make some kind of nasty statement, but after looking at her, I bit back all my comments.

Tiff was making it hard to continue to be nice to her, however. It seemed like every time she opened her mouth, she said something designed to annoy. There was a crack about health food “nuts,” for starters. Jeff, who seemed to have made up with Byron but was still quieter and more reserved than I was used to seeing him, winced when she said that.

Then, when talk turned to school, Tiff mentioned how she’d barely scraped through high school. “Both of my sisters just about kill themselves over tests and assignments. I’ve never understood that. People who spend that much time studying really need to get a life.” I turned to Byron, who had just found out he was going to be salutatorian of the class of 2004. He’d earned that title not because he’s way smarter than the rest of us, but because he works his ass off. He was looking at his lap, his eyebrows knitted together.

I kept waiting for Adam to say something. I know he was desperate for the night to go well; every time Tiff made some kind of inadvertent social blunder, he changed the topic. But yet, he kept letting her talk.

Jordan, who had either changed his mind about Tiff or was as desperate as anyone else at the table to keep things from going into the crapper, asked her about college life right as the pizza arrived. She didn’t answer right away; there was a flurry of activity as pizzas were shifted around and slices found their way onto plates. The mushroom pizza ended up right in front of me and Jeff, which is exactly where it needed to be. I found that I was starving and crammed three slices onto my plate. I’d eaten almost an entire slice by the time that I realized that Tiff had taken just one piece of pizza, which she was picking at slowly. Was that normal female behavior? I’d spent my teen years surrounded by boys. I put the piece down and watched Tiff for a while. She took a delicate bite of pizza and then answered Jordan’s question.

“Well, I don’t live on campus or anything since I go to the community college. But it’s pretty similar to Stoneybrook U other than dorm life and Greek life. I mean, we have clubs and sports and things. I never really got into that. One of the biggest clubs there is the Campus Crusade for Christ. It’s just a bunch of kids loving on Jesus. Not really my scene.”

Jordan looked down at his pizza for a moment, and I waited for him to mention to Tiff that he’d spent the last four years as a member of a club just like that, but he kept his mouth shut. It was then that it dawned on me—Jordan wasn’t going to defend that lifestyle to the others because they didn’t know he was part of it. I was probably the only person at the table to know that he’d taken a purity oath. As much I thought it was pretty lame to be embarrassed of your choice to be religious, I couldn’t say much about it. I’d supported By through three years of me knowing he was in the closet without saying a word. It wouldn’t be right to comment on Jordan being in the Jesus closet.

I spoke up anyway. “I hear those groups can be really supportive. You know, when you’re going through bad times.” Jordan flashed me a grateful smile, which I returned. I picked up my piece of pizza and finished it. Jordan liked me just the way I was, even if I ate like a pig. Why should I worry what Tiffany thought?

“That’s probably true,” Tiff acknowledged. “Although, the SCC club’s president was involved in a giant scandal, I guess. As far as Christian-group drama goes. Apparently, just a couple months after she and a group of kids made a whole big show of making virginity pledges, she turned up pregnant. There was this whole mess going on all year long because of that.” I took a sip of my drink and was playing with the straw with my free hand when Tiff started talking again. “She got booted out as president and then out of the club altogether. If I were her, I’d just have told them I got raped. Would have solved the whole problem.”

I dropped my cup on the table. The lid fell off and fizzy lemonade went everywhere. Everyone jumped up to grab napkins or get out of the way of the waterfall of drink. One of the triplets shouted, “Watch it, Haley!” but I didn’t catch which one. I barely heard him. I was vaguely aware that there was a puddle growing on my lap. I kept my eyes on Tiff, who, like the boys, was looking at the mess on the table.

Only By was watching me, though I wasn’t even aware of it at the time. I stood up. “That’s it. I’ve had enough of this,” I said angrily, still looking directly at Tiff. She stopped trying to clean up the spill, and stared at me, bewildered.

Jordan’s eyes were like saucers. “Haley,” he said warningly, but I’d already crossed the line and there was no going back.

“You have no idea,” I said venomously, directly to Tiff. “You think being raped is a joke? You think it’s funny?” Adam backed unconsciously out of the booth and stood next to Tiffany, leaving only Jordan holding me into the booth. He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. “I wouldn’t wish a rape on my worst enemy. And right now, you’re not too far off from there.”

I tried to leave the bench, but Jordan put himself bodily between me and the exit. “Haley…” he repeated, this time more soothingly. He sounded concerned and his eyes were sad.

I was in mid-flight and there was no stopping me. “Get out of my way, Jordan,” I said, smacking at his arm. He pulled his arm away, looking wounded, and moved out of my path. I stalked out of Pizza Express without a backward glance.

I didn’t realize Jordan was following me until I was about a block away. By that point I was sobbing pretty hard. He reached out and put a hand on my back. I knew instantly that it was him by the nature of the touch. I stopped walking and stopped fighting and let him pull me into a hug.

We stood there silently like that until the tears subsided and I was all cried out. I regained my breath and waited for Jordan to chew me out. Instead, he just squeezed me tight. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

I still had tears on my eyelashes; he wiped them away with one hand. “And wet.”

“We’d better get you home, then.”

We had walked to the restaurant, which I now regretted. It was dark now and even colder than when we went in. Even Jordan was shivering now, and it didn’t matter how close he held me, I couldn’t seem to get warm.

When we arrived at my house, the lights were out and Daddy’s car was gone. Jordan looked at the dark windows. “Your parents went out?”

“I guess.”

Jordan frowned. “You’re all wet. Go inside and get changed. I’ll be out here when you’re done.”

I hated leaving him freezing on the stoop, but he’s not allowed in the house when no one else is home, and my pants were nearly frozen. I ran in through the house to my bedroom, where there had been an explosion of clothes earlier in the day. I found a clean pair of jeans and a pink and yellow plaid shirt that I threw on, and headed back downstairs.

I headed for the coat closet at the front of the house and pulled out two jackets: my favorite fleecy hoodie and a like-new jacket of Matt’s that he never wears. On the way back to the back door, I stopped and read the note tacked to the refrigerator: Haley and Matt…went to the movies. Be back by eleven. Mom and Dad.

Jordan was sitting on the steps, and when I opened the door he turned around and smiled a little. I dropped Matt’s jacket in his lap and his grin got a little bigger. “Thanks.”

Once Jordan had the jacket on, I sat down on his lap. It’s a sad but true fact that I fit there perfectly, with my head coming just between his shoulder and chin. With the coats on and shared body heat to help keep us warm, we were feeling a lot better. Jordan pulled me close and hugged me tight, like he didn’t want to let me go. His mouth was right next to my ear. Normally, he would have started kissing me or breathing heavy or something, but neither of us was really in the mood for it. Instead, he sighed. “I wish you could trust me,” he said quietly.

I turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about…?” He looked away and I could see he was struggling with the words.

I furrowed my brows. “Jordan. I don’t even have the words for it, most of the time. It’s hard for me to say. I’ve only told one person ever, and that’s only because I was forced to.”

He reached out tentatively toward my face and then withdrew his hand without touching me. “Byron,” he said, not really asking a question. I nodded anyway. “So it is true. You really were…”

Sometimes, Jordan is so much like Byron, it scares me. Although I guess it shouldn’t. They did spend about eight months sharing a womb. “Raped?” I finished his statement for him, because I knew he wouldn’t stop until I said it. It’s exactly how By found out, too. “Yeah. I was.”

His face went through a quick range of emotions. Finally, he settled on looking sad, with something I’ve never seen out of him before. He looked like he was going to cry. “When?”

I looked up at the stars. “A lifetime ago. Do you mind if I don’t go into it now? I promise, I’ll tell you someday. But this day has been hard enough without having to relive that night over again.” Jordan nodded, and I looked back at him. He put his hand out again, and this time he ran his index finger down the length of my face, tracing the edge from my forehead to my ear, down the jaw to my chin. “And please, don’t think it’s because I don’t trust you. I’ve never in my life let someone touch me the way you do.”

I could hear Daddy’s car pulling up the driveway as I finished my last statement. I stood up off Jordan’s lap and sat down beside him. He understood without my saying a word, but he pulled me as close as he dared and put his mouth next to my ear again. “I love you. I hope you know that,” he whispered.

He’d joked about it before. Usually he joked that I loved him for some reason: his car, his friends, his family. This was the first time he’d ever come straight out and said he loved me, although I have a feeling he’d wanted to say it from the first time we’d kissed. And probably, from what I’ve heard, for a long time before that.

I looked at him, not sure I could return the words just at that moment. But I didn’t get a chance to find out. Car doors slammed and my parents were standing there in front of us. “Haley? Jordan? What are you two doing out here?” My dad asked.

Jordan stood up and then held out a hand to help me up. “I was seeing Haley home, but when we got here, no one was home. Haley was having a tough evening, so I didn’t want to leave her alone. I hope you don’t mind that we sat back here for a while.”

I saw Mom and Daddy look at each other and have a little telepathic conference. Jordan ran his finger down the side of my eye, where I could still feel the dried tears from earlier. His finger came away green and that was when I realized that my mascara had smeared everywhere. My parents must have been able to tell I’d been crying. “You and your green eye makeup,” Jordan teased. I smiled a little back at him, and I knew he was okay for now if I didn’t say those three little words back to him. Which, being the person I am, made me want to say them.

The little conversation Mom was having with Daddy ended and she turned back to us. “Well, next time you two come home to an empty house, you can go ahead inside. As long as you stick to the ground floor of the house and we don’t come home to see anything we don’t want to see.”

I know my mouth hung open for a moment before I replied. “Really?”

Mom laughed. “Yes, really. We could have come home to find Jordan trying to sneak out the other door. Or the two of you in the backseat of the car, giving the excuse that you were trying to keep warm.” I looked at Jordan, trying to have a mental conversation with him, along the lines of ‘why didn’t we think of that?!?’ I know he got the message because he was trying hard not to laugh. “Now we see we can trust you.”

Daddy opened the door to the house. “Jordan? You coming in for a while?”

He shook his head. “It’s been a long day. I probably should be heading home.” Daddy and Mom nodded and headed inside. Jordan turned back to me. “Call me when you get up in the morning and I’ll bring the jacket back.” He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. With that, he headed down the driveway.

I waited until he was almost out of sight. “Jordan?”

He turned around. “What, Haley?”

“I love you, too.” I blew him a kiss.

He lit up like I’d just plugged him into electricity. He reached out one hand and grabbed the imaginary kiss and planted it on his cheek. With a little wave, he walked away.

[tosybelle-blog]

The Boys of Summer, Chapters I-V

He said, “Son, I’ve made a life Out of readin’ people’s faces Knowin’ what the cards were By the way they held their eyes Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

Margo

I knew something was up the day my brothers and Vanessa got back from spring break. Let me state for the record that I plan to have a much cooler road trip when I am a senior. Me and Karen are already planning it. It’s going to be awesome.

Though I guess their trip was pretty cool, too. The first thing I noticed was that Jordan came back with a girlfriend. Everything to come out of his mouth since then has been Haley this and Haley that. He was pretty boring before, but he’s really super boring now.

But the real difference has been with Byron. He’s always been really easy to tease because he takes everything way too seriously. He thinks way too much. You also have to watch what you say and do around him because he is a worse tattle-tale than my sister Claire, and she’s in middle school.

Ever since they came back, though, Byron’s been kinda cooler than normal. He jokes back with you when you mess with him, and he’s come out of narc mode—sometimes. He still ratted when he caught Claire with cigarettes, but he didn’t say a word when I came in after curfew.

One day, maybe a week or two after spring break, Karen and I decided we needed to go to the mall. Jordan and Adam were at a baseball game at school. Mom and Dad were at work. No one was free at Karen’s house, so Byron was the only driver left. I went to the room he shares with Nick to butter him up.

Vanessa had taken her camera’s memory card to the drug store the day before and had come home with a thick envelop full of pictures. She, the triplets, and Haley had spent a few hours sorting photos and exclaiming over them. Byron in particular had come away with a huge pile of pictures and said he was going to spend the afternoon framing them.

When I knocked on the door, though, Nick answered. He was alone in the room, reading some weird sci-fi book. Pretty normal Nick.

“Seen Byron?”

He shook his head. “He went down to the basement to find frames in the junk room. He’s been gone a while.” Nick went back to his book and ignored me.

I sat down on Nick’s bed and bounced for a while. I might as well have been alone, for all Nick noticed.

A few minutes later, Byron came back up with a pile of dirty old picture frames. “Oh, hey Margo,” he said cheerfully. “I was thinking of decorating these old frames so they match. You have an artistic eye. Any ideas?”

I looked over the drab old frames, a mishmash of colors, shapes and sizes. “Buy some colorful stickers and cover them so you can’t see the original background,” I suggested.

Byron nodded. “Not bad,” he replied. He picked up the largest frame and pulled out the glass and the mat. Dusting everything off, Byron pulled out an eight by ten photo from the trip.

I was surprised. All the other pictures I had seen from this batch had been four by six. Adjusting the glass and mat back into the frame, he took the photo and taped it into place. When the frame was finished, Byron lifted it up and gazed upon it happily and then he set the hideous, ostentatious puce colored frame down on his bedside table so it was aimed at his pillow.

When he picked up the next frame and began cleaning it, I jumped off Nick’s bed and sat down next to Byron’s pillow. I picked up the frame and inspected it. It was Byron and his friend Jeff, posing in front of the ocean. Byron’s arms were around Jeff, and Jeff was resting his cheek on Byron’s temple.

I looked from the photo to Byron and back. “You and Jeff?” I asked.

He didn’t look up. “Yup.”

I pressed on. “Are you, like, a couple?”

Byron looked at me over his project. “Is he my boyfriend? No. Have we kissed and stuff? Sure.” It was all very casual. Very nonchalant.

“So, you’re gay then?”

“Yup.” Byron looked up at me and then Nick, waiting to see how we responded.

I think we surprised him. I reached over to Nick, hand out, palm up. “Pay up!” I demanded.

Byron’s eyes went wide and his face went crimson. “What in the world is going on here?” he asked.

I grinned. “I made a bet with Nick that you’d come out one day.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “And how long ago was this?”

I shrugged. Nick put his book down and spoke up. “I dunno. Maybe a year? Maybe closer to two.” He pulled a twenty out of his wallet and plopped it, grudgingly, into my hand.

I couldn’t tell if Byron was irritated or amused. “Twenty bucks? Is that all I’m worth to you two?” Nick and I looked at each other, not sure how to respond. Before we could reply, Byron started to laugh. “I gotta ask, Nick, why you bet I was straight,” he said as he chuckled.

Nick had picked his book back up but hadn’t opened it yet. “You’re not exactly the flamboyant type,” he replied, and then he started reading.

Byron and I looked at each other and he shook his head. Nick is such a space cadet some times. I smiled back at him and he put a framed picture of the triplets next to his giant photo of Jeff. He stopped when he saw that smile, as if it had just occurred to him that I was actually voluntarily sitting on his bed. “Did you come in for something, Margo?” he asked.

“Yeah. Can me and Karen get a ride to the mall?”

Byron sighed and rolled his eyes. “I guess so, as long as Karen can find you a ride home.”

He gathered his car keys and we headed down to the stairs. The Civic was parked out on the curb, but Byron stopped outside the front door. “Margo?”

I nearly ran into him. “What?”

“Do me a favor, okay? I’m still coming out, so not everyone knows yet. Can you keep it to yourself a bit? I don’t mind if you tell, say, a couple friends, but I haven’t told Mom and Dad, or Mal or Claire. And I’d prefer if they found out from me, rather than you or someone else. Got it?”

I grinned at him. “I think that picture by your bed is going to give everyone all the information they need,” I teased.

“Still. Don’t tell anyone in the family, and make sure that if you do tell Karen or whoever, they know not to mention it at the house?”

“No problem. It’ll be our secret or now. I’ll just use the information for blackmail purposes. Rides to the mall whenever I need them.”

Byron smiled back. “What is it with you? First gambling, then blackmail.” He shook his head. “Kids these days.”

We got in the car and drove off toward Karen’s house.

  Fantasy could never be so giving I feel free, I hope that you are willing Pick the beat up, and kick your feet up Dance with me Orleans, Dance with Me

Byron

I can easily tell you my favorite day of the week. It’s Wednesday, because that’s when Jeff calls.

We have a set time. Usually, he calls me—his dad doesn’t watch the phone bill like a hawk the way mine does. Plus, he actually encourages the calls. Apparently, Jeff has been a lot happier since he came back from spring break, and his dad is all for anything that keeps that up. I guess it’s not too surprising that he’s been happier. I have, too.

We were on our fourth call, four weeks since he’d flown back to California and away from me. Jeff was telling me about how his friend Oliver was slacking in the prom department. “He hasn’t even rented a tux yet, and prom is Saturday.”

“Really? That’s early. Ours isn’t for, like, another month.”

Jeff laughed. “Yeah, well, I think we graduate a week after your prom.”

I thought about that for a minute. We didn’t graduate for another month after prom. “So, are you going to prom?” I asked.

He sucked in a breath. “No. Why would I? There’s only one person I want to dance with, and you won’t be there.”

“Awww.” Jeff always knows just the right thing to say.

“Well, what about you, By?” he asked. “You going to your prom? It won’t be so bad now that you’re no longer a loud music virgin.”

“Oh, ha ha,” I said in response to the virgin crack. That’s one of Jeff’s favorite jokes—to tell me the kinds of virginity I’ve lost thanks to him. “But really, why would I want to go to prom? I have the same problem you do about it, plus the whole ‘giant introvert’ thing I’ve got going.”

Jeff laughed again. “That’s all for show,” he said. “Anyway, you could hang out with Adam, Jordan and Hay.”

“Like I don’t do that every weekend anyway. For free!”

“Honestly, By…I think you should go. It might be fun to expand your horizons some more.” He was eating a snack while talking, something chewy.

I sighed loud enough for him to hear me. “Okay, okay,” he said, his mouth empty now. “I’m only going to say one more thing on the matter. Think about going to prom. If you decide to go, I’ll fly out and go with you.” There was a pause and I could hear him drinking through a straw. “Did you catch 24 this week?” Jeff asked, and I knew the subject was closed—at least for now.

We hung up about twenty minutes later. I told him to take care, same as always. Jeff always responds with “love ya.” I never know how to reply to that. I know that what I feel for him could be love, but it could also be infatuation. Or even lust. Who knows? Besides, I suspect he says it out of reflex from talking on the phone with his mom.

Either way, whether Jeff meant it or not, I decided I was still a love virgin.

***

Jeff might have serious personal issues that he’s dealing with, but his advice is always worth listening to. He’s almost always right. But this time, I wasn’t so sure. I know I’m gay, and I’m okay with people knowing I’m gay, but did I really want to parade in front of all the kids at school with another guy on my arm? It was like asking someone to beat my ass.

But I’ve always been a bit chicken and so my instinct is always to run away from stuff that’s scary. I needed a second opinion.

The reason Jeff and I talk on Wednesdays is that Nick is out for the evening. He and a few friends play Dungeons and Dragons every Wednesday night. He wouldn’t be back until curfew in a couple hours. I could talk privately on any topic I wanted to anyone I wanted.

I dialed a number from memory. Hay’s mom answered on the second ring. “Hi, Mrs. B, Is Hay home?” I asked.

“Well, hello Byron! No, I’m afraid Haley is out with Jordan tonight. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You’ve usually got her schedule memorized.”

I smiled at that. “Well, I’ve been a bit busy myself recently. Must have just gotten the days confused.”

Mrs. Braddock chuckled. “Do you want me to leave her a message?”

“No thanks. I’ll talk to her tomorrow after school. You have a good evening, though.”

“You too, Byron. Good night.”

So much for that idea. I put the phone down next to the photo of Jeff and me on my nightstand and walked out of the room. Mom had taken Margo and Claire for haircuts and Dad was working late. Nick was at D&D and who the hell knows where Vanessa goes when she’s not at home. Jordan was out with Hay and Mallory wouldn’t be home from Sarah Lawrence for a few more weeks. I wandered down the hall to my brothers’ room. The door was closed but the light was on. I knocked and Adam answered. “Come in.”

I opened the door and entered. Adam and Jordan still have a set of bunk beds they’ve used since we outgrew cribs some sixteen years ago. I can still remember them making fun of me for being scared to sleep on the top bunk when we were about four. Adam was doing his homework at his desk. I sat down on Jordan’s bed, which was the bottom bunk. “Can I ask you an opinion on something?” I asked.

Adam put down his chemistry book and looked at me. “Always.”

“Do you think I should go to prom?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Of course. You only get one senior prom. Why wouldn’t you want to go?”

I sighed. “I basically have two options. I can either go alone and watch everyone else dancing and be all pathetic on the sidelines. Or I can…”

“Yeeeees?” He dragged the word out, trying to drag the words out of me.

“I can invite Jeff. He said he’d go with me if I wanted.”

“Oh, I see.” Adam turned in his chair so that he was completely facing me. “I’m guessing you’d like to invite Jeff, but you’re worried about what other people will think.” He paused for a moment, waiting or a response. I gave him a tiny nod. “Well, a lot of people already know, Byron. And what’s the worst that has happened? That idiot Dan Reiber now sits as far away from you in the cafeteria as he possibly can, like he’s afraid ‘the gay’ is catching. That’s a big loss, that one.” He laughed a sarcastic chuckle. Adam has been one of my biggest supporters since I started coming out. There’s a reason he’s the first person I ever told. But sometimes I think he sees the world through rose colored glasses.

“I’m not worried about the Dan Reibers of the world,” I commented.

“As you shouldn’t be,” Adam replied, “but then, what are you scared of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s a dandy way to live your life.” Adam picked up his chemistry book and wrinkled his brow. “Think that over a bit. Meanwhile, you took this class last year, didn’t you? Wanna help me a bit?”

“Loan me a chair and show me what you’re stuck on.” I love when I go to Adam for advice. I always end up helping him with his homework.

***

I guess I was just looking for someone to tell me I was right to be scared, but no one was cooperating. Hay piled more on when I saw her the next morning. “My mom said you called,” she said as she shifted her school bag from one shoulder to the other, standing in the hallway outside her first period class.

“Yup. I also told her she didn’t need to leave you a message.”

“Oh, you know my mom. You tell her no message and then you give her information, and she leaves me a message.” Hay chuckled. “What was on your mind, By?”

I shifted my books from one arm to the other. “Jeff offered to fly out and go to prom with me.”

She cocked her head from one side to the other. “You said yes, of course,” she replied.

I frowned at her. “I said I’d think about it.”

“Oh, By,” Hay shook her head in despair. “You need to think less, do more.”

“Isn’t that the opposite of what they taught us in sex ed?”

“Ha ha.” Hay rolled her eyes at my lame joke. “What is there to think about? You care about Jeff. He cares about you, obviously. I know you miss him, because he’s all you talk about most of the time. Invite the man!”

Well. There you were. Three opinions, all unanimous. “Okay, okay. I know when I’m beat. I’ll get the two of us tickets.”

Hay squealed. “Great! We’re going to have so much fun. You’ll save me a dance, right?”

“Sure, Hay. Whatever.” She shoved me and headed into her classroom. The first bell rang and I walked the other way to calculus.

***

There was just one more thing I had to do before I could buy those tickets. I had to have a talk with a couple people.

Dinner was a small affair at the Pike house that night. Just me and Nick and Claire and our parents. I like those nights sometimes, but I was so nervous that I didn’t really talk at all during dinner. Nick never really talks to any of us unless you start the conversation, so he was quiet too. Luckily, Claire didn’t notice, and she talks enough for eight kids anyway. So it wasn’t as if the meal was completely awkward.

Claire and Nick cleared the table while I loaded the dishwasher. My parents had gone to the living room and when I was done, I followed them. “Hey guys,” I said as I sat down next to Dad.

“What do you want, Byron?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. “Don’t worry, I’m not asking for permission for something…this time. I actually just wanted to give you a heads up instead.”

That got their attention. “A heads up?” Dad repeated.

“Yup.”

“What kind of heads up?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m flying in a prom date from out of town, and I wanted to warn you.”

Mom and Dad looked at each other. I couldn’t read Dad’s expression, but Mom looked concerned. “You wanted to warn us you were going to prom?”

I wrinkled my forehead, trying to figure out how to say what I needed to say. “No. I wanted to warn you about who I was taking.”

Dad was starting to look irritated. “What exactly is the problem, here, Byron? You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and I’m sure anyone you’ve picked to go to the dance is fine. I’ve never seen you with a girl besides Haley, but I can’t imagine you picking up someone that your mother and I wouldn’t approve of. Are you planning to take a wanted fugitive? A stripper? A hooker?”

I laughed nervously. “No, no. It’s not like that. I’m just…Mom, Dad, I’m taking Jeff.” There. I said it.

They looked at each other again. “Jeff? Are you going as friends?” Dad asked, although the look on his face told me he knew the answer to that question.

I shook my head slowly and the words came out in a tumble. “No, not as friends. I’m taking him as my date. My first real date.” I realized my hands were shaking. For some reason, it was much harder to tell my parents than my brothers. But I had to finish. “I’m gay.”

Mom reached across Dad and put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Definitely.”

“Oh, Byron.” She got up and pulled me into a hug. I hugged her back, feeling like a little kid again, sitting in her lap. Then I realized she was crying.

“Mom, what’s the matter?” I was afraid of how she would answer that. Luckily, my mom is pretty cool.

She pulled back from the hug and brushed the hair out of my eyes. “I had a feeling someday you’d tell me this,” she said, her voice steady despite the tears, “but I had hoped I was wrong. Don’t worry, I support you either way. It’s just…some people are so backward about gay rights. I had hoped you weren’t gay because I worry about you getting cursed at or beaten because of it.” Mom hugged me again and then let me go.

Dad stood on my other side. “I have a hard time accepting that you and your brothers are legally adults now. You’re a grown man, and gay or straight, I couldn’t have asked for a better son.” He put his hand on the back of my neck. “But if you ever need anything, you know Mom and I are here for you.” I hugged him too.

“Thanks guys, for being so understanding. I’m going to go finish my homework. Good night.”

“Night.”

I went up to my room. Nick was at his desk, working on an essay about Julius Caesar. I pulled an envelope out from under my mattress and counted out enough money for prom tickets. I put it in my wallet and vowed to buy the tickets first thing the next morning. Before I lost my nerve again.

***

Haley

My parents have some rules they’re pretty strict about. My homework has to be done before I leave if I want to go out at night. I’m not allowed to be out on weeknights after ten o’clock. And I’m never, ever, to drive my car with just me and Jordan inside.

My mom has always been really cool about me hanging out with By. He could probably spend the night in my bed and she wouldn’t care. But she also knows he’s gay. It also helps that he is such an Eddie Haskell when my parents are around. He’s a little too polite almost. He makes me—and anyone else I bring by—look bad.

For some reason, I thought it would be the same way when I brought Jordan over. I mean, other than their hair and clothes, By and Jordan are identical in appearance. And they really aren’t that different in personality either. They just find different ways to cover their sensitivities. By burrows into his shell; Jordan lashes out. Neither one of these matters with my parents around, because it’s not like Mom and Daddy are picking at them.

But things are definitely different when I bring Jordan by. Mom knows he’s straight—me introducing him as my boyfriend must been a big hint—so he’s not even allowed in my bedroom. And like I said, I’m not allowed to drive anywhere with him in the car unless we have a third person with us. I think Daddy has been taking some lessons from the Pikes, who basically have the same rules at their house.

But Jordan and I found a way around this. I drive to this wooded street that’s all quiet, a few blocks from his house. He walks over and joins me. We then have privacy for a while, without breaking a single rule, because we don’t drive anywhere. And we take full advantage of it.

I can’t compare making out with Jordan to anything, because I’ve never really made out with a guy before. Except Dominic, and he doesn’t count. At all. But I think I’ve been missing something all these years. Maybe hanging out exclusively with a gay guy wasn’t the best move on my part. I feel repressed.

We were in the backseat of the car Friday night, stretched across the seat. I was lying on my back and Jordan was pretty much sitting in my lap, which is pretty funny if you think about it. He leaned back over me and kissed my neck. It’s one of his favorite spots, but I always live in fear of him giving me a hickey. It’s too warm for a turtleneck.

We rolled over on our sides a moment later and he just wrapped his arms around me tightly. I get this tingling feeling every time he does that, especially when we’ve been in the backseat for a while. I can always feel him pressed against me, especially the lump in his shorts. There are parts of me that want to just rip his pants off at times like this and do whatever comes to mind afterward. But there are other parts that live in fear of that actually happening.

We’ve only been together a month, but I know a lot of girls who move a lot faster than that. I have this need for balance in my life right now, and having a boyfriend throws such a monkey wrench into that. I don’t want to move so slowly that I’m a tease or a prude, but I also don’t want to move so fast that I’m a slut or regret things after they happen. I’ve told Jordan I want to take things slow, and he understands.

I compromised this time by pressing my leg between his as we resumed kissing. There are some nights we hardly talk because we’re too “busy.” Tonight was not going to be one of those nights. We’d shifted again because my arm was going numb when he stopped and pulled a short distance back from our embrace. “Will you go to prom with me?” he asked.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

Jordan’s face grew serious. “What?” he asked, referring to the laughter.

I reached out and touched his forehead. His hair had started growing in, and it was at that “sticking-out-in-directions” stage. I smoothed my hand across his furrowed brow. “Well, first I’m laughing because you thought you actually had to ask me if I’d go to prom instead of assuming I’d go with you.” He lightened up a bit and gave me a half smile. “Second, you asked in mid-make out. You have to admit, that’s pretty silly.”

He pressed on. “So you’ll go with me?”

“Of course, goofy. Am I your girlfriend, or what?”

He smiled fully. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

I grinned at him. “You sound relieved. Did you really think I’d say no?”

He looked away, which is hard to do when we’re that close together. “Not really. I didn’t think you’d want to go with someone else or something like that. I was more worried you wouldn’t want to go at all.”

I kissed his nose. “No, it’s going to be great. By’s bringing Jeff, you know, and I’m sure Adam will be there. I’m going to try to talk Vanessa into coming, too.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you love me or my family.”

“Who says I love you at all?”

Jordan pulled back a little farther and turned his head slightly to one side. I wiggled a little closer to him, careful not to tip the two of us off the seat entirely. It’s happened before. “So, what is prom like?” I asked. I’m a junior and I’ve never had a chance to go. Jordan went last year with some cheerleader named Amanda.

He thought about that for a second. “You eat, you dance, you get your picture taken. You spend some time with your friends and some with your date.” He shrugged. “I think it will be different this year.”

I snuggled my head next to his neck. I could hear every breath he took that way. Very soothing. “How so?”

“Well, I’m a senior. This is the last dance with everyone. I’ve known some of these people since kindergarten.” Jordan kissed the top of my head. “And then there’s you. I wanted to ask you go with me last year, but I thought you were dating Byron.”

That was something new. “You thought I was with By?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know he was gay back then.”

“Okay, then. I could see how you’d make that mistake.” I put one hand on his back, right between his shoulder blades, and pushed hard with the butt of my hand. He groaned as if I were doing something dirty instead of massaging him. When I was done, we lay there for a few minutes, quiet. He ran one hand up and down my side, from the band of my jeans up to the side of my breast. “So what about after prom? What do people do then?”

Jordan didn’t stop moving his hand. “There are a couple options I’ve heard of. The school hosts a post-prom, where you pay five bucks and then do whatever in the basement at the university for a couple hours. I think there’s bowling and video games and cards and prizes and stuff. The point is to prevent us from going out and drinking.” He shifted slightly, and the hand was on my breast. He kept talking. “Of course, there’s always Dan Reiber’s party, which is exactly the type of debauchery that the school wants us to avoid.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I am not a fan of Dan Reiber,” I said, thinking of the way he’d written ‘Byron Pike is a fag,’ in one of the boys’ bathrooms at school.

Jordan’s hand found a nipple and he twirled two fingers around it, slowly. “I’m not exactly good friends with him either these days. But there will probably be a hundred people at this party. Mr. Reiber is rich and likes to throw money around. I think he knows it’s the only way Dan can make friends. So he gets him a huge suite with a hot tub and buys a shit ton of alcohol. It’s fun for a couple of hours, then everyone’s wasted and there are literally people doing it on, like, every surface. Kinda tacky.”

“Isn’t prom night when you’re supposed to lose your virginity?” I don’t know what made me say it. I had no intention of deflowering Jordan (isn’t that a funny word?) at prom, or any other time soon. I think it just naturally followed what he was talking about. But Jordan retracted his hand as if my boob had just turned into a hot coal. He pulled his arm out from underneath me and sat up suddenly on the edge of the car seat. His butt was right by my side.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting up beside him and rumpling my messy hair, attempting to make it look less like sex hair (as Vanessa would say.) “That was totally a joke.”

He moved closer, still looking down. Without a word, he reached over and moved his hand up the back of my shirt, pushing the shirt up. I turned my back to him and he fastened my bra back up. “I know. I just…”

“Yes?”

Jordan changed directions. “Have you ever heard of the Faith League?” he asked.

I nodded. It sounded vaguely familiar, like I’d seen kids at school wearing the shirts. “It’s a Christian group at school, right?”

“Yeah. They meet every Tuesday all year long. Until baseball season, I was going every week. It’s not just Bible and Jesus; we actually talk about a lot of things that affect our lives as teens.”

I put one hand on his knee while he talked. “Sounds like a good group of friends to have,” I commented. Actually, it sounded dead boring. My parents never really raised my brother and me in any kind of religion, and I’m not sure I even believe any of it. Some of the stories in the Bible are pretty silly, after all. I know the Pikes go to church every Sunday and encourage their kids to come with. By usually goes about once a month to keep his parents off his back, but he never seemed too interested in it. He seems to be a Christmas-and-Easter type of Christian.

But I guess Jordan is different. Since we’ve been together, I think he’s gone to church every Sunday with his parents. I know he played the piano at one of those services. He’s never been pushy about religion and he doesn’t talk about it much, so I wasn’t really worried about it. Until now.

“Yeah, there’s some really neat people in Faith League. You’d like some of them.” He looked out the car window as a set of headlights flashed by. I thought he was done, but just when I was about to change the subject, he started talking again. “Back in October or so there was a lot of talk about sex and the amount of thought that needs to go into the decision to have sex. Some of us got to talking, and we decided to take a pledge.”

“A pledge?” Several images ran through my head and none of them were particularly pleasant. I was actually imagining Jordan joining a cult. Sometimes my imagination runs away from me. “What kind of pledge?”

He looked away from me again, but began running one fingernail up and down the outer seam of my jeans, making a strange sound. “A purity pledge. We vowed to remain virgins until marriage.”

Wow. “Really?” I asked. I never think about marriage, particularly. I’m seventeen—I don’t plan on getting married for another ten or fifteen years, if ever.

Jordan looked embarrassed. “I’m not saying I’ll actually make it all the way to marriage,” he said, blushing a little, “but basically, I wanted to take sex off the table for now. There’s really too much else going on for me to even be thinking about it. Baseball. College. You.” He was still running his nail on my jeans. I caught his hand to stop him, because it was making my thigh really warm. He finally looked me in the eye. “Of course, you do complicate things. Before you, I’ve never actually wanted to…”

He didn’t have to finish the thought; I felt the same way about him. “I know what you mean,” I said.

“And I don’t know how fair it is to you to continue to honor that pledge. You didn’t make one, after all.”

I still had his hand and I squeezed. “It’s okay, Jordan. I’m not ready, either. I really was just kidding about prom night, anyway.” He didn’t look soothed. “Tell you what. I’ll make my own version of the pledge. I vow that I will not make jokes about things that are serious to you, and I vow to take anything sexual slowly, and not pressure for anything we don’t both agree on. Sound fair to you?”

He smiled. “You are the best, Haley.”

I grinned back at him. “I know.” I wasn’t quite ready to tell Jordan that I wasn’t making that pledge for him, but for me. When you have my lousy history with guys, it’s sometimes hard to even trust a guy to touch you at all, as much as you might want him to. But I wasn’t quite ready to tell Jordan he had a rape victim for a girlfriend, so it was easier to let him think it as all his idea. “I have fifteen minutes before I have to head home for curfew. Got any ideas on how we can spend it?”

Jordan leaned over and kissed me. “I have a few…”

***

Jeff

Brrrrring.

“Hello, Schafer-Olson residence.”

“Jeff?”

“By! What’s up? It’s not Wednesday already, is it? Heh heh.”

“No, but I was so excited, I couldn’t wait. I’m glad you were home. I bought us tickets to the prom today.”

“Really! Last time we talked, you were still waffling over it.”

“Well, I decided, fuck anyone who doesn’t like it. I’m as entitled to go to the prom with the person I’m dating as they are.”

“Good for you. What did they say when you put our names down?”

“No one said a word. But I also don’t think they even looked at the names I wrote down, either.”

“Well, that’s one hurdle down.”

“Two actually. I told my parents the other night.”

“Told ‘em you were gay, or told ‘em about us?”

“Both. My mom is doing that overprotective mom thing, where she’s all worried about me. But they were pretty cool.”

“That’s great. Listen, By, you’ve inspired me. I need to go talk to someone, but I’ll call you Wednesday, okay?”

“Yeah, sounds good. Take care, Jeff.”

“Love ya.”

Click.

Knock, knock.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure. I’ve got a few minutes before I have to pick Gracie up from soccer. What’s on your mind, son?”

“I’ve got something I have to tell you.”

“This sounds serious. Do you want to sit down?”

“No, it’s not like that. Well, it’s important but I don’t think you’d call it serious, really…”

“Jeff, you’re babbling. Why don’t you just tell me what you came in here to say?”

“I got invited to prom back in Stoneybrook. Mom said she would pay for the tickets if I wanted to go out for the weekend.”

“Is that all? Of course you can go to Stoneybrook for the prom. Which one of the girls are you going with? It was Vanessa and Bailey on that trip, wasn’t it?”

“Actually, it was Vanessa and Haley. But I’m not going with either of them.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Haley’s dating Jordan and I think Vanessa’s got some weirdo boyfriend I’ve never met.”

“So then, you’re going with…”

“Byron.”

“Byron? He’s one of the triplets, right?”

“Yup.”

“Jeff, are you trying to tell me you’re gay?”

“No. Well, maybe.”

“You’re not making much sense, son.”

“What I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t know. Maybe I’m gay. Maybe I’m bisexual. I just haven’t figured that out yet. But what I do know is that I really like Byron.”

“You like him? You guys are friends, right? You’re supposed to like your friends.”

“Dad. I’ve kissed him a few times. Okay, maybe more than a few. Byron is definitely gay, but I liked him even before I knew that. All I can tell you for sure is that By and I really care about each other and we’re more than friends.”

“I guess that’s what really matters then, isn’t it? Listen, I have to go pick Gracie up. When you decide what you ‘are’, you’ll be sure to let me know, right?”

“Sure, Dad.”

I’d never heard my dad sound so sarcastic before. After he left, I put my head down on the arm of the couch and cried.

 Oh how strong can you be With matters of the heart? Life is much too short To while away with tears Queen, Jealousy

Jordan

On the sunny Tuesday after the prom, I met Haley at the corner. For some reason, she wanted to walk downtown. Usually, we drive or bike, but she was insistent. I find it’s easier just to do what she asks, if it’s not too outrageous. I want to keep her around.

I’ve been in love with Haley for a long time. She’s just perfect—so sweet and spunky and full of energy. She also tells it like it is, but in a nice way. If I’m ever worried that something I want to do or say will make me seem like a dickhole, I ask her about it first. She’s always nice about it and doesn’t hold it against me, even when I’m way off base. Plus, she’s cute and an amazing kisser. I can’t believe how lucky I am.

We walked for about a block, holding hands and not talking. I watched her as we went. She looked at everything, almost in an ADD kind of way. Someone would walk by and she’d flick her eyes that way; a bird would tweet and the eyes went the other way. When Haley does it, though, it doesn’t look scatterbrained. She just appears bright and aware.

I found out before too long why we were walking. There are a couple of vending machines for newspapers up the block from our houses, on the way to town. Haley stopped in front of the machine and pumped a couple coins into it and pulled out a paper, which she folded in half. I grimaced as she stored the paper in her armpit. She saw my face and explained, “My mom saw By’s picture and she wanted another copy.”

The grimace turned to a scowl. “What for?”

Haley caught both the expression and the tone and she raised an eyebrow. “Maybe she wants to frame it and put in on her wall with one of those crazy religious candles,” she suggested sarcastically. “You know. St. Byron.”

I snorted. Haley put her arm—not the one she was using to hold up the newspaper— around my hip and pulled me close. I can’t resist when she wants to touch me. I put an arm around her tiny waist and she leaned into me. We started walking again, and I thought she had let the subject drop. I was wrong.

“What exactly is your issue with By now?” she asked.

I sighed. “I don’t have an issue with him.”

Haley laughed. “You could have fooled me.” She squeezed my side as we continued walking. Haley is about the only person I know who can be unhappy with you and still want to keep feeling you up.

I repeated my last statement as we kept walking. “I do not have a problem with him. What I have a problem with is the way everyone else treats him.”

“Oh?”

I couldn’t tell exactly what that “oh” meant. Oh is one of those words that can have so many meanings and emotions behind it. This one didn’t sound too upset, but it did sound edgy. I figured I could probably explain myself without the oh going too far over the edge. “He does something that the rest of the world does and it’s such a big deal that even the news media covers it.”

Haley put her head on her shoulder and looked up, which is pretty much the only way she can see my face when we’re walking like that. “Is it just me, or do you sound jealous?”

I snorted. “What the hell do I have to be jealous of?”

Haley smiled. “You are so jealous!” she teased. She pulled away from me for a moment and opened up the paper to the picture her mom was apparently going to frame. “You wish that were us in the newspaper.”

I took another look at the newspaper article, although I’d seen it about 1000 times already that day. It was headlined “Gay teens make splash at SHS prom” and was topped by a picture of Byron and Jeff dancing. Somehow, the local paper had found out that there was going to be a guy/guy couple at the prom and they’d decided it was news. That’s what I have a problem with. I mean, fuck, the guy just wanted to go on a date with someone. In that, he’s just like every other teenaged boy. Why’d they have to go and make such a big deal out of it? Byron eats (like a pig) and goes to the bathroom, too. Do they want to write stories about those things?

Haley touched my arm. “I know you say you’re not jealous, and for the most part, I believe you. But there may come a moment when you do get tired of all this special attention being thrown at your brother.” Haley knows what she’s talking about. Her little brother is deaf, and she spends a lot of time translating for him. I know there are days she resents the hell out of him.

“What I don’t get,” I began as I took her hand again. Haley folded up the newspaper again and stuck it back under her arm. She was wearing a light blue shirt that brought out the brown of her eyes and a pair of capri jeans. She turned her face to me and watched me intently as I spoke. “What I don’t get,” I repeated, having lost my train of thought looking into her eyes, “is why the paper was even interested in the story. The school didn’t even blink at Byron and Jeff. It wasn’t an issue. And it shouldn’t be. There’s so much bigger shit in life than who someone wants to date.”

Haley looked thoughtful. “I’ve asked myself the same question. Partly because of what you said. Partly because of By. He’s not exactly a publicity hound, right?” That’s kind of an understatement. Byron is one of those people who goes out of his way to avoid talking to strangers. There’s nothing wrong with him; he just prefers a small circle of friends and his privacy. “Did you actually read the article? They talked to Jeff. They talked to Adam. They talked to the principal. They have one line from Byron, and that’s just something Adam told them he said.”

“Isn’t that cheating when you’re writing a newspaper?” I joked.

Haley smiled, but then she looked serious. “I love the fact that you are supporting By, and I know what he appreciates it, too. I think that in some ways, the shit is going to hit the fan after this. He’s going to need as many people standing in his corner as he can get.”

“Well, he’s got me. Even if I am a little bit jealous.”

Haley lit up. “Ha! I knew it! Don’t ever try to lie to me, Jordan,” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ve got a sixth sense for that sort of thing.”

I pulled her closer and gave her a real kiss. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

 There's too many people you used to know They see you coming they see you go They know your secrets and you know theirs This town is crazy; nobody cares

Beck, Lost Cause

Tiffany

My sister came home from college the day before my last final exam for the year. When you go to community college, like I do, there’s no big homecoming and you finishing the year is no big deal. But Shannon goes to NYU and we only really see her for summers. I’m surprised to find I actually miss her when she’s gone, but it’s annoying how my mom and Maria fawn over her when she comes back. Yet I know when I finish exams tomorrow, my mom’s gonna be like, Good job honey. Go take out the trash like I asked you.

I was panicking about my algebra final because I just don’t really get numbers. I had been going to all the tutoring sessions they offer for free at the school but I still had a really low C in the class. If I was going to pass, I needed to do decent. And me and tests do not get along. It’s like all the information just flies out of my head when I sit down with a test in front of me. Add to that the fact that I had been ridiculously tired recently and you’ve got a bad combination.

The morning of my exam—the morning after Shannon came home—I was studying as hard as I knew how, going over notes and checking formulas. Shannon came to stand in my doorway. She watched me for a while, a newspaper in her hand, before I noticed her. “Hey Tiffany! Haven’t seen you since I got home. How’s it going?”

I shrugged. “Exams,” I said listlessly. I was wishing she would just leave me alone, partly because I needed to study and partly because she was trying to bond with me in an annoying big sister way.

“Oh.” Shannon looked pained, like she was trying hard and not succeeding. I watched her for a while, waiting to see if she was finished. I don’t understand why, but she didn’t start talking again until I went back to my textbook. “Did you see the paper today?” she asked, holding out the newspaper she’d been holding.

I put my pencil down and gave her a long, blank stare. Shannon recoiled a little bit, but acted like I wasn’t acting like a crazy bitch. “No,” I finally replied, “I have not had time to read the paper today.” Like I read the paper even on days when I’m not busy.

Shannon sat on the side of my desk and opened the paper, pretending I was being a pleasant human being. She flipped a while and then looked over a page. “Didn’t you date one of the Pike boys?” she asked, almost idly.

I looked out the window. Why was she asking this? “Yeah.”

My sister waited for elaboration that I had no intention of giving. “Which one?” she asked. She was starting to get pissed; I could tell by her tone and how rigid her back was.

“Adam.”

Shannon smiled even though I was still on her nerves. “That’s right. This family has a history of Adams.”

I rolled my eyes internally. Shannon dated a guy named Adam for a while about a million years ago, and now she has another Adam. They’ve been together for about two years, and they are totally nauseating together. He is one of those rich guys like the ones I went to high school with, the ones who are so smarmy and fake you really don’t know anything about them after four years of high school with them. There’s a reason I mostly dated public school boys.

Adam Pike and I dated when I was a sophomore and he was a freshman. I’d actually really liked him, but I was pretty stupid back then. I had told my friends he was a junior, and even though he was short, he had a way of handling himself that made him seem older. What’s the word? Poise? He was funny too, and my friends all liked him…until they realized he was younger and his family had no money. I gave in to my friends and dumped him. He’d been pretty hurt. It’s one of the things in my life I regret most.

It suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t going to be able to finish my much-needed studying until I got her to leave. “Why did you bring the Pikes up?” Shannon used to sorta be friends with Adam’s older sister, who is my age, but I don’t think they’d seen each other since Shannon started high school.

“Oh,” she said, as if she’d forgotten we were even talking about it, “there’s an article in the paper today about one of the Pike triplets and I wasn’t sure which one was which.” There was a time, back in the day, when the Pike boys all pretty much looked the same. They had the same hair and the same style of clothes, so it was pretty easy to confuse them. By the time I was dating Adam, he and his brothers all had different hair styles and different ways of dressing. I hadn’t seen the Pikes in several years, but I bet I still could have known which triplet I was looking at after just a glance.

“Let me see,” I said, gesturing for the article. Shannon folded the page over and handed it to me. A quick look at the photo showed two guys. One was tall and blonde and I didn’t recognize him. The other boy was clearly a Pike. He was dancing with the first boy and appeared ill at ease with having his photo taken. He wore his hair far too long and it hung into his eyes. He was slouchy and hunched over a little bit. All in all, he looked like someone who was unhappy in his own skin. “That’s Byron,” I said, checking the caption to prove I was right.

“Yes,” Shannon said. She was more relaxed now that I was cooperating with her. “Did you read the story?”

I looked up at her. “You know I don’t read that fast.”

“Okay, then, did you read the headline?”

I sighed and skimmed the headline. Gay Teens Make Splash at SHS Prom. “Yeah, so?”

“I was just wondering if he was the one you dated.” I could read what she really meant: she wanted it to be Adam so she could lord it over my head that I dated a gay guy. “They quoted Adam in the story, too. You should read it.”

I scoffed inside. “I’ll read it after my exam.”

Shannon popped off the desk. “Dad called. He wants to take us out to dinner tonight.”

Well. That was surprising. My mom kicked Dad out a couple years ago when she found out he was cheating on her. They never divorced, though. He has an apartment in the city and even though Shannon lives in the same town he does, she only sees him once a month or so. And I think Maria and me have seen him three times since he moved out. I wrinkled my nose. “Can’t. I have to study.”

Shannon eyed me critically. “It’s dinner, Tiff. Isn’t your exam this afternoon?”

“Then I just don’t want to go.”

Shannon rolled her eyes. “Then you get to explain that to him. I’m not doing your dirty work for you.” She looked over at my notes. “Algebra? I do pretty well at math. Do you want me to help you study?”

I shook my head. Even though I could have really used the help, I didn’t want to give Shannon one more thing to lord over my head.

“Suit yourself. Let me know if you change your mind.”

And then she was gone.

***

Adam

The phone rang about eight thirty Tuesday night. When both Margo and Claire are home, they fight over who gets to answer the phone. Makes it pointless for any of the rest of us to even reach for it. Plus, I wasn’t expecting any phone calls and I was about a week behind in chemistry. So I was pretty surprised when Claire called, “Aaaaaaa-dammmmmmm! It’s for yoooooooooooou!”

Jordan and I were both sitting at our desks. He was writing his literary analysis paper for English and it was due the next morning. The look on his face said, “This is worth twenty percent of my grade; talk on the phone in here and die.”

I greeted Claire outside the bedroom door. “Who is it?”

She grinned one of those annoying baby sister grins, the one where she knows she’s about to piss you off and she’s taking pleasure in it. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. But….” She held the phone over her head, trying to keep it out of my reach. That does not work when she’s just under five feet tall and I’m nearly five seven. “It’s a guuuuuuuuuuu-ruuuuuuul!”

I snatched the phone away from Claire. “Are you twelve or are you five?” I asked. She just giggled and ran off. “Hello,” I said into the phone. “I apologize for my insane sister. Someone dropped her on her head as a baby.”

“And it was probably you, so you should just admit it.”

I recognized the voice but couldn’t place it. “Uh, hi?” I said unhelpfully.

She realized what was going on. “It’s Tiffany Kilbourne. I saw you were quoted in the newspaper and wanted to see how you were doing.”

Ahh, Tiffany. She was my first real girlfriend. I dated a lot of girls in middle school—the kind of relationship where you tell everyone you’re dating but you maybe go to the movies once. You hang out with each other at lunch for a couple weeks and then you’re done.

But my relationship with Tiffany was different. We went out for about five months and I really liked her. She was one of those private school rich kids but she didn’t act like that. Her clothes were always nice but she never wore crazy labels or trendy clothes. She didn’t look down her nose at me and my friends, and she was nice to my brothers and sisters. I never did quite understand why we broke up. One day she was all into me; the next she said that she thought we should see other people and that was it.

“Tiffany! It’s been a long time. How is it going?” And it had been a long time. I hadn’t seen her since we broke up, and that was more than three years ago. The cynical part of me wondered exactly why she was calling.

I didn’t wonder long. She drew in a long breath. “I actually called because I wanted to apologize.”

Really? “Uh, Tiffany…that’s okay. It was a lifetime ago.”

“No, no. I have to get this out.” She sounded a little frantic. I’d never heard her like this before; usually, she was laid-back to the point where you’d occasionally wonder if she was even conscious. “There are a lot of things in my life that I really regret, but treating you that way is the worst of them.”

Okay. Now she had me scratching my head. “Okay,” I replied, just to say something.

“I wanted you to know, I really did like you. I was such an idiot back then. I never should have listened to my friends.” I could picture her the way she was three years before, wearing a pair of artfully ripped jeans and a top that was tight enough that you could see her figure but not so tight that she looked like she was trying too hard. She used to wear her hair long and loose, with thick blonde bangs hanging in her eyes and just a little too much eye makeup. I could see her with her knees pulled up to her chest, sitting on her bed, her bare feet sticking out in front of her, her toenails painted a sickening green. Wow.

Tiffany continued. “I was just such a joiner back then. Peer pressure and all that, you know?” She chuckled but it didn’t sound like she had back in the day. Even though she was crazed, her voice also had a lethargic quality, like she was half asleep. “I really, really liked you and I shouldn’t have listened to my friends when they said they didn’t think we should see each other…”

She’d lost me a while back, and she was starting to completely ramble. “It’s okay, Tiff,” I repeated. “Seriously. I’m not mad any more. You are completely and totally forgiven.”

I guess this was not the right thing to say. “Any more?!” she cried. “You’re not mad any more? So you were mad when it first happened.” She made a noise that I couldn’t really identify, something between a cry and a hiccup.

Oh, no. “No, not mad,” I said. Damage control time! “I was a little confused and that’s about it. You didn’t do anything that most other fifteen year olds wouldn’t have done. No worries.”

Tiffany sniffled and I realized that she had been crying. “You’re really sure?”

“Yes, I’m completely certain.” I sat down in the hallway, outside my bedroom door. “Listen, Tiff, is everything okay?”

She sobbed for a second and I sat there, wide eyed, wondering what to do next. Before I decided, she had pulled herself together. “No,” she said sadly. “Everything is pretty fucked up. But it’s nothing new, ya know?” She paused a moment and then continued. “I’m just so glad that you aren’t upset. It’s one more worry off my list.”

I had been on the phone with her for a very short time and I was already concerned about her. “Did you want to get together some time?” I asked, “For old time’s sake, of course.”

She laughed an uneasy laugh. “Sure. I could really use a sounding board, and it’d be great to see you again.” Tiffany took a deep breath and before I could make some vague reply about calling her sometime soon, she plunged ahead. “Are you free Thursday night? We could go for coffee.”

Oh, shit. It’s not that I hadn’t really meant it about getting together with her, but if she was as big a mess as she seemed, then I wasn’t sure I wanted to go hang out with her. But I just knew that if I told her I was busy that night, she’d either retort with another night or go back to thinking that our break up had made a basket case out of me. Plus, coffee? That could be a twenty minute get together or several hours, depending on how things went. I could always escape as soon as my cup was empty. “Sure. That sounds great. About seven okay with you?”

“That’s perfect. I’m glad we talked, Adam. See you on Thursday.”

“Bye, Tiff. Have a good night.”

I put the phone back on its charger in the hallway and went back to my chemistry book. Jordan looked out from behind a wall of books and notes. He was obviously ready for a break. “So who was it?”

“You’ll never guess.”

Jordan pretended to look pensive. “Madonna?” he suggested. I crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at him. He’s been a lot more fun to be around since he started dating Haley.

“No, Shithead. Tiffany Kilbourne.”

“Tiffany?” Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you drag her out from?”

I laughed. “I didn’t drag her from anywhere. She saw that story about Byron in the paper and called.”

For a moment his face clouded over, and then he shook himself. “So how’s she doing these days?”

I shrugged, making a face. “I think she’s having some problems right now.” I picked up my chemistry book and looked at the assignment for a moment. “I’m going for coffee with her in a couple days.”

Jordan wrinkled his nose. “What for? Thinking of picking her back up?” I didn’t reply to that, just adjusted my half-finished assignment so that I could maybe get it completely finished sometime soon. “If she’s as fucked up as you say, that doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

I shrugged again. “I guess we’ll see after Thursday.”

***

Tiffany

I hung up the phone after talking with Adam and stretched out across the bed. Shannon and Maria were still out with Dad, but I knew they’d be back soon. I had decided I didn’t want to deal with Dad so I had stayed on campus until I knew he would have come and gone. Mom always leaves when she knows he’ll be coming by, so I’d been alone all evening.

I’d completely and totally bombed my final and I knew it. I figured there was a good shot I’d be taking algebra again next year. Not anything I could do about it now, but it was pretty depressing. I’d come home and eaten a whole carton of Ben and Jerry’s for dinner. I was pretty nauseous now, but I wasn’t sure if that was the ice cream or the test. Maybe a little of both.

I’d picked up the newspaper when I’d finally come back upstairs and read the article. It didn’t really tell me anything about Adam, other than he loves his brother. That’s something I’d already known. I’d ended up feeling really guilty, though. Adam’s grown up even better than I’d imagined he would have.

Speaking with Adam had made me feel better. He has seemed almost a little alarmed that I had even called, but he was cool about it. He’d even asked if I was okay and agreed to have coffee with me in a few days. I was hoping we could be friends; I could really use a friend right about now.

Just about all of my high school friends went away away to college. Pretty much no one stayed in Connecticut. One girl did go to Stoneybrook University, but she joined a sorority and made a bunch of new friends, so we lost touch. I’d met a whole bunch of new people at the community college, but I didn’t really get close to any of them. Most of them worked and went to school and already had friends. I guess I could have gotten involved with some activities, but that’s not really my style.

I did hook up with one person this year. Eric was in my English class first semester, and he had a whole crew of friends. I had thought that his friends were my friends, but when we broke up, I learned the truth. We’d dated for pretty much the whole school year and we’d only broken up a couple weeks ago. I’d caught him cheating on me with his best friend’s girlfriend. That was a hot mess, let me tell you. I was still recovering from that and I didn’t really even have anyone to talk to about it.

The wave of nausea I’d been experiencing for the past hour passed and I jumped off my bed and looked in the mirror. I wasn’t wearing any makeup and there were bags under my eyes. My whole face looked a little gray. It was not attractive at all. My hair was messy, and I realized I hadn’t combed it that day. My bangs hung greasy against my forehead. I had a big old zit on the side of my nose. I was wearing a grubby, old tank top without a bra, but my chest is small enough that I can get away with that. The tank top was paired with a faded pair of sweat pants. I would say I wasn’t looking my best, but I didn’t really look any worse than I had for the past week or so. I would have blamed exams, but I think the breakup had had a lot more to do with it than the tests had.

If I was going to have coffee with Adam, I was going to have to do a serious clean up. He remembered me from my glory days. As sad as it was to admit, I’d reached the peak of my life when I was fifteen. I’d had a whole crew of friends, my grades were decent, and I’d had a great boyfriend. And I’d been sane, which is something I didn’t feel I could say anymore. I wanted him to see me as close to that person as I could possibly get. I might not be able to regain my sanity, but I could regain my looks.

I needed to get started right away.

 And these children who spit on you As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They’re quite aware of what they’re going through David Bowie, Changes

Mallory

I woke up my first morning after my freshman year of college to the sound of Byron’s girlfriend singing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Haley, I really do. I’ve known her for years and she’s grown from a bright, sociable kid to a lovely young woman. But I had had classes at nine am every week day for the past semester and all through May term. All I wanted on my first day home was to sleep in.

I’ve been living away from home for quite a while now—more than seven years. There are all those clichés about coming home, you know: home is where the heart is, there’s no place like home. Etc., etc. But really, when you’re an adult used to a certain set of circumstances, coming home is quite frankly awful.

Going to boarding school was absolutely amazing. I was free to be who I was without any preconceived notions, and I was also free to change who I was without anyone judging me. But college has been even more liberating, simply because we’re all adults and for the most part, the only rules we have to follow are the laws of the land and the rules of society. I have no curfew and I can do whatever I want within my dorm room as long as it doesn’t get me arrested or kicked out of school.

Home is in no way like that. I don’t think my parents realize that I had my eighteenth birthday over a year ago. While I have no intention of smoking pot or drinking in my bedroom— I don’t do drugs and I’m not really into the drinking scene, though I’ve been known to have a beer or two—it would be nice for my parents to respect my privacy and adulthood. I just don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon.

And I guess if I think about it, living with the Pikes is similar in some ways to living in a college dorm. There are a lot of people around, some of whom are very loud and/or very annoying. There’s no such thing as quiet time at the Pikes unless it’s between 1 am and 6 am, and even that’s not a guarantee.

So when Haley started singing, I just gave up on sleep. I half-way got dressed—basically, I put some undergarments on under my pajamas and made sure I was dressed at least as well as the people in my 9 am classes—and headed down to the kitchen.

I stopped in the doorway and looked at everyone. It was morning on a Saturday, so some family members were still sleeping and others were already gone for the day. Claire was frying some eggs in a frying pan. She’d pulled her hair up into a pony tail on the top of her head and had obviously slept in it that way from the way it was falling down. Adam was sitting on the counter, eating a sandwich of some variety. He was dressed for the day and looked like he was about to jump off the counter and head off to some activity or another.

Nick was sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. He too was dressed, but I doubted he was going anywhere. He hadn’t said two words to me since I came home, but I’ve already heard from Claire that she thinks he’s going to be the Pike family member to always live with Mom and Dad—the creepy relative who lives in the basement.

The only other people in the kitchen were Jordan and Haley. She was obviously dressed, as she’d come from down the block. Her hair, which she’d always worn short, was longer than I remembered and she’d pulled most of it into a ponytail, with the loose pieces on the side tucked behind her ears. She was standing so that she was mostly turned away from me, tucking dishes into the dishwasher, and she was still singing. I didn’t recognize the song, but obviously Claire did, as she was humming along here and there.

Jordan was sitting on another part of the counter. He wasn’t eating—he was watching Haley. And I don’t just mean watching; I mean out and out staring. It was almost creepy, but at the same time, I didn’t really blame him. She was really belting it out and the song was beautiful.

“Will they miss me when I’m gone?” Haley finished up the song and closed the dishwasher. Jordan jumped off the counter and went to her. She flashed him a smile and he kissed the top of her head.

And that’s when I got horribly confused.

Claire, who had been eating her eggs straight from the pan with her fingers, turned around to say something to Jordan and spotted me in the doorway. “Mally!” she shouted.

I smiled faintly at her. “Morning, everyone,” I called casually to the room as a whole. One skill I’ve acquired in all my years at school is not showing surprise outwardly. I turned to Haley specifically. “That was beautiful. I didn’t know you had such a nice voice. I could hear you from my bedroom.”

She instantly looked guilty. “I didn’t wake you, did I?” she asked remorsefully.

I shook my head. “No, I was already awake,” I lied.

I might be good at faking casual, but apparently I am a terrible liar. “That’s a yes,” Jordan said with a smirk. He grabbed Haley’s hand and pulled her toward him and away from the conversation. “We’re going for a bike ride if Mom and Dad ask,” he said generically. “Adam, you want to come join us?”

Adam had finished his sandwich and was now eating a pickle. Sometimes, I swear my brothers were garbage disposals in a past life. “No thanks,” he called with his mouth full, “Robby, Shane, Scott and I are playing two on two down at the elementary school. I’m actually just waiting for them to come pick me up. Surprise, surprise, they’re late.” Just then a car horn honked on the street. Adam looked at his watch and faked being shocked. “Well, only ten minutes late. That’s a record in being on time for Robby. Catch you guys later, okay?” He, Jordan and Haley all left the room together, Haley and Jordan still holding hands.

Claire left her still-hot pan in the sink. “I’m going to take a shower while the bathroom’s free,” she called. “I’ll wash my dishes when I get back.”

That left me alone with Nick, who was still very slowly eating his cereal. I saw that he’d left out the milk and a box of Shredded Wheat, so I grabbed a bowl and joined him. “What’s the deal with Haley?” I asked as poured cereal into my bowl.

Nick may not be the most social person in the world, but you can have a conversation with him—if you start it. “What do you mean?” he asked.

I poured some milk. “You know what I mean. Her and Jordan, Nick.”

He looked at me funny. “What’s to tell? They’ve been going out since spring break.”

“But….” I trailed off for a moment as Nick took another bite. “What about her and Byron?”

For a moment, I thought Nick was going to laugh, but he caught himself. “Oh,” he said, looking surprised, “He didn’t tell you yet.”

Sometimes, Nick is so cryptic it’s not even funny. “Tell me what?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure exactly what the look on his face was. I think part of it was a feeling of having said too much. “Well, it’s not my story to tell. Let’s just say that Byron was not dating Haley. He would have never dated Haley.”

What the hell? Any time I’d seen Byron in the last three years, Haley hadn’t been far away. Either the two of them were together, or he had just come from Haley’s, or he was going to Haley’s. I rarely saw him with anyone but Haley.

An image began to form in my mind. I remembered Mom talking about how the boys at school were teasing Byron and calling him names in the locker room. I remembered being home last year when Adam and Jordan left for the prom and Byron sat up in his room with a book. I remembered Adam and Jordan commenting on the “hotness” of some photos of my friends getting ready to go to a dance, while Byron just said they seemed nice. “Oh,” I said in sudden understanding.

Nick nodded. “Yup. But if he asks, you didn’t find out from me. There’s about 30 copies of an old newspaper over there; read that and then you ‘accidentally’ found out, okay?” His cereal had turned to mush and it looked like he’d given up on it; he dumped the leftovers into the sink and added his bowl to the dishwasher. Without saying goodbye, he ran upstairs.

I left my cereal on the table and put the milk away before it soured. While I was up, I grabbed a newspaper from the stack Nick had indicated and started turning the pages. Nick was right; there were at least ten copies of the same paper in the stack. I returned to my seat, still looking for the article that Nick seemed to think would clear things up.

Finally I found it, and it confirmed the ‘ah-ha’ moment I’d had earlier. The picture showed two boys—one of whom could only have been Byron—and the accompanying text was all about how Byron had invited a boy to the prom. The surprise, I think, was the identity of the other boy.

Jeff Schafer was the younger brother of an old friend of mine. I hadn’t seen or spoken to his sister Dawn much since I’d gone off to boarding school, because she and Jeff lived in California and we were just never around at the same time. We used to belong to a club back in the day and whoever was around and free got together about once a month, but Dawn hadn’t come visit Connecticut since around the times the get-togethers started. I’d heard something about a giant fight with her stepsister, who’s also a friend of mine. I thought about calling Jeff’s stepsister and asking her about it, but I didn’t. I wanted to talk to Byron first.

And I got that opportunity sooner than I expected. As I was reading the article, Byron appeared in the kitchen, quietly enough that I didn’t notice him. He was wearing his pajama bottoms and not much else, and his eyes were half open. He grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and stuffed some in his mouth. While he chewed on that, he popped some bread in the toaster.

Byron turned to get some peanut butter and spotted me reading the newspaper. He blushed down to the roots of his hair but didn’t say a word. I folded the paper—I’d finished the article and didn’t want to embarrass him any more than necessary. “Morning, Byron,” I said as he poured himself some orange juice.

His face twitched, and I couldn’t tell if he was about to say something or if he was trying not to cry. Maybe a little of each. Just then, his toast popped up and he used that as an excuse to drop eye contact and turn around. Finally, he brought his food and juice to the table and sat across from me. After he spent a moment futzing with his plate, he looked up at me. “So…” he began, fading out.

I put him out of his misery. “I read the article,” I said, stating the obvious.

Byron made a sour-lemon face. “I hate that article,” he said, and then took an angry bite of his peanut butter toast.

I thought about that while he took a few more bites. The article mostly quoted Adam and Jeff. Haley was also in there, but it looked to me like she’d made a single statement and then run like hell. Byron obviously hadn’t spoken to the reporter at all. “What’s a matter with it?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Publicity,” he sighed and took another bite. “A lot of people I’ve never spoken to in my life have come over to talk to me since it came out. Most people have been nice, but not everyone.”

I eyed him critically. One thing that you need to know about Byron is that he claims to be an introvert and to prefer to be alone. But when he does decide to be social, he knows just what to say and makes friends easily. I personally think that he just rejects others before they reject him, and that’s really why he spends so much time alone. “So what kind of ‘not so nice’ have you encountered?” I asked.

Byron returned the critical eye. “Nothing too bad…yet. Just some people who want to quote the Bible at me, mostly.”

I laughed. “I’ve found that you can never argue with the Bible. Just nod and walk away.”

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

He had finished his breakfast already and he took his plate and my bowl over to the sink. I was afraid he’d leave the room before I was done talking with him, so I went ahead and blurted out my other thought. “I’m proud of you, you know.”

Byron turned around. “What for?” he asked suspiciously.

“For being so brave about this. For coming out so publicly.” He snorted. “No, really. What if some younger guy reads that article and feels more secure about who he is because of it?”

“So I’m a role model,” he said sarcastically. He slammed the dishwasher shut, harder than I think he meant to do, and the fight went out of him with it. “I don’t look at it that way,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I’m brave. Mal, it took me some four years to accept who I am and another four years to tell a single other person. Doesn’t sound like a brave person to me; sounds like a chicken shit.”

I looked him over. “Hey, little brother,” I said, squeezing his shoulder, “Think about this for a second: Bravery isn’t the lack of fear. It’s being afraid and doing something anyway.”

Byron’s lips twitched into a small smile. “What book did you steal that quote from?” he asked.

I laughed. “Probably a whole bunch of them.”

“You took psychology last term, didn’t you?” I blushed. He was right. “Anyway, I don’t think it matters much. I am gay. I have always been gay. I will always be gay. It doesn’t matter if people know or not, but it’s easier now that I have some people on my side.”

I smiled at the resolve. There was no going back into the closet for my brother. “So, how was prom?”

A dreamy look passed over his face for a moment. “It was great. Jeff apparently loves to dance. He didn’t want to sit down at all.”

“He probably just wanted to spend as much time as possible with you.”

Byron gave a proper smile at that one. “He’s graduating today and flying in tomorrow.”

The shower had stopped upstairs and I headed for the doorway, determined to be the next one in the bathroom. “Summer of romance for you this year?”

Now, his grin was massive. “Stranger things have happened.”

[tosybelle-blog]

By and Hay’s Excellent Adventure--Part V

By the time Hay woke up and joined us, sleepily rubbing her eyes, it was nearly five. While they were out, Jordan had stopped at the teen club and discovered they opened at six. We decided that, since it was still raining, we should go that night.

Vanessa jumped up and dragged Hay into the other room to start the long process of making themselves look exactly like they looked when they left the room. (I’ve never understood why it takes girls quite that long to get ready.) Adam turned on the television again and he and Jordan settled in to watch a crappy old action movie. I looked at my brothers and Jeff. “Not that I’m going to change yet, but what exactly do you wear to a club?”

Jeff was getting ready to take a shower. “The same thing you’d wear to a dance at school.”

“Yeah, but what do you wear to a school dance?”

Jeff looked up from his duffel, grinning, ready to make a joke. Then he saw my face. “Are you serious? You’ve never gone to a dance?”

I shook my head. “Not since middle school, when we all went in packs and everyone wore jeans and t-shirts.”

Jeff stared. “Your school must have had some casual dances. Why didn’t you and Hay just go one time, as friends?”

I bent over my suitcase and didn’t answer that. Adam looked up from the television. “Not really his scene,” he said.

Jeff continued to look at me. I didn’t look up from digging through my clothes but I felt myself blush. “Loud music. Crowds,” I said, as if that explained it all.

“You’re going to be in hell tonight, aren’t you?”

***

Jeff came back out from the shower, hair still dripping, a tiny, thin motel towel wrapped around his middle. I had given up on my clothes—what the hell did it matter what I looked like, anyway—and was trying to remember a magic trick an uncle of mine had once taught me to perform with a deck of cards when Jeff walked, essentially naked, across my field of vision. I out and out stared, but luckily, Jeff didn’t notice. “Okay, By, show me your clothes, and I’ll dress you for tonight.”

Adam looked over and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’d better dress yourself first,” he suggested.

Jeff ignored that and leaned over me to fling open my suitcase. “You basically wear the same thing every day, in different colors,” he observed. What could I say to that? It was true, even if I hadn’t noticed it before. “You must have a black t-shirt in here. Ah!” Jeff exclaimed as he removed a clean black t from the bottom of the suitcase. “Wear that with your cleanest jeans. Forget the shirt over it. You’ll fit right in.”

I tucked the shirt under my pillow. “Thanks,” I mumbled, trying really hard not to make any contact with any part his body. This was difficult, as he was basically breathing over my shoulder. His hips, barely covered, were right behind mine. I urged my body to stay rigidly still, but it was a losing battle.

Jeff straightened up at that moment, thank goodness, and grinned. “Any time, good sir.” He looked over my brothers, still lounging on the other bed. “Either of you two want me to dress you also?”

Jordan didn’t look up. “No, thanks,” he said idly, “I’ve been dressing myself since I was three. Been picking out my own clothes for almost that long, too.” Adam snickered and the two of them high fived. I wasn’t sure if that was a joke at my expense or not, so I ignored it.

Jeff rolled his eyes fondly. “Good to know. I was thinking your mommy packed your suitcase for you.” He grabbed a pair of boxers off the top of his duffel and reclaimed the bathroom.

While he was inside, I took off my shirts and pulled on the t-shirt Jeff had put aside. As I pulled all my jeans together to look at them, Jordan caught what I was doing. “Are you actually going to take his fashion advice?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, so?”

Jordan sat up straight and stared at me. “So, everyone...” He would have continued, but Adam leaned over at that moment and whispered in his ear. Jordan’s face took on an ‘a-ha!’ look for a moment, and he smiled. “Oh, now I get it.”

It was a second before I got it, too. “Adam!” I exclaimed.

Adam played innocent. “What? Was it a secret?”

I chose a pair of jeans and threw them down on the bed. “Get a billboard, why don’t you?” I grumbled.

“Naw. I prefer to tell people in person. It means I get to see you be horrified over and over again.” He smiled to let me know he was teasing, but went on anyway. “Jordan, go get Haley. I need to tell her, too.”

“She already knows,” I threw out, without thinking.

“Vanessa? How about the check-in clerk?” I took a playful swing at him, purposely missing by a mile.

Jordan was more serious about the whole thing. “Well, why don’t you just tell Jeff already?” he said in a low voice, despite the hair dryer whirring in the bathroom, mindful that the walls were not exactly soundproof.

I blanched. “What purpose would that serve?”

The blow dryer stopped, and he inched toward me and began whispering. Adam came closer, also, so he could hear. “Dude. The guy was just all over you.” He shook his head, despairing of me. “I thought you were gay, not stupid.”

“You must have imagined that.”

Adam shook his head. “Nope, I saw it too. There’s only one reason a naked guy climbs all over you, and that’s because he’s into you. Explains a lot.” He picked up a can of soda and drank from it. “Like the issues he had with his ex.”

I was going to reply to that when the bathroom door opened. Jeff stepped out, neatly dressed in dark jeans and a bright yellow t-shirt, his hair blown dry and carefully styled. “Bathroom’s free!” he called cheerfully, oblivious to the conspiring going on in the room.

I jumped up and grabbed my jeans. “I’ll just be a moment,” I said, grateful to be free of that conversation.

***

I’ve discovered that I like to bury my head in the sand and pretend things don’t exist. For a couple of years, that’s how I treated my sexuality. And then when I finally admitted to myself that I had to be gay, I didn’t tell another living soul for about another four years. And I only did that because Hay told me that I was ‘transparent.’ Otherwise, I probably would have played straight at home until the day I fell in love and had to come out. There are probably hundreds of other examples too.

The teen club was pretty much exactly what I’d expected. There was a bar serving soda and juice and water, and a couple tables where small groups could sit and rest while they drank or ate crappy, overpriced food. There was a disco ball and strobe lights and black lights, and the music was played by a bored-looking DJ and was far too loud.

The girls had gotten all dressed up and made up for the occasion. Haley was wearing a dress she’d brought along because she’d known about the club for weeks, and a pair of heeled sandals. I realized I’d never seen her wear heels before. Never really had reason to, I guess. Vanessa was wearing Hay’s favorite skirt with a tank top and her favorite Doc Martens. It was a strange combination, but thoroughly Vanessa. She’d gone back to her black eyeliner, though not as thick as usual, and she’d paired her red lipstick with Hay’s lip-gloss.

We’d gotten there right as they opened and were the first ones in. It was a Thursday night, but the guy who took our cover charge told us that the local kids were also having spring break, and the club would probably be packed before too long. And he was right.

Jordan and Adam went straight over and staked out a table, and as soon as I was done staring at everything, I joined them. Jeff snagged a bottle of water right away, while the girls went to talk to the DJ. Within fifteen minutes, all the tables were full and people were actually starting to trickle onto the dance floor. Hay and Vanessa were among the first kids out there, and they were soon surrounded by a huge group of girls, all bouncing along to some song I vaguely recognized but couldn’t even have begun to name.

I watched everyone dancing and stared. There were plenty of people dancing in groups, but pairs were also starting to form. Girls danced with boys, and with other girls, arms wrapped around waists or necks, lost in each other. After a while, more boys were up and dancing. There were even some guy-guy pairs out there, enjoying themselves. While I’d been staring, Adam and Jeff had disappeared into the fray. I couldn’t see Jeff anywhere, but Adam was on the far edge of the dance floor, half dancing, half trying to talk to a couple of girls he’d met.

I glanced over at the other side of the table, where Jordan was still sitting. “No need to babysit me,” I told him, shouting so he could hear me. “I’ll be fine here by myself.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to wait for Haley to come back,” he shouted back. “See if I can maybe get her to dance with me for a while.” Jordan grinned and went back to watching the dance floor—more specifically, watching Hay.

The girls were the first to take a break. Jordan saw them coming and rose to meet them, grabbing Hay gently by the elbow. He whispered in her ear and she nodded; I assumed he was going to get his dance, but instead the two of them went to the bar, where it was a little bit quieter, and he bought her a drink. Vanessa joined me at the table. “You going to sit here all night?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’ll dance later.” Vanessa shrugged back at me, picked up Jeff’s water bottle, still sitting on the table, and finished it for him.

Just when I thought I was going to have to try to have a shouted conversation with her across the table, a guy at the next table rescued me. “Cool boots,” he called, pointing at Vanessa’s Docs.

She grinned at him and turned around. “Awesome eyebrow ring,” she replied.

And that was that. I was back to being all alone, watching the dance floor. Adam was still dancing with the two girls on the far side, and after a while, Jordan and Hay popped up on the other side. He had his hands on her waist, and she was holding him stiffly around the neck. He said something to her and I saw her laugh and relax. By the next time I did my sweep and came to them, his arms were wrapped around her whole back and she had her head rested on his chest. There wasn’t an inch between the two of them. Good for Hay.

It was then that I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Hey,” a familiar voice said, next to my ear. A head rested on my shoulder. “Come on and dance.” It was Jeff.

I tried to look at him, but he was too close to my face. “I don’t like to dance,” I said.

Jeff dismissed that idea. “Phooey. Everyone likes to dance. You need to expand your horizons more. Try new things. It’s Come on Eileen! Who doesn’t like this song?” Before I knew what was happening, he came around the front of me, grabbed my hand from my lap and pulled me out of my seat.

Once I was up, I let him drag me onto the side of the dance floor. I figured we’d go join Adam and his new friends, but instead he took me to a third corner, about as far away from both Adam and Jordan and Hay as we could get. There were several other guys dancing in that area, but we were further away from the speakers, so it was quieter. The guys—and they were all male—had formed a little group similar to the one Hay and Vanessa had been dancing in earlier. They were bobbing and swaying and not really doing any serious dance moves. I found I could easily copy them and not feel too out of place.

We danced on the edge of the mini mosh pit for the next couple numbers, and then a number of the others stepped off the floor, for drinks or to relax. I found myself alone with Jeff, sweating and thirsty. He put his arm around my shoulder. “Come dance with me,” he said.

I laughed and fanned myself with one hand. “I thought that’s what I was doing.”

“No, you were dancing in a group. I want you to dance with me.”

I don’t know what made me say yes. Maybe it was the heat exhaustion or the fact that everyone around us was pairing up. Or maybe it was the fact that the song was slower. What I do know is, the black lights were reflecting on his eyes, and he looked so sincere and sweet when he asked. And I just wanted to touch him so badly that even dancing there, in front of everyone, sounded like a good idea.

So against some level of better judgment, I buried my head in the sand again. Jeff put his hands on my hips and I reached up and laid my hands flat on his shoulders, stiff and formal, the way the girls back in middle school did. I spent the next few minutes focused on two things: trying to keep a pillow of air between me and Jeff and trying not to step on his toes. When I realized he was just shuffling his feet back and forth, I did the same. My senses were in overdrive; every brush of his skin against mine, or even my clothes, made me tingle. I could smell his hair products mixed with sweat, both his and mine.

I spent so much time worried about what I was doing with my body that I didn’t even enjoy the dance. After a while, Jeff leaned over with a small grin. “Hey, can I get some eye contact here?” he asked. I looked up at him, my heart pounding and my brow furrowed. “What’s the matter?” he asked, moving one hand to my shoulder.

I didn’t answer. At that point, the chorus came on the song again, and without waiting for my response, Jeff moved his hand off my shoulder. He brushed the hair out of my eyes, tucking it behind my ears, and then ran his fingers down to my chin. I should have seen the kiss coming, but I didn’t. Jeff put his other hand on my back between my shoulder blades, pulling me in, and kissed me gently. I was shocked for a moment, but then instinct took over and I was kissing back. My hands found my way to his hips and the small of his back, pulling him even tighter. But when I finally realized just what was going on, I backed up and released him. “Jeff, what the hell?” I asked, still backing up.

Jeff’s face clouded over and he looked confused. “I thought...” he started, but I didn’t wait for him to finish. I took off, through the dance floor, past the bar and out the door. It had gotten dark while we were in the club, and the street lights were all blazing as I barreled across the street. I kept walking down the sidewalk, toward the car. I don’t know what I was planning on doing, as I didn’t have the car keys or a jacket or anything else to wear over my t-shirt and it was definitely not t-shirt weather.

***

I was about halfway back to the car when I became aware of footsteps closing in on me. Someone was running in my direction. The footsteps slowed to a walk, and Jeff fell into step behind me. I knew it was him but I didn’t look in his direction. Although I was outwardly calm, my brain was in hysterics.

I turned a corner and as I did so, Jeff caught my arm. “I’m sorry,” he called, sounding anguished. “I just thought...” he said again.

I turned to look at him. “You thought what?”

He bit his lip. “I thought you were gay,” he finally said in a small voice.

“I am,” I said, wondering where this was headed.

Jeff looked down at his feet, still holding my arm. “So you just don’t like me then,” he mumbled, barely loud enough for me to hear.

I looked at him and years’ worth of words came tumbling out. “No, that’s not it. You have no idea. I definitely like you. I’ve wanted that kiss for a long time.” I felt a flush creep up on my cheeks, but I was glad to have said it and gotten it out.

Jeff pulled me so I was facing him. “So what’s the problem, then? Why are you so mad at me?”

I exhaled, blowing the hair out of my eyes in the process. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.” He gestured with his free hand, urging me to go on. “See, I’m kinda a late bloomer. A pathetic, gay late bloomer.”

Jeff’s brows knitted together for a moment as he thought that over. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he smiled. “That wasn’t your first kiss, was it?” he asked, sounding amazed.

I tore my arm free from his grip and started walking toward the car again, horribly embarrassed. Jeff caught up to me and walked beside me for a few steps before he spoke again. “Really, your first kiss with a guy?”

“My first kiss ever.” No sense in hiding it now.

Jeff’s face crinkled. “No kidding.” He relaxed a little but kept going. “Well, what was the matter with it? Not grand and romantic enough?” He was mostly kidding, but I could feel a sense of seriousness behind it. It was clear on his face that, if he was my first kiss, he took that very seriously and hoped he—and the kiss—was good enough.

I turned to him again but kept walking. It was too cold to stand in the dark part of the street without moving. “The kiss was amazing. I couldn’t have imagined a better one.” Not that I hadn’t tried over the last few nights. “I just didn’t see it coming. I wasn’t prepared. I felt like I wasn’t ready.”

Jeff laughed. “You can’t plan for everything, By. Some of the best things in life are what you don’t see coming, believe me.” He grabbed my arm again, stopping me in my tracks. His hands were warm on my skin, which was covered in goose bumps. He ran one hand up and down my arm, warming it up and giving me another kind of goose bumps. “See?” I shook my head, about to say more, but he stopped me. “Okay, how about I give you a do over. Ready? I’m about to kiss you now.”

Despite the tension and angst, I laughed. “Jeff,” I began, but he leaned over, undeterred, head tilted to one side. I tilted mine to the other and our lips met, carefully and delicately. He wrapped his arms around me, pinning my arms to my side, but I slowly worked one up his back, running it across from side to side. This kiss was a little longer and quickly became much more intense than the first one. Still, I had to admit, Jeff was right. There was nothing like the surprise of the first one. When he broke the kiss, Jeff stayed where he was and looked at me. I finally opened my eyes and smiled at him.

After a moment he let me go and we started walking again, side by side, my shoulder against his arm. “If it makes you feel any better,” Jeff said, “that was my first kiss with a guy, too.”

I draped my arm around his shoulder, happy to be the one making the first move for once. “Yeah, I was wondering about that,” I commented, “because you talked about being with a girl.”

He leaned over a bit and put his head on top of mine as we walked. I’d walked like that with Hay before, but since she’s shorter than I am, it had always been the other way around. I kinda liked it this way. “Yeah,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “Yeah, there have been a couple girls. Only one that I went that far with, but a couple that I dated or messed around with. And don’t get me wrong, I liked them well enough, and there was definitely something going on down in my pants.” He chuckled hollowly as he raised his head. “But I don’t know. I’ve never quite felt like this.”

I needed to hear it. “Like what?”

“Like I needed someone as badly as I needed air.” I turned to look at him, stunned. He smiled, despite the fact that he was now the one angsting. “I know I’m being melodramatic. But this is the first time I’ve been happy in a really long time. And I know getting away from Vista and all the drama and crap there has helped, but it’s more than that. You’re not the first person to just stare at me, but you’re the first one who did in a way that made me just want to run over and jump you.”

“Jump me in a good way or bad way?”

Jeff startled and turned to look me. I smiled wryly, and he knew I was kidding. He grinned back. “Believe me, if we’d been alone on this vacation and I’d known you were gay from the start, I probably would have done this on the first night. Who knows what would have happened by now.”

I put my head on his shoulder and he put his head back on mine. It was much slower going that way, but we were barely moving anyway, kept warm by each other’s body heat. I plugged ahead with the conversation; now that we’d actually starting talking, I was afraid of what would happen if we stopped. “How did you know?” I asked, “About me, I mean.”

“Well, the staring was a big hint,” he said, playfully squeezing my hand on his shoulder, “and then I had this conversation with Haley about you, and she said to give you time to come around. That was after I came in and you were sitting out at the car on the first night. But I was the bathroom in that gas station when you and Jordan were fighting about Haley. Those walls were paper thin. Jordan had already told me how he felt about Haley, so I was ignoring you two, until you started shouting. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you shout before, so I knew it was important.”

We’d reached the car and I considered that for a moment. Jeff tested the door handles and found that, just as we’d thought, the car was locked. “Well, what are we going to do now?” I asked. We couldn’t go back in the club unless we wanted to pay again, since we hadn’t had our hands stamped on the way out—or at least, I hadn’t.

Jeff looked at me over the car, his head cocked to one side. “I have an idea.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me over to a souvenir shop that was open late, probably because it doubled as a bodega or convenience store. Jeff fell into an animated discussion with the clerk, who promptly showed him a thick beach blanket with a waterproof bottom. Jeff bought it and took it back to the car. I laid the blanket on the hood of the car and climbed up onto it, and Jeff sat down on my other side. We pulled the blanket over ourselves but found we barely fit underneath it together. I practically had to sit on Jeff’s lap for the blanket to go over us both. Not that either of us minded.

We sat leaning against the windshield, wrapped up in the blanket and each other’s arms. There were so many other things I wanted to know, needed to understand, but for now, I just wanted to be there, under the Maine sky, with a guy who liked me as much as I liked him. Maybe more.

***

Jeff had stopped and talked to Adam on his way out of the club, so everyone knew we’d left. He had told Adam that we would meet them at the car later, so we simply sat there under the blanket, talking about nothing important. But as the time went by, I started to retract myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the others to see us, exactly. First, I suddenly understood how Hay felt about me accidentally walking in on her and Jordan. This part of a relationship was so tenuous, so delicate, so new, that I wanted to keep it all to myself. You couldn’t even really call it a relationship yet. It wouldn’t even have come as a surprise to just about anyone on the trip, but I still wasn’t ready for them to hear that what they had predicted had actually come to pass. Then there was the one who would actually be surprised. I had to find a way to tell Vanessa in my own way, on my own time.

But I’m not sure Jeff knew what was going on. We could hear footsteps approaching and Adam and Jordan singing “Mmmbop” at the top of their lungs. I only wished I knew what had prompted that—and had a video camera to record them. Instead, I pulled my arm back from around Jeff and scooted over a bit so that we were touching, but not so personally. Friends, not lovers. Jeff saw what I was doing and turned to me, hurt, about to say something. Before he had a chance, Hay saw us and shouted, “Hey, there you two are!”

I jumped down from the car to greet them, leaving Jeff looking wounded behind me. “You guys have fun?” I asked, hugging myself. It had gotten even colder while we’d been under the blanket.

“A little too much,” Hay replied. Her cheeks were rosy from cold and she was visibly shivering. “Why the hell didn’t we bring any jackets?”

For some reason, Vanessa was holding Haley’s purse. “Mind if I get the keys out?” she asked. Vanessa was wearing the least clothing of any of us and she was stamping her feet for warmth. Hay simply waved at her and Vanessa reached into the side pocket, removing the keys. She tossed them to me. “I know the others aren’t drunk, but they’re sure acting like it. You get to drive.”

Jeff was still sitting on the hood. He’d wrapped the blanket around himself completely and was staring at me. I could read his expression clearly—why was I acting like the last few hours hadn’t happened? I smiled at him and reached a hand out. “Join me in the front?” I asked, trying to telepathically get him to understand.

He unrolled himself and jumped down from the hood onto the other side of the car. “No, I’ll sit in back,” he said irritably, not looking at me, dragging his blanket behind him.

Oh, fuck. This wasn’t good. We’d only been on kissing terms for a couple hours and I’d already pissed him off. What the hell was the matter with me? “Oh. Okay.”

Vanessa climbed into the front seat with me and everyone else got in the middle. Adam looked over the seat at Jeff, who was curled up into a ball. He’d thrown the blanket to the far side of the car instead of covering up with it. He raised an eyebrow at him but Jeff didn’t notice. Instead of commenting, like he wanted, Adam got sucked into a squeaky voice contest with Jordan and Hay. Vanessa was right: it really did seem like the three of them were more than a little drunk. But maybe they were just high on life. That’s something I needed a little more of.

When we arrived back at the motel, the girls ran straight inside. I blocked Hay’s door of the car, forcing Jeff to come out the far side behind Adam and Jordan. When he did, I snagged his arm. “Help me with something, okay?” I asked as the other two followed the girls.

Jeff tore his arm away. “I’m going inside.”

“Jeff, wait. Let me explain.”

He’d slammed the door before I even finished talking. I realized I once again was locked outside without a key. I hammered on the door and it was a moment before Adam opened it. He looked at me and I realized my face must be showing exactly how I felt. “What’d you do now?” he asked.

I felt like slamming the door too. Adam was the only one in the room; I could hear Jordan talking to Hay and Vanessa in the girls’ room. Jeff must have been in the bathroom, which meant he could hear everything. I spoke up. “Something wonderful happened and I made an ass of myself as usual. Hopefully I can redeem myself later. Let’s just leave it at that.”

***

A night of sleep, even a crappy one, can make all the difference in terms of perspective. I woke up after a night of tossing and turning with a plan. First, I needed to get Vanessa alone and talk to her. Then I needed to make some sort of grand gesture to Jeff to show him I wasn’t embarrassed of him, or this “thing” we were starting, or whatever he might think. Okay, so it wasn’t a very well thought out or detailed plan, but it was a plan none the less. It gave me purpose.

Jordan was already hogging the bathroom by the time I got up, but I had to pee really badly. I knocked on the door to the girls’ room, desperate for a free bathroom. Hay answered the door in her pajamas, her eyes half open and her hair still messy from sleep. “Bathroom?” she asked. Sometimes it bothers me the way she can read my mind, but not so much this time. I nodded and she opened the door wide. Vanessa was already primped and ready to go, so I ran straight into the bathroom and did my business.

When I came back out, Vanessa was out at the car, digging around for her camera. Hay was sitting on the bed, waiting for me to finish so she could use the bathroom. I came out and sat next to her and started talking before she could jump up. “Hay, you gotta help me.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “And what can I do for you this time?” she asked.

I lowered my head and ran the hair back out of my eyes and over my forehead before looking back up at her. “I have to come out to Vanessa,” I told her.

Hay lowered one eyebrow and left the other one up. “Have to? Look, By, I know I told you need to be more honest with yourself and others, but that doesn’t mean that you have to let the whole world know by the end of spring break. You seriously can wait until we get back to Stoneybrook and then tell her when the time is right.”

I got up from the bed and paced the room a few times before I replied to that. Hay watched me with concerned eyes. Finally I threw my arms up and turned to her, stopping in my tracks. “No, I really do need to tell her. The sooner, the better.” I took up pacing again.

Hay stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Stop it; you’re making me dizzy. Sit down.” She forced me back onto the bed. “What the hell is the matter with you? I’ve never seen you this antsy before. Did something happen last night?”

I turned to look at her. “No. Yes. Something. Nothing. Everything.” I shrugged at her, still confused about it all.

She smiled gently. “I take that as a ‘Yes, but I’m not going to tell you about it.’ I hear ya. Just do me a favor—let me know what’s up before I walk in on the two of you the way you walked in on me, okay?” She squeezed my shoulder and then got up. “My turn in the potty. Listen. Let me think about the Vanessa thing for a while and I’ll get back to you.”

***

We packed up some more sandwiches—all peanut butter this time, as we were out of everything else—and hopped in the car. Haley was bound and determined to walk on a seaside path called Marginal Way, no matter how cold it might be outside. And it was definitely colder than the day before.

Even with the overcast sky and gray ocean waves, the view was gorgeous. Vanessa brought her camera out right away and snapped picture after picture. She made Jordan and Hay pose together in about seventeen different spots—not that they really minded. Hay was obviously getting more comfortable with the idea of a relationship with Jordan. She even let him kiss her in front of the rest of us.

We had already lapped the whole path by lunch, but we’d decided to do it a second time after we ate. Everyone was in a great mood except Jeff. While the rest of us were eating and discussing the present for my parents, which we still hadn’t picked out, Jeff sat at the end of the picnic table. He picked his sandwich apart but didn’t eat it. He let the pieces fall to the ground, crumbled. Whenever someone tried to engage him in conversation, he gave one word answers and said ‘hmmm’ a lot. Eventually, everyone just stopped talking to him altogether, although we all kept stealing glances at him.

When lunch was over, I gathered the garbage and tossed it away. Vanessa even photographed me as I threw a sandwich baggie into the trash can. That was when Hay grabbed the camera from her. “Give me that. It’s time for a picture of you.”

Vanessa lunged for the camera, but Hay tossed it to Jordan, who held it out of Vanessa’s reach. “I don’t want you to take a picture of me,” she whined.

“But you look so great with your new hair and makeup. Don’t you want at least one photo of it before you decide to dye it black again?”

Vanessa thought about that for a moment. “Okay, one photo. Just one. And then I get my camera back.” She sat down on the table of an empty picnic table, the ocean at her back, her hair whipping to the side. Jordan aimed the camera at her and she smiled a small shy smile and looked out away from him. Click. He handed her the camera back and she shoved it in her pocket, looking embarrassed.

As my brothers razzed Vanessa about her romance novel pose and Hay snickered, I took a look at Jeff. He was still sitting on the end of the table where we had eaten, a blank look on his face. Based on the bags under his eyes, he’d slept even worse last night than I had. I worried intensely about the lack of expression. I wasn’t sure if he was half asleep or if he was feeling depressed again.

Adam took a long drink from a nearly empty bottle of cola and then tossed it in the trash can. “Are we ready to move on now?” he asked.

“No, not yet,” Hay was wearing the backpack that day and she slung it back down onto one of the picnic tables. “I have a dare for By first.”

She had my attention, and everyone else’s, too. “What?” I asked, instantly suspicious.

Hay grinned in a way that I really didn’t like. “I dare you to get up on the table and announce your secret to the world.”

I stared at her. “Secret?”

She stared back at me. “You know exactly what I mean. I want you to climb up on that picnic table there,” she pointed, “and make a proclamation to the whole town of Ogunquit.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is this payback for me making you try out for Grease?” I asked her.

She smirked infuriatingly. “No, this is payback for making me buy that bustier and wear it to school.”

I’d forgotten about that. “Oh, yeah.”

“You have a choice. You can either get up on the table and make your announcement, or I can lord the fact that I am the queen of dares over your head for all of time.”

Well, I only had one option there. I looked at each of my friends standing there: Adam, looking highly amused; Jordan, slightly confused; Vanessa, her head cocked to the side, brow furrowed; Hay, her smirk widened to the point that I suspected it was hurting her face. Even Jeff had looked up, although he was still blank eyed and expressionless.

I steeled my resolve and climbed up on the table top. As I stood there, I saw some joggers come around the corner. If I managed to get the words out of my mouth, it really would be telling the world. Ah, but who cared? Tomorrow, we were heading back home. Joggers hearing my secrets were the least of my concerns. I needed to focus on Jeff. Once we returned to Stoneybrook, he’d be leaving for California. I needed to find a way to get him to forgive me before then. And I thought this was a start.

I found my balance on the table, which was a little bit rickety. I opened my mouth as my face blazed. Everyone was staring at me, even the joggers. “My name is Byron,” I yelled, “and I’m gay!”

I quickly climbed back down before anyone could say anything. Hay gave me a huge hug, but she was laughing. “You sounded like you were at an AA meeting,” she pointed out.

I shrugged at her. “Thanks for your help,” I whispered in her ear as I gave her another hug.

She let me go and smiled. “Any time. What are friends for?”

I looked at Vanessa, who no longer looked concerned, but rather curious. After a moment, a smile grew across her face. “Leave it to you to make such a big fuss over such a non-announcement,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Non-announcement? You mean, you knew?”

Vanessa grinned more. “Nope. I mean that it’s just not a big deal. Who cares, right? I mean, ‘If you were gay, that would be okay.’”

Hay was hugging Jordan when Vanessa said that. “Avenue Q!” she called. She picked up the lyrics there, singing. “‘I mean, ‘cause hey, I’d like you anyway. Because you see, if it were me, I would feel free to say that I was gay!’”

I looked back to Vanessa, who was starting to laugh. “You know what?” I asked her. “I’m going to hug you.”

She backed up and shook her head again, looking horrified. “No way. You most certainly are not.”

“Yes, I am. Get back here and let me hug you!” I chased her quite a ways down the path before I cornered her and gave her a big hug with her arms pinned to her side. She screamed bloody murder but it was all for show; when I let her go, she gave me a brief hug back.

Adam had grabbed the camera and snapped a picture of us. “Blackmail!” he sang, holding the camera up. Vanessa snatched it back and glared at him, but you could still see the smile in the corners of her eyes.

Jordan and Haley followed behind him, snickering a little. Jeff was still at the table, expressionless, but he sat up a little bit straighter. Hay turned to him. “Come on, Jeff, you’re missing all the fun!” He got up and moved toward us at an extremely sedate pace. Hay dropped Jordan’s hand and rushed to Jeff, grabbing his hand and dragging him over to the group. “You okay?” she asked him.

He shrugged at her. “I slept like shit last night,” was all he said. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and looked at the ground.

Adam looked over at him, concerned. “Did you even sleep at all? I swear that you spent half the night sitting up.” Jeff shrugged again. “Well, let’s keep moving. We’ll tire you out so bad that you’ll have no choice but to sleep tonight.” Adam looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t read his expression exactly, but there was something about it I didn’t like.

***

After we’d walked the path at Marginal Way a second time, Adam suddenly ‘remembered’ again that we’d never bought a gift for Mom and Dad. I think it was an excuse not to walk the same path a third time. The six of us headed back down to the main drag and took a look at the shops. “Let’s split up. We’ll be able to cover more ground.” Jordan was in full dictator mode. “If you see something, make note of it and we’ll all meet back here in an hour to decide on what we’re going to buy. Sound good?”

No one really had a good argument against what Jordan had said, so we all started walking one direction or another. Adam, Jordan and Hay went left, and I ended up going right with Vanessa. Jeff listlessly followed us, not really looking at anything. I didn’t get too worried about him until I saw that. Until that, Jeff had spent the whole trip obsessed with looking into every store. Now, he didn’t even have a smart ass comment to Vanessa trying on every hat in one store, or a life-sized stuffed seagull that sang.

When we exited an antique shop where Vanessa had really liked a birdbath she thought might suit Mom’s garden, I decided I had to do something. The next shop was a semi- punk women’s clothing shop. “I don’t think we need to look in there,” I commented.

Vanessa smiled. “I’m going to go inside and peek around anyway. I need a few shirts. You mind waiting out here for a minute?” I shook my head at her as Jeff sat down on a nearby bench and closed his eyes. She popped into the store and I sat down as close to Jeff as I dared.

“I’m sorry about last night,” I started. He kept his eyes closed and didn’t reply to that, and at first I wasn’t sure he’d even heard me.

Finally, without moving, he responded. “Which part?” he asked, his tone slightly accusatory.

I turned to look at him. “You know which part. I don’t regret our talk or being close to you in any way. I just wasn’t ready to share that with anyone else. For one thing, I had to come out to Vanessa before she saw me sitting in your lap.”

He didn’t reply directly to my statement, but he did look at me for the first time all day. “All I know is, I poured my heart out to you. That was something that was really hard for me to say. And then, just a couple hours later, you turned your back on me.”

I thought about that for a moment, trying to see things from his point of view. “I’m sorry if I did that,” I answered. “That certainly wasn’t my intention. I never want to do anything to hurt you.” He didn’t reply, so I screwed up my courage and went on. “I’ve never done this before—a relationship that was more than friends. I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’m bound to make mistakes. I need someone who’s willing to forgive me when I make them and teach me the right way.”

Jeff had been watching me with those blue eyes of his through all of this. “I don’t know, By,” he said seriously. “There are some things you just can’t teach.”

That stung more than I think he intended it to do. I looked away, hurt. But I had to admit, he wasn’t lying.

All my life, I’ve been afraid of a lot of things. I usually get past them eventually, and then I realize that whatever I feared wasn’t so scary after all. But I miss a lot of living in the time it takes me to figure that out. In this case, I didn’t want to wake up in my forties and regret what happened when I was eighteen. So even though my instinct was to get up and walk away, I turned back toward Jeff and took a deep breath.

“You’re right,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. “There are some things you can’t teach. But there are also some things you can’t deny. And I can’t deny any more that I’ve had feelings for you since before I had words for them. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to act on them, but since I do, I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers. You’re too important.”

Jeff’s expression didn’t change at all through that. I reached out one hand to his chin, rubbing my thumb underneath his jaw. He put his hand on mine, and at first he was going to bat or pull it away. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned forward and I kissed him. My other hand found his shoulder and worked its way to the back of his neck. Jeff pulled me closer so we were sitting sideways on the bench. He broke the kiss and then started back again without pause. I had forgotten we were on a bench on the main thoroughfare, kissing in front of the entire town of Ogunquit. And Vanessa.

I don’t know how long she’d been watching before she spoke up. “Oh, my God,” she said. Jeff and I instantly pulled apart, like we’d been caught with our hands in the cookie jar. “You’ve only been out an hour and you’re already trying to convert Jeff. And making out in front of some very amused shopkeepers.” She snickered. “I don’t have all day and we have a gift to buy. Are you two coming or what?” With that, she strode off as if she saw sights like us every day.

I stood up and brushed off my butt. I held my hand out to Jeff. “Ready?” I asked, meaning more than just the obvious. He grinned, looking happier than he had since our time under the stars, and I pulled him off the bench. We started down the path after Vanessa, our hands still entwined.

***

Well, the three of us didn’t find anything that we thought Mom and Dad couldn’t live without. Jeff did discover yet another t-shirt for his sister Gracie, and Vanessa bought herself some souvenirs. We met back up with the others, tired and pretty hungry. They had obviously been waiting for us. “Any luck?” I asked Adam.

He shook his head. “Nope. But I guess Haley has an idea. She wouldn’t bring it up until all of us were here.”

Hay jumped off the bench where she’d been sitting with Jordan. “Give me all your coins,” she demanded.

Jeff raised an eyebrow. “Yes, o majesty,” he said as he dug in his pocket.

Jordan looked over at him from where he was still sitting. “You sound like you’re in a better mood,” he observed.

I looked at him as I handed Hay fifteen cents, wondering how he was going to respond to that. “I found something even better than a night’s sleep,” he said, smiling. Vanessa made a gag face and stuck her finger in her mouth. I poked her.

“What’s that all about?” Jordan asked, looking at Vanessa.

She grinned. “Let’s just say, I got almost as much of a peek as Byron did the other day,” she said sweetly, patting him on the shoulder. Jordan glanced over at Adam, who caught on pretty quickly and was trying not to laugh. Jordan still looked confused.

Hay shoved all the coins she had gathered in her pocket and bounced over to Jeff. “Does that mean what I think it means?” she asked. Jeff simply shrugged at her, so she turned to me. “By?” I didn’t reply, but I could feel the blush creeping across my face, followed by a grin. “Oh, my gosh!” Hay threw herself on me and gave me a hug that nearly knocked me over. She’s about 110 pounds, so I’m not sure how she could have so much power behind her. “Listen. I have to go make a phone call. But when I get back, I need to hear all about this.” She let me go and rushed away, still talking over her shoulder. “Major gossip session!”

Adam shook his head. “Where does she get all that energy? She should bottle some and sell it.”

“I don’t know, but I like it,” Jordan said, smiling. He then turned to me, the smile fading. “You really are gay, aren’t you?” he asked.

I sized him up, not sure how serious he was. “Yeah, I really am,” I replied. “Did you think I made that up for fun?” I teased gently.

Jordan smiled back, a little sadly. “No. But I thought you told me that because you were mad at me for that comment about you and Haley.” He shook his head. “I realize how dumb that sounds now.”

Adam had been watching this exchange with a little trepidation. “Don’t worry about it, dude. It took me a little while to get used to it, right, Byron?” I nodded, remembering how worried I had been after I’d told him. “We’re human. It takes us a while to deal with change.” Adam paused and looked at me. “Although, I guess you being gay isn’t actually a change.”

I shook my head. “I’ve known I was gay since I was, like, nine. I’ve had half my life to get used to the idea, and I’m just now coming out.” I sat down next to Jordan on the bench and Jeff came up on my other side to sit with me. He’d been mighty quiet during this part of the conversation. Jeff laced his fingers through mine, silently, and I squeezed his hand. “If it took me that long to get used to the idea, I can’t expect you guys to be one hundred percent okay in ten seconds, can I?”

Vanessa leaned against a light pole a short distance away. “You can’t all be as cool as I am about this sort of thing,” she said. Adam had a flyer or paper of some sort in his hand and he rolled it up and bopped her with it.

He then turned to Jeff. “So, Jeff, does this,” he gestured to our hands, “mean you’re out too? Do you feel the need to stand on a tabletop and shout like my insane brother over there?”

Jeff shook his head. “I honestly don’t know what I am,” he said, sounding sad about it. “No labels. Let me sort through a few things before I get back to you on that, okay?”

Jordan nodded at him. “That sounds good to me,” he said thoughtfully. “Not that it really matters, anyway, right? We’re all just people, no matter how any one labels us.”

“Or how we label ourselves,” I added.

Adam studied me for a moment. “Yeah. Sometimes, that is the worst part.”

Hay came bounding back up at that moment. “Okay, Pikes!” she announced. “You all have been booked for a sitting with Stoneybrook Professional Portrait Studios for a session in June!”

Jordan gave her a quizzical look. “Wait, what?” he asked.

“I figured out what your parents would probably like most, and that’s for you all to stay the way you are and not grow up. Next thing you know, you’ll all eight kids be scattered across the country, working in different jobs, getting married, having babies.” Adam shuddered a little at the thought of that last one. “And so I thought it would be perfect if, in thanks for the assistance they gave in letting us go on this awesome trip, you sit down for a family portrait. All ten of you.”

I had to admit, this was a pretty awesome idea. Although there are plenty of photos of our family, and even a few of all of us together, we’d never all sat down for a portrait session together. The last time we’d had a professional picture taken had been before Margo was born, and she’s almost fifteen. My mom had vowed never to do it again, but we were all so much older and less needy (in some ways) now, so it would probably work much better than it had when I was two.

I could see the others were feeling much the same way about it. Adam grinned, and even Vanessa looked happy. Jordan looked at Haley with adoration. I had been worried about the two of them when I’d first seen them together, but I didn’t worry so much anymore. Jordan clearly treated her gently, and I knew he was so happy that she’d actually considered him that he was going to go forward slowly and carefully. He might not have known about her past, but he respected her enough to go at her pace.

Hay stood next to Jordan and put her hand on his shoulder. “Can I have my purse back, please?” she asked. Until then, I hadn’t even noticed he was holding her bag. Quite a big step for a guy who didn’t want to carry some sunscreen less than a week ago.

It looked like I wasn’t the only one growing up.

***

When we arrived at the hotel that afternoon, Jeff climbed straight onto the bed and fell asleep on top of the blankets. I noted right away that he chose the bed nearest the bathroom, right where I had been sleeping since we’d arrived in Ogunquit. I waited until I was good and sure he was asleep, and then I just looked at him for a while. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and I just needed a moment to reflect. Jeff’s hair hung across his forehead as he breathed slowly and rhythmically. I brushed his hair back and headed outside. I retrieved his beach blanket from the car and covered him up with it. Jeff didn’t even stir. I was beginning to think Adam was correct when he said Jeff hadn’t slept at all the night before.

I joined Adam and Jordan in the girls’ room. My brothers and Haley were playing spite and malice again. It looked like they were gambling for nickels. They were getting worse and worse every time they played cards, I swear. Vanessa, on the other hand, was looking through one of Hay’s magazines. I sat down next to her and she put the magazine aside, her expression thoughtful. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself. What’s up?”

She shrugged. “Not much. I was thinking about what you said earlier.”

I furrowed my brow. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Vanessa traced a design on the bedspread. “When we were talking about me and Devon.”

Ahh. Yeah. I raised an eyebrow and waited for her to go on. After a moment, I realized she was waiting for me to talk, so I plunged ahead. “I don’t know Devon,” I told her, “but he’s so not who I pictured you with.”

“So who did you picture me with, then?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Well, I don’t have a specific image in mind. But I’m seeing someone who I could have a conversation with. Someone who could sit down at the dinner table with the Pikes and not be too out of place.” Vanessa looked up from her imaginary drawing. “Can you imagine inviting Devon over for dinner with our whole family?”

Vanessa shook her head. “No, not at all.” She smiled over the image. “Honestly, I started dating him because he was the first person to ask me out. And then I stayed with him because I liked having a boyfriend and someone to hang out with.” She shrugged at me. “Does that make sense?”

I nodded. I could understand that completely. I could see myself doing the same thing—if Jeff hadn’t been interested in me, I might have found myself in the same position in college. “Yeah, I get that. But in the long run, it’s a pretty lousy basis for a relationship.”

She nodded back at me. “I’ve been thinking about that myself. And I think I’m going to break up with him when we get back.” She pulled the magazine back out and flipped to the confessions page. “Devon’s not a bad guy, but he even creeps me out sometimes.”

“Are you sure you’re going to break up with him?”

“Yep.”

“Good.” I smirked at her. “Now I can tell you how much Devon reminds me of Pugsley Addams.”

Vanessa stared me. “No, you’re wrong,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” I replied. “Devon looks exactly like Pugsley Addams.”

She shook her head, looking amused. “He doesn’t look like Pugsley. He looks like Uncle Fester.”

I thought about that for a minute before I realized she was right. And then I started laughing. To my amazement, Vanessa started laughing with me.

My brothers and Hay looked up from their card game. “What the hell is going on over there?” Adam asked.

Vanessa caught her breath. “I’m just giving Byron a lesson in the Addams’ Family tree.”

The others just stared. After a moment, Jordan said, “Some days, I don’t get either one of you two.”

***

About an hour later, our stomachs were grumbling so loudly we could hear each other. The others headed out to the car and I went to wake Jeff. He had kicked the blanket off and he lay on his side, uncovered—much the same as he had been when I’d covered him in the first place. I sat down beside Jeff and put a hand on his back. “Jeff?” I called, “You ready for dinner?”

He didn’t reply. I looked at him; he was out cold. I lay down beside him and pulled my arm across his chest. My face came right at Jeff’s neck, so I snuggled up right behind him. “Jeff?” I repeated. He stirred slightly and I could tell he was starting to wake up just a bit. I pulled right up next to his neck and kissed it lightly a few times. Jeff didn’t open his eyes, but he was clearly awake after that. He grabbed my hand and I pulled; he used the leverage to help him turn over. I put my forehead next to his and watched as he opened his eyes and looked into mine.

“Hi,” he replied with a small smile, and then kissed me. We would have stayed there for a while if my stomach hadn’t rumbled again. “A little hungry, are we?” he teased, running his hand through my hair.

“A lot hungry.” I had my hand on his cheek and I ran my thumb down his lips. He kissed the tip as it went by. “We were going to head into town for dinner. You need a few minutes or are you ready now?”

He kissed me again. “I’m ready now. Like I said earlier, a little bit of you is better than a full night of sleep.”

I beamed at him. “That is the best compliment I’ve ever received.”

I sat up and offered him a hand, which he gladly accepted. We stood up together and Jeff ran a hand through his hair, which was quite messy. “Do I look alright?” he asked.

“To me, you always look alright. But I’d understand if you want to run a comb through that before we leave.”

Jeff grinned. “Okay, sounds good. I’ll meet you outside with the others, okay?” He pulled me in for one last kiss before he headed into the bathroom.

I went outside to join the rest. “He coming?” Vanessa asked.

I nodded. “Quick bathroom stop and he’ll be out.” I was grinning from ear to ear, I know, and the others were all looking at me.

“What is with you?” Adam asked. “Do I want to know what went on in there just now?” He sounded mock-horrified, but he was smiling.

“Naw,” I replied, “You don’t really have to worry, though. We’re rated PG.”

“For now.”

My grin faded. “Yeah, but we only have ‘for now,’” I replied. Thinking about how Jeff would be heading back to the West Coast in only two days put a damper on my cheerful mood.

Hay made a concerned face and grabbed my jacket sleeve, ready to say some words of condolence. Before she could even start her thought, Jeff tumbled out of the motel. “Ready?” he asked, sounding happier than I had heard him since he was a kid.

Vanessa smirked at him. “Uh, yeah. We’ve been waiting for you for the last ten or more minutes, so I’d say we’re ready.”

“Well then, why haven’t you gotten in the car yet? It’s not exactly stand around in the darkness weather.” Jeff shivered and pulled his windbreaker tighter.

Jordan had the keys, so he and Hay got in the front. Vanessa climbed into the back, and Jeff and I took the middle row. Adam looked at the set up and then at Vanessa, who had done something funky with her jacket and looked weirder than usual. “Why do I always get paired with you?” he asked her, leaning over my shoulder from the outside of the car.

Vanessa put her face up against the car window and blew, the way we had when we were kids. “Get yourself a girlfriend and that will stop,” she advised. Adam glared at her. “You could sit in the middle with the Gay Wonders, you know.” Now Jeff and I glared at her too, but I scooted over next to Jeff so Adam could sit on my other side. Not that I really needed too much inducement to sit next to Jeff anyway.

I turned the topic to something really important as Jordan pulled onto the highway. “Where are we going to eat, anyway?” I asked.

Hay leaned over the back of the seat. “We never did get to Barnacle Billy’s. It’s supposed to be legendary.”

No one could come up with an argument against that, so that’s where we went. Jeff looked at the menu in the window and shook his head. “Lobster. What is it with lobster around here?”

Adam laughed. “Well, we are in Maine.”

Jeff wrinkled his nose. I leaned over and looked at the menu. I didn’t see a single thing on it Jeff would eat. As he continued to inspect the menu, I looked up and down the street. There was a salad bar a few doors down. Vanessa and Jordan had already gone inside Barnacle Billy’s and Adam was about to follow. Hay was still looking at the menu with Jeff. His expression was one just this side of disgust, while Hay looked excited.

I grabbed Jeff’s hand and pulled him away from the menu. Hay turned around to watch us. “I think you’d have better luck over there,” I said, pointing at the salad bar.

He looked at me, then back at the menu at Barnacle Billy’s. “I can grab something to go after we leave here,” he commented.

Hay shook her head. “Sit around starving while the rest of us eat? That’s nuts. Why don’t you and Byron go eat at the salad bar while we eat here?” She grabbed the handle of the door and opened it. “We’ll meet you guys in about an hour, okay?” And then she was gone.

I looked at Jeff, whose eyes were shining. “I guess it’s just you and me,” I said.

***

A salad bar isn’t exactly a romantic place to eat, but I was about to take what I could get at that point. After we filled our plates, Jeff and I sat down at the table. Despite how hungry we were, neither one of us started eating right away. I watched as he arranged and rearranged his silverware and then spread the salad dressing across his plate. He caught me staring and stopped, looking at me, concern growing. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

It was then I realized I was faking a smile, and he could see right past it. I shrugged at him and picked up my fork. It didn’t work on Jeff, though. “C’mon, By, talk to me,” he said.

I stabbed some salad and lifted it up to my mouth, but I didn’t eat it. “I dunno,” I said, “I feel like we’re just getting started here, and I want to be excited about that. But then I realize we’re going back to Stoneybrook tomorrow, and then you go back to California the next day, and then we’ll be over before we even get to start.”

Jeff continued to watch me without saying a word. I ate my forkful of salad and took another before he spoke. “You know, I don’t look at it that way,” he said quietly. “I figure this trip is just a beginning. I’ll be back for the summer. My dad gave me the choice of whether or not to come. I wasn’t going to, but now I have a good reason.” He put down his fork and reached across the table. I put mine down also and took his hand with both of mine. “You remember what I said about how confused and unhappy I’ve been recently?” I nodded. “One of the many, many things my shrink advises is that I find reasons to want to keep going. At first, I was seriously just going from week to week because I wanted to see what happened next on 24.” I couldn’t help but smile at that, just a little. “But now I plan to make it through the next couple months waiting to see you again.”

His face was so earnest. I let go of his hand and reached out to his jaw, cupping it in my hand. “Let’s not make it a couple months,” I said, starting to smile for real, “There are phone calls and emails and letters…”

Jeff smiled back at me and picked up his fork. We ate in silence for a while. Once our plates were empty, he took the thread back up. “I only have one question,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. What do we call this?” Jeff gestured to the restaurant as a whole.

“You mean, us?”

“Yeah.”

I thought about that for a moment. There was a large part of me that just wanted to plow right ahead. I had come so far so fast—why not go back to school and not just tell people I was gay, but that I also had a boyfriend? But I couldn’t just think about myself in this. And Jeff…well, Jeff didn’t even know what he was. I didn’t think it was really fair to him to call this a relationship and put a name on it, even if that’s what he was looking for. “Remember what you said about labels? Maybe we should just take things as they go and not worry about naming anything.” He grinned.

We refilled our plates and sat back down. After a little while, I put my fork down again. “Can I ask you a question, now?” Jeff put some salad in his mouth and nodded. “What was going on with you and Hay earlier this week?”

He swallowed. “What are you talking about?”

“The first couple days we were on vacation,” I began, “You and Hay were all over each other.” I chuckled. “I thought you liked her.”

Jeff put his fork down and laughed, a loud, hearty laugh, like I hadn’t heard him make in years. He reached over and patted one hand. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends’?”

“Jeff?”

“Yeah, By?”

“Do me a favor? Never quote The Spice Girls at me again.”

He laughed again. “For you? Anything.”

***

Jeff and I ate far too much at that salad bar, even though the place was vegan and there wasn’t a bacon bit in sight. We came stumbling out, groaning exaggeratedly, and waited for the others to reappear. When they did, it was not from Barnacle Billy’s but from a shop down the way. Vanessa spotted us first.

“Jeff! Jeff!” she shouted, “You’ve got come look at this shop.”

Jeff perked up and looked over at me. I nodded at him, understanding, as he walked away. I have no idea what was so interesting, but as Jeff got to the front of the store, he sped up. I plopped down on a bench, much the way Adam and Jordan had been doing all during the trip. My brothers were actually on a similar bench some ways down the block. While I wanted to go join them, I literally felt like I couldn’t get off the bench. Damn salad bar.

Haley appeared out of the store and stopped to talk to Jordan. He pointed down the block toward me, and Hay walked in my direction. The night was fairly cold and she had her hoodie pulled tight around her. Those silly, purple heart sunglasses were on top of her head. She smiled as she headed toward me. “Everything okay?” she asked as she sat down beside me.

I smiled back at her. “Yeah, actually. Jeff and I had a good talk. We plan to stay in close touch. He says this is a beginning, not an ending.”

“Jeff’s a smart guy.”

“Yeah.” Jeff and Vanessa came out of the shop. He was waving his arms while he spoke, making exaggerated hand gestures. The two of them stopped to talk to our brothers, then crossed the street and headed into yet another store. I shook my head, amused.

Hay was watching the exchange. “You’re starting the adventure of your life,” she commented.

I turned toward her. “And so are you, if you stick with Jordan after this trip.”

She smiled a funny, twisted little smile. “Yeah. I think I’ll tell him I’ll be his girlfriend. At least, for now.”

Something about her tone made me pause. “For now?” I asked.

She wrinkled her forehead as she frowned and looked away from me. “Yeah. You’re leaving me, both of you, at the end of the summer. Like I said, you’re starting the adventure of your life.” She pulled her hands up into her sleeves and slid her arms all the way up into the body of her jacket; I think she put her hands in her armpits to warm them up. “You’ll leave me back in Stoney-fucking-brook, all alone, and have such a good time you’ll forget all about me.”

“Hay.” I put my arm around her lump of hoodie and squeezed. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had in my life. I might not always be able to be with you, but I could never, ever forget you. You know that my sister Mallory went off to boarding school a million years ago, right?” I asked. Hay nodded, then put her head on my shoulder. She was crying a little bit again, but just a few sniffles and dripped tears. “Well, you remember Becca’s sister Jessi, too, and how she’s a ballet dancer in New York? She and Mal are best friends, and they haven’t lived in the same town in more than seven years. But they still get together when they’re in the same town, and they talk on the phone and email all the time.”

Hay sniffed and rubbed her eyes on her shoulder. “Point taken. But…”

“No buts!” I tightened my grip. “First, I’m going to need you more than ever after I leave. “Who’s going to keep me sane when my roommate turns out to be a psycho or I have trouble with my classes?” She hiccuped but didn’t otherwise reply. “Second, you can see how crazy Jordan is about you. If he could, he’d take you off to college with him.” I firmly believed that to be true.

Hay finally looked at me. “Yeah, but you won’t be there. You’ll be in North Carolina and Jordan will be in Florida. Adam’s going to be in Ohio. And I have to do another year at Shithole High School.”

“And then, the next year, you’re going off somewhere else too. Besides, what about Vanessa? You two seem to be getting closer. And what about those friends you made when you were in the play?” Hay’s arms reappeared from her sleeves and from her purse she pulled a tissue, which she used to smear around her mascara a bit. “I’m not going to dare you, but I want to suggest you try out for the musical again this year. Not just because it will be other people for you to hang out with, but because you have a talent and I hate to see it buried.”

Hay started to speak, but before she could form a word, Jordan appeared over her shoulder. I hadn’t even heard him come up. “Hey, guys,” he said as he took in the situation. Hay took one last swipe at her raccoon eyes and shoved the tissue in her pocket. “Why is it, whenever the two of you go off on your own, Haley always ends up crying?”

She looked at him. “It’s not By’s fault, Jordan. You’ve got a hot mess for a girlfriend, I must tell you. There are days I just feel so bipolar.”

Jordan focused in on a single word. “Girlfriend?” he repeated. Hay just nodded and held out a hand to him. I retracted my arm and he pulled her up and gave her a kiss, one that lasted longer than I was comfortable with. I ended up averting my eyes and retying both my shoes, despite the fact that neither one of them needed to be retied.

When Hay and Jordan were finished, I stood up from the bench. He had his arm around her and without a word, the three of us walked down the block. Adam and Jeff were standing by a lamppost. Jeff saw us coming and called to Vanessa, who appeared from a doorway. The three of them met us halfway, where Jeff’s hand found mine. The six of us walked back to the car in a companionable silence.

***

We left fairly early the next morning; it was going to be a long drive back and we wanted to make more stops than we had on the way there. We’d gone full circle on the drivers, so I found myself back in the drivers’ seat. Vanessa climbed into the back and promptly went to sleep among the luggage. Adam sat next to Hay and Jordan, which was a brave choice with the way they’d been acting. They’d had their hands on each other all morning. In fact, in the car that morning, Hay was curled up into a ball with her head on Jordan’s lap, and he was running his hands through her hair as she fell asleep. While I was happy for them, I couldn’t help but be a little nauseated. It was like they never turned off.

The car was packed; we’d eaten breakfast and used the bathroom. Still, I didn’t start the car just yet. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the trip and to all the progress we’d all made along the way. There was something magical about it. When I first got in the car, I thought maybe it was something to do with Maine. Vanessa had said something about Maine soothing the soul. Maybe that was it.

But sitting there, playing with the rearview mirror as an excuse to not drive off just yet, I realized I was wrong. This is going to sound really cheesy; I’m sorry in advance. I just couldn’t find a better way to explain it. The magic wasn’t Maine—it was us. I looked over at Jeff, sitting in the passenger’s seat. He was wearing his dark jeans, a white undershirt with nothing over it, his new hiking boots and his sunglasses on the top of his head. But the best thing he was wearing was a smile, a real one, not one of the fakes he had been producing on the way to Maine. And this smile was directed right at me.

I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Jeff turned on the CD player and put on my Beatles CD—the one we had listened to on the way up. He turned back to me as the music started and we headed back south toward Connecticut. I thought Jeff was going to say something, but instead he just held out his hand. I took one hand off the steering wheel and took his, squeezing it firmly. He pulled both hands toward him and kissed mine and we drove on toward the rest of our lives.

***

Epilogue

I wish I could say that road trip changed everything. It didn’t. Although I felt like a new person when I arrived back home, things quickly fell back into life as I knew it. There was laundry to do and chores to take care of and unfinished homework to attend to. I was working on calculus when Jeff’s plane back to California left the next day.

But some things definitely did change for the better. That evening before I went to sleep, there was an email from him, saying he missed me already and couldn’t wait to come back. I shot him a response talking about school and how I didn’t want to go back. And when I checked again in the morning, Jeff had already replied to that one.

So even though I was still the last one out the door, as always, and I still had trouble getting my locker open or paying attention in gym class, I felt a lot better about myself while it was going on. I stood up a little taller, brushed the hair a little farther out of my eyes. I don’t know if anyone else could see the difference, but I knew. And that was what mattered.

I was on my way to physics when I saw Jordan and Haley walking the other way, holding hands. I called a hello to them and kept walking. I knew he was introducing her to some of his friends, and now she’d have a life sometimes. There would be days when she’d be too busy with Jordan to hang out with me. I was glad for her.

After my morning classes, I carried my lunch bag into the cafeteria, to my regular table. Adam was already there—he must have been the first person in the lunch line, because he almost never beats me to the table. I sat down beside him. “How’s your day been so far?” he asked.

“Hell. They should just let us graduate right after spring break. It’s not like any of the seniors are paying attention anymore.” Adam nodded and took a swig from a water bottle.

I started setting out my lunch, something I take very seriously. By the time I was finished, the table was starting to fill up. Jordan and Shane were at one end, talking about something that Mr. Obrecht had done that morning in their math class. Robby sat across from Adam and they picked up a conversation. Once again, Dan Reiber sat down across from me, and once again, he wasn’t about to have a real conversation with me. I wasn’t particularly worried about it.

I took a bite of my sandwich and looked up just in time to see history unfold a couple tables over. Vanessa, who was wearing her most normal jeans and a gray long sleeved t-shirt that said, ‘Everyone has the right to be stupid but you’re abusing the privilege,’ walked up to the table, where her old friends Charlotte and Becca were sitting. She leaned over and spoke to them in a low voice. I saw the two of them look at each other and shrug, and Vanessa joined them at their table. She caught me looking at her and gave me a glare for a few seconds, but it quickly turned to a grin. I smiled back at her.

Dan saw me smile and gave me a hideous expression. I realized I was once again looking over his shoulder and smiling. That’s apparently all it takes to set him off. I looked down and took a bite of sandwich, silently willing him to let it go. He didn’t get the message. “What are you doing over there? Having silent daydreams about my dick again?”

That got everyone’s attention. Usually, I either ignore a comment like that, or let someone else answer for me, but not anymore. Before Jordan or anyone else could respond, I looked Dan straight in the eye and put my sandwich down. “Don’t flatter yourself. You are so not my type,” I replied.

Dan looked confused for a moment, but the rest of the table burst out laughing. “Way to go Byron!” Robby called. Adam gave me a high five.

Yeah. I was going to be alright after all.

[tosybelle-blog]

By and Hay’s Excellent Adventure--Part IV

I settled up the bill that morning while everyone else cleaned and loaded the car. I came back out triumphantly. “Hey guys, guess what,” I called. They were done loading and basically just waiting for me, so no one really responded. “The owner wanted to compliment us. She said we were the cleanest, politest, quietest teens she’d had come through for a while.”

Jeff piped up, “Yeah, because we did all our fighting and screaming out in public.”

I ignored that and went on. “Anyway, when I told her we were headed to Ogunquit, she called up a friend of hers who has a motel up there. He’s giving us a deal: a set up almost exactly like we had here, only with three queen-sized beds, for the price of one room. Sound good?”

We had made sandwiches again and we took them into town, eating them on the sand of the beach in my dream. I must have turned bright scarlet when I realized where we were, but if anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything. This time I made my own sandwiches and labeled them with my name with Vanessa’s Sharpie. The ham and turkey with cheese on white definitely tasted better than the peanut butter the day before.

When we were done eating, we scrambled back up the beach and through town to the parking lot where we left the car. Haley stopped in one store and came out with a travel pillow, while Jordan and Adam picked up a few souvenirs. I hadn’t bought anything, but I wasn’t really upset about it. I had enough memories to last me a lifetime.

As we arranged seating for the car, Hay announced that Jeff was going to drive and that she was going to take the passenger’s seat. “What about your turn?” Jordan asked her.

She didn’t look directly at him, addressing the whole group instead. “I did most of the driving around town, and I’ll do the same thing at Ogunquit if you’d like.”

Jordan was relentless. “Yeah, well, what happened to my turn in the passenger’s seat?”

Hay turned on him, eyes blazing. “You forfeited that when I punched you in the face,” she spat.

Jordan recoiled as if she’d hit him a second time. He climbed into the middle seat with Adam, while Vanessa took the back. I looked after Jordan for a moment, confused, then sat down next to Vanessa. Jordan was directly in front of me and directly behind Hay.

I guess that Jordan decided that Hay was off-limits after that comment, so he turned his frustration to an easier target: me. My head was where he wanted to put his head, and we kept knocking them together; somehow, that was completely my fault. If I turned around to talk to Adam, I was in his personal space. If I spoke to Vanessa, I was “too loud.” It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, Jordan found some excuse to snap at me.

After twenty minutes of near-constant snarking, Hay turned the radio off. “You know something, Jordan Pike?” she said. “You are a miserable human being, and you’re making the rest of us miserable too. I have a song for you.” She began digging through her knapsack, searching for the right CD. A few minutes later, she came up triumphant and put it in the player. She then began fiddling with the player, searching for the right song.

When happy, upbeat music finally started, she cautioned us, “Not this part...wait until I tell you to listen. This thing doesn’t have a button to skip through to the middle of the song.”

Jeff flicked his eyes over at her from the road. “Nobody knows how to make drama like you do, huh, Hay?” he asked sarcastically. “You tell him you’re going to insult him through song, and then you drag it out over five minutes just to make the tension worse.” Hay flicked him off.

“Okay, here you go. No, wait for the chorus. The chorus is about Jordan.” I listened to the music, surprised to find it was a CD I’d never heard before. A couple of people were discussing how one had been laid off, and then started singing about it. It sounded like it might be from a musical, but I wasn’t familiar with it.

Finally, the chorus began, and Hay began to sing along. She has a very nice singing voice, but she doesn’t share it too often. “It sucks to be me,” she sang, “It sucks to be me. It sucks to be broke and unemployed and turning thirty-three. It sucks to be me.”

Vanessa leaned forward from the back seat. “This is Avenue Q, isn’t it?” she asked, delighted. Hay nodded, and I shot Vanessa a questioning look. “It’s a musical,” she responded, “Like Sesame Street for adults. Sex and drinking and unemployment and cursing. Sounds awesome. I’d love to go see it sometime.”

Hay grinned. “Me, too.” The song continued on, talking about why it sucked to be a variety of different characters, and Hay continued to sing the chorus. At the end of the song, it changes to ‘It sucks to be you.’ By then, we were all laughing, even Jordan.

When the song ended, Hay moved to stop the CD player. “Wait!” Vanessa cried, “There’s another song I want to hear.” She climbed into the middle seat, between Adam and Jordan, causing both of them to yell at her. From the middle, she leaned forward and whispered in Hay’s ear. Hay smiled and Vanessa leaned back, settling in between our two brothers. “This one’s dedicated to Adam,” Vanessa said sweetly.

Hay began flipping through the songs. “For some reason, they’re not in order on the CD, so give me a minute to find it.” She would listen to thirty seconds of the song and then name it and skip to the next. “Everyone’s a little bit racist...Fantasies come true...For now....”

I leaned forward from the back seat. “They’re in alphabetical order.”

“What?” She stopped the CD for a moment and looked at me.

I spoke a bit louder. “The songs...they’re alphabetical.”

Hay thought about it for a moment. “Oh, you’re right. I wonder how it got recorded that way.” She skipped through the CD silently for a moment, guessing where she’d find the song Vanessa had requested. Finally it started blaring from the speaker. “Vanessa, will you sing Trekkie for me?”

Adam groaned. “First you let her pick out a song for me, and then you let her sing? I’m never getting in a car with you again, Haley.”

Hay grinned like the Cheshire Cat and started singing. “The Internet is really, really great.”

“For porn!” Vanessa yelled.

“I’ve got a fast connection, so I don’t have to wait...”

“For porn!”

I don’t think I have to tell you how the rest of that song went. Adam blushed furiously. I think he was even more embarrassed in the car than he was the day that Mom had caught him using the family computer to surf for pictures of naked women. He buried his head in his hands. Vanessa put her arm around him as she sang one of the choruses. “The Internet is for porn, the Internet is for porn. Me up all night honking me horn to porn, porn, porn.” He shrugged her off.

When the song ended, Vanessa was laughing so hard she was gasping for air. Hay repeated one of her character’s last lines, “I hate the Internet!” and then joined her.

Jeff spoke for the first time in a while. “Hey, guys,” he said, “Sorry to interrupt the party, but we’re getting low on gas. Probably should have filled the tank before we left. Anyway, I’m going to pull into that service station up ahead.”

We rolled up to a gas pump. Jeff ran inside to use the bathroom, which I figured was the real reason we had stopped. Adam and Vanessa wandered off to a little ice cream hut that was on the edge of the service station. I paid for the gas and then came back out to pump it.

Jordan climbed into the back seat and was digging in the trunk for a bag of snacks we had misplaced. Hay was hanging out of the car as I filled the tank. I turned to her. “Where’d you get that CD from?” I asked her.

She grinned a high-watt grin. “From one of the stage crew,” she said, “He was singing the songs backstage all the time. I made him lend me the CD and I made a copy.” Hay scooted out of the car and came up beside me. “You know, I have some songs on that CD that are for you, too. Two of them.”

I put my arm around her as I waited for the pump to stop. “Oh, really?” I asked.

She gave me a hug but didn’t respond. After a minute, she wiggled loose. “I feel like ice cream,” she said.

I squeezed her shoulder. “You feel like Hay to me, but whatever.”

Hay laughed. “You want some ice cream, too?”

I shook my head and removed the pump from the tank. She ran off to where Vanessa and Adam were chowing down on ice cream cones. Jordan came out of the car, looking perturbed. I walked toward the building, intent on a bag of chips, and Jordan followed, right on my heels.

He tailgated me straight into the building and while I was inspecting the chips, he stood right behind me. “May I help you?” I asked him finally.

Jordan released a breath that sounded like a hiss. “Do you have to flaunt it?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?”

His expression looked pained. “Your relationship with Haley. We know you guys are together...you gotta rub it in our faces this whole trip?”

Suddenly, a couple of pieces of information clicked together in my brain. Adam had come on the trip because he wanted to spend time with me. Jordan had come on the trip because he wanted to spend time with Haley. Adam had tried to warn me. I bristled, though I wasn’t quite sure why. “I’m not dating Hay,” I said in a low, irritated voice.

“Oh, right. You are so full of shit.” Jordan rolled his eyes. “You think I’m blind and deaf? I saw you guys just now. You’re all over each other.”

I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation again. I sucked in a breath through a clenched jaw. “We are not dating.” I looked around the convenience mart. No one else was there except the bearded, scary-looking dude behind the counter. “We’re just friends. You ever see us kiss? No. Because we’ve never kissed!” By this point, I was yelling right into Jordan’s face.

He took an involuntary step back. “And why should I believe a word you say?”

I pounded my hand down on the shelf in front of me, causing it to vibrate. “Because I’m fucking gay, okay?”

Jordan reeled back from me in surprise, probably as much at my venom as at my statement. I grabbed a bag of chips off the shelf and walked over to the checkout. Jordan ran back out the door and I saw him climb into the car. I plopped some money down on the counter, and the counter guy looked down at me as he gave me my change. “Good for you, kid,” he said, “I’ve been with my partner for almost ten years. Coming out’s always the hardest part, but it’s better than living a lie.”

I gave a noise that was half laugh, half sob and ran out the door myself. I sat down on the ground around the corner and began to sob full on, loud, choking noises that wracked my whole body. Luckily, I quickly cried myself out. I was just sniffling and wiping my eyes when Jeff appeared beside me. “Everything okay?” he asked.

I looked up at him. “No,” I replied, “but not any worse than normal.” My chips had fallen to the ground and I picked them up. Somehow, in my haste, I had grabbed low sodium, flavorless baked chips. Ew.

Jeff began to speak but stopped, shaking his head. “We’re ready to go when you are.” I jumped up and ran ahead of him to the car, rubbing my eyes with my hand, hoping to avoid any further conversation that I definitely wasn’t in the mood for.

When I got to the car, Jordan was in the way back. Hay, Adam and Vanessa were in the cooler, dipping their hands in among the ice to wash off ice cream spills. I climbed into the middle seat on the other side from them, right in front of Jordan. He looked up at me. “Did you mean the last thing you said?” he asked, his voice a little unsteady.

I looked back at him. “Yup.”

He didn’t change expression, and I could see he looked like he was fighting back tears. “Okay. I, uh, well, I just needed to know.”

I forced myself to smile at him. “Well, now you do.”

***

When we started off again, I was behind the driver’s seat, with Vanessa sitting bitch between me and Adam. Adam had originally intended to sit in the back, but the vibe Jordan was giving out was enough to make him change his mind.

Although no one but Jordan and I knew what had happened, everyone could feel that something was different. Hay found a CD that was mellower and put it in the CD player. She and Jeff started talking about their overlapping musical tastes in a low voice. Vanessa pulled out her camera and started taking pictures of us all in ‘our native environment’—everyone except Jordan, that is. When she’d pointed the camera at him, he’d grabbed it from her and thrown it into the front seat. Hay retrieved it undamaged, and Vanessa figured out that it was best to leave grizzly bears alone, no matter how fun they might be to photograph.

An hour passed uneventfully. Vanessa had put her camera away and was reading The Bell Jar. Adam was staring out the window, munching on a bag of Funyons that I could smell from the other side of the car. Jordan was either asleep or just completely uncommunicative. When Hay’s latest CD ended, she started digging around in her bag for something new. I put aside the crossword puzzle I’d been half-heartedly playing with and leaned across Vanessa into the front seat. “Hay, you got the CD from Grease?” I asked.

She frowned at me. “Yeeeeeessss....”

“Put it in? Please?”

Jeff took his eyes off the road for a moment and glanced at me. “What’s this, By? You got a thing for Olivia Newton John or something?”

I shook my head at him, making a terrible face. “Ew, no. It’s actually a recording from our school production last fall. Hay played Rizzo.”

Vanessa pinched me on the shoulder and I moved out of her personal space. She continued my plea. “Come on, Haley, put it in.” Hay shook her head and glared at us both. “Jeff, help us out here. She was the star of the show. You’ve got to hear her.”

Jeff grinned at her and peeked out from behind his sunglasses. “Better put it in, Hay. They’re not going to quit until you do.”

Hay threw her hands up. “I know when I’m beat. I’ll put it in if you play Tom Lehrer later.” I gave her a bewildered look. “Oh, don’t give me that face. I know you have at least one of his CDs in your bag. I’ll give you fifty bucks if you don’t.” I just continued to look at her, my expression unchanged. “Ugh! I hate when you do this to me, Byron. I’ll get you back one of these days.” She removed a CD case from her bag and put it in.

We listened quietly for a while. During one of the songs where Haley wasn’t singing, Adam piped up and asked, “You going to do the musical again next year, Haley? I hear they’re doing Guys and Dolls.”

She shook her head violently. “No way. I wouldn’t have even done Grease if...”

Even Jordan was staring at her now. I finished the thought. “...If I hadn’t dared you.”

All the eyes except Jeff’s turned on me. “What?” Vanessa said, confused.

I shrugged. “We started daring each other to do stuff about a year ago. Stupid things that didn’t really affect anything.” She’d dared me to spell my name wrong on an assignment I’d turned in; Bryon Pike had gotten a 100 percent and the teacher hadn’t noticed. I’d dared her to use a certain spicy adjective in her next writing assignment; she’d managed to work it in successfully. “After a while, the dares started to get bigger. I dared her to try out for the play. She auditioned for Patty Simcox and got Rizzo.”

Hay was blushing a bit. “The teacher said I was the only one with the sass to pull it off, which I think is an insult.”

I waved that off. “It was a compliment and you know it.”

We grew quiet as Hay as Rizzo started singing, “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.” When that ended, Jeff changed lanes and then pulled his sunglasses onto the top of his head. “So, Haley, if someone dares you to do something, do you have to do it?”

She turned and looked at him, an ‘oh, shit,’ look in her eyes. “Depends on who’s daring. I do have to do whatever By dares me to do. It’s a matter of pride. Plus, I know he’ll give me shit about it for the rest of time if I don’t.”

Jeff let that hang for a second. “Well, what if I dare you to do something? Do you have to take the dare?”

Hay’s eyes got even wider. “Depends on what it is, I guess.”

“What if I dare you to kiss Jordan?”

Everyone in the car snapped to full attention, waiting for an answer for that question. Nothing happened for a moment, except that Hay turned to face forward as if she were internally debating and didn’t want the rest of us to see. Jeff checked the rearview mirror and met my eyes. And in that second I knew that he knew exactly how Jordan felt. Whether Jordan had told him or he’d picked up on the clues, he was in on the secret.

Hay turned back around. “Vanessa!” she barked. “Switch seats with me?” I could see some tension around her eyes, like she wasn’t really sure she was making the right choice, but the tone of voice told me she was determined to follow through on this. She knocked everything off the middle seat of the front bench, where the seatbelt is broken. Vanessa climbed in between Hay and Jeff, trying really hard not to kick Jeff or otherwise force his attention off the road. After this was accomplished, Hay did the opposite, climbing between me and Adam, and Vanessa scooted into the passenger’s seat and buckled back up. Hay looked at Jordan in the backseat, eyes now as determined as her voice, and joined him back there.

Three sets of eyes were glued on the back seat; one watched intermittently as the road conditions allowed. Hay froze for a moment, then put her arms around Jordan’s neck and pulled him close. Jordan’s eyes grew like saucers, and his expression said he doubted she was actually going to kiss him until the second it started. The kiss went on for just a fraction of a second longer than I would have expected; by that time, Jordan’s hands had found their way to her shoulders. Hay pulled back and for a second she smiled, but before Jordan’s eyes opened she turned it to a scowl. While he watched, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand like he’d left a bad taste on it, and then climbed back into the middle seat, looking at Jeff from the relative safety between me and Adam. “Satisfied?”

Jeff grinned and pulled down his sunglasses. “Oh, yeah,” he said, trying not to laugh.

Jordan’s face was bright crimson. He picked up a magazine and pretended to be fascinated by the article in front of him, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Adam and I looked at each other over Hay’s head. I gave him a questioning glance and he nodded, with the silent implication of, “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

Hay settled into her new seat and buckled her seatbelt. We were all pretty much looking at her still, and it was her turn to blush again. “Just for the record....I hate you all,” she said.

***

Ogunquit was so not what I was expecting. In some ways, it wasn’t much different from Camden; in other ways, they were nothing alike. Let’s just say that Camden was so much more...conservative. Adam took a look around as we drove down the main strip and turned to me. “Byron. You picked the gayest town on earth.”

I looked in the same direction he had and saw two guys holding hands walking down the street, passing another pair of men doing the same. I shrugged. “Hay picked it out.”

Adam cocked his head at her. “Haley. You picked the gayest town on earth.”

Hay looked helpless for a second. “I read this book,” she said for the second time in two days. I suddenly started picturing a book: How to Get Your Best Guy Friend to Come Out Already. She’d picked this town as some kind of message to me.

I must have blushed because suddenly several sets of eyes were on me. Vanessa leaned over the seat. “What’s the matter, Byron?” she asked. She was the only one looking at me who didn’t know. “You got a problem with ho-mo-sex-u-als?” She dragged it out in a Mr. Rogers kind of way.

Hay spoke under her breath. “Yeah, a jealousy problem,” she quipped. Adam laughed, but I think only he and I heard her. Vanessa looked at us like we were crazy—which, admittedly, had been her look for most of the trip. She then picked up the map and started studying it.

“I think this town’s pretty cool. I like any town that’s this accepting of everyone,” Jeff piped up. He turned onto a side street and then into a parking lot. “Did you guys see that teen club back a couple blocks? It’s said it’s ages sixteen to twenty. We have to go there one night.”

Hay threw her hands up, glad to have found an ally. “I know, right? I saw that in the travel guide. Vanessa, you got a state ID?”

Vanessa nodded. “I had to get one last summer so I could get a job. Thank goodness, right? I’d have to kill you all if you went into a club—even a lame, alcohol free one— without me.”

We all tumbled out of the car and looked around. “So, this is Ogunquit,” Jordan said, like he’d been expecting something grander.

Vanessa looked at him. “This is a parking lot. All the good stuff seems to be that way.” She pointed back toward the main drag.

“Well, then, let’s go that way.” Jordan seemed to be taking charge for the first time since we’d left home, and, being surprised and a bit bedraggled, we let him.

As we followed Jordan, Hay turned into a walking guide book. “So there are two parts to Ogunquit. This is the village. Pretty much everything I was interested in is here in the village, but I hear Perkins Cove is beautiful.” She paused for a minute as we passed another gay couple. In a low voice, she continued. “The village is also home to Ogunquit’s very active gay social scene.”

“We hadn’t noticed,” Adam joked as we passed maybe the third gay-themed business in a couple blocks.

Obviously, tourist season was not in full blast, or even a trickle, but we still got a feel for the town anyway. Just about everyone we passed said hello to us. Like we did our first night in Camden, we just browsed shops and went inside in ones and twos. Hay dragged me into one of the gay-themed gift stores and made me look around with her at all the kitschiness. Some of the items were typical to what you’d find in a regular gift shop, with a unique Ogunquit twist.

“Oh, look, By, you have to have this!” Hay squealed. It was t-shirt that read ‘I went to Ogunquit and all I did was come out’ in rainbow letters. Even though I protested and vowed to never wear it, she picked it up and went to check out. By the time she and I left the store we were both laughing hysterically.

Adam and Jordan were once again sitting on a bench, not shopping, when we came out. Hay was silently shaking with laughter, half doubled over. I was laughing so hard I was crying. Jordan quirked an eyebrow at us. “Something hit your funny bones?” he asked.

I was having trouble breathing, but I managed to start calming down a bit. “Show them the shirt, Hay,” I said.

She was gasping for breath herself. “Are you sure?” she wheezed, looking at Jordan and then back at me. I nodded and she pulled the shirt out of the bag, which I had made her carry. It was folded with the message on the inside. “I bought Byron a present to celebrate him making history this trip.” With that, she shook the shirt out and showed it to them.

They both took a look, and did a double take. Adam started to laugh right away. Jordan looked uncomfortable. “You sure you want everyone to know like this?” he asked.

I studied him for a moment. “Well, I wasn’t planning on wearing it out to dinner tonight or anything. But yeah, I want to tell people. I’ve been gay for eighteen years. It’s about time I accept that and let other people accept it too.” Jordan’s expression changed, and suddenly he looked guilty. “I was planning to tell you, you know. Just not like it came out. And I’m sorry I got so worked up.” Adam and Haley exchanged a look, like they might be missing something, which, of course, they were.

Jordan ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, still looking guilty. “No, that was my fault. I shouldn’t have assumed anything. Next time I’ve got a problem with you, I’ll come and talk to you about it instead of letting it build up like that, okay?”

I grinned at the rare show of humility. “To be fair, this was totally an imaginary problem with me, wasn’t it? All in your head?”

He started to protest, but when he realized I was kidding, he grinned back. “You son of a bitch,” he said.

I shook my head in mock disgust. “Don’t talk that way about your mother, son,” I said. Adam joined the two of us, putting his arms around us both.

“Aww,” Hay said, stuffing the shirt back into the bag and jumping in front of us, holding a fake camera to her face. “Where are Vanessa and her camera when you need her?”

“What about me and my camera?” Vanessa came up behind Haley. She took a good look at us triplets, still embracing, and shook her head. “Oh, my God. You three are so gay.” Hay looked around in surprise, hoping no one who might be offended heard Vanessa, but no one was near, not even Jeff.

Jordan looked at Adam, and then over at me. “Nope, just one out of three,” he said. I gaped at him for a moment, and then we all started to laugh.

Vanessa looked at him in surprise. “Wait, what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The whole story probably would have come tumbling out, for the third time in as many days, if Jeff hadn’t come racing out of one of the stores down the block and shouted at us as a group. “You guys. You have to come see this swimsuit in here. It’s got piano keys all over the ass! Come on, guys!”

Nothing like Jeff on a shopping spree to provide a good distraction.

***

We finally managed to drag Jeff away from the shopping, but not before he’d bought us all matching Ogunquit t-shirts. “I’m bound and determined to wardrobe everyone,” he’d said.

Hay had held hers up to her front. “We should all wear these on the way home. It would freak people out.”

We stopped at a takeout Chinese restaurant and placed an order, which Hay then held steady with her feet as we hunted down our motel. It was a little farther out of town than the other motel owner had made it sound, but other than that, she’d been spot on in her description. I’d gotten us checked in and we took our delicious-smelling food inside, leaving our bags in the station wagon.

Hay set the food down on the small table in the corner of the room and we all swarmed it. Every last morsel of watercress and every piece of rice was gone before too long. I looked mournfully at the empty containers. “We should have ordered more,” I moaned.

Jordan tossed a bag of potato chips at me. “Here, you can have these,” he offered.

Hay looked at the snack. “Nothing like barbecue chips to go with Chinese barbecue chicken,” she snickered.

Adam opened the door. “Hey, who’s going to help me unload the car?” he called over his shoulder as he walked out. Everyone but me followed. I quickly ate up the chips before Jordan changed his mind and then joined them.

It only took us a few minutes to bring in the bags, and then we scattered. Adam and Jordan went outside to take a look around. Jeff had turned on the television and was watching the news, with Vanessa providing commentary. I had no idea where Hay had gone—to the bathroom in the girls’ room, I assumed. I took out my crossword puzzle and tried to finish it. I was missing enough letters to drive me mad.

Some time passed. Vanessa went to use our bathroom. I tossed the puzzle aside in disgust. “Seen Hay?” I asked Jeff, who was now engrossed in a game of Wheel of Fortune. He merely shook his head. Since I’d last seen her headed into the other room, I went to the door and opened it without a second thought.

The room was dimly lit, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure what I saw. I stepped a little farther into the room and squinted. The only light burning was a small lamp on the far side of the bed. It illuminated a back, leaned over the bed, head bent forward. He was kneeling on the bed, over someone else; the other person lay face up on the bed, her arms around his neck. Her shirt was hiked up under her breasts, and his hands were caressing her bare back. Their eyes were closed and they only noticed each other as they kissed on and on. I backed back out of the room without either one of them noticing.

When I was back in the other room, I closed the door quietly behind me and then pushed up against the door, my heart pounding. Jeff looked at me quizzically. “You okay over there?”

I wanted to scream at him that, no, I was not okay. I had just seen my brother making out with my best friend. All I wanted was to erase that image from my memory. I shook my head, less in answer to his question than to clear my head. “Got any brain bleach?” I asked.

Jeff blinked. “Uh,” he answered eloquently. I forced myself away from the door and joined him on the bed. “You going to tell me what’s going on?” he added.

I reached across the bed and took the remote from next to his thigh. “Nope.”

Adam came in from outside, carrying a big bucket of ice, which he dumped unceremoniously into the cooler. I was holding the remote but just fidgeting with it. “Byron…you’re as white as a ghost. What’s the matter?”

I shook my head again. Jeff cocked his head to one side. “Don’t bother; I haven’t been able to get a peep out of him.” He reached over and took the remote back from me, wrestling it out of my hands. “Something spooked him in the other room though.”

Adam looked like he was going to continue the questions, but the bathroom door peeked open and Vanessa’s face appeared in the crack. “Haley?” she called.

Jeff looked at Adam, then at me, then back at Vanessa. “Absent,” he replied.

We could only see a sliver of Vanessa’s face, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Can you go get her?” she whined.

“No,” I piped up. “She’s, um, busy.”

“Please?” Vanessa pleaded. “I need something from her.”

“Vanessa,” I said, starting to lose my patience a little bit, “I am not going to interrupt Haley right now. Is there anything any of us can help you with?”

Her face clouded over. “Not unless any of you has a tampon,” she snipped.

Jeff, Adam and I looked at each other. “I don’t know about the others, but I’m not in the habit of carrying those around,” Adam told her.

Vanessa scowled. “Well, Haley is, and if I’m not mistaken, she probably has a whole box of them in that oversize purse of hers. So if you’re not willing to go stop whatever’s so goddamn important that she’s doing, could you at least bring me some goddamn tampons!?” She slammed the door shut behind her.

Jeff looked at us. “Are we going to get Haley’s purse?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It’s in the other room, and like I said, she’s busy in there. More than my life’s worth to interrupt her now.”

Jeff and Adam looked at each other, probably wondering what exactly was so taboo that I wouldn’t interrupt it. “Guess one of us is going to have to go buy some tampons,” Jeff said slowly.

Without a word, Adam and I turned to each other and shook a fist three times. Jeff stared at us until we slammed our fists down, in unison, into our other hand. I kept my fist rounded, but Adam laid his flat. “Paper covers rock. I win!”

I grumbled under my breath as I grabbed the car keys off the table. “I’ll come with you,” Jeff offered.

As I was pulling on my shoes, Adam picked up the remote control and started flipping channels. “Seen Jordan?” he asked.

“Yeah, I have,” I said, and then walked out the door, causing Jeff to run to catch up.

***

I had barely pulled out of the parking spot when Jeff turned to me from the passenger’s seat. “Okay, spill,” he demanded. “What was Haley doing in there that’s got you so worked up?”

I eased out of the parking lot and drove a short way before I responded. “She was on the bed with Jordan.”

Jeff raised his eyebrow. “Were they...?”

I let out a breath. “No, thank God. But they were about a minute from second base.”

He watched me for a moment, and I tensed up even more at the visual inquisition. Finally he spoke. “Well, that’s a good thing, right? Honestly, I might have only been around you all for four days, but I can see she basically clings to you. I’m glad you two have each other, but it isn’t really healthy for you to be everything to one another, right?” He paused, looking straight ahead for a moment, making a pained face. “Oh, my God, I sound like my therapist.” A funny little laugh escaped his mouth.

I glanced at Jeff briefly, concerned. He pulled himself back together and looked at me again. I took a deep breath. “You’re right, though. Remember, I said yesterday, I worry that she’s always alone when I’m not with her. But her and Jordan...well, just two days ago, she punched him in the face! She called him a miserable human being not twelve hours ago. And just now, she was letting him feel her up. It’s just not like her, you know?” Jeff shook his head and made a ‘hmm’ noise and I continued. “I’ve been hanging out with Hay for three years, and in that time, she’s never had one date. Lots of guys asked her out, at least that first year, so she could have gone on dates and had boyfriends, and she never once said yes to any of them. So for her to turn on a dime like that...it just concerns me, okay?”

Jeff smiled kindly. “I understand. I just think it’s not maybe as big a deal as you’re making it out to be. Haley knows Jordan. She’s known him about half her life. Maybe she figured out about his year-long obsession with her. Or maybe he told her, I don’t know. Maybe she just figured she was ready for something more than a hug from her best friend, and he was right there. Whatever. In any case, is it really a bad thing if she gets together with Jordan?”

I thought about that for a minute. “No,” I said slowly, still mulling it over, “It’s not. I think I just rather would have found out by one of them telling me rather than catching them in the act.”

He laughed a little, and then turned sober. “I hate to even say this, but I think there’s a little more to it than that. I’m only saying it because I’m your friend, but could it be possible that you’re a bit jealous? Not necessarily of Jordan kissing Haley specifically, but that they have someone to kiss at all?”

And damn him, he was right. That was definitely the hardest part of being in the closet: you can’t just find a guy, like Hay had suggested I do, and have a good time. Because someone will definitely find out and then everyone will know. And anyway, I didn’t know any other gay guys to even find and get together with. I blushed, grateful that it was dark, and pulled into the parking lot of a twenty-four hour grocery.

I went to get out of the car when Jeff put a hand on my arm. “Hey, Byron?”

“Yeah?” I turned to him. Jeff spent a moment trying to get the words out, and then shook his head. He looked away and bit his lip. I could tell he had lost his reserve again. “Hey, no worries, Jeff. Whatever it is, you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Anyway, you were right. Maybe you should just revel in that for a moment.”

Jeff grinned with his mouth, but his eyes looked sad. “What was I right about?” he asked.

I smiled for real at him as I climbed out of the car. “Everything. What else?”

***

By the time Jeff and I got back, Haley and Jordan had rejoined the crew and Vanessa had been rescued from the bathroom. I handed her a box of tampons and she just grunted. “You owe me big time,” I told her.

Adam and Jordan were on one bed, and Hay and Vanessa were on the other. Vanessa opened the box and dug out a tampon, which she handed to Hay. “Thank you,” Hay said, stuffing the extra in her pocket. Vanessa tossed the box aside and they went back to the magazine they’d been poring over when Jeff and I had come in the door.

Jordan was sharing a bag of chips with Adam and watching a hockey game on television. Neither he nor Hay gave any sign that they knew that I’d walked in on them, or any sign that they’d even done what I’d seen them do. I looked over at Jeff, who shrugged at me. There wasn’t any room left on the beds, so we sat down at the table in the corner. “Adam? Can we borrow your cards?” Jeff asked. Adam jumped off the bed and pulled out box of two decks, which Jeff then shuffled together. “Okay, By, you gotta teach me the secret behind that spite and malice game so I can kick everyone’s ass next time.”

I shook my head at him. “I suck at cards.”

“So? We’ll suck together.” He handed me the deck. “You deal.”

We were only halfway through the game when Jeff started yawning. He turned to the group as a whole. “So. Sleeping arrangements? We could stick to the same rooms we had last time. Or we could let Jordan and Haley have the single room and the rest of us bunk up in here.”

Absolute silence followed that statement. Hay dropped the magazine, her face blazing scarlet. Adam and Vanessa stared at Jeff, confused. Jordan’s mouth dropped open. I ducked my head, trying not to get involved. After a moment of crickets chirping, Hay found her voice. “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, looking venomous.

Jeff smiled at her. “Oh, come on, Hay. Byron walked in on the two of you.” So much for trying not to get involved. I burned as bright as Hay and looked at the carpeting. Even so, I could feel a couple faces on me.

Hay jumped up and ran into the other room, slamming the door behind her. Vanessa looked questioningly at Adam, who nodded at her, and she followed Hay into the other room, calling after her. That left the four of us guys alone in the room together. I still had my eyes on the floor.

Jordan looked over at Jeff, looking like he was going to give him hell, but then stopped and grinned. “What the hell, Jeff?” he asked, not sounding upset, but rather giddy.

Jeff took a look at Jordan’s stupid goofy grin and chuckled. “Sorry, dude. Was it supposed to be a secret?” he asked.

Jordan got control of his expression a little bit, but he still looked happier than I’d seen him in a long time. “No. At least I don’t think so. I mean, Haley said that she isn’t sure what this is, but I think that just means that we aren’t officially dating or anything.”

Adam thumped Jordan on the shoulder. “So what exactly are we talking about here?” he asked.

Jordan’s smile turned mushy again. “Second base,” he said.

Adam looked impressed. “Whoa, dude. How did this happen? You were about her least favorite person on earth earlier today.”

“The power of an apology, maybe? Either that or I’m just that good of a kisser.” All three of them smirked.

I shuffled a foot around on the floor and inadvertently caught Jordan’s attention. “Hey, Byron. You and me are cool, right?”

I finally looked up. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?”

He looked a little embarrassed. “Well, Jeff said you saw me and Haley while we were....”

I shook my head, lowering it again, hiding behind my hair. “It wasn’t exactly my favorite image, and I’m going to need a lobotomy to get it out of my head, but that’s alright. I’ll get over it.” I scuffed my shoe around some more. “But I gotta tell you, man. You hurt her and I’ll kill you.”

Jordan laughed. “I’d expect nothing less out of you.”

***

I wish I could say Hay was as easy going about what happened that night as Jordan was, but I couldn’t. Not even close. And for some reason, she held me entirely to blame for everything.

I found that out the hard way the next time I saw her, after everyone was showered and dressed the next morning. Vanessa came in to get some breakfast. She discovered the milk had soured, so she and Jordan ran to buy some more from the grocery. Adam was styling his hair and Jeff was munching dried fruit and watching PBS kids. I knocked on the door to the girls’ room, and when I didn’t get an answer, I went in.

Hay was on the bed, flipping through a notebook of some kind. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her, just like any other time. Only this time, she shoved me hard and knocked me off the bed. “Ow! What the hell, Hay?” I spit as I sat back up, rubbing my arm where she’d shoved me. Suddenly I was glad she hadn’t punched me like she’d done to Jordan. She’s got strong arms.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” she asked, putting the notebook aside and standing over me.

Oh, crap. “Can you be more specific?” I asked.

She leaned in closer. “I mean, spying on me and Jordan last night.”

I sputtered. “I was not spying on you. How was I supposed to know that you guys were in here together? Isn’t there some kind of code for that? Like leaving a sock on the door knob or something?” She leaned in even closer, her eyes blazing. “Okay, okay. Bad joke. But honest, I just walked into the room, saw you two on the bed, and walked back out. No spying intended. I wasn’t even going to mention it to you.”

“But you told Jeff.”

I hung my head. “Yeah, I told Jeff. Listen; imagine if you walked in on me kissing your brother.” She involuntarily shuddered. “See? I had to tell someone. And he talked me down a little bit. But if I’d known he was going to blurt it out like that, I wouldn’t have.”

The outside door to the other room opened and Vanessa and Jordan returned. “We’ve got milk!” I heard Vanessa call. Haley whirled around and stalked out the door, leaving me behind without a goodbye. By the time I’d gotten off the floor, brushing off my butt (and my pride) and made it into the other room, she had a bowl of Lucky Charms and milk. I walked in through the door, and she walked back through it without acknowledging me, slamming it behind her again.

Jordan quirked an eyebrow. “What’s with her?” he asked, nodding toward the still vibrating door.

I picked up a box of Cap’n Crunch and poured a bowl. “She’s mad about last night.” Jordan wrinkled his brow. “Not about what happened between you. But about how everyone found out.”

Jeff looked chagrined. Jordan moved to join Hay next door, but I physically stopped him. “Don’t. Wait ten minutes before you talk to her.”

He looked irritated. “Don’t be a know-it-all, Byron. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

I let him go but shook my head. “Forget that I’m your brother for a minute. Forget I’m a guy. Just think of me as Haley’s best friend, okay? When she’s this upset, she needs some time to calm down. Otherwise, she’ll say something you’ll both regret.”

Vanessa interjected. “He’s right. When I went in there last night, she tore me a new hole. Even though I didn’t make out with her, or ‘Peeping Tom’ her, or share her news with the whole world,” she said cheerfully. Jeff and I both winced at the phrasing, but she plowed on, unabated. “After a few minutes she calmed down and apologized for it. And then we worked together to come up with as many insulting names for men as possible, in alphabetical order. We got stuck at Q.”

I ignored the second half of that statement for the time being. “Anyway, Jordan, trust me on this one. Eat your breakfast, and then go talk to her. And I do think it should be you who talks to her anyway, even if that makes me sound like a know-it-all.”

We all ate quietly for a while with Sesame Street as our only sounds. Finally Jeff put his bowl down. “Couldn’t come up with a Q?” he asked Vanessa thoughtfully.

***

After we ate, Jordan went into the other room, and a few minutes later, he led Haley out to join us. He had one hand gently on her back, guiding her, and she looked unsure of herself. Jordan made a joke with Vanessa, still standing there with his fingers on Hay’s shoulder blade, and when Hay realized that no one was going to make a single comment to her, she visibly relaxed a bit. Jordan noticed and eased his hand around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him. She looked up at him and smiled her thousand-watt smile.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t beach weather, we’d decided to spend the morning at the beach. When we’d managed to find a news broadcast, they’d said the temperature was supposed to go down for the next couple days, meaning that this was the closest we were going to get to a “nice day” in Maine in April. We all put on our windbreakers and hoodies and piled into the car.

The beach was ridiculously beautiful, even though it was maybe fifty degrees outside. We spread out a picnic blanket, and I swear, we all regressed to being seven and eight for a couple hours. We built sandcastles and tossed a ball around.

By lunch time we were covered in sand, sunburn and windburn. I ate the last of the ham in a sandwich and then took a walk down the beach alone. When I got far enough away that I could barely see everyone else, I came across a pier, one of those decorative ones that isn’t used for boats or fishing. I sat down at the end of it, staring out to the sea and thinking about everything that had happened so far this trip.

I didn’t even hear Hay come down the pier, despite the fact that it must have creaked many times over. She sat down beside me, far enough away that we weren’t touching, but reached her hand out to poke me in the side. I didn’t acknowledge her; I wasn’t ready for her to intrude on my thoughts. Finally she scooted a bit closer, still not touching me, and spoke my whole name. “Byron?”

“Hmmm?”

She looked at me and I could tell I was annoying her. But I could also tell she felt like she deserved it. “I’m sorry about before,” she said.

I still didn’t look at her, but I finally spoke. “You know I’d never purposely do anything to hurt or embarrass you.”

Hay sighed. “Yeah. I know. I overreacted.” She put her hands into her lap and grabbed the bottom of her hoodie, twisting it over and over. “This is just something I haven’t really done before. Getting close to a guy in this way, I mean. I just wanted time to think it over and maybe even enjoy this relationship or whatever it is.” She chuckled a nervous chuckle. “I also was afraid that you’d be unhappy about this.”

I shook my head. “I just want you to be happy. Even if that means you’re letting my doofus brother slobber all over you.” She let go of her hoodie long enough to smack my arm. “Ouch! You already bruised that arm earlier today. Leave it be, will ya, Hay?”

She smiled a real smile but her hands went back to the jacket. “Do you really mean that? I was afraid you’d be, I don’t know, jealous or something.”

It was my turn to chuckle. Still looking out over the water, I responded. “Jealous of Jordan for getting to kiss you, or jealous of you for having someone to kiss?” Hay’s mouth twitched, and she looked like she was about to say something, but I plowed on. “On the first, no, sorry. Gay, remember?” She smiled. “On the second? Yeah. Definitely.”

Hay smiled, a little sadly. “Well, what about Jeff?”

“What about Jeff?”

She laughed a hollow laugh. “Remember when I told you that I knew you were gay because you didn’t hit on me? Well, I had that fact confirmed for me by the way you kept staring at one of the guys in my algebra class. You are so transparent when you like a guy, Byron.” She patted my knee. “So I know you like Jeff.”

I threw my hands up. “So what if I do? He’s straight, Hay. Remember, the ex?”

She waved that away. “Trust me on this, By. Jeff likes you, too. Maybe even more than you like him.”

My cheeks grew warm as I remembered Jeff’s arms around my body. “Weren’t we talking about you, here?” I demanded.

Hay laughed again, a little happier this time. “What’s there to talk about anyway? I came, I saw, I made out.”

I turned to her finally, leaving the calming waves of the ocean on the edge of my vision. “Yeah, but why now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said: why now? I’ve been your friend for three years, and in all that time you’ve never even been on a date. And you could have, so it’s not like you were just waiting around for some guy to ask you. If I remember correctly, even that guy in your algebra class that I had a huge crush on asked you out.” She laughed again, back to sounding fake. More ‘ha-ha’ than her silent, happy laugh. “So I just don’t get it. Why not go out with some of those guys?”

The sky had started to darken with clouds, and now her face did the same. “Maybe not enough time had passed,” she said, sounding sad and lost.

I grabbed the arm closest to me. “Not enough time had passed since what?” I demanded.

Hay tore my hand off her arm with her free hand and scooted away from me, scrambling to her feet. “You’re really going to make me say it?” she asked, now adding angry to the sadness. “This is payback for outing you, isn’t it?” she accused.

“Say it, Haley.”

She backed away from me, down the pier. “Dammit, Byron. Please. Let it go,” she pleaded.

I shook my head as I got to my feet. I didn’t know exactly what she was going to say, but I knew it was big. “Not until you say it.”

She started to cry, angry, hurt tears. “I was raped,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.

In seconds I had my arms around her and she put her head on my shoulder. She cried soundlessly for a few minutes, and then wiped her face on my jacket. “I’ve never said that before,” she told me.

I eased up on the hug and put some distance between us so I could see her face. I didn’t say a word, but my expression said, “Talk about it.”

She read it right away. She pulled out of my arms and started walking back down the pier as drops of rain began to fall. “Do you remember a girl Vanessa and I used to hang out with named Diane?” I fell into step with her and shook my head. “I didn’t think so. She was more my friend than Vanessa’s. Well, she had this brother. Three years older than me and Diane. Gorgeous. His name was Dominic.”

I thought about that for a moment and remembered a Dominic Dumschat who was two years ahead of me in school. Hay was right. He was gorgeous, but more than a little arrogant. I nodded or her to continue.

“Well, the summer before high school, Vanessa and I went over to Diane’s to hang out. Dominic was there, and he started flirting with me. When we left, he followed me out of the house and asked me out. Vanessa said I shouldn’t do it, but I said yes.” She sniffled. I found myself wishing I was one of those people who carried tissues in his pocket. “The first two dates were okay. On the first, he kissed me goodnight. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it felt like the first one that counted, you know?” I knew exactly what she meant. “On the second date, he drove me home in his car and he reclined both our seats back and kissed me for a while. I was so thrilled because here was this cute senior making out with silly little freshman me.”

She stopped for a moment. Jordan was running down the beach toward us, holding an umbrella. He was still far enough away that he couldn’t hear. The rest of her story came out in a tumble of words. “But on the third date, he took me in the backseat. I was thinking, maybe we’ll lie across the seat and mess around like we had the night before. And that’s how it started.” She started to cry again. “But when he hit second base, I panicked and told him to stop. He told me not to be a tease. And then he pulled out a condom....” Hay was crying too hard to go on, but she didn’t really need to, anyway. I had the picture. More of the picture than I wanted, in fact. Suddenly, I knew that if I ever saw Dominic Dumschat again, I’d kick his ass.

Jordan joined us a moment later. “Everything okay?” he asked Hay, looking at me like I was the cause of her tears.

I answered for her. “I just told her a really sad story that ended with a dog getting hit by a car. I cried the first time I heard it, too.”

Jordan may be many things, but stupid is not one of them. He didn’t believe a word I said. “Um, okay,” he said, knowing that something more was going on. He moved to put an arm around her again, but she sidestepped him. He looked hurt and confused at the same time.

I caught Hay’s eye. “You got some tissues in that huge purse of yours?” I asked. She nodded, slowly, her tears subsiding again. “I’ll go to the car and get them for you.”

She caught my hand. “No. Jordan, do you mind? Please?” He nodded, unhappy, and took the car keys from her. After he was out of earshot, she continued the story, picking up ‘after.’ “Vanessa and I got into a big fight over it. That was the day you walked me home. She basically told me it was my fault.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “She told you it was your fault you got raped?”

Hay looked up at me over her shoulder. “Well, I didn’t say the word. I told her Dominic had gotten ‘handsy.’ She said you should expect nothing less with a seventeen year old and that she’d told me not to go out with him. I think she was really surprised when I cursed her out.” She started walking to where we could see Vanessa, Adam and Jeff smashing the sandcastle we’d worked on for hours.

I followed. “She wouldn’t have said that if she’d really known what happened.” Hay nodded, and she started walking directly in front of me. Probably so that I couldn’t see her face. “You’ve really never told anyone this before? Not even your mom?”

A head shake. “No,” she said, her voice muffled by the wind and the rain, “I didn’t want to get in trouble. My mom would have never let me go out with Dominic. Too old. So I told her I was hanging out at Diane’s when we went out.”

Jordan met us, holding Haley’s purse. She had stopped crying but her face was wet from tears and rain, so she pulled out a tissue anyway. Jordan watched her intently as she wiped her face and stuffed the tissue in her pocket. “Thanks,” she said, grinning at him. Jordan smiled back, and Hay reached out to take his hand. He looked shocked and pleased as he squeezed her hand and they walked back to our crew. I followed, a few steps behind, wishing I had a tissue for my own face.

***

We had planned to leave the beach and take a walk that afternoon, but the weather had different plans for us. We went back to the motel, tired and wet, and in some cases, emotionally drained. Hay begged off and went to the girls’ room to take a nap, while Vanessa decided on a hot shower and also retreated to the girls’ room. The four of us guys all looked at each other, not sure what to do with the next couple hours. It’s not as if there were too many options.

We played a few rounds of bullshit with the cards before we got bored with that. Vanessa had rejoined us by that point. I got up to use the john, and when I came back, Jordan and Vanessa were gone. “Emergency chocolate run,” Jeff explained.

Adam flipped on the television and the three of us vegged in front of the set for about an hour. I looked at the alarm clock between the beds and blinked. “They’ve been gone a long time for chocolate,” I commented. Jeff and Adam exchanged a look. “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

“Oh,” Adam said, like the thought had just occurred to him, “Jordan might have decided to maybe let Vanessa drive the car around for a while.”

I sat bolt upright. “What?”

Jeff was extremely casual about it. “She mentioned that your parents had never let her try driving in the rain.”

Internally I was screaming. Both Jeff and Adam were watching me closely, so I took a deep breath. “Oh.” They stared at me, waiting for me to blow a gasket. I turned my back for a second and took another breath. “I’m going to go take a shower,” I said, barely looking at them.

I walked calmly into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I was pretty sandy and gross, but I mostly just wanted to get away from them. As I washed my hair, I thought hard about how other people saw me. There’s one thing I’ve never understood. They tell you not to give in to peer pressure or worry about how other people think of you all the time while you’re growing up. But at the same time, they tell you to do this or that to make yourself look good or fit in. We wear deodorant and say please so we don’t offend others. There comes a time when you can’t have it both ways.

Old Byron would have flipped out that Jordan was letting an unlicensed driver behind the wheel of the car. New Byron, whoever he was, wanted to say, “Screw them. If they wreck the car, it’s on them. I have nothing to do with it,” and let it go. I wasn’t sure that New Byron was so much better.

I turned off the shower and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look any different than I had a week ago. Same long brown hair. Same blue eyes. Same face that probably needed a shave. Yet I felt different. Older, maybe. More mature. Definitely more honest.

Jordan and Vanessa were back by the time I came out of the shower. “Bring me any chocolate?” was all I said to them.

[tosybelle-blog]

By and Hays Excellent Adventure--Part III

When we got back to the motel, Hay locked herself in the bathroom of the girls’ room and refused to come out. She said something about drowning herself in the bathtub. Vanessa rolled her eyes, but Jeff’s expression was more serious, more thoughtful. “She’s not serious, is she?” he asked, concerned.

I shook my head. “Not if she only says it once.”

Jordan, meanwhile, had retired to bed, ice off his eye but a towel from the bathroom over it. “Shoulda bought a steak for that,” Adam teased, but Jordan just groaned. “He’s going to milk this for all he can,” he said to Jeff and me as he left Jordan under the covers. “Come on, let’s get out of here and go do something for a while. Leave the sulkers be. Vanessa?”

She popped her head into the doorway between the rooms. “What?”

“We’re going to town. Wanna come?”

Vanessa shook her head. “I’ll stay and babysit. Get Jordan more ice. Make sure Haley doesn’t give herself a swirly in the toilet. Referee round two if necessary.” She paused, and then added, “I’ll take pictures.”

Adam chuckled. “You’re one of a kind, thank goodness. We’ll bring back some dinner.”

Jeff drove us back down into Camden, with both Adam and I crammed into the front seat with him. “So, what are we going to do?” he asked as Adam turned the radio off.

Adam and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Wander around. We’ll know what we’re going to do when we see it,” he said vaguely.

I leaned over Adam so I could see them both. “We can get an idea of what to buy Mom and Dad, but Vanessa has the money so we can’t purchase now. Let me know if you see anything, okay?”

We left the car in a different parking area and wandered the other way this time. We’d gone past maybe two stores when Jeff saw something he just had to look at and ran into a store. He kept that up every couple of stores, leaving Adam and I amused, but not nearly as enthusiastic about shopping as he was. Sometimes, we’d follow him in and browse around, but after about an hour, we camped out on a bench for a breather. I spotted Jeff get into a conversation with a couple of other kids—whether they were locals or other tourists, I couldn’t tell. The discussion got animated and they dragged Jeff off, with him shouting he’d be back in a bit.

Adam laughed. “Typical Jeff. Walks into a strange town, makes friends, charms people.” I smiled, secretly wishing I had that skill as well. As soon as Jeff was out of sight, Adam turned to me. “I think you were trying to tell me something earlier?” he said, his expression earnest.

The smile dropped off my face quickly, and I’m certain I turned pale. “Yeah,” was all I said.

“And judging from all this build up, it sounds like it’s something pretty big. You going to spit it out?”

I had to tell him, and now, with the two of us alone, seemed like as good a time as any. “Yeah,” I repeated. My hands started to shake a little and my mouth grew dry. I wiped at it as an excuse to avoid eye contact. I was really hoping I could do this without crying. Hadn’t we had enough tears for two days already?

I thought about how brave Adam had been to tell me he was sorry and he missed me. That might not have seemed like much, but to Adam and me, it meant everything. I had to say it, in order to complete that bond. I looked him square in the eye, and in a small but clear voice, I said, “Adam, I’m gay.”

“Oh.”

This was not the response I had expected. All expression went out of Adam’s voice and face. It was as if someone had turned the lights off behind his eyes. He looked away, taking a gum wrapper out of his pocket. Something to fiddle with. Something to take his attention off me.

I started to panic. “Say something,” I demanded. “Tell me what you’re thinking. I don’t care if it’s ‘I hate you and I never want to talk to you again.’ I just need to know where I stand with you.”

Adam looked down the street. “Think we should get pizza for dinner? I think that’s something even Jeff will agree to eat,” he said, scouring the block for a pizza place.

“Adam!”

“I don’t know what you want, Byron. I don’t see how this changes anything. I mean, you’re still you, right? So why should this make things between us any different?” He ran his hands through his hair, looking frustrated. “Look. This does not change anything between you and me. But it’s a shock. So give a guy some time to process, huh?”

I nodded slowly. “Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For being you. For not letting this change anything.” I sucked in a breath. “For making it so easy to come out for the first time.”

Adam whirled around on me. “I’m the first person you told?” He sounded shocked. “What about Haley?”

I smiled. “I didn’t have to tell her. She just knew.”

He grinned too. “Got good gaydar, huh?”

We got up and walked down the street in the direction Jeff had disappeared. At the corner we’d last seen him rounding, we stopped to see if he was visible. The only young people we saw were two girls, probably a couple years younger than Adam and I. They saw us looking in their direction and I guess they thought we were looking at them. They started giggling and got up to come our way. “Oh God,” Adam said under his breath as they walked over. They were the type of girls who wear too much make up and not enough clothing. The taller one had a pair of giant hickeys, and each one had a lit cigarette.

“Hey, you guys twins?” the taller one asked.

Adam smiled at them, always looking for a chance to flirt with any girl. He’s said before he uses the ‘throwbacks’ as practice for the ‘good catches.’ Disgusting. “Nope. We got another brother. Triplets.” The girls looked at each other and giggled even more.

The shorter one jumped in. “He as cute as you two?”

Even though I had absolutely no interest in girls at all, and in these girls specifically, I felt myself blushing when she said that. I don’t get called cute too often, even by juvenile delinquents. “Well, we’re identical, so...” I said, letting the idea dangle.

Still more giggling. “Well, if you guys are looking for a date, we could probably hook up. If your brother wants to come, we’ll find him a friend.” Before I knew what was happening, the shorter girl grabbed my hand and wrote MIA, 555-3828 on the back of it. “Call me, Cutie!” she said as she and her friend disappeared back down the way they had come.

Adam’s mouth dropped open and he stared at me for a moment. I looked at my hand, disgusted. She’d used red Sharpie. That was going to take days to come off. “Man,” Adam said, starting to laugh, “Now I see why Jordan and I can’t get any dates. You’re one of those gay guys that all the girls want. Probably all the girls we ask out are sitting there thinking, ‘I wish it were Byron asking me out. He’s dreamy!’” He slugged me playfully in the shoulder.

And at that moment, I knew Adam was right when he said things weren’t going to change between us. I held the hand out to him. “Here, write down the number. Maybe you and Jordan can get dates with them. They’re obviously desperate. They’re not in any place to say no.”

Adam smirked. “Those two? I wouldn’t touch them wearing latex gloves. No telling what kind of diseases they might have. You might want to wash that hand thoroughly.”

I wrinkled my nose at the image he had put in my head. “That’s definitely in my immediate future plans,” I said.

Adam looked thoughtful for a moment. “Anyway, I think Jordan’s got a thing for a specific girl,” he said, carefully, “to the point where I actually think he would turn down dates with girls other than her.”

“Danielle?”

“No, someone else. Look, it’s just a theory. I have no proof, so I’m not going to say any more.” He blew out a puff of air, and his voice took a slightly regretful tone. “Don’t tell him I said anything, okay?”

I nodded. “You have my word. As long as you don’t tell him about me.”

Adam looked straight at me. “I wouldn’t do that. That’s your story to tell, not mine,” he said.

“And what story is that?” Jeff ran down the road from the other direction, joining us just in time to hear the end of the conversation. I blushed furiously, much worse than when Mia had called me cute.

Adam elbowed me. “Aren’t you going to tell him?” he asked. I shook my head, confused. I had barely managed to get through telling Adam I was gay. Can you imagine if I’d had to come out and say, “Jeff, I’m gay, and I have a lustful crush on you?” No way. “Aww, he’s shy,” Adam said with a chuckle. “I guess I have to tell you...”

I thought my heart was going to stop. It looked like Adam was going to wait no more than two minutes before betraying my trust. “...Byron is totally the Mack Daddy of this car trip. Look at that! He was totally flirting with a couple girls and one of them gave him her number.” He grabbed my hand and held it in front of Jeff’s face.

Jeff looked confused. “Oh. I, uh...” He stopped and looked me over. I didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, I pretended to be fascinated by a sign on a nearby lamp post. “There’s a lot more to this story, isn’t there?” he asked, still looking at me.

Adam answered. “More than you know,” he said, smiling and putting his hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “Listen, pizza for dinner sound okay tonight? I think we passed a parlor a ways back, right when you discovered that hat with the stuffed bird on top...”

***

We arrived back at the motel to discover that at least one of our crankpots was feeling a little better. Jordan’s eye was swollen and red, but he and Vanessa were sitting on the floor, playing a furious game of spite and malice with the cards. They were teasing and laughing and calling each other cocksuckers and douchebags in the most loving fashion imaginable. They actually stopped a hand in the middle when we opened the door with the pizzas, making a bee line for the piping-hot boxes, still cursing as imaginatively as they knew how.

I picked up two slices of pizza—one off the everything pie and one off the mushroom half of one of the other pies. Gently I carried them to the other room, where Haley was sitting alone on her bed. She’d changed into her pajamas and was bra-less and makeup-less, and she’d pulled her hair up sloppily in a clip. None of us had eaten lunch that day, and I knew she could smell the pizza. Yet she remained rooted to the bed, her eyes and mind somewhere else altogether. I sat down next to her. “Mushroom?” I asked. She turned to look at me finally, and I could tell she’d been crying recently. Again. After a moment, she reached for the pizza slice and took a bite, using the food as an excuse not to talk. I wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “What’s the matter, Hay? If you’re worried about Jordan, he’s fine. He looks like he’s a lot better off than you are right now.”

She swallowed and looked at me. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she said finally.

I nodded. “We all feel like that sometimes,” I said, thinking about Jeff screaming on the top of Beech Hill earlier.

Hay didn’t really respond to that. She’d pulled the blinds wide open in the front of the motel room. The car was parked outside her window, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the windshield. “While everyone else is eating, let’s go fugitive. We can take the car and run and run. We’ll never go back home. Thelma and Louise!” She chuckled and shook her head. “No, wait, Elmer and Louise!”

“Hay...” I had finished eating my pizza and wished I had brought more slices. This was looking to be a long conversation. “You can’t run away from your problems. You know that, right?”

She sighed. “It works for a little while,” she said, sounding particularly sad and inexplicably young. “Besides, you’re a fine one to talk, Mr. In-The-Closet.”

I smiled at her. “You know I listen to you and take what you say to heart, right? Even when you’re drunk and preachy?” Hay looked mildly put out and opened her mouth to reply, but I cut her off. “I told Adam.”

She leaned forward. “You did?” she asked, delighted. “What did he say?”

“He said it didn’t change anything. And then he made jokes about it.” I shrugged as her expression became dark. “That’s a good thing, Hay. It’s how he shows love. Really, I didn’t feel insulted. I was laughing along with him.”

“Whatever. You guys sure are weird.”

I shifted as my stomach grumbled. I hoped Jordan and Adam had left some pizza. “Last night, you told me I need to face my problems. You’re right and I’m going to try. I’m going to slowly find my way out of the closet at my own pace, okay?” She nodded, looking truly happy for the first time since we’d left Beech Hill. “But do me a favor, alright? Take your own advice. Whatever reason you had for coming up with this road trip, whatever you’re trying to run away from, you need to deal with it.”

Hay looked shocked for a moment, but tried to cover it. “You know why I suggested this trip,” she said, irritated, “so we could get away from our brothers and sisters for a while.”

“Bullshit. Yeah, that’s the reason you gave me. But you have some other reason too. And while you have good gaydar and knew what my problem was, I have no idea what’s eating you.” I sighed. “I hope someday you’ll tell me, just like you had hoped I would tell you I was gay, but that’s your choice and I respect it.” Hay opened her mouth again, but then shut it firmly. I could tell I wasn’t going to get anywhere else with her tonight. And what can I say? I was hungry. Time to end the deep thoughts and get back to the food. “So that’s why we can’t just take off fugitive. That and I don’t want to be known as Elmer.”

Hay grinned at me. “Would you rather be Louise?”

***

Luckily, there was some pizza left when I finally coaxed Haley to join the others. Unfortunately, it was all mushroom. I grabbed the whole box and Hay and I sat on the bed next to where the others, done eating, were all playing spite and malice together. Jeff had never played the game before, and he wasn’t doing too well. “This would be more fun with gambling or drinking,” he grumbled.

“Wouldn’t everything be?” Vanessa quipped.

By the time Hay and I were done eating, they had just about finished their game. I’d been egging everyone on during the game, but Hay had remained silent and subdued. When Jordan finally won the game and the cards were being shuffled, she finally spoke. “You guys ever play Mao?” she asked.

We all responded in the negative. “Oh, you have to let me teach you. It’s ridiculous.” No one had any better ideas, so Vanessa handed Hay the cards and she and I joined the group on the floor. Once we had sorted out how many decks were shuffled together, she began dealing out six piles of cards. I started to ask how the game was played. She stopped, looking me in the eye, and said, “Talking during deal. Penalty card.” I opened my mouth, stunned, but said nothing. Instead, I picked up the partial pile and she smacked yet another card down in front of me. “Picking up the cards before the dealer picks up. Penalty card.” The cards went back down in a hurry.

We all silently watched her deal and then set the rest in a pile in the middle. “Okay. There are two rules I can tell you. First, the object of the game is to learn the rules. Second, play starts on the dealer’s left.” She flipped over the first card and looked at me expectantly.

Well, let’s just say that Mao is an extremely frustrating game for someone who always follows the rules, as it’s hard to follow that which you don’t know. First, it took me ten minutes into the play to realize the game was similar to crazy eights, only with a bunch of goofy rules added in. I’d play a queen of hearts and get penalized for not saying, “God save us,” but I wouldn’t know if you were supposed to say that for a queen or a heart or what. Hay obviously enjoyed giving us penalties for rules only she knew. In fact, I think she enjoyed it just a little too much.

Surprisingly, Jordan caught on to the rules very quickly. Adam played the three of spades while Hay was drinking her soda and not watching the play. Jordan grabbed a card off the pile and tossed it at Adam, yelling, “Failure to say three of spades!” Hay grinned at him, and his ears turned pink.

With all the penalty cards we kept drawing, the game took quite a while. Even Hay, who as the dealer didn’t receive penalties, was having trouble getting rid of her hand. I finally found myself with another queen of hearts as the only card in my hand, with a four of hearts as the top of the discard pile. I laid it down and called, “God save us! Mao!” and the game was over.

Jordan laughed as he and Adam tried to sort out the decks. “That game was wicked, Haley!” he said, oblivious to the fact that, other than penalizing him, she hadn’t spoken to him directly all night. “You have to write down all the rules for me so the guys and I can play that on the team bus sometime.”

She shrugged. “I can write ‘em out for you, later, if you want ‘em.” She looked away, and I couldn’t see her expression, but she sounded a little embarrassed. Strange.

Vanessa had gotten up during all this and started moving around the liquor bottles. “Anyone else for a drink?” she asked.

Adam and Jordan both jumped up to join her. “None for me, thanks,” Hay called as she took a single deck and laid it out for solitaire.

Jeff also shook his head. “Maybe I can get through the whole day tomorrow without crying like a baby if I don’t drink tonight,” he joked. He had sat beside Haley on the floor, and kept peeking to see what cards she was dealing. She smacked at his hand, sending cards flying. The two of them laughed.

Vanessa turned to me, and to my own surprise, I heard myself saying, “Yeah, alright.”

Apparently, this was to everyone else’s surprise, too. “Really?” Vanessa said, stopping in mid pour to look at me. Everyone else seemed too stunned to talk.

I nodded slowly. “Really. But make it mostly juice and just a little bit alcohol, okay?”

Adam and Jordan, standing beside her, started to relax. I guess I just sounded a little more like myself. Still, Adam poured me a little bit of vodka and a whole glass of orange juice and then held it just out of my reach. “You sure?”

I smiled at him. “Adam, I’ve had a long fucking day. Can I just have the goddamn alcohol already? Before I really do change my mind?”

He started to say something, but then he grinned back at me. After he handed me the drink, he joked, “Somehow, Byron, I’ve always pictured you with something a little fancier or fruitier. Like a martini or a mimosa or a cosmo or something.”

“I have no idea what most of those are,” I admitted. I took a sip and then looked at the glass like it had personally offended me. “You guys actually like the taste of this?”

Jeff was watching me from his seat on the floor. “It grows on you,” he said, looking amused.

Vanessa had drained her glass already. “Oh, look, Pa,” she said, putting her arm around Jordan, “Our little boy is growing up. His first real drink of alcohol!” He shrugged her off but didn’t seem too irritated.

Everyone eventually turned to other activities. Vanessa turned the TV on and poured herself a second drink, sitting down to watch a rerun of South Park. Adam and Jordan joined her and found themselves laughing at the antics of a bunch of kids who cursed almost as often as we did. Jeff had taken Hay’s deck of cards and was dealing some complicated solitaire game. Only Hay was watching me as I sat on the other bed and sipped the nasty screwdriver. She met my eyes and gave me a little smile, but her eyes were shiny and bright. I couldn’t tell if she was happy that I’d broken a rule—in my own way, on my own terms—or if she was crying again. It had definitely been a long fucking day—and a hard one, too. Harder for some of us than for others.

***

Well I can’t say that the alcohol gave me any of the pleasant side effects it’s known for, but I guess you have to drink more than a thimble’s worth to get those. But on the upside, I woke up without a hangover. (Not that I’d really expected to have one, of course.)

Everyone else was still asleep when I woke up. We’d agreed to a late start so we could all enjoy our sleep, but I knew once I was up, I was up for the day. By unspoken agreement, I’d been given the spot in bed closest to the bathroom both nights. It’s a long running Pike family joke that I have a bladder the size of a walnut. Even though it’s no longer true—I think I was about six when I stopped wetting the bed—it still pops up on regular occasions. And sometimes, like this, I actually don’t mind.

I showered and got dressed while everyone was still asleep, then crawled back into bed with a bowl of Lucky Charms. Hay loves Lucky Charms. She says that the marshmallows make her feel like she’s camping, which is pretty weird. But then, the longer I was on a road trip with her, the odder I was beginning to think Hay was.

I was just beginning to ponder that fact when Jordan began to stir. He rolled over from one side to the other so that he was facing me. I grimaced as I caught a glimpse of his eye, purple and swollen. Adam was right. He had one hell of a shiner. It became even more noticeable as he opened his eyes and looked at me.

Jordan blinked a few times, struggling to get his eyes to focus. “What time is it?” he asked. I shrugged and spooned more cereal into my mouth. He sat upright and looked at the alarm clock between the beds. “Eight thirty. And you’re already up and dressed?”

I shrugged again. “Couldn’t sleep anymore,” I said, slurping some milk up from my spoon.

He looked at me funny, and I couldn’t blame him. He’s normally the first one up and moving, and Adam and I have to make a bit more effort to wake up. Jordan threw off the blankets, narrowly missing my cereal, and rolled out of bed, just wearing his boxers. He wandered into the bathroom and peed with the door open. I rolled my eyes at him fondly as he came back out, scratching his shoulder, and gathered up some clothes. “If the others wake up and want to take a piss while I’m in the shower, tell them to just come in. But don’t let ‘em flush!”

Jordan may be the triplet with the least amount of hair and the least fussy way of dressing, but he takes the longest time in the shower of anyone in my house—and that includes my teenaged sisters. By the time the shower turned off, Adam had gotten up, thrown on a pair of jeans, and was fixing himself a bowl of cereal. I’d eaten two bowls myself and was throwing away my garbage.

Adam sat down in the empty chair, looking down at his bowl as he ate. I turned back from the trash can and was startled as Jeff rustled in the bed. He was lying on his back, one hand under the pillow, the other palm up next to his side. When Adam had tossed off the blanket, it had left Jeff half uncovered. He wore a pair of pajama bottoms that had ridden low in his sleep. His torso was bare, and I followed the curve of his shoulders down his arms and back up. I found myself staring as his chest rose and fell with his breath. He shifted again, bringing his hand onto his chest, and smiled in his sleep. I smiled too.

“Oh, my God,” Adam said. I turned around to find him watching me. He looked from me to Jeff and back to me. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me like I was crazy. “You have it bad, don’t you?”

“Shhhh!” I grabbed his arm and pulled him over toward the door between our room and the girls’, as far away from Jordan and Jeff as possible. “Tell the whole world, why don’t you?”

Adam chuckled. “You keep staring at him like that and the whole world’s going to know, anyway.”

I sighed and looked down at the carpet. “Look, it’s a hopeless crush. Not only does Jeff live on the other side of the country, but he’s also straight. I figured it was better to stare while he’s asleep than when he was awake.”

Adam looked over at Jeff and smirked. “Can’t argue with that, can I?”

At that point Jordan came strolling out of the bathroom. He eyed the two of us, smushed up against the door. “What are you guys doing over there, making out?” Adam and I sprung apart, trying to appear innocent but doing the exact opposite. “You know incest is illegal, right?” Jordan snickered as he crossed the room. He grabbed a bag of chips and turned on the TV, hitting the mute button right away.

A talk show episode blathered on, and without the sound, it was hard to determine exactly what the guests were talking about. I guess it doesn’t really matter with Jerry Springer, though. By the time Adam and I came over to sit on the bed by Jordan, a fight was going on between a skinny, short girl and a taller, overweight woman wearing too much make up. “Hey, look, Adam, it’s Mia and her friend!”

Adam snickered but Jordan just looked at us like we were insane. “We met these two girls last night...” Adam started. He grabbed my hand and thrust it toward Jordan. Despite my scrubbing it the night before and thoroughly again that morning, the bright red was still on the back of my hand.

Jordan guffawed and Jeff stirred, opening his eyes. “What’s so funny?” he mumbled. Jordan looked guilty but didn’t answer. Jeff sat up and stuffed both the pillows from the bed behind his back. He looked blearily at the three of us, like he expected to see someone else laughing while he slept.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.” Adam smiled at Jeff and then at me. I smacked him on the back of the neck where Jeff couldn’t see. Jordan saw, though, and he gave the two of us a strange look and moved a few inches away from us, as if he was trying to let Jeff know he wasn’t a part of whatever business we were getting into.

Jeff didn’t notice any of it. “Girls up yet?”

I shrugged. “If they are, we haven’t heard from them yet.”

Jeff grinned. “We should go wake them the way they woke us up yesterday.”

Jordan faked a shudder. “Vanessa...in the morning...not pretty.”

Jeff waved that off. “I’ve got sisters, too. I’ve seen everything.” He slid out of bed and pulled his pajamas back up. Not bothering with a shirt, he tested the door to the girls’ room and discovered they hadn’t locked it on their side. “Anyone coming with me?” I jumped up to meet him. Adam threw on a shirt and after that, Jordan followed, a little reluctantly. Jeff swung the door open, and when we were met with no response, we moved en masse into the other room.

Hay was sitting with her back to us on her bed, brushing her hair. She obviously hadn’t heard the door open, so when we all appeared, we startled her and she threw her hands up. The hairbrush clattered between the night stand and the bed. Hearing the noise, Vanessa popped out of the bathroom, her eye make up half done. “You guys beat us up today!” she said, pouting her best mock pout.

“Nah, not really,” Jeff sat down on the end of Hay’s bed while she fished her brush from behind the dresser. “I think I’d make quite a statement if I went island hopping like this, hmmm?” He modeled his sagging cotton pajamas for the girls. They laughed, but I actually wouldn’t have minded if he dressed like that all the time.

***

Jeff took his clothes into the bathroom, and while Vanessa finished her makeup, Hay gathered up the Lucky Charms. “By!” she exclaimed, shaking the cereal, “You ate up half the box!” She picked up a disposable bowl from the pile my mom had given us and poured herself some breakfast and sat on the chair, while Adam and Jordan took the bed. Jordan turned the sound back on the television and started flipping stations.

I sat sideways on the arm of the chair, with my butt right next to Hay’s arm. Jeff came out of the bathroom, some dental floss still hanging from his mouth. He was wearing a long- sleeved gray t-shirt and his khaki shorts from the other day. “Anyone seen my chapstick?” he asked, his words slightly garbled.

Adam turned away from the television. “May I state the obvious and ask if you’ve checked your pockets?” he queried.

Reaching into his pocket, Jeff came back out with a handful of condoms, the ones we had bought on the way up. “Oh!” Hay exclaimed, putting her spoon into her bowl, “I was wondering where those went.”

Jordan put down the remote. “Pass those over here,” he called, “I didn’t get to see them before.”

Jeff handed him the pile. “Can’t believe I slept with those in my pocket the other night and didn’t lose any,” he commented.

Jordan set them all on the bed. Jeff grabbed some granola and joined him and Adam. “So how were you going to split them up, one for everyone?” Jordan asked.

Jeff looked at Hay and me. That hadn’t been our plan, but no point in not sharing now. They were just for fun, right? We weren’t going to actually use them. “That’s right,” I said.

Adam jumped up from the bed and picked up one of the bottles of liquor. We’d been storing them in his suitcase, wrapped in the paper bags, when we weren’t using them, to keep housekeeping from spotting them. He removed the bag from the almost empty bottle of Captain Morgan and threw all the condoms inside.

Jeff leaped up from the bed and headed into the girls’ room. “Vanessa!” I heard him say as he pounded on the door to the bathroom, “We’re sharing condoms out here. Come join us!”

I felt Hay start laughing at his phrasing. She put her cereal down and put her hands over her mouth, making an “I can’t believe he just said that!” face. Adam and Jordan each raised their eyebrows. Jeff came right back. “I got her attention. She’ll be right out.”

When Vanessa was made up, we all gathered around the bed and took turns reaching into the bag. Hay looked at her bright green condom and sighed. “Think these things are actually useful?” she asked. “Will they prevent pregnancy and STDs?”

Vanessa had the music-playing rubber. “I don’t know,” she said, reading the instructions on the back to herself, “I can’t imagine that something that plays music as you’re getting some would be much good. They probably spent more time on the music technology than the not-breaking technology. Not really useful for me anyway. Devon’s kind of loud during. Wouldn’t hear a thing.” She tossed the condom packet on the bed and went to get something to eat.

My brothers and I all looked at each other. “You’re having sex with Devon?” Adam asked, voicing the concern all three of us had.

Vanessa picked up the bag of chips Jordan had been eating for breakfast. “Well, yeah,” she said, and then got a good look at our faces. She instantly got mad. “Don’t you dare go all big brother on me. I’m not Margo or Claire. I’m nearly seventeen years old. I’m a whole fourteen fucking months younger than you are! You know that you were having sex at my age, and if you weren’t, you were sure wishing you were!” Vanessa’s face was flushed, and she was clenching the chips so tightly that I heard a few break.

Adam and Jordan looked at each other again. I knew they were thinking that, at least on the last bit, she was right. Vanessa is only a year younger than we are, and this time last year, the two of them had been planning on whom they were going to take out once they got their licenses and how far they were going to go with them. I sighed. “Vanessa,” I said in my calmest voice, “I’m not actually worried about you having sex so much. You’re a big girl and you can take care of yourself for the most part. My worries are that you’re being safe. And of course, there’s Devon...”

“What about him?”

Yikes. I’d never heard her be so defensive before. “Well...I’m not his biggest fan. He kinda gives me the creeps, to be honest. I’ve never heard him say a word, for instance. Every time he sees me, he just stares at me.” Pugsley Addams, I thought to myself.

She sighed. “Yeah. Even my friends say that. But I like him, okay?” She put the chip bag down and sat on the floor, the wind out of her angry sails. I jumped up and sat down with her, and Hay joined me. Jeff had been trying to stay out of the conversation and had been digging around in his duffel. He finally came out, triumphantly holding his chapstick. He perched on the bed, as far away from the rest of us as possible, looking awkward.

Jordan spoke for the first time in a while, and I was surprised by what he said. “I think, Vanessa, that the main thing is that you remember your ‘first’ forever. I just hope someday that if I’m ever lucky enough to find a girl who will make love to me, it’s someone I’ll remember fondly for my whole life. Maybe I’ll even get lucky and I’ll still be with her when I’m eighty. Maybe Devon is that person for you. But if he’s not, I hope it won’t bother you sometime in the future. Say, when your own daughter is old enough to ask you about your first time.” Vanessa frowned at this but didn’t say anything.

Jeff inched closer, until he was sitting cross-legged on the bed. We were all quiet for a moment before he spoke. “I gotta tell you all. When my ex and I first started dating, she was kinda pushy about the whole sex thing. I eventually figured out, she was just desperate to lose her virginity. She didn’t want to be the last one of her friends, right?” He was nervously twisting his fingers as he spoke.

Vanessa interrupted him with a wave of her hand. “Let me guess. You didn’t give in, keeping your virginity intact, and she just went out and lost hers with some gross boy that was way beneath her.”

“No, no, no.” Jeff gave her a look. “What was that, the plot of some movie you saw? No, I totally slept with her. And totally regret it now. Not just because I let her pressure me into it. Mostly because it wasn’t right. I just wasn’t that into her.” He let his gaze move away from the mass of us on the floor and up higher, as if he were sorting through painful memories.

We were all quiet for a moment again, all lost in our own thoughts. Hay finally broke the spell. “Jeff?” she said. He looked at her. “If you don’t mind me asking, is that why you broke up with her?”

Jeff broke eye contact and looked down at his shoe. He suddenly noticed the graffiti Vanessa had made on it the day before and frowned, though I think more at the memory than at his boot. “Yeah. No. Sorta. Not really.” He chuckled. “It was really complicated,” he added, almost unnecessarily. Hay nodded.

I jumped up off the floor. “Well, is everyone ready to go?” I asked, desperate for a subject change.

Adam jumped on the topic. “Let’s make some sandwiches and take them with. They’ll be good for a couple hours before we’re ready to eat again.”

Everyone started moving around, busily packing sandwiches or filling water bottles. I watched them all go and realized one of my hands was clenched. I opened it and realized I’d never really taken a look at my selection from the paper bag earlier. I was holding the glow-in-the-dark condom, the one Hay and Jeff had been fighting over in the car. I looked over at the two of them making peanut butter and honey sandwiches together and laughing. Hay wiped a bit of peanut butter on Jeff’s nose.

I stuffed the condom in my pocket and kept my hurt to myself.

***

We parked our car at the dock and rode the ferry out to Islesboro Island, where we managed to rent bikes. Not too many rental places were open this early in the season, but we got lucky and there were just enough left. I had volunteered to hold the bag this time, and it was weighted down with enough sandwiches and water bottles that I felt like I was going to fall back off the bike. Of course, I was also carrying Hay’s massive bottle of sunscreen and her giant pharmacy of a purse. I had gotten a glimpse inside when she’d made me put the whole thing in the bag, and I saw every type of pill imaginable, bug spray, calamine lotion, and a thousand other things. She caught me looking and grinned sheepishly. “My mom,” she said, as if that explained everything. Although, in this case, it kinda did.

We biked for almost two hours straight before we stopped at a little grassy space. I opened the backpack and laid out the food, sorting sandwiches by filling. There was flurry of sandwich grabbing, and by the time I got done laying out drinks, all that was left was peanut butter on health-nut bread. How did this keep happening to me, exactly? I took the two peanut butter sandwiches and looked at my friends. They were scattered, Jordan and Adam sitting next to a stump, Vanessa over by the path, sunning herself. Jeff and Hay were sitting right next to the food, so I went over to join them.

They were sitting at such an angle that finding a place where I could see them both was awkward. I ended up back to back with Hay, the way we usually sat on her bed at home. She laughed when I sat next to her, and adjusted her angle so we were leaning on each other. “By,” she said in a sing-song voice, knocking her head into my neck, “You are the peanut butter to my jelly.” She opened her sandwich and inspected it. “Or should I say honey?”

Jeff shook his head at the two of us. “Nope. Byron would be a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on white bread. All American.” I frowned, not sure that was a compliment.

I was even less sure when Haley replied, “No, no. Not grape. Plum, maybe. Something that looks like grape, so that when you take the first bite, you’re really surprised.” She and Jeff both laughed.

I stiffened. “Can you guys stop talking about me like I’m not even here?” I asked, a little irritably.

I saw Jeff look at Hay, but I couldn’t tell from his expression what kind of silent conversation they were having. Jeff turned to me. “Well, then, Byron, what kind of sandwich are you?”

I grimaced but answered anyway after a slight pause, long enough to convey my contempt. “Pastrami on rye with provolone cheese, mayonnaise, tomato and a pickle.”

Jeff grinned. “That’s about right. That’s All American. And meaty.” He took a big bite of his sandwich.

Hay looked around. “Adam would be a club sandwich. There’s a little bit of everything on that, so you’re not surprised by what flavor you get.” She shifted and looked the other direction. “Vanessa would be a herring sandwich. Something that looks weird, so you might not want to try it, but it might actually taste good once you do.” Finally, she turned back to Jeff. “And you, Mr. Schafer, are home grown vegetables on hand-made wheat bread. Healthy. Organic. Crunchy.”

Jeff beamed at her. “You’re a Fluffernutter sandwich. Ridiculously sweet. So sweet, some people don’t even want to try and don’t know what they’re missing.”

I wanted to vomit. What did Jeff, the health food guru, know about Marshmallow Fluff anyway? “What about Jordan?” I asked, simply to get them to stop praising one another.

Hay let out a puff of air in a half-laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t want to taste him and find out.”

“He’s not that bad, you know.”

She took another bite and spoke with her mouth full. “Weren’t you the one saying, just yesterday, that he’s been an ass his whole life?”

I didn’t answer that. Jeff took up the thread. “Isn’t there some kind of lunch meat that’s tough to chew, but people love it anyway?” He said ‘lunch meat’ with the same tone of voice people used when talking about torture implements.

I thought about that for a minute. “Corned beef?” I suggested.

“Right. Jordan is corned beef,” Haley laughed, then added, “with cabbage!”

***

When we were done eating, the girls spread out in the grass, complaining of stomachs too full for bike riding. They almost instantly fell asleep, using their hoodies for pillows. Adam and Jordan were still off by the stump. I heard several phrases and realized they were talking about the school baseball team, on which they both play. Jeff was sitting down next the girls and it looked like he might join them in their nap. I, on the other hand, had to get up and get out. “Jeff, I’m going for a walk. Want to come with me?”

Jeff looked surprised, but nearly jumped up. “Sure!” he said, eagerly.

We let Adam and Jordan know where we were going and took off down the path. It forked a short way down, and we took a left, vowing that if we came any further on bicycle, we’d go right. We were barely out of sight of the camp when Jeff turned to me. “What’s with everyone?” he asked.

I was suspicious. “What do you mean?”

He eyed me calmly. “You know what I mean. This trip isn’t even half-way through and it’s been drama the whole way.” He took a sip from his water bottle. “Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve caused a fair share of it. But everyone’s just so at odds with one another and themselves. You and Jordan get into it. Adam tells you he’s keeping your secrets. Vanessa’s off sleeping with some creepy guy and we all get to hear about it. And don’t even get me started on Haley.”

I skipped all his other concerns and went straight to the last. “She’s not usually this bad,” I said, finding a rock at the side of the path and kicking it to see how far it would go. It careened off the path and out of sight. “You remember how she used to be, right? She was so outgoing. Everyone’s best friend.” Jeff had moved away right before Haley moved to town, but they’d met a few times and he definitely knew what I was talking about. He nodded. “The summer right before she started high school, something changed. The group of girls she was really close with—Vanessa, Charlotte, Becca, Danielle—it just sorta fell apart. I don’t exactly know what happened. Neither Vanessa nor Hay will really talk about it. Charlotte and Becca and some girl named Natalie hang out a lot these days. I have lunch with them, so I see them sometimes. Danielle runs with a faster crowd, mostly jocks and cheerleaders. She hangs out with a few of Jordan’s friends. Vanessa ended up with what everyone calls the ‘literary set’ because some of them write poetry or short stories about death. Really, they’re just emos and Goths and wannabes.”

I had started rambling by this point, but since Jeff was still following, I went on. “And Hay...well, she ended up alone. And since I was pretty much alone, too, we kinda latched on each other.” I kicked another stone, but this one didn’t move. I shrugged and went on with the story. “I know something’s bugging her. I think it has been for a long time. I actually talked with her about it last night, or at least I tried to. She keeps insisting that nothing’s wrong.”

Jeff gave a brief chuckle. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is how you’re ever ‘pretty much alone.’ You’ve got a built-in group of friends in your brothers.”

“Yeah, and that’s nice and all,” I sighed, “but you’ve seen how we are. When we were little, I started to feel like I was different from them. It keeps getting worse as we get older. They play baseball. I run track. They go on double dates. I go over to Hay’s house. They go to a party with drinking and weed. I stay at home with a book. See what I mean?”

It was Jeff’s turn to shrug. “But if you really need them, they’re there for you. Who else but Adam and Jordan would keep your secrets for you?”

I stopped in the pathway and thought about that for a moment. “Hay,” I said finally, and after another pause, “and I bet you, if I asked you to.”

Was it just me, or did he blush a little bit when I said that? Hard to tell with his skin tone. “You’d do the same for me,” he said, and I nodded. “Let me test you on that. Can I tell you something that no one in Stoneybrook knows, except my mom and stepdad? And have you keep it a complete secret?”

“Of course. You have my word.”

He started walking again suddenly. I was so surprised I had to break into a trot to catch up. “So you know I haven’t come to Stoneybrook for spring break since I started high school. Always had things to do with my friends out in California, you know. And my mom was never very happy about that, but she understood. Well, this year I wouldn’t have come either. But my therapist thought it would be good for me. He said I should ‘get away’ for a while, whatever that means.”

Even though I was horribly confused, I nodded and he kept going. “Remember how I said it hadn’t been a good year inside my head? Well, that’s an understatement. And a couple weeks after Christmas, I think my brain just completely imploded. I went nuts. My dad had to call the cops because I was holding a razor blade to my wrist and threatening to slit it.”

My mouth dropped open, and I reached out and put a hand on Jeff’s arm, stopping him in his tracks. “Oh, my God,” I murmured.

“Yeah,” Jeff said vaguely. He noted the hand on his arm with his gaze but turned back to looking me directly in the eye. “I spent a couple of weeks up in the loony bin before my shrink decided I was ‘no longer a threat to myself or others.’ But he keeps me drugged up, and this trip is the longest I’ve gone without seeing him since I got sent away.”

I released my hand. “Are you...okay now?” I asked tentatively.

“Yes and no. I’m not going to cut my wrists any more, if that’s what you mean. But Dr. Anton says we have ‘a lot of underlying issues to deal with’ before he considers me ready to end therapy. He says I’m ‘running from myself.’ Sound like anyone you know?”

Yes, it did. I knew he was referring to Haley, but he could have included me in that as well. I nodded. “Your secret is safe with me,” I told him.

He smiled. “I knew it would be.” We started walking again and were silent for a few minutes. He then turned to me. “Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

He chuckled. “Track team?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I wasn’t good enough to make varsity baseball, but I wanted to get out and exercise. And the track team takes everyone. I think I like it because, even though you’re competing against the other runners, you’re really competing against yourself more. You’re trying to beat your best score, your best time.”

Jeff nodded as well. “Makes sense. Okay. What about this ‘biomedical engineering’ thing? How’d you pick that out? I’d always had you pegged for a career working with people. Maybe kids.”

Hay had said the same thing when I told her what I was going to study, and for some reason, that put me on the defensive. “It’s a good career,” I said, rubbing my hand over my head and smoothing my hair a little bit. “It’s stable. There’s a demand for it. And it pays well.” I brushed a leaf out of the back of my hair.

Jeff looked slightly confused. “So what does a biomedical engineer do?” he asked.

“Really depends on what direction you want to go with it. I looked into companies that are working with computer models of DNA to try to figure out how our genes work. But other companies are creating medications. I could help cure the common cold. Or cancer.”

Jeff chuckled mirthlessly. “And that’s what you love to do, huh? Where your passion is?”

I stopped and looked him straight in the eye, and he held my gaze. “I don’t know,” I admitted, nervously running my hands through my hair again. “I just know it’s something that I could do. Something I could be good at.” I sighed and put my hands down. “I like the idea of lab work. There are rules. There are protocols. There are procedures.”

This time he reached out and touched me, a gentle hand to the shoulder. “Life isn’t like that,” he said.

I nodded again. “Not much is. Love. Friendship. There isn’t a written set of rules, so I don’t know when I’ve broken them. And sometimes, it feels like things that come so easily to everyone else are much harder for me. Maybe they just got a rule book and I didn’t?”

Jeff shook his head. “Nope. Nobody gets the rules to this, and everyone’s rules are different anyway. What’s right for you might be wrong for your brothers and vice versa. You just have to learn through trial and error.”

Without thinking, I put my hand on top of his and squeezed it. “So, life is just one giant game of Mao, then?”

“Yeah. Except that there’s no dealer to hand you a penalty card when you make a mistake. Unless you get arrested or God smites you or something.” I finished with his hand and he slid it free. I imagined that he was letting his fingers travel down my arm, but that was probably just the only way to get his hand loose. I checked his expression for signs that I should have been penalized, and there were none. He just looked earnest. “Honestly, outside the obvious, I think that there’s not too much ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in life. Just a series of choices.”

I thought about that for a moment. “So if I choose to go into biomedical engineering and then I hate it....”

He grinned. “You just change programs or schools. Or if you’ve already finished, you do it for a couple years, save some money, and go back to school. You’re eighteen. No one expects you to map out and plan the rest of your life now.”

“Good. Because I barely even have the rest of spring break planned. Never mind my whole life.”

***

By the time we got back, the girls were up and everyone was waiting for us. “What were you two doing?” Hay demanded.

Jeff patted her on the head. “It’s called talking. You should learn it. It’s a useful skill.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

We mounted our bikes and took off, but instead of heading farther down the trail, we headed back. We turned in our bikes after four hours of riding and had half an hour before the next ferry.

Tired, we all plopped down on a single bench, meant for maybe four people, tops. Vanessa found that infuriatingly funny and stopped a passerby to take our picture. After she had her camera back, Vanessa jumped off the bench (we all instantly scooted around, closing in the hole where her butt had been). With her second wind, she began taking artsy shots of everything, including extreme close-ups of some bird poop.

The rest of us all sat on the bench, listlessly watching her. Hay leaned over on me, putting her head on my shoulder. Jeff leaned over on her, putting his head on top of her head. I staggered under the combined weight and nearly fell off the end of the bench. “You guys are killing me here,” I moaned as I regained my balance. “Can’t you lean the other way, Jeff?”

Jeff pretended to ponder that. “I would,” he finally said, “but I don’t think Adam would appreciate me cuddling with him in public.” Adam smirked.

Yeah, but I don’t appreciate you cuddling with Hay in public, I thought. “So, instead you make a Haley sandwich?”

“She doesn’t particularly seem to mind.”

Hay’s eyes were closed, and she didn’t move as she spoke. “What is it with the three of us and sandwiches today, Pastrami and Veggies?”

Adam and Jordan leaned over from the other side of the bench, wearing identical expressions of confusion. Jeff laughed. I shook my head but couldn’t help a small grin. “Whatever you say, Fluffernutter.”

***

For our last night in Camden, we decided to step out a bit. We put on our nicest, cleanest clothes and found a seafood restaurant that wasn’t too fancy or expensive. It was a Tuesday night, so they weren’t too terribly busy. Still, our waiter didn’t look too thrilled to see us. It didn’t help that when we came in, Vanessa was talking a smidge too loud, Hay was riding Jeff piggyback and Adam was playing Jordan’s head like a bongo drum. We must have looked like a sextet of morons.

Once we sat down, we simmered down. We were seated at a round table. I had a girl on either side of me and Jeff directly across the table. I don’t even know why most of us even picked up the menus: it was definitely going to be five orders of lobster. Jeff pored over his for a while before deciding on broiled fish.

After the orders were placed and steaming cups of clam chowder were delivered, Adam put his spoon down before he started eating. “So we’re leaving Camden tomorrow?” he asked. “Where are we headed after that?”

Hay’s mouth was full, so I answered. “Ogunquit,” I said. “It’s about two hours from here.”

“Ogunquit,” Jordan repeated, “Funny name.”

Jeff was playing with, rather than eating, his chowder. “What’s in Ogunquit? More hiking and biking?”

Hay had finished her soup, so she picked up the thread. “Yeah, there’s a great path called the Marginal Way that we have to do. It’s really short but pretty. Lots of beaches. We wouldn’t be able to swim but we might be able to sunbathe. There’s other stuff too.”

Jordan smiled at the generic-ness. “‘Other stuff.’ Way to be specific,” he teased.

Hay shrugged, looking mildly irritated. “I read this book,” she said, as if that explained it all.

Jeff took another look at his uneaten soup and put his spoon down. “I’m not eating this,” he said, pushing it away. “By, you want it?”

I was half way through my cup and not about to say no to that. The chowder was delicious. “Sure!”

Hay pouted. “No fair!” she cried, “He’s not even finished with his, and you’re giving him more?”

Jeff smiled. “Weren’t you the one who said he eats more than all the rest of us combined?” he asked Hay sweetly. I aimed a kick at him under the table and he laughed.

***

When we finished eating, the girls, who had been whispering in the car on the way to the restaurant, insisted we stop at the drugstore next to Jeff’s liquor store. We all entered the store, but Hay and Vanessa ran to the back of the store while the rest of us perused the small assortment of food. Adam and Jordan loaded up on candy and chips, while Jeff picked up some dried fruit. The four of us finished and sat outside, talking shit for another ten minutes before the girls came out, loaded with bags. I could see a couple chocolate bars in one bag, but I could also see makeup and hair dye. Oh, Lord.

Jeff drove us back to the motel, with the girls sitting all the way in the back, giggling and gossiping. I sat beside Jordan in the middle row, drifting into sleep even though the journey was short.

Jordan woke me with a poke to the side when we arrived. “We need to carry you in?” he asked, not unkindly. I scooted out of the car, yawning furiously.

The girls disappeared into their room, shutting and locking the door between our rooms behind them. Adam pounded on the door for a moment. “No hanky panky!” he yelled. The only response he got was giggles.

I lay on the bed, my eyes closed, as the others had a furious discussion. “By?” Jeff called, “We have to finish off the alcohol before we go. If someone gets pulled over, we can’t have any open containers. You want?”

I covered my eyes with my arm. “No,” I called, “I’m asleep.”

And although I wasn’t at that moment, within five minutes, it was true. I stayed asleep for a couple of hours, until a female voice started talking right over my head. “Think he would sleep right through me cutting his hair? We could just trim some bangs; get the hair out of his eyes....”

It was Vanessa, and I could hear her giggles and smell the alcohol on her breath. I didn’t open my eyes. “Don’t even think about it,” I mumbled.

I heard Hay’s voice from the other room. “Any of that rum left?” she asked.

One of my brothers answered from the vicinity of the other bed. “Nawww. But there’s a little bit of vodka.”

Vanessa moved out of my personal space. “Fuck yeah!” she cried. “I claim that.”

I sat up and blinked my eyes open. Hay grinned at me and came over to sit next to me on the bed. “You sure you don’t want me to trim up your hair?” she asked, holding out a pair of shears.

“Yeah, right.” I blinked again and rubbed my eyes. “You’d probably just butcher it anyway.”

“You sure about that? You see what I did to Vanessa?”

I took a good look around the room for the first time. Adam was the only one sitting on the other bed. He looked as tired as I felt. Jordan and Jeff were nowhere to be seen. Vanessa had her back to me as she picked up the whole bottle of vodka and put it to her lips. She then turned around and I almost could not believe what I saw.

When Vanessa had run into the other room a couple hours before, her hair had come half-way down her back and was a faded-out black color. She hadn’t cut it in quite a while, and the ends were thin and dry and straggly. Now, her hair was trimmed up just below her shoulder blades, with layers cut in. It was dyed to match closely to her roots, making her hair all one color, except for some caramel highlights. Her makeup, which was normally thick and dark, now had a lighter touch. I could see she had blue eye liner and shiny lip gloss. It was very different from her usual style, but she looked so much more like the girl she had been before she’d gone to high school. Of course, the almost-empty bottle of vodka sticking out of her mouth ruined some of the look, but overall she looked amazing.

I gave Hay a thumbs up and she lit up like a candle. She drew up onto the bed and leaned against me, her eyes half closed. I gave her a hug and she snuggled in closer, putting her face right next to my ear. “I can still trim your hair up,” she whispered.

“Try it and die,” I replied.

***

Jeff and Jordan came in shortly afterward, and we all went to bed. Four hours of biking and a little alcohol had tired everyone out, so we all drifted off quickly. I slept in the spot closest to the bathroom again, with Jeff on the other side of the bed. It was best that I was so tired—I didn’t even stop to think about how close he was.

My conscious mind might not have thought about Jeff sharing my bed, but my unconscious mind definitely did. I don’t usually remember my dreams, but I recall one from that night clearly. Jeff and I were at the beach in Camden, only it was summer and we were getting ready for a swim. The sun was shining and it was ridiculously warm. We ran out into the water, waves splashing over us, running and playing and laughing. I ran away from Jeff down the beach in ankle high water when I tripped and landed on my hands and knees.

Jeff came up behind me. “Let me help you,” he said, reaching for my hand. I gave it to him, waiting for him to pull me up. Instead, he sat down beside me in the spray and pulled me into a sitting position next to him. His arms wrapped around me tightly and we lay down, embracing. It’s embarrassing how much of my romantic repertoire comes straight out of old movies. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re eighteen and you’ve never even kissed a guy. Just as we were about to have our From Here to Eternity moment, I awoke with a start.

I’m still not sure what woke me to this day, but I remember distinctly thinking that I must still be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or maybe I’d died and gone to heaven. In any case, I awoke to find Jeff’s arms wrapped around me. He was sleeping partly on his side and partly on his stomach, with his one hand under my waist and his other arm draped over my chest as I lay on my side. His head was inches from mine, his breathing slow and steady in my ear. This was as close to spooning as I’d ever seen two people do.

I couldn’t believe my luck. Yet at the same time, I felt like some kind of practical joke was being played on me. Maybe Adam had told Jeff about me, and Jeff was playing some kind of prank? Was I maybe being filmed?

Or maybe the explanation was even simpler: maybe he was dreaming about his ex, or some girl back home, or even Hay, and I just happened to be there in the bed with him. An unknowing substitute.

Whatever the explanation, I had to do something. Even though I wanted to stay there like that to the end of time, with Jeff breathing on me and holding me gently, I was afraid of what would happen if my brothers woke up. Even more so, I was afraid of what would happen if Jeff woke up and realized what was going on.

I gently removed his arm from over my side, holding it a bit longer than necessary and enjoying the strong feel of his hand, caressing one knuckle. Jeff slept soundly, not even stirring as I moved the hand up next to his chest. I then rolled over so I was facing him, my back inches from the edge of the bed. I scooted his other hand closer to his body. I had to stifle a laugh as I realized that I’d put his hands together, and gravity had taken over on the top one. It looked as if Jeff were praying, fast asleep in the bed.

I looked at the clock. Too early to get up, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep anymore. Not with Jeff snuggled up on my side of the bed. And quite frankly, between being startled awake and the shock that had followed, I was too keyed up to even think about sleeping any more.

I pulled some clothes on and grabbed the keys to the car. I was halfway into town before I realized that I hadn’t grabbed a key to the motel. The doors were the kind that automatically lock behind you when you shut them. There wasn’t much I could do about that except hope someone was awake when I got back.

The car pulled into the parking lot of a donut store I’d pointed out our first night in town. I went inside and ordered two dozen donuts, several coffees, a couple of chai lattes for me and Hay and a muffin for Jeff. I’ll admit that I ate three donuts before I left the parking lot, but other than that, I drove straight back to the motel. After knocking tentatively several times, I realized that no one in either of our rooms was up yet. And I didn’t have the heart to wake them. So I climbed onto the hood of the car and watched the traffic going down the road. To make the time pass, I counted red cars. I was up to twenty-seven when the door to our room opened.

Jeff stood in his pajama bottoms and bare feet in the doorway. “There you are!” he exclaimed. “I got a little concerned when I woke up and you weren’t anywhere in the room. What you doin’ out here?”

I shrugged. “Went for breakfast. Forgot the door key. Ate about half the donuts.”

He smiled briefly, and then held the door open. “Coming?”

I grabbed the coffees, now lukewarm, and balanced them on top of the donuts. I rolled the top of the muffin bag and stuck it in my mouth. “Oh, God. Let me help you with that,” he said. He disappeared for a moment and reappeared with the room key in his hand. Jeff grabbed the donuts from the hood of the car and scooted ahead of me back into the room.

Adam and Jordan were still asleep, so we quietly put the donuts on the dresser. I had drunk my latte already and I’d eaten six donuts, so I headed into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came back out a few minutes later, Jeff had the muffin bag open. “Cranberry?” he asked.

“Healthiest thing they had. You okay with that?”

Jeff inspected the muffin. “Looks pretty good.” He took a bite. “Tastes even better.” He finished the muffin as I sat down on the bed in my white t-shirt and jeans, with a blue and white striped shirt in my hands. Jeff looked at me. “Thanks,” he said, “for thinking of me.”

I looked back at him and an involuntary shiver ran through me. I quickly looked down at my shirt, fiddling with the collar. “No problem. Glad you liked it.”

Jeff tossed the muffin bag in the trash and turned to me. “By,” he said, but just at that moment, Jordan started to stir. I looked up at Jeff questioningly, beckoning him to go on, but he shook his head and sighed. “Never mind.” He picked up his jeans and headed into the bathroom, leaving me feeling as if I were missing out on something important in that conversation that never happened.

[tosybelle-blog]

By and Hay’s Excellent Adventure--Part II

We stopped one last time, about two hours before we expected to arrive in Camden. The last few minutes before we’d pulled over, there had been a furious flurry of conversation in the car. Should we wait another two hours for lunch? Should we eat while stopped, or eat while we were driving? Who was going to drive next, and where was everyone else going to sit? Despite all the discussion, everything was cordial and no more than the normal amount of cussing went on.

When we pulled over, Hay practically scrambled over Jordan in an effort to get out of the car. She’d missed the last stop and had been doing to potty dance for the past twenty minutes, much to Jordan and Jeff’s amusement. I didn’t really have to go, so I waited until Jeff and Jordan were out of the seat and took my time moseying over into the middle row and out of the car. The day had been overcast until a short time ago, when the sun had finally come out in earnest. Jordan had been chosen to drive next, so he’d been nominated to fill up the tank. He’d run inside the service station, as had Vanessa, but everyone else had followed the huge painted sign on the side of the building, proclaiming the bathrooms to be around the back. I decided I might as well ‘try,’ so I followed them.

The restrooms were two dinky little single stall rooms that opened up to the back side of the service station, one for each gender. Adam had obviously beaten Jeff back here, or Jeff had peed first, and fast. In either case, Jeff was sunning himself, leaning against the building with his eyes closed and his face turned toward the sky, almost smiling. I joined him, a few feet away, standing ramrod straight against the building, feeling two kinds of warmth, only one from the sun. I almost said something, but decided that would ruin his moment. Instead, I just stared at him, finding his pose unbelievably sexy. Neither one of us moved until the toilet right behind us flushed. I jumped and Jeff opened his eyes. “Oh. Hey, Byron,” he said, and I realized he hadn’t heard me come up. I wondered whether the toilet had startled him, or whether I had.

A few seconds later, Adam came out of the bathroom. “All yours, man,” he said to Jeff, “but look out, they’re out of paper towels.” He emphasized this by wiping his hands down the front of his jeans. Jeff nodded as he disappeared inside the foul smelling little room.

Adam looked me over briefly, a weird expression on his face. “What’s with you?” he asked. I shook my head, not knowing what he meant. There were so many different ways I could have answered that question, and I was sure Adam didn’t want the answer to most of them. Adam scrunched up his face, not liking my answer, and walked off.

The toilet on the other end of the building flushed and Hay came out, looking relieved. I looked around and didn’t see anyone else waiting. “Think it’s safe for me to use the ladies’ room?” I asked her.

Hay nodded. “Yeah. Seriously, other than not having a urinal, it’s really not that different than a men’s room. I don’t know why they don’t just make them both unisex.” I ducked inside and she called after me. “I’ll stand guard just in case.”

I did notice one big difference between this bathroom and the men’s room Jeff was currently in. Well, two, actually. 1) It smelled a lot nicer. 2) There were actually paper towels in stock. I made a mental note to bring some out for Jeff.

I did my business quickly and washed my hands. As I did so, I took a look at the dispenser next to the paper towel holder. This was something we didn’t usually have in the men’s room. I looked at the bottom row of products, the standard tampons and maxi pads. Not too interesting when you live in a family that’s half girls. The top row was a lot more fascinating. I dried my hands and looked the machine over for a little while.

A bang came on the door. “Everything okay in there, By?” Hay called. I guess I couldn’t blame her. I had been in there for quite a while. I unlocked the door and opened it, peeking out at her.

“Hay. You got any quarters?”

“What for? Didja get your period or something?” Sometimes Hay has a weird sense of humor.

“Haaaaaay. Come in here and look at this.”

She looked around nervously, like she didn’t want to be caught hanging out in the ladies’ room with me. Only Jeff was out there, and he’d gone back to sunning himself. “What do you want?” she demanded when she finally came in. I just pointed at the machine. “Yeah, like I never saw one of those before....Wait a minute.” She started giggling as she saw what I had seen. The whole top row of the machine was full of condoms. And not just any condoms: fun, novelty condoms. One claimed it played music. Another was marked so you could ‘measure your guy up.’ A third was coconut cream flavored, and there were several others. All of them were seventy five cents a pop. She started laughing her silent, happy laugh and went back to the door.

“Jeff!” she yelled as she opened it back up. “You got some quarters? I’ll pay you back if you’ll lend me a few.” I heard Jeff say something but didn’t catch what it was. “Thanks,” Haley called and then came back inside. She grinned at me. “He’s going to go break a five. He must think we’re crazy, holed up in the women’s room together.” Her face darkened quickly. “Either that or he thinks we’re fucking in here.”

I gulped. Oh. Yeah. That. “Look. I told my brothers for a long time that we weren’t dating. They just never believed me.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “After a while I decided to just save my breath, you know? You know how they are. ‘Pussy this’ and ‘pussy that.’”

“Because girls just love when you call them pussy.”

“Right.” I wanted to say more, give her more of an apology. But there was a knock on the door. I almost asked who it was, but then I realized how awful it would sound if it weren’t Jeff on the other side, when a guy’s voice came out.

Hay hadn’t locked the door and Jeff opened it. “What are you two doing in here?” he asked curiously. He came in and closed the door behind him. “Oh, I see.” Jeff had discovered the machine also. He had his left hand in the pocket of his cargo shorts and he shuffled the quarters around, making a furious clinking sound as he looked the prophylactics over.

“You broke a five?” I asked him. Jeff nodded, not looking away from the machine. “We got enough quarters for six of these things.”

Hay grinned. “Condoms, Byron. You can say it.”

I ignored her. “Jeff, we’ll pay you back.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s cool. If we split the money, we can each get two.” He pulled his hand out, holding a handful of quarters. We put coins into every slot and bought one of each. By this point we’d been gone for a lot longer than we’d planned to stop and I was surprised that no one had come walking in on us while we were hanging out in the bathroom. I stuffed all the condoms in my pocket and we hurried back to the car.

We caught Vanessa rounding the corner as we ran back. She gave us a questioning look. “Hey guys. We ate while we were waiting for you. I’m going to go pee and then we’ll be ready to go. Did you guys buy everything you needed to?” She looked bewildered when the three of us shared a goofy grin. Vanessa strode past us but continued talking over her shoulder. “You guys are in the middle row, because I claim the back!”

***

We quickly climbed into the car, with Haley volunteering to sit bitch. I opened the cooler to find out that Adam and Jordan had eaten most of the sandwiches. I grimaced. “We’ve got baloney. You okay with that, Hay?” She shrugged and reached out for one and I dropped a couple in my lap. I dug through everything else. “Let’s see what else we have here, since Jeff doesn’t like lunch meat, or white bread. Granola bars? Carrot sticks? Yogurt?”

Jeff leaned over Haley, and she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her sandwich on them. “Let me look,” Jeff requested. After a moment, he came out with a bag of rice cakes and the carrots. “This’ll do.”

I briefly got out of the car to let Vanessa in, and then I belted up for the next leg of the trip. Adam plugged his IPod into the radio as Jordan started the car. Something loud and incomprehensible started blaring. Haley put her knees back down and kicked me in the side of the foot. “What flavors of yogurt do you have?” she asked, but her mouth kept moving. Though I didn’t understand what she was saying, she gestured wildly toward my crotch, and then pretended she was blowing up a balloon. Jeff laughed.

Vanessa looked over the back of the seat. “What are you three doing?” she asked suspiciously. Jeff gave her a “who, me?” look, for the first time reminding me of the boy he’d been when we were ten. Vanessa glared at us for a moment and then put her ear buds in and lay down in the back seat, closing her eyes.

I pulled the condoms out of my pocket and we started silently swapping them around. Hay and Jeff started to gesture and wordlessly fight over the glow in the dark condom. I kinda dropped out of the conversation and watched the two of them go. Jeff had been a lot happier and much more fun ever since I’d told him that Hay and I were not a couple. Watching the two of them gesture, fake menacingly, and throw condom packages at each other, I suddenly understood. Jeff had a thing for Haley.

Well, why not? Like I said, she was smart and fun. And even a gay guy can tell she’s cute. She’s got shaggy blonde hair, a heart-shaped face and sweet dimples. She has a nice figure, too, with soft, round curves that were accentuated by the fitted t-shirt she wore. If I weren’t a homosexual, things between us might have been quite different.

That said, though, I felt my heart drop. My best friend...my only friend. And my childhood friend, my first crush, whom I already knew would be in my dreams that night, all grown up and sexy. Flirting with each other.

I withdrew from Hay’s side and retreated to the window. Feeling a bit like Jeff had looked earlier that morning, I looked at the scenery whizzing by the highway. Hay and Jeff started laughing, and I felt the first tears drop from my eyes and roll down my face.

Jordan caught Hay as she gathered up all six condoms and tossed them directly into Jeff’s face, while he tried to defend himself with one hand. “What the hell are you guys doing back there?” he asked, sounding amazed.

Adam turned around and took in the situation, and then chuckled heartily. “What’s this? Condoms? How old are you guys, seven?”

Haley looked at him, faux seriously. “I dunno, Adam. I don’t think seven year olds should be playing with condoms.”

“Apparently, neither should seventeen year olds.”

Jordan smirked. “Where did you guys get those?” he asked as the car changed lanes, passing the slow driver in front of us.

Jeff grinned. “Byron found a condom dispenser in the ladies’ room.” He tossed one of the packets at Adam, who caught it with one hand.

Adam turned the condom over and over in his hand. “And what was Byron doing in the... no. Never mind.” He flipped the packet over one more time, and then started reading aloud. “Sex on the Beach. Coconut cream flavored fun for her.” Jordan snorted. Adam turned to him. “You ever use a fun one like this?”

Jordan didn’t take his eyes off the road. “No, but now that I know they exist...”

Vanessa’s voice came up from the back of the car. “You’d have to find a girl willing to sleep with you first!” Adam and Jeff, not expecting the outburst, turned to each other and burst out laughing. Hay giggled and then looked over to see my response. But I didn’t move.

Hay elbowed me. “Earth to By. You okay over there?”

I was still crying. I didn’t turn away from the window, but I shook my head no. Haley seemingly took it to mean that I was trying to clear my head. She grinned at me and leaned in my direction for a moment, touching her shoulder to my arm.

Jeff looked my way, seemingly concerned, but didn’t voice that out loud. Instead, still looking at me, he said, “Maybe he’s just imagining how he’s going to put his share of the booty to good use.” Making a little dance groove with his arms and neck, he added a porno-movie sound effect, “Bow-chicka-wow-wow.”

Nope. Never. I was going to die a big, gay, virgin loser.

***

The town of Camden was just as beautiful as we had imagined it was going to be. Things had settled down after the condom incident, and I had pulled out a battered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and read until Adam’s death metal started to give me a headache. Then I just stared out the window again for a while. Hay had produced a string out of nowhere and proceeded to teach Jeff how to play Cat’s Cradle for a while before proclaiming that he sucked at it. She’d then climbed into the back seat to whisper with Vanessa. Jeff, Jordan and Adam started discussing baseball, each supporting a different team he “knew” was going to win the Series this year.

But when we drove into town, everyone fell silent. Except Jordan driving the car, we all looked out our side windows, seeing the quaint town and gorgeous scenery. Adam tried to pretend like he wasn’t staring like the rest of us. “Huh. Is this all there is to town?” he asked, but we all ignored him.

We found a parking lot off a shopping strip and pulled in. It was too early to check into lodging for the night, but too late to really get any serious activities in for the day. By general consensus, we agreed to spend the day wandering around the commercial district. We had to start with a clothing store, as our uninvited guests had all packed as if we were going to Florida. We found a store that met their needs and they picked up a few long sleeved shirts and jackets. Jeff, who only had his flip flops, decided he needed a pair of real shoes also. Haley had discovered a couple of things she wanted to look at in among the clothes, so Jeff, Vanessa and I found a place a couple doors down that sold shoes.

When we got inside, Jeff zoned in on a pair of hiking boots that were lightweight enough for everyday wear. I caught the price and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Don’t worry,” he said, waving away my concerns. “I actually need a new pair anyway. Sometimes, I like to go hiking at home. I’ll call Dad. He’ll cover it as a birthday present for me, no sweat.” He looked out the front window at the rolling hills that were the town’s backdrop, his brow furrowed and his eyes seeing California. “I think he’ll just be happy to think I’m actually getting out to do something, anyway.” With that, he took his bag and left the store in a way that indicated the subject was closed. Vanessa trailed behind him. The two of them left me standing there, feeling horribly confused.

Most of the stores we popped into after that were either touristy junk or way expensive, but we had fun looking. Or at least most of us did. I noticed that Adam and Jordan just kinda plopped themselves on a bench on the sidewalk, claiming exhaustion, while the rest of us shopped. I hit them up on an idea that I thought would make them happy, and they each willingly gave me twenty bucks. I ran back to Jeff and the girls.

“Vanessa,” I said, “I got the guys to pool up their money for a gift to Mom and Dad. You want in? It’ll be easier to find something they’d actually use if we all chip in.” She nodded and volunteered to take all the money in a pocket in her purse. I fished out twenty five dollars of my own and added it. I was surprised to see Hay and Jeff both hand money over also.

Hay was smiling. “By. If your parents hadn’t let us have the car, we wouldn’t have been able to go. My parents just want a box of fudge and another of saltwater taffy. Easy. I’ll wait until the last day to get those. And Matt won’t care if I bring him home anything.”

Jeff watched her and nodded. “Right. I’m just going to pick up t-shirts for everyone, so that’ll be no trouble. So let’s go shop for your parents, and we can stop at that big t-shirt place on the way back.”

We shopped around for a while but didn’t find anything for Mom and Dad, though Jeff hit the mother lode in t-shirts. When we got back to Adam and Jordan, they were whining about wanting dinner and being tired of sitting on the bench, so we decided it was time to move on. “Can we go get the motel now?” Adam asked, and with us all being tired and hungry, we agreed.

We all climbed back into the station wagon, with Hay behind the wheel. She’d seen a motel just outside of town that claimed to have the cheapest rates, and she was bound and determined that, if it had vacancies, we were going to stay there. We’d just driven back onto the road we came in on when Jordan asked a good question. “What’s the sleeping arrangements?”

When it was going to just be the three of us, we’d decided on one room with two beds. The girls would share one, and I’d take the other. I knew there was no way we were going to be able to get away with just one room now.

The motel was run down but clean. Not part of a chain, it appeared to be family owned and operated. As the one with the credit card, I went inside and had a talk with the desk clerk, who was also the owner. I explained our crew and asked what rooms she had to accommodate us. I left a few minutes later, smiling and bearing two room keys.

Everyone was milling around, draped on the car, looking half dead. “Right,” I said, getting their attention, “We have two rooms. One has two twin beds. The other, two queen sized beds. Meaning, most of us are going to have to share beds.”

Vanessa nodded. “It would make more sense to be put me and Haley in the little room and you guys in the big room.”

The other guys all had some response to that. Jordan snorted. “I am NOT sharing a bed with you,” Adam yelled, not directing it at anyone in particular. Jeff just stared at his feet.

I looked at them, trying to smooth things over. “Look, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either. But we can’t afford to spread out any more than that. Maybe, if it gets too awkward, the girls will agree to swap with a couple of us on the last night?” I sent pleading eyes to Hay and Vanessa, who just looked amused by the whole thing. “Anyway, Adam and Jordan, you guys share a room. This can’t be that different.”

I tossed Hay a room key. With various assorted grumbling from my brothers, we all grabbed our bags and found our rooms. They turned out to be adjacent and even had an internal door that opened so we could share them. I tossed my bag on one bed and Adam tossed his bag on the other. Jordan stuck his on the dresser, and Jeff put his on the chair that was in the corner. We looked the room over. “We’re going to be here for three nights,” I said, eyeing the beds, “So how about we rotate beds? Each night, we’ll share the bed with someone different. That way, if anyone is having trouble, it’s only one night.” No one argued, so I went on. “The lady at the front desk told me about a great place for dinner. Are you guys as hungry as I am?”

The motel owner was right. The restaurant, which was on the edge of town and didn’t look like much from the outside, was excellent. Their specialty was lobster rolls, so that’s what most of us ordered. Jeff found a salad served with grilled fish that made him happy. The conversation was cheerful and mostly revolved around the next day’s plans for a hike. We settled the bill and started drifting toward the front door. The girls stopped at the bathroom, and Adam and Jordan headed outside for an imaginary sword fight, the continuation of one they’d been having for a couple years now. (Vanessa and I had just gotten used to them looking like idiots in public on a regular basis.) I turned to say something to Jeff about it, but he’d disappeared.

Hay and Vanessa showed up before he did. “Seen Jeff?” I asked as Jordan stuck his “sword” straight through Adam’s chest, causing Adam to crash to the ground.

Hay smiled at the action going on behind me, as Jordan put his foot on Adam’s “dead” body and declared himself the victor. “Yeah. He said he had a stop to make and he’d be back in a few minutes. Thought he was going to stop at the little boys’ room, but he went outside.”

Adam popped up off the ground and dusted off the back of his shirt. “He went that way,” he said, pointing to two little shops standing next to each other. One was a drug store, the other a liquor store. I quirked an eyebrow, wondering which one he was in.

I didn’t have to wait long. Jeff reappeared from the liquor store with a couple of paper bags that I knew didn’t hold nectarines. When he got close enough to whisper, I looked at him. “What...” I started, “How...”

“Shhhh.” Jeff reached out and put his hand briefly across my mouth, causing my thinking to go fuzzy. I had to resist the urge to grab the hand and kiss it. What the hell was wrong with me? “Not now. Let’s get back to the motel.”

***

We opened the doors between the two rooms and everyone gathered on the two beds in the guys’ room. Having been chastised once, I hadn’t spoken since we’d left the restaurant, but I’d developed a funny feeling in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it had more to do with the alcohol or with Jeff touching me. Maybe a little of both.

Hay picked up my line of questioning. “How’d you get these?” she asked as Jeff pulled out a bottle of rum and a bottle of vodka.

Jeff grinned. “Fake ID.”

Vanessa was intrigued. “Really?” she said, “Let me see.” Jeff fished out his wallet and pulled out a driver’s license. Vanessa looked it over and then flashed it toward Haley, who also inspected it. “Wow, Jeff. This is pretty good,” Vanessa said, awed.

Jeff took the ID back. “Yeah. I paid a lot for it, so it better look pretty real. They were able to take all my real information and just make me a couple years older.” Adam gestured for a look, so Jeff passed the card on to him and Jordan to inspect.

Jordan wasn’t looking at the license, though. He was looking at the booty. “I think we have orange juice in the cooler, and I know we have Coke. This is going to be fun.” He caught me watching him and looked me in the eye. “Aren’t you glad we came along now, Byron?”

Adam had given Jeff back his ID. “Oh, you know him. Mr. Party-Pooper-I-don’t-let-a-drop- pass-these-lips.” He gave me a playful punch to the back of the arm. “Don’t mind Byron,” he said to Jeff, “He just has no idea how to have a good time.”

Hay looked over at me and bit her lip, waiting for me to say something and stand up for myself. Instead, I just looked at a stain on the carpet, wishing I was somewhere else. Hay crinkled her brow and for a moment, I thought she was going to yell at my brothers again. She went for a different tack instead. “What’s this stuff taste like?” she asked. “I’ve never tried either one. Usually, By and I just have some beer or wine, don’t we, By?”

“Usually.” That was a good one. We’d once gotten ahold of a box of wine coolers at a party her parents were throwing, and that’s the most I’d ever had to drink. I looked up and caught her eye, and she smiled at me.

Jeff answered her question. “It’s pretty nasty, in my opinion,” he said as he grabbed hold of the bottle of rum, “but you get drunk a lot faster this way.”

Vanessa jumped up and ran to the bathroom, reappearing with four drinking glasses. “There are two more in our room,” she said, and Adam grabbed those. They set all six glasses on the counter. Jeff had opened both bottles and set them next to the glasses.

Jordan found the coke and O.J. and added them to the collection. He’d decided to play bartender. “Who wants what?”

“Screwdriver!” Vanessa volunteered. Jordan made one up for her and then put together three rum and Cokes for him, Adam, and Hay.

Jeff grabbed the bottle of rum and poured himself a small serving at the bottom of his drinking glass. He looked at me with a grin. “What’s your poison, Byron?” I shook my head.

“Come on, Byron, live a little!” Vanessa said from right behind me. She’d already started in on her screwdriver and I could smell the vodka on her breath.

“No, thanks.” I grabbed my book off the top of my backpack and headed outside. Jeff gave the others a concerned look and followed, leaving his drink untouched on the counter.

I sat down on the hood of the car. Hay’d backed it into the parking space so we could unload more easily, and the hood faced away from the building. You could see a lot more stars out here than you could back in Stoneybrook. I put the book down and leaned up against the windshield. It was too dark to read and I really wasn’t in the mood, anyway. I heard Jeff come up behind me and take a seat on the other side of the hood, so close he was almost touching me. I didn’t take my eyes off the stars. Jeff picked up the book.

“To Kill a Mockingbird! I read that in eighth grade or something. Boo Radley is pretty cool.” I didn’t answer, didn’t look at him, yet I could feel his eyes on my face. He put the book back down. “What’s bugging you, man?”

I let out a sigh. “You have no idea how much I hate that question,” I said in a low voice.

“What?”

I turned to look at him for the first time. “There’s just so much shit you can take, you know?” I said, “Only so much crap. Doesn’t matter what I do. I’m still going to be the straight arrow. I’m still going to be the odd man out.” I wasn’t making much sense, and I didn’t care. At least I hadn’t started crying, which is what I felt like doing.

Jeff shrugged. “You don’t have to be, you know.” He inched a little closer, and even in my bad state, my skin thrilled as his arm brushed mine. “You could come inside, join the party. Be part of the group.” He sighed himself. “Sometimes, the odd man out makes himself the odd man out. Know what I mean?”

I wrinkled my forehead. “Yeah, but then I’d just be the drunk odd man out. I’d rather not do something just because everyone else is doing it, you know? I’ll get drunk when I want to get drunk.”

Jeff nodded. “Okay. I can respect that. You change your mind, you know where the booze is.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jeff.”

He stopped after he hopped off the car and looked at me seriously, dead in the eye. “You ever need anything else, Byron, you just let me know. You don’t just have the one friend, okay?” And then he was inside, leaving me confused beyond belief. I was getting used to that when he was around.

***

It had gotten cold quickly outside, and even with my jacket on, I still felt it. I got in the car and turned on the dome light. Hay’s blanket lay forgotten in the far back, where she’d left it when she’d changed clothes so long ago. I was having a hard time believing that was less than twelve hours before. It felt like half my life had gone by in one day. I’d aged and become someone’s forty-year-old dad.

I’d been reading for quite a while when Hay came out and joined me. Her demeanor told me she’d had enough alcohol to loosen her up quite a bit. It doesn’t take much for her, though. She’s a bit of a lightweight.

She’d climbed into the back seat with me, on the opposite side. When I didn’t immediately acknowledge her presence, she came up next to me and tried to unwrap me from the blanket. I sighed and put down the book, letting her snuggle up next to me for warmth. She wrapped the blanket around us both.

“By. You mad at me?”

I hugged her. “Nope. Just not really my scene, you know?”

Hay wrapped her short arms around my middle and squeezed back. “What’s not your scene? Relaxing with your friends? Enjoying yourself?”

I put my head on top of hers like I’d done earlier in the day, wishing I could get calm enough to get back to that place we’d been in back then. It wasn’t working. “Lay off, Hay. Please.”

She fell silent for a moment and I enjoyed the feel of body pushed up against mine, the warmth she brought to the equation. Then she started speaking again. “You know what your problem is?”

“No, Hay. I have no idea what my problem is. Please tell me. I’m dying to know.”

My sarcasm didn’t deter her at all. “You need to let loose every now and then. Do something against the rules. The world won’t end if you don’t always do the right thing.”

I made a noise that was half-laugh, half-sob. “Right,” I said. The problem with being part of a herd—one of eight, one of an identical set of three—is that you always have to find ways to distinguish yourself. Claire’s the baby, so she acts silly and childish. Margo’s the cheerleader. Nick’s into sci-fi and nerdy things. Vanessa’s the poet. Mallory is the responsible, mature one. Jordan’s the jock and Adam’s the social director. But who am I if I’m not the one who always does what I’m told? I don’t just want to be ‘the gay one.’ Especially now. “Well, what am I then, if I’m not the ‘perfect one,’ the ‘good one’?”

She wiggled loose from my grip and looked up at me. “Human?” she suggested.

I grunted in a way that indicated that I thought she was crazy. Hay had no idea what it was like to be me. None at all. She’s only got one brother, and the two of them are so different as almost to be polar opposites. She never has to worry about who she is.

“No. Really. You should try it sometime. Just chill out, find yourself a guy and have some fun.”

A chill ran through me as she spoke. I backed away from her, into the car door. “What did you say?” I asked, shocked.

Hay was confused by my tone. “I said, find yourself a guy and—”

I didn’t let her finish. I pumped the door handle and jumped out of the car. “What do you mean, a guy?”

She looked shocked for a moment, and then followed me out, blanket spilling out onto the ground. “Oh, come on, By. I’ve known you were gay for a long time. Probably since before even you did.”

I gaped at her. She knew? She knew? So why had she never said anything? I knew the answer to that one without even asking. She had been waiting for me to bring it up. She probably thought the fact that I kept it from her was just another sign I had no balls. “I doubt that,” slipped out of my mouth as I processed. “I’ve known I was gay since before I knew what gay meant. Almost half my life.” It was the first time I’d ever said I was gay out loud, and even though I was worked up, that felt pretty good.

She laughed a little and sat back on the edge of the car seat. “Dude,” she said, “I don’t get you. Why don’t you come out already? You could have at least told me. I don’t judge you for anything else you do that you think is so wrong, so why would your sexuality make the slightest bit of difference?”

I squished up next to her and she scooted to make room for me, but I didn’t look at her. “If I told you,” I said sadly, “then that would make it real. I’d have to be gay. I couldn’t pretend to myself anymore.”

“Oh.” Her voice was starting to sound sleepy. She reached over and tousled my hair. “You really are screwed up, aren’t you? You’re scared of taking away a label you consider your identity, and yet you’re sitting here, denying a really big part of yourself.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

We sat quietly for a moment before she spoke again. “Ready to go back in and join the party? I won’t try to get you to drink anything. Everyone’s playing poker for potato chips, and they suck when they’re drunk. You could really clean up.”

Maybe that’s what Jeff meant about the odd man out making his own bed. I could have stuck around inside, even if I didn’t want to drink with the others. “Just one more question.”

She picked her blanket off the ground and shook it off. “Yeah, what?” she asked.

“How exactly did you figure out I was gay, anyway?” I just had to know.

She stood up and reached out a hand to pull me out of the car. I flipped the dome light back off and then accepted. “It had to do with how we first started hanging out. We were together all the time, you were a teenaged boy, and yet you never hit on me. I decided that you were either gay or damaged goods. And you were just too nice to be damaged goods.” She grinned.

I gave her a hug. “Hay, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

***

Hay had been right. My brothers and Vanessa were inside playing poker on the floor. None of them was too drunk; they were just a little more exuberant and happy than they normally were. If I had to guess, I’d say they’d had two drinks, tops, and then stopped.

Jeff, on the other hand, had clearly not stopped. He was curled up in the fetal position, his eyes closed, still hugging his empty glass to his chest. Since he wasn’t clearly moving or breathing, I gave him a poke in the arm. Just to make sure he was still alive, of course. He opened his eyes. “Oh, hey Byron,” he said, slurring the words more than a little, “‘Dja know what? They should promote Captain Morgan to Major Morgan,” he told me and then started to giggle.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “That’s the fourth time he’s said that,” she said. She picked up the new cards Adam had dealt her and then a gleam came over her face. She dumped a single serve bag of potato chips onto a paper plate that sat next to the deck of cards. “I’m all in!” she shouted. Jordan and Adam dropped their cards in disgust. Vanessa has a terrible poker face and they knew they were beat. She gleefully gathered up the pot and turned to Hay, who was sitting on the edge of the dresser. “You want back in on this one?”

“Sure. By?”

“Why not?” I left Jeff giggling to himself and played a couple hands. Even though the others were all wasted, I still lost. I suck at poker.

Before too much longer, we were all starting to yawn. Hay and Vanessa gathered up their “winnings” (Hay had eaten most of hers already) and said their good nights. My brothers and I brushed our teeth, sharing the sink, and then Adam and I headed out while Jordan used the bathroom. We looked at Jeff, lying there on top of the covers, fully dressed. Without speaking, we both went over to him. I sat him upright with some effort and Adam removed Jeff’s shirt.

Jeff opened his eyes again, only this time, instead of giggly and goofy, he looked sleepy and sad. “I miss my mom,” he said.

Adam looked at me over Jeff’s shoulder in a manner that said, “Here come the crazy drunk ramblings.” “Well, then,” Adam said, turning back to Jeff, “You should have stayed in Stoneybrook with her instead of coming with us.”

“No, no, no,” Jeff waved a hand. “I miss how it used to be when I was little. How when I was sad or scared, she could just give me a hug and take all that away.” He looked Adam in the eye and patted his shoulder. “She can’t do that anymore, you know?”

Adam looked at Jeff like he was crazy, but I nodded. “I know exactly what you mean,” I said. Jeff smiled and closed his eyes again.

The bathroom door opened and Jordan stepped out. “Next!”

Adam jumped up from the bed. He crumpled Jeff’s shirt and tossed it on the floor. “Schafer. You think you can stop thinking about your mom for long enough to get your own pants off? I’m nice, but I’m not that nice.”

Jeff laughed a little. “I’ll just sleep in ‘em,” he called, his eyes still closed. Jordan pulled back the covers on the other side of the bed, and I just rolled Jeff over to the bare patch of bed. He fell on his side, back in the fetal position.

Jordan covered Jeff up and then wrinkled his nose. “I’ll sleep with him tonight,” he volunteered, “but if he ralphs on me in the middle of the night, I’m going to kill you two in your sleep.” I nodded and grabbed the trash can from the corner of the room. It was full of soda cans and chip wrappers, but it was better than nothing.

***

Luckily, Jeff didn’t need his barf bucket that night. It was about nine when the girls opened the door between our two rooms and came barging in. They were a little too perky for that time of day, especially considering when we’d gotten to sleep and how much they’d had to drink. Vanessa came to the front of the room and starting flashing the lights on and off. Haley shook me. “Good morning!” she chirped. “Beech Hill Preserve waits for us! Get up and get moving!”

I smacked at her with one hand. “Cut it out, Hay!” She grinned and moved on to shaking Adam on the other side of the bed. When she let him go, he flicked her off and rolled over, covering his head completely.

Jordan was already sitting up, watching her progress. “Better not shake Schafer over there,” he warned. “He’s probably already got a giant hangover. No sense in making him dizzy to go with it.”

Jeff groaned and pulled the pillow over his eyes. “Why did I drink so much?” he moaned, muffled by the bedding.

“Because you were missing your mom,” I said as I rubbed my eyes and climbed out of bed.

“What?”

The girls and Jordan looked at me funny. I shrugged. “That’s what you said, anyway.”

Jeff pulled the pillow back off his eyes, but covered them with his hands instead. “Like I make any sense when I’m wasted.”

I pulled a shirt on. “Like I’d know. Never seen you wasted before.” I picked up my jeans from where I’d left them folded on the chair the night before. “First dibs on the bathroom,” I called as I strolled inside.

It was a while before everyone was ready to go. Hay had found Jeff some aspirin in her purse and he’d managed to pull himself together enough to shower and get dressed. Vanessa had refilled the cooler with ice, and we’d had a breakfast of granola bars and yogurt.

While we sat around eating and gabbing, I took a chance to look everyone over. Hay had put a headband in her hair to keep it out of her eyes, and she’d set a pair of kids’ purple heart-shaped sunglasses on top of her head. She wore a pair of low-rise jeans that dragged on the ground and a short-sleeved, heather gray t-shirt that ended mid-butt. She’d set her purple hoodie out to wear when we started hiking.

Vanessa’s hair is long and thick, and she’d pulled it back into two braids. She’d dyed it black sometime back, but the roots had grown in a couple of inches, showing the natural chestnut. She wore a pair of black cargo pants and a red oversized t-shirt. Normally, she wore pale face makeup, lots of eye liner and blood red lipstick, but today she’d gone au natural. It made her look a lot younger, but a lot prettier, too.

My brothers and I obviously all look pretty much the same, so we’ve learned to distinguish ourselves through our dress and hair. Jordan wears his hair short, especially in the warmer months, and he’d recently shaved it all off and was letting it grow back in. He wore a pair of cargo jeans, similar to Vanessa’s pants and almost as baggy, and he’d paired it with a shirt proclaiming him to be a Yankees fan. Adam’s hair is a bit longer and nondescript, and he wears his clothes tighter than Jordan and I prefer. He wore a fitted white t with a pair of jeans that, in his words when he bought them, “show off his ass.” My hair is long and hangs in my eyes, partly because I hate getting haircuts and partly because it gives me something to hide behind. My style of clothing is a little more preppy than my brothers, and sometimes I think I take more care in what I wear. I had on a yellow t-shirt with an orange collar and a matching orange button down shirt and a pair of khakis.

And of course Jeff looked amazing. I think he could have worn burlap and I still would have thought so. He had pulled out a pair of dark-wash jeans that managed to look baggy and yet tight all at the same time, and he paired it with a white shirt that made his skin look even more tanned than he had the day before. He’d put on his sunglasses, hiking boots and new windbreaker and he was ready to go. Actually, I think he’d put the sunglasses on even though we were still inside because it was the equivalent of throwing the pillow over his face. The lights were obviously still bothering him and he occasionally moaned and looked sick.

***

The drive to Beech Hill Preserve was pretty quiet and short. Hay drove, and Jordan sat shotgun, reading her directions and aimlessly flipping through radio stations at a low volume. Jeff was slumped in the middle row, his knees drawn up to his chest on an odd angle and his eyes closed. Unbeknownst to him, Vanessa was drawing flowers and hearts on the bottom of his boots with a Sharpie.

Adam and I were in the back. I was watching the scenery pass when I felt an elbow to my side. “Hey,” Adam said in a voice just above a whisper. Clearly, he didn’t want Vanessa and Jeff listening in.

“What?”

He cleared his throat a little, looking furtively at the other two on the other side of the seat. “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

I became instantly uncomfortable. “For what?” I asked.

“You know, for razzing you last night.” He looked away. “For always razzing you.”

I shrugged. It was just part of our triplet banter, right? I was used to it by now. “It’s okay,” I told him.

“No. It’s really not.” He fidgeted and I could tell this conversation was difficult for him. “We’re supposed to be a team, you, me, and Jordan. And somewhere along the way, it became a pair, me and Jordan, in a war with you.” Adam audibly sucked in a breath. He’s not usually big on what he calls “that feelings bullshit” and I admired the way he plunged ahead anyway. “I miss when everyone called us ‘the Pike triplets’ and couldn’t tell us apart.” A pause and he looked back over at me finally. “I miss you.”

Suddenly I understood why he’d hijacked the trip. We were all three going to different schools, in different states, in the fall, so we only had so long to be ‘the Pike triplets’ together. “Even though I always do what’s expected of me?”

“’Specially because of that. It’s just you.”

A few minutes went by in silence. Adam assumed that his warm, fuzzy moment was the end of the conversation. But I felt there were a few more things we needed to cover. “I’m not going out with Haley,” I said.

He startled. “What?”

“Hay and I are not dating. We’re just friends.”

Adam looked at me cockeyed. “Okaaaaaaaaaaaay....” His voice oozed sarcasm.

“No, really.” I was bound and determined to get him to believe me this time. “She’s just my best friend. I’ve never even kissed her.”

“Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And it really bugs her when you guys joke about us fucking in the back of the car or whatever.”

Adam looked remorseful for a second, but then his face clouded over. “It bugs her, but not you?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Yeah, it bugs me. But if you remember, when you guys first started making the jokes, I kept telling you they weren’t true. After a while, I just let it go.”

Adam shifted his eyes to the side, and I could tell he was trying to remember that. “I just always figured you were embarrassed,” he said slowly, “Like you never thought you’d be the first one of us to swipe his V-card or whatever.” He grinned. “So we’re back to it being a three way race.”

I had to smile at that, but I didn’t let it deter me from everything else I had to say. “There’s just one more thing you should know,” I said seriously.

Adam’s grin faded instantly. “What?”

My courage was beginning to fade as well. “Well, I...I’m...I...”

“We’re here!” The car came to a stop in a parking lot. Adam and I had been so busy talking that we hadn’t even noticed that we’d arrived at the park. The others were starting to pile out of the car, and someone opened the back door to dig in the trunk. Our conversation was now wide open.

“Shit!” I moaned, disappointed that the moment had come and gone. I knew Hay was right and I needed to tell people about it. That I’m gay, I mean. (See? I’m even having trouble writing it down.) And since Adam was being so forgiving of my differences, I’d thought it might be a good time.

I wasn’t exactly ready to get up on top of a picnic table and shout it to the world. But I’d decided to tell at least my brothers while we were on vacation. If Jordan felt the same way Adam did, it would be a weight off my shoulders, and maybe next time they had a sword fight, I could be the one standing there, proclaiming victory.

Adam’s brow was furrowed and he looked at me dead seriously. “What were you going to say?” he asked.

I shook my head at him. “Later.” He nodded and we climbed through the trunk to the exit.

Jordan had a backpack that he was planning to carry, and he was offering us all the opportunity to stick things in it: wallets, water bottles. He was having an animated discussion with Hay, who was trying to get him to carry a giant bottle of sunscreen. “I’ll look like a total girl!” he wailed.

“It’ll be in your backpack! No one will see it unless one of us asks to use it! And then you’ll look like a total good guy for carrying it.” She spotted us from the other side of the parking spot. “Adam! By! Your brother’s being a big baby!”

“So what else is new?” Adam asked, and he bumped my shoulder with his fist and then went to go smooth things over.

***

After Adam agreed to carry the backpack, sunscreen and all, we took off down the trail. Jordan had been teasing me a bit for slathering sunscreen on my face and then wearing a hat, so Adam challenged him to a race and they took off down the path way far ahead of the rest of us.

Vanessa had brought a camera and was snapping photos of everything. She got one of me and Hay standing on a bench with our hands over our eyes, looking out into the sun. She snapped Jeff looking for four leaf clover. She even managed to get a picture of when Jordan tripped and splattered along the path.

By the time we reached the top of the hill, we were all walking together again. The hill isn’t very tall, but the land around it is low, so you get quite a view. Vanessa had chosen Beech Hill because one of our guide books had mentioned it was where “the mountains met the sea.” A hush fell over all of us. The only sounds were nature sounds, birds, insects, and the wind, and the sound of Vanessa’s camera.

After a few moments, a half-whisper came out from over my shoulder. “It’s like looking at God,” Jeff said. He raised his arms up to the sky and screamed a wordless yell. We all stopped our sightseeing and stared at him. The yell continued for a bit longer than we were comfortable with, and all of us started to look at each other, feeling awkward. He took a breath and continued to yell. “I’ve found a reason to live!” he shouted at no one in particular. Then he started to cry.

“What is this, spring break or emotional breakdown time?” Jordan asked under his breath. I was wondering the same thing.

Hay put her arm around Jeff’s shoulder and pulled him into a hug. He put his head on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her neck, sobbing so hard he was having trouble breathing. Hay gave me a panicked look and I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. Instead, I took a big step over and joined the two of them, throwing my arms around them both. My head was right next to Jeff’s, and I spoke to him in a low voice. “It’s okay, man,” I soothed. “Just let it out, okay? We’re here for you.”

As I was finishing, I felt a set of arms wrap around me also. Adam sighed as he pulled the group of us together even tighter. Not to be left out, Vanessa came around the other side and threw her arms around the party. “Come on, Jordan, group hug!” she called.

Jordan shook his head. “Naw, too gay for me, thanks,” he said, but he was smiling.

Jeff gave one last shuddering sob and then wiped at his face with the one hand he could reach. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “You can let me go now. Please.” We all slowly disengaged. Jeff’s face was red and he looked really embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said.

“No need to apologize,” Adam said breezily. “We all have our moments, right?” He opened Jordan’s backpack and shuffled through the water bottles. Vanessa had labeled them all with initials on the cap, with her Sharpie marker. Adam pulled out the one labeled S and Jeff accepted it gratefully.

Jeff sat down on the ground just off the path and took a big swig. “Yeah,” he said slowly as the rest of us joined him, “but most of us don’t lose our fucking heads in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.”

“No, some of us just throw temper tantrums in the back seats of cars and then sulk for a couple hours.” Haley sat with him, and Adam tossed her water to her. She caught it with one hand.

Vanessa squatted. “Some of us go on vacation with our brothers just so we can get away from crazy boyfriends,” she said.

I joined them, waving away Jordan’s offer of my water bottle with one hand. “And some of us walk out of a perfectly good party because we’re not in the mood to drink,” I added.

Jeff looked over at me. “And some of us get so drunk we miss the fun. Maybe you’ve got the right idea, By.” He called me by my nickname. I’m not sure why it felt so personal. Maybe because only Hay ever used it. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I just gotta do things to get out of my own head. It hasn’t been a good year up in there.” His facial expression indicated he had more to say, but he stopped and kept it to himself.

***

We sat for a while, drinking water and eating fruit snacks, but after a while, Vanessa started complaining about needing to pee. We all stood and dusted ourselves off.

Jeff led the charge down the hill like a man on a mission. By the time we were halfway back to the car, we were all tired, hungry and more than a little cranky. The random sniping began almost right away. Hay yelled at me. Jeff snarked at Jordan. Vanessa shouted at Adam. We reached the parking lot a sullen, resentful bunch.

Vanessa was into full-on whine mode. “Why isn’t there a bathroom out here?” she shrieked, squeezing her knees together in a dramatic fashion.

Adam threw his empty water bottle at her, bouncing it off her chest. “Use this!”

She made a kissy face at him. “So sweet, your concern for me.” Then she grabbed the bottle and inspected it. “I’d need a funnel to make that work,” she mused. Adam stuck his tongue out and looked disgusted at the image, but the two of them climbed into the middle seat of the car.

I opened the trunk and then tossed Hay back the keys. She missed them and they went under the car. She got down on her hands and knees and fumbled around for them. “You throw like a girl,” she sniped.

“Yeah, well, you can’t catch.”

Jeff came around next to Hay to help her search. A few moments later, he came up triumphant and handed the keys over.

Jordan opened the shotgun door and got back out. “What’s taking so long?” he bellowed.

Jeff shrugged and climbed into the trunk. “Life,” he mumbled as he bypassed me and moved to the backseat. I looked after him, confused.

Jordan came over and saw me sitting on the tailgate. “What are you doing?” he asked. I took a sip of water and said nothing. Actually, I was trying to restrain my temper before I got into the car and said something to someone—anyone—that I’d really regret. Jordan narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to answer when someone asks you a question?”

I looked away and capped my water. Hay appeared around the corner, watching the two of us with a wary eye. Jordan didn’t notice her; his eyes were focused on me. He took another step in my direction. I didn’t really worry about him, because was just as cranky as the rest of us and just itching for a fight. I figured I’d let him get his words out and not give him a response. It usually works pretty well, but not so much this time. “You know what your problem is?” he asked me.

Oh, God, not this again. Why does everyone think they know what my problems are? I stared at my hands and felt a few tears sting my eyes. The lack of sleep and everyone else’s bad attitude was rubbing off on me. “Are you crying?” Jordan asked, incredulous. I wiped at my eyes with my hand. “Oh, shit, you are such a girl sometimes,” he shouted. “Why do I even bother with you when—”

He was interrupted by a sudden movement. Hay flew around the corner and slugged Jordan hard in the face. And with that, pure chaos erupted.

Jordan screamed. Vanessa and Adam hopped out of the car, followed by Jeff, who had scrambled into the middle seat first. I shrank away from Hay and Jordan as Jordan’s nose began to bleed. His hands flew to his face. Hay just stood there, with a small, satisfied smirk on her face.

“What the hell did you do?” Adam asked, completely amazed. “Haley?”

She shook herself, but the smirk didn’t go anywhere. “I hit him!” she yelled, “and I’d do it again!”

Jeff and Vanessa each grabbed one of her arms and pulled her back away from Jordan. Hay shook them off. Her face crumpled like she might cry and she put her hands to her eyes for a moment, and then retreated to the car, slamming the middle door behind her. Jeff flashed his eyes at Adam, who nodded, and Jeff climbed in after her.

Jordan had sat down on the tailgate next to me. I jumped off and gave him space. Adam took my seat. “How bad is it?” he asked, prying Jordan’s fingers away from his nose. Jordan moaned and Adam grimaced. “Yuck,” he said, shaking his head. “Hey, Vanessa, go grab me some napkins from the glove compartment, okay?” She nodded and ran off. “Pinch your nose, dude, and hang on a minute.”

Vanessa returned with the napkins and Jordan put them to his nose. He groaned again and I blanched. “Are you okay?” I asked timidly.

Jordan looked at me venomously. “Oh, fuck you, Byron,” he said, spitting blood down his shirt as he spoke. “Go sit in the car with your little girlfriend and leave me alone, okay?”

I instinctively backed up a step, but I didn’t go any farther. Vanessa spoke up. “Adam? What else do you want us to do?”

“Nothing, okay? Just get in the car. We’ll be ready to roll again as soon as his nose stops bleeding. Byron, you and me in the front seat, alright? Vanessa, you okay sitting back here with old Blood and Guts?” Vanessa nodded and Adam let her past him into the trunk.

I walked the long way around the car to bypass Jordan and hopped in the passenger’s seat, not really in the mood to drive. Hay had pulled her hoodie over her head and was turned around in such a way that I knew that she was not in the mood for discussing anything with anyone. Jeff leaned in toward me. “What’s the matter with her?” he asked, genuinely concerned. He used the proximity to give me the car keys.

I shrugged. “Obviously something, but I haven’t been able to get it out of her yet.” We’ve been too busy working on my alleged problems, I thought bitterly to myself.

***

We decided to stop a grocery store on the way back to the motel, to fill our cooler back up. Adam ran in and bought some ice, which he took back to Jordan, waiting in the car, cursing under his breath. Vanessa ran straight to the restroom. That left Hay, Jeff and I to do the actual shopping.

As soon as we were alone, I grabbed Hay’s arm. “You didn’t have to punch him that hard, you know,” I hissed.

“Yes, I did,” she growled, her face clouding over. “He’s been a colossal shit for two days straight. I’ve had it.”

“He’s been an ass for eighteen years straight. What’s your point?”

We stood there glaring at each other in the cereal aisle for a moment, until Jeff, who’d been spectating nervously, broke the stalemate. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starved. Can we go ahead and shop already?”

Hay stared at Jeff like she had forgotten he was there. “Sure,” she said, turning pink a little. “Let’s get some food.”

I realized I was still gripping her arm. Embarrassed, I let it go and gingerly patted her shoulder. “Yeah. Um, breakfasts? We’re in the right aisle.”

Jeff smiled at me and gave Hay a little hug. He said something into her ear which made her laugh and blush even more. She walked away from him and over towards where I was inspecting cereal boxes. I could hear her muttering under her breath. “Like I said, gay guys and damaged goods....”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She picked a box of Lucky Charms off the shelf and threw it into the cart, a little harder than necessary. She was obviously still upset, but whether it was directed at me, or at Jordan, I couldn’t be sure.

***

By the time Vanessa found us, we were in the deli. We had picked up cereal, milk, bread and snacks and were looking at sandwich fixings. As we’d shopped, most of the anger and awkwardness had fizzled, and Hay and I were able to have a normal conversation again. Jeff had thrown some granola, soy milk, multi-grain crazy-health-nut bread and sweet potato chips into the cart, but we didn’t really mind too much.

I stood in front of a display of lunch meats, looking over the selection. Jeff came up behind me. “Hey, Byron, did you want—”

“Shhhh!” Hay hushed him. “He’s in his element. Watch. This is like something off the Discovery Channel.” Jeff fell silent and stood next to her as she narrated. “Here we have the American Teenager-us Boy-us, in his native habitat,” she said in her best fake Australian accent. “Isn’t he a beaut?”

Jeff started laughing. “That is the worst accent I’ve ever heard,” he told her.

“Oh, believe me, I can do worse.” She put her hands up to her eyes like a pair of binoculars, and went back to Crocodile Hunter mode. “Watch how he surveys the prey before deciding which will be chosen. This is an important decision and not to be taken lightly.”

I reached out and picked up several packets of turkey and ham with one hand, and flicked her off with the other. She was undeterred. “The American Teenager-us Boy-us has his own special way of communicating. See how he shows his affection with the use of a single finger?”

I finally turned around. “Affection?”

Hay shrugged. “Hatred bordering on rage?” she suggested.

I laughed and hugged her. “You know I can’t stay mad at you.”

Jeff laughed again. “You two are nuts,” he opined. He then thought for a second before asking, “Haley, if the native habitat of the American Teenager-us Boy-us is the deli aisle, then what am I?”

She appeared to contemplate that for a while. “You’re a rare subspecies known as the Californian Teenager-us Boy-us, which is more at home in the sprout and tofu aisle,” she finally commented.

I raised an eyebrow. “Do grocery stores have sprout and tofu aisles?” I teased.

“They do in California,” Hay declared, even though she’s never been there. Jeff shook his head at me.

Vanessa came back to the cart at that point with a pack of American cheese. ���What are you freaks doing over here?” she asked. Without waiting for a response, she surveyed the cart. “Jeff, what exactly are you going to put on your sandwiches?” she asked.

We’d already had this discussion. Jeff eats pretty much organic, and just about anything he would have liked on a sandwich would have gone bad pretty quickly. “Peanut butter,” he answered, “Peanut butter and honey.”

“Well, great. Let’s get some and get out of here. I want to see how bad Jordan’s face looks,” Vanessa said, just a little too gleefully. Hay cringed, but Vanessa didn’t see it.

***

When we arrived back at the station wagon, Adam was leaning against the driver’s side door, looking nonchalant. “How’s your hand, Haley?” Hay scowled at him, but he smiled at her. “Don’t worry. Jordan was totally asking for it. I’m just surprised you’re the one who walloped him.”

Jeff chuckled and opened the trunk, throwing in the boxes of cereal. I opened the back door and opened the cooler, which Adam had already filled with ice. Vanessa handed me the perishables a few at a time.

As I worked, I looked over the front seat at Jordan. He was folded up in the passenger’s seat with a baggie of ice over the bridge of his nose and his left eye. He’d picked up my baseball cap and pulled it down over his face. Jordan was pretending to be asleep, but his breathing told me he was hearing every word we were saying.

Hay looked fretfully over Adam’s shoulder into the car. “I didn’t break his nose, did I?” she asked him.

Adam shook his head. “Nope. But you gave him what’s going to be one hell of a shiner. He’s going to have a fun time explaining that one: ‘My brother’s female best friend kicked my ass.’”

I noticed, gratefully, that he didn’t say girlfriend. Hay gave him a wavering smile and then climbed into the back with Jeff, who gave her another hug. “Let’s go home,” she said, and I wondered whether she meant the motel or Stoneybrook.

[tosybelle-blog]

By and Hay’s Excellent Adventure--Part I

Haley Braddock is pretty much my best friend. Well, let me rephrase that. Haley Braddock is pretty much my only friend.

Oh, sure, I count my own brothers as friends, but that’s mostly by default. We shared a womb, so we’ve always liked to spend a lot of time together. But these days, they’ve grown kinda tiresome. They only talk about two things: 1) girls and 2) how they’re going to get into those same girls’ pants. Gets pretty boring after a while, especially since neither one of them is getting anywhere with the second.

And I do have other friends. It’s just that they’re mostly Adam and Jordan’s friends, and that I’m only on their friends lists because we’re a trio. If Robby or Shane or Dan were to list their friends, with their best friends at the top, they’d list Jordan and Adam near the top somewhere. Then they’d get to the end of the list, and go, “Oh, yeah, and Byron, I guess.” In other words, when they call the house, they’ll ask for one of my brothers and then maybe invite me along on whatever shenanigan they’re planning to pull, but they never ask to speak to me.

But Haley is different. And I don’t just mean because she’s a girl. I know lots of girls, and I’m related to quite a few of them. Hay is about the only girl I’m not related to that I feel totally comfortable with. We get together three, four times a week. We tell each other pretty much everything. It’s really nice to have a confidant who doesn’t judge and doesn’t turn around and tell everyone else in your family.

One day a couple weeks before spring break, I was hanging out in Hay’s room again. We always go to the Braddocks because 1) there are fewer people there, so it’s quieter, and 2) her parents trust us enough to let us hang out in her room with the door closed. There aren’t many rules at my house, but one of them is pretty simple. No sex, no drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco...in the house. Mom and Dad know they can’t control what we do all together, so they’ve resigned themselves to just restricting any signs of it in the home where it could corrupt younger sibs. So even though Hay and I aren’t doing anything we couldn’t do in the rec room surrounded by a couple brothers and sisters, we aren’t allowed to be alone anywhere in the house. Because Hay’s parents were smart enough not to have a whole mess of kids, they are better able to monitor their kids’ relationships. So they know it’s safe to leave us alone. Hay and I are pretty standard nerd straight arrow goody-goodies. Neither one of us has ever tried pot or anything stronger, and we’ve never had enough alcohol at once to make us more than buzzed. We’ve never even smoked a cigarette. And since we tell each other a lot, I know that she’s never made it past first base with a boy. Nope. Hay and I were not doing anything in her bedroom that wouldn’t pass my parents’ test.

Mostly we just sit around, do our homework, and talk. About school, about our goals, about stupid shit. She spends a lot of time complaining about her little brother Matt. At this point, he had just turned fifteen and thought he was God’s gift to women—or at least, teenaged girls. He was like all three of my brothers combined, at least in Hay’s eyes. So I got to hear all about what he was up to now. How he lorded his social life over her. How much time he spent hogging the bathroom. Other general complaints about how badly it sucks to have younger siblings. She tells me because she knows I can relate.

I couldn’t even tell you what exactly she was complaining about this day. I know, I should pay better attention, right? If you’d asked me right after the conversation, I could have told you. But it’s not so important any more. So forgive me.

In any case, when Hay was done with her complaint, she turned to me. We were sitting back to back on her bed, so she basically turned her head over my shoulder so her mouth was right next to my ear. “By,” she said, throwing aside the textbook she’d been half- heartedly “studying” while bitching about Matt, “How come you never complain about your brothers and sisters? I’ve only got one and I complain all the time. You’ve got seven and I never hear you whine about them at all.”

I shrugged, feeling her whole body move up and down with the movement. She was putting pretty much all of her weight on my back. “I dunno,” I added unnecessarily, giving myself time to think about it. “I guess that they’re all so annoying all the time that that would be all I ever talked about if I told you how they were. I would totally annoy the shit out of you.”

She laughed and turned back around, jostling me with her other shoulder—completely on purpose, mind you—as she did. “Like you don’t already?” Hay picked up her math book and opened it to her current assignment, but she didn’t pick up her notebook or pencil. Hay always plays with her homework for at least half an hour before she starts it. “Do me a favor. Make me feel more normal. Tell me one obnoxious thing one of your brothers or sisters has done recently. Something that just totally pissed you off. What is the most annoying thing a Pike kid has done in the past week?”

I threw aside my novel, knowing I couldn’t get any further with my reading assignment until she got what she wanted. But I also know I couldn’t actually answer her last question. I knew instantly what the most annoying thing my brothers had done recently was. I’d come home from Hay’s house two days before and come up the stairs. I’d stayed for dinner, so it was later than usual and dark when I got home. When I walked past Jordan and Adam’s bedroom, two voices yelled and a hand yanked me into the room.

“Hey!” I’d shouted, but within seconds both of my brothers were on top of me, fake beating me senseless. This is how they show love, so I’d ignored it and fought my way out of the pile. With my back to them, I’d shaken myself off and silently cursed them.

“Where the hell have you been?” Adam had asked me. I’d just shrugged, not yet turning around. Despite the fact that they were only playing, they’d managed to split my lip.

Even with him on my other side, I could feel Jordan giving me stinkeye. “Robby called and wanted us to come over and play some football. We’d promised to come by as soon as you came home. But you took your sweet-ass time getting home and now it’s too late.”

I wiped a bit of blood off my lip and finally faced them. “I was with Haley. Dinner, you know...” I’d let the sentence trail off. Adam and Jordan had looked at each other. Adam’s irritation subsided and he began to grin.

“Awwwright Byron!” Adam slapped me on the back. “Pussy!” He grabbed my arm and made like he was going to twist it behind my back.

I didn’t correct him. I didn’t point out that the closest I’d ever gotten to “pussy” at Haley’s house was when the Braddock cat sat in my lap. I had tried that at first, and Jordan and Adam had just taken every denial as a sign that they were right. So I’d given up. And honestly, letting them think I was getting something they weren’t gave me a little leg up on them. Very little, but still.

But I definitely couldn’t tell Haley that story. Like I said, I tell her almost everything. Even so, a guy, even a best friend, needs some mystery about him.

(Oh, and for the record, my brothers aren’t always complete fuckwits. Just most of the time.)

I snapped back to Haley’s room. No, I wasn’t going to tell that one to her. But because, you know, I have so many brothers and sisters, I definitely had another story to tell.

I shifted again. “Um, well, okay. You know how Nick and I have an agreement, right? The private time agreement?” She nodded, still facing the other way. I felt her neck muscles move between her shoulders. “The private time agreement” was something that Nick and I had come up with when we’d agreed to share a room some seven years ago. Originally, it was to allow us each some peace and quiet in a household where those things don’t really exist. Then we’d hit puberty and it had, uh, taken on a different purpose. “Well, Nick usually takes his time while I’m here. Easy, right? So I always tell him when I’m coming over so he knows when he’s free to use the room.”

“So remember late last week when you forgot you had a dentist appointment and I ended up going straight home instead of helping you with your Macbeth essay?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. “I went to my room and knocked. But I guess I didn’t give Nick enough time to answer. So I went in and there he was on the bed...”

Hay snickered. “Jacking off?” she finished the sentence.

It was my turn to look over my shoulder. “Yup. But that’s not the worst part.” I felt her silently laughing as I continued the story. “He pretended like nothing was going on, pulled his shirt down over his, uh, you know, and left the room. Probably to the bathroom to finish. But he left behind his, um, stimulation material, I guess you could say. And you’ll never guess what it was. Some kinda, uh, catalog.”

“Victoria’s Secret?”

“Oh, hell, no, Hay. Way worse. I guess catalog isn’t the right word. It was one of those ads you get in the Sunday paper. I think it was a Wal-Mart ad. Ladies in granny panties and full figured bras.”

“Dude, Byron. I said annoying, not disgusting!” For the first time in about an hour, she finally moved off my back. She stretched out across the bed and rolled with laughter. Hay has two types of laughs—a mildly amused laugh, which is loud and you can hear from the other side of the house, and a really happy laugh, which is silent and makes her whole body shake. The latter was what she was doing now, and tears were rolling down her face. “Oh, my God,” she said, when she got her shit back together and was able to speak again. “We need to get the hell out of this town for a while.”

I had picked my novel back up and turned my back toward the wall while she was calming down. I was hoping to finish the chapter before she started begging for more embarrassing stories about my sibs. Even this new direction in the conversation wasn’t going to prevent me from my assignment. “Hmm,” I said, a noncommittal response, hoping to head her off before she really picked up steam. Sometimes, Haley can really get off on wild ideas and tangents.

“No, By, I’m serious.” She sat up and turned to me, folding her feet up under her and trying her best to look serious as well. “I’ve had my driver’s license for almost three months now. And you’ve had yours for, like, a year. We never get to really go anywhere or do anything though. You think we could go on a road trip? Spring break?” I still didn’t respond, so she leaned forward a bit and waved her hand in my face. I blinked but didn’t dignify it with any other response. “I could even try to get...the car.”

“The car” is actually Haley’s car. Her parents had given it to her on her seventeenth birthday, when she passed her driver’s test. It’s a really nice used car, a much nicer ride than just about anyone we know drives. Problem is, because the car is so nice, Hay’s parents are almost scared to let her drive it. Even though she’s a really good driver, they’re afraid that she’ll crash it. I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve gotten a ride from her, and I’ve been in the car almost every time she’s been behind the wheel.

“Oh, the car, huh? Good luck.” Sarcasm oozed in the statement.

She shoved me with both hands and laughed a short, loud laugh. “Come on, dude. Think about it. We’d have a whole week to drive and wander and discover something new. We could go anywhere! The beach, the mountains, you name it.”

Okay. She’d distracted me from my reading, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that right off. Why couldn’t we go on a road trip? Mom and Dad had let Adam and Jordan take off with our car last summer for a week. And Hay’s parents are pretty cool about stuff like that. I would have been really fun to drive somewhere, just the two of us. We’d never really gone anywhere on our own, without a whole passel of friends or siblings around.

“A road trip? Huh. I’ll ask my parents,” I said nonchalantly over my book, not lifting my eyes off the pages.

Haley shrieked and hugged me, squeezing my arms up by my side and bringing the book closer to my face. “Great! Ask them tonight, and I’ll ask mine.” She let me go, her eyes sweeping over the room and settling on her math book. She lifted the text, found her assignment again, pulled her notebook and a pencil out of her school bag and settled down to do her homework. I flipped a page in my book, satisfied that I would actually be able to finish the reading before I went home.

We worked silently for a few minutes. Suddenly Hay lowered her pencil and began looking at me. Through the corner of my eye, I could see a mischievous glint to her gaze. “What,” I said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Soo....stimulation material. I heard about Nick’s. What do you use?”

I didn’t answer, really. I just shifted the book to one hand and flicked her off with the other.

“Okay, never mind then. Next time I’m in your room, I’ll just look under your mattress.”

I turned a page in the book and looked at her over the top. “I’m too smart to leave it under the mattress,” was all I said.

***

I love my parents, but sometimes I think they are the most unreasonable people on earth. I’d waited to talk to them about Haley’s idea until after dinner. Generally, my siblings sort of scatter after dinner. Someone’s usually out on a date, or with friends, and most of the rest of them head upstairs to do homework or downstairs to watch something on television. It’s the best time to talk to Mom and Dad about anything serious, especially if you volunteer to help with the dishes. Mom always appreciates the help, but they know right off you’re about to ask for something. So, it’s not always ideal if you want to spring something on them you don’t think they’ll go for. But I didn’t think this was a request they’d say no to, so I just went for it.

I was putting away the last of the dishes while Mom and Dad sat down with cups of coffee. When the last plate was back in its home, I turned around. My parents were facing the other way, but I saw them glance at each other. “Byron,” Mom said after a moment of me trying to figure out how to begin, “if you’ve got something you want to ask permission for, get it over with so you can get out of here and give your dad and me some private time.”

Okay. That put me more at ease. I grabbed a cola out of the fridge and sat down next to them. “Um, so you know spring break is coming up, right?” Suave, genius. Mom and Dad just looked at me. I opened the cola can. “Well, Haley and I were talking. We wanted to have an adventure this year. Now that we both have our driver’s licenses, we were hoping to take a road trip. Leave on Sunday and come back Saturday, so that we have plenty of time to work on homework and catch up on our sleep before we go back to school.” Now Hay and I hadn’t talked about the last part, but it made sense, and I thought my parents would be more likely to go for it if they could tell we were being our regular, responsible selves.

I saw Mom and Dad look at each other again, but this time I was looking at them face on, and I didn’t really like what I saw. The two of them have this habit of having whole conversations with their eyes, without having to say a word. Since I’m the ‘quiet, observant one,’ I’d long since come to study and translate large chunks of this secret language of theirs. And most of what I was seeing was negative.

“Byron,” Dad said, sounding like he was trying really hard not to sigh, “Sorry. I don’t like the idea of you and Haley alone in a car. Especially not for a whole week.” He took a sip of coffee, like that was the end of the conversation.

I tried my hardest not to break straight into whining. “Why not?”

Mom looked at Dad for a second, and when he took another sip of coffee, she answered. “Sweetie, you are a boy. Haley is a girl. You’re teenagers with crazy, mixed up emotions and hormones. Just not a good idea.”

I sighed. “Mom. I can assure you, nothing like that will ever go on between me and Haley. She’s my best friend, not my girlfriend. We’ve hung out together just about every day for the past three years, and I’ve never even kissed her.”

Mom raised her cup and took a drink. Why do they always start with the coffee just when I want them to say something? “Come on, Mom. Dad. I’ve never been a problem. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs. And I certainly don’t have sex with Haley. The worst thing you could say about us is that when we get together, we curse like sailors.” Mom raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. “You know you can trust me, right? I’m a good kid.” And it was true. Since I’d hit high school, I hadn’t been grounded once, nor had I had a detention. I was mostly in honors classes at school and I was in the top five percent of my class. I’d gotten an early acceptance to college sometime back and was on the path to higher academic success. I was good with my younger brothers and sisters, and for the most part we got along.

Another eye conversation started as both Mom and Dad took another drink from their coffee. These mugs were starting to seem endless. Just when I was about to give up and tell Hay the plan was off, Dad put his mug down. The sound it made indicated it was empty. “Okay, Byron, you make a valid point. I have no reason not to trust you...yet. Despite that, I still stand behind my original statement. I don’t like you and Haley alone in a car for the week. However...if you were to find another person, and all three of you went together, I’ll give you permission. Pending the approval of the Braddocks and the other kid’s parents, that is.”

I jumped out of my seat. “You mean it?” I asked.

Mom nodded. “Of course. We let Adam and Jordan go off last summer with a couple of guys, didn’t we? If you can put together a trio that we approve of, there’s no reason you can’t do the same.” The front door slammed shut and Adam and Jordan, who had been out with some guys, were back home. Mom raised her voice so that the newcomers could hear her. “And unlike all the other teenage drivers in the family, you have yet to get a ticket or hit something.”

“Aww, Mom,” Jordan said, coming into the kitchen to scam some leftovers, “I still maintain that cop was all wrong when he gave me that ticket. I was doing the speed limit, I swear.”

Mom turned in her seat as Adam followed Jordan to the fridge. “Jordan. You were given a ticket for doing fifty in a thirty-five zone. No radar machine, or cop’s eye, is going to be that far off.”

Adam pulled a cold chicken leg out of the fridge and bit straight off of it as Jordan scowled. “Why did this topic even come up?” Adam asked, his mouth full.

Dad got out of his chair and closed the wide-open fridge. Adam was holding the whole plate of leftover chicken by this point, and Jordan had the makings of salami sandwich, except the bread, which he grabbed from the counter top. Dad shook his head. “Weren’t you guys just out for pizza? And didn’t you have huge snacks just before that, right when I was coming home?” He didn’t wait for an answer to his own question, but instead turned toward me. “So. This road trip. I assume you’ll be needing the car.”

In our family, “the car” is a battered old piece of shit Honda Civic that feels like it’s as old as I am. My parents bought it when my oldest sister Mallory turned seventeen, and it’s meant to be shared by all the teenaged Pikes. Right then, with Mal off at college and my sister Vanessa not turning seventeen for another three months, it was a car that Adam, Jordan and I shared. Most of the time, one of them drove it, simply because they had more social engagements than I did. We had to schedule carefully over the summer, when anyone sixteen or older in the family was required to hold a job. Most of the time last summer, I had just walked to work. It was easier than fighting with my brothers, who could beat me up, or Mal, who could turn on the waterworks.

“Wait. What?” Jordan put down the slice of bread he had been lovingly slathering with mustard. Adam, his mouth now totally full of chicken, knew better than to say something right away. He’s choked more than a few times trying to talk with that much food in his mouth. But he shot me a death glare.

I ignored them both and turned to Dad. “Well, Hay’s trying to get her parents to let her take her car, but I doubt they will. So if you’re okay with it, yeah, I’ll need the car.”

“No way. Uh-uh. Totally unfair.” Adam had managed to swallow his chicken. He turned away from me, toward Mom and then to Dad, who was still standing by the fridge. “He’s taking the car for spring break? For a road trip?”

“Yeah, that’s crazy!” Jordan chimed in. “What if one of us wants to use the car then? Like what if I have a hot date with Danielle and need the car?” Adam snickered, and I had to try really hard not to do the same. Danielle is this old friend of Vanessa’s, and Jordan’s been trying to get her to out with him since she was about thirteen. She’s been telling him ‘no’ for just as long.

Mom sighed, good naturedly. “Then you’ll just tell Danielle the same thing you would tell her if Byron had the car just for the evening. Either reschedule, walk, or your dad or I will drive you.” Both Adam and Jordan groaned. “It’s the same thing that Byron had to do, and Mallory too, when you two took the car last summer.” Mom stood up and glanced at Dad, and all three of us triplets knew the conversation was over. “Make sure you two clean up your dishes tonight—Byron already did the dinner dishes and I don’t want to find any in the sink in the morning. Good night.”

Adam and Jordan turned on me darkly. I tried to smile at them, but it didn’t last long. “It’s the same thing Byron had to do when you two took the car last summer,” Adam repeated, raising his voice so that he was making a terrible parody of Mom.

Jordan glanced at him briefly and turned back to me. “Yeah, but you know that Byron couldn’t get a date with Danielle if he wanted one.”

I picked my forgotten can of cola off the table and took a swig. Suddenly, I understood why Mom and Dad do that with their coffee. It keeps them for blurting out the first thing that comes into their heads.

It didn’t work for me. “Yeah, and neither could you, and you want one.”

I have never run from the kitchen so fast in my whole life.

***

Once I managed to get free from Adam and Jordan, I found a cordless phone and went to my room. Nick was in there, doing his homework...or actually, staring off into space and ignoring his homework. I touched him on the shoulder. “Nick. Nick. Earth to Nick.”

He slowly shook his head and returned to normal. “What?” he said, instantly irritated that I had interrupted his “studies.”

I held the phone out and pointed to it. “Will it bother you if I make a phone call?”

“Yes.”

I scowled a little bit, but stepped back out into the hallway. My two youngest sisters were having an argument in the room they share with Vanessa. Even with the door closed, I could tell exactly what it was about, and I had no doubt that Haley would be able to hear it too. I ducked down the hallway further. Mom and Dad’s room door was closed. Adam was in his room, and he was one of the last people I wanted to see at that moment. (Bet you can’t guess who the other one, who was downstairs watching television, was.) Finally, I went into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. It was a little too early for anyone to be getting ready for bed, but I still probably wouldn’t have too much time. I dialed Hay’s number from memory. Her father answered, recognizing my voice, and got Hay right away.

“Hello!” She sounded fairly excited. Hopeful, I think.

“Hello, yourself. So how did it go?”

“Fifty-fifty. Mom said I could go, but she said I couldn’t take the car.” Surprise, surprise. No biggie, though. Byron to the rescue.

“Don’t worry about it. Not only did I get permission, we also get to take the Pike-mobile.”

A long, incomprehensible shriek came from the other end of the phone. I held it away from ear until I was sure she was good and done. Because of this, I missed a fair chunk of what she was saying.

“...and we are just going to have the best time ever!”

“Whoa, slow down Hay. There’s just one catch.”

She sure sobered up fast. “What?”

“We have to find a third person to come with us.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then she repeated her last statement. “What?”

I started fiddling with things on the counter nervously while I spoke. Makeup. Zit cream. “My dad has this thing about teenage hormones. I guess he figures the only way to prevent us from doing something that could cause you to come home pregnant is make sure we have a chaperone.”

She giggled. “Us? Really?”

“Yeah. Crazy, huh?” Wow. This seemed a lot more amusing to her than it did to me. What was going on here? “Listen, Hay, I have to run. But think about someone we could invite along who would be safe. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

“I’ll think about it all night. Night, By.”

“Night.”

***

I’m not a morning person. I’m usually the last one out the door in the morning. Sometimes, my brothers threaten to leave me behind and make me walk. I always let them drive in the morning. I’m sure by now you’re guessing that the reason that I haven’t had any problems driving yet is because I almost never get to drive. It’s a factor, I’m sure. But there’s also the fact that I don’t do things like drive fifteen miles over the speed limit (Jordan) or park in no parking zones (Mal) or drive with my head out the window, yelling at “the ladies” (Adam).

In any case, I was half asleep when I got to my locker. I was still fumbling with the lock when a bouncing, squealing figure zoomed up behind me. I didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was. “Hey, Haley,” I said while yawning.

“Morning, By! Guess what? I came up with the perfect person to come on our trip. Even though I’m really sad that it’s not going to be Hay and By’s Excellent Adventure....” she faded out and looked at me impatiently. “Oh, for shit’s sake, Byron! Give me that!” She yanked the lock out of my hand and unlocked it for me.

I looked at her, feeling the sleepiness leave my body. “Should I be concerned that you know my locker combo?” I teased.

“Focus, dude. Talk about spring break now. Worry about me digging through your school books and dirty gym socks later.”

I put my backpack away and took out my calculus book and notebook. Haley shifted her school bag from one shoulder to the other in a very impatient manner. Sensing her irritation, I took as long as humanly possible to gather up my calculator and a couple pencils. Finally I turned to her and smiled. “So. Who’s your idea of a good chaperone?”

“Vanessa.”

I started walking down the hallway, not waiting for her to follow. “Vanessa? Are you kidding?” I asked over my shoulder, incredulously.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my sister. It’s just that she’s so...weird. When we were younger, she spoke in rhyme for a couple years. She hasn’t done that since she was maybe twelve, but she hasn’t become any less strange since then. (I’m really not one to speak though, since I think most of my sibs probably say the same thing about me.) Vanessa and Haley used to be really close, but they’d had a falling out right before they both started high school. Hay had left the house crying, and I’d followed to make sure she was okay. We’d gotten to talking, and next time she’d called the house, she’d asked to speak to me. It had weirded me out at first, but I’d quickly realized how good a friend she was. Even after Hay and Vanessa made up, she’d continued coming by mostly just to see me.

Hay wrinkled her nose at me. “Think about it!” she yelled down the hallway as I hurried away from her.

***

I hate when Hay tells me to do something and then I do it, but it seems to happen a lot. I spent more time thinking about my parent’s request and Haley’s idea than calculus, or gym, or any of my other morning classes. Other than being strange, Vanessa was an ideal candidate. My parents couldn’t complain about her, and they’d believe her when she said that Hay and I had behaved. Plus, it would be good to see Hay hanging out with someone else. When I wasn’t with her, I might be out with my brothers and their friends, but I knew Hay spent most of her time alone. I’ve got no idea why. She’s bright and funny and charming and full of energy.

I was on my way to lunch when I spotted her heading the other way. Hay has lunch right before I do, and she was on her way to gym class. She’s of the opinion that it should be illegal to force people to run a mile right after making them eat cafeteria food. I must say that I agree.

“Hey, Hay!” I called across a group of cheerleaders, including my sister Margo. I flashed her a quick smile as I waded past her and her friends. Hay was juggling her lunch bag, the latest novel she’d been reading, and a few other odds and ends, trying to stuff them back into her backpack. She looked up sharply, and then grinned.

“So...?”

“So it sounds like the best idea. I have lunch with her next. I’ll ask her, okay?”

Hay’s face lit up like a jack-o-lantern, and she smiled just as large. “Oh, By, I just love you! This is going to be the best spring break ever!” She zipped up her backpack and threw her arms around me briefly. “Call me tonight! See you later!”

***

The cafeteria was already crowded by the time I got in. Most of my brothers and sisters buy their lunches, but Margo and I prefer to pack ours. Margo because she’s the pickiest person on the face of the earth, and me because I basically just think cafeteria food blows. Most of my friends were still in the lunch line, so I took a detour from our usual table and headed over to the corner. The literary set was all over here, and Vanessa was talking to a freshman boy who looked like Pugsley Addams, only less cute. I’d seen her with him a few times before. I stood behind her, hoping for a lull in the conversation. Pugsley stopped talking almost instantly, in the middle of a thought, and just stared at me. After a moment, Vanessa turned around and gave me her best death glare. “Yeah?”

“Hi, Vanessa. I was hoping to ask you a favor.” Had it been anyone else, I would have sat down beside her to ask the question. But Vanessa and Pugsley didn’t seem to welcome my presence, and I had a feeling that would just make it worse. So I went on. “I don’t know if you heard that Haley and I are taking a road trip for spring break. Mom and Dad want us to find a third person to go along with. Do you want to come? Hay and I will pay for all the gas, and I’m sure Mom and Dad would pay your share of everything else.” Actually, I wasn’t so sure of this, but I left it there anyway. If my parents were going to insist upon a babysitter for me, then they were going to have to pay for one, same as when we were kids.

Vanessa’s expression didn’t change. “Now, why would I want to do that?”

I sighed. This was going to be harder than I thought. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d just like to help me out and get away from Casa Pike for a week, pretty much free of charge. Hay and I haven’t decided where we’re going. There might me something out there that would make great poetry...a graveyard or whatever it is that appeals to your poetic soul these days.”

Pugsley continued to stare at me like I was a moron. On quick inspection, it didn’t look like my pleas had had any effect on Vanessa, but on a second look, I could see that her eyes were smiling, even if the rest of her face wasn’t. “I’ll think about it. Can you leave me and Devon alone now and go back to your table of Neanderthals? Thanks. Bye.”

Devon, huh? Nope. I was still going to call him Pugsley in my head. “Okay. Let me know when you make up your mind.” I walked away smiling. I knew that Vanessa was just putting on a show for her friends. If she’d really not been interested, she would have found a couple of really choice insults to cut me down to size. Vanessa is the only person I know who can swear at you without actually swearing.

I set my lunch down a few seats away from where Adam and Jordan normally sit. Across from me was Dan Reiber, a big football jock and one of Jordan’s best friends. “What are you so happy about?” he asked, putting one of those dinky little straws into a ridiculously small carton of milk. Dan usually buys about seven of those milks to satisfy his thirst.

I just shook my head, letting my smile fade. Dan is one of those people who doesn’t ask a question like that and really mean it. Had I actually told him what was so great in my life right then, he would have made one of two jokes: 1) something really not funny, involving a threesome—never mind that one of the girls going along was my sister—or 2) said something about fags and their hags.

Dan has two insults in his life: gay and retarded. Everyone and everything is either one or the other. Or if he really hates them, both. He even calls people he likes retards and queers. It’s really annoying. I just want to buy him a thesaurus and teach him a few new insults.

In any case, sometimes he focuses in on certain people and decides to make their lives living hell for a few months. Charming, huh? Back during our freshman year, he caught me staring off into space one day in the changing room and thought I was staring at him, or more precisely, his dick. He wasn’t too terribly original in choosing his insults: Queer-on Pike was his favorite. After the joke stopped being funny to anyone besides him, he just called me “Hey, Fag” for another year or so until Jordan convinced him to stop. Even so, he still occasionally makes jokes about me wanting his dick. But he’s so not my type.

Okay. I guess I better rewind a bit. Remember how I said there are a few things I didn’t even tell Haley? One of them is how accurate all the hateful jokes were. Though I would never, ever stare at Dan Reiber’s dick, he was right about one thing. I am gay.

I’ve known for a long time, even before I knew what “being gay” actually was. See, there was this boy. He was best friends with me and my brothers. I didn’t know what it meant when I always wanted to be with him and near him. I didn’t realize that my brothers felt that way about girls sometimes. It wasn’t until a couple years later when I learned what the term meant and inside my head said, “Oh, so that’s what I am!” But by that time, the boy had moved away, and we’d almost completely lost touch with him.

Since then, there have been a few other boys that made me feel good about myself, but none of them seemed to like me the way I liked them. Not that I had ever said anything to them about it. What if they’d been straight? It would have been like Dan Reiber all over again, only this time it wouldn’t just have been one idiot explaining a vague notion. It would have been someone with a whole conversation he could relive for the others. It would not have been pretty.

So basically, I’m a coward. I’ve decided that, for the next few months before I head off to college, it’s better just to hang out with my best, female friend, let my brothers think I’m screwing her, and hide who I really am.

Yeah. A big, gay coward.

***

Once we were alone together, Vanessa agreed to come along for our trip. And not only did Mom and Dad agree, they were thrilled. I think it was that 1) I had volunteered to spend time with Vanessa and 2) she wasn’t going to be moping all over the house for the whole break. In fact, they were so happy that they gave the two of us a nice chunk of change to put to toward our expenses. If we budgeted carefully, it would be enough for a single motel room for almost every night of the trip. Dad even handed me a credit card on his account in my name to use to secure the rooms and in case of emergency. I really needed to thank Hay for all the brownie points she had gotten me with my parents.

Hay’s parents had also provided some money, and all three of us each had some spare funds set aside. I was planning to use all my birthday money—as I finally turned eighteen four days before we left—and maybe then some. We’d counted and budgeted and set aside money for every activity we knew we wanted to do, and left some for things we hadn’t planned out. Hay had thrown out a bunch of adjectives for how she wanted the trip to go, but her favorite one was EPIC.

Even Vanessa got excited. She was the one who suggested where we should go in the first place. We gathered in Hay’s bedroom with a bunch of road maps, deciding on two towns a couple of hours apart we just had to see. We would spend a couple nights at each, but we hoped to leave everything wide open beyond that. The entire state of Maine lay in front of us, really.

But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. All it takes is one force of nature to change the path you’re on forever. In this case, there were two forces, and their names were Adam and Jordan.

***

I woke up ridiculously early on that first Sunday of spring break. Vanessa, Haley and I had decided to leave at the butt-crack of dawn, but I was up before the alarm even went off. That was probably for the best. Nick is a bear if you wake him when he doesn’t need to be up. Honestly, though, in the mood I was in, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. Still, I turned the alarm off and crept out of the room.

Except for the types of things we would need that morning, Vanessa and I had packed our bags the night before. We had agreed that I would shower first and go downstairs to eat breakfast while Vanessa used the bathroom. Hay and Vanessa were going to eat on the way there and I was going to take the first shift driving. We wanted to go the whole six hour trip today, with me taking the first half and Hay the second, and then have the whole day ahead of us to enjoy.

Hay arrived early enough to make it clear that she, too, had gotten moving early this morning. She was already full of pep and zest, and she’d greeted each Pike she’d come across with a big hug, even Mom and Dad, whom she’d thanked profusely. When Vanessa was ready to go, I shoved the last of a waffle in my mouth. Dad went out to pull the car out for us, and Mom presented us with a large cooler—the one we used to take on picnics—full of snacks, drinks and sandwiches.

As Hay, Vanessa and I went outside, we were surprised to see that our family’s station wagon was sitting there. I gave Dad a questioning look. “Uh, Dad, where’s the Civic?”

Dad gave me an odd look. “With the number of you going, I thought it would make more sense to take the wagon. You’ll be able to spread out more.” I looked over at the girls, who looked just as confused. There were three of us. How much more room did we need?

Mom, Dad and my youngest sister Claire helped us load up the car. Margo and Nick were still asleep, and Jordan and Adam had called late last night and asked to stay over at a friend’s. We weren’t going to be gone for too long and we really didn’t have too much to take, so we were done pretty quickly. Hay’s high was wearing off and she climbed into the middle row with a blanket, intending to take a nap for the first part of our journey. Vanessa took the passenger seat. Dad cleared his throat, and I was waiting for a last minute lecture, a repeat of the night before when he’d sat all three of us down and given us the “rules.” But his words were not what I expected. “Aren���t you three going to wait for the rest?”

***

Oh, no. Oh, no, no.

I’m not sure how exactly this happened. But when the car took off forty-five minutes later, there were six of us belted in. Hay had moved from the middle row into the rear facing seat, where she was silently sulking. Vanessa had taken out a book and was furiously ripping pieces off a muffin, shoving them soundlessly into her mouth. I was behind the wheel, rigid with anger. And in the middle row, sensing our irritation and annoyance, were Adam, Jordan, and Jeff Schafer.

Jeff Schafer. Oh my God. When we were ten, he was my best friend. Yeah. That best friend. His mom still lived in town, and though he visited her often, for the last few years we just hadn’t been able to get it together. Either he’d come to town while we were out of town, or he’d been free only while I was working. I hadn’t seen him since we were thirteen or fourteen. I remembered that he and Jordan had spent some time together last summer and that he and Adam had run into each other at Thanksgiving. But we’d barely hit puberty when I’d last spoken to him. And these days, he was looking good.

Jeff’s hair is blonde and looks like just stepped out of a windstorm, and he has this adorable spray of freckles across nose. When he showed up at the house with my brothers, he was wearing a white wife beater under an unbuttoned shirt of blue and green plaid. The blue in his shirt brought out the sparkly ocean blue of his eyes. He completed the outfit with a pair of faded, lived in cargo shorts and flip flops, and a silver thumb ring on his left hand. He was maybe a few inches taller than I am, but he carried himself better, making him look much taller.

My childhood crush standing on my front step, carrying a duffel and looking sexy as hell? Yeah. I was barely able to form a coherent thought for the next few seconds. Or minutes. Or longer. Which is probably how Adam and Jordan were able to talk the three of us into letting the three of them into the car.

Like I said, I don’t really know how it happened. All I do know is that one of my brothers told Dad that Hay and I had okayed the other two triplets joining our trip. And I, of course, really hadn’t. Half the reason for going on the trip in the first place, at least for me, was to get away from the two of them for a week. Even while I’d been wracking my brain trying to think of someone to bring along before asking Vanessa, I’d never even considered asking either of them once. Both Hay and Vanessa were looking toward me, hoping I would speak up and tell the other guys they couldn’t come. But I’ve never been one for making a scene. And Mom and Dad looked so hopeful, probably at the prospect of having only three teens in the house for the week. Not to mention how tongue-tied I was, looking at this beautiful specimen of manhood that had just appeared in front of me. So I let the girls down, and I could tell that, in addition to being mad at Adam and Jordan, they were mad at me.

Some spring break adventure this was turning out to be.

And Jeff? Well, he’d had the good sense to look embarrassed when he’d realized that he hadn’t actually been invited on the trip in the first place. All I caught was that he’d run into Jordan and Adam the night before, and they’d mentioned how they were leaving for the week first thing in the morning. Somehow, this had led to them inviting him to join us, and his mom had given him permission. I took a look at him in the rear view mirror. Jeff was gazing out the window on the passenger’s side, looking pained. I couldn’t tell more than that from a quick glance.

Jordan was sitting bitch. Either oblivious to the tension in the car, or trying clumsily to cut it, he piped up, “It’s deathly quiet in here. Can we get some music playing, please?”

Music. That was actually a good idea. Not wanting him to get his way too much, I answered without taking my eyes off the road. “Yeah. Music sounds good. But I’m making a couple rules first.” The groans sounded almost universal. “First is that, since so many of us can drive, we switch drivers every two hours. Whoever drove last gets to sit in the passenger’s seat. The rest of us can sit wherever the hell we want, as long as we can do it without fighting. Sound fair?” No one said anything, so I took that as a yes. “How many drivers do we have?”

Jordan nudged Jeff in the ribs. “Schafer. You got a license?”

Blinking, Jeff turned away from the window. He looked like he’d been pulled out of an epically bad daydream. He said the first words I’d heard from him since, “Good morning.” “Yeah. For a while now. In California, you get your license when you turn sixteen.” He turned back to the window.

“Great. Five drivers then.” I put on my blinker and slowed at a stop sign. “Second. Whoever is in the passenger’s seat has to play navigator, but also gets to pick the music. Vanessa, you got something in mind?”

I’d done this deliberately. Vanessa has a great collection of CDs designed to annoy. She also has an IPod full of songs guaranteed to make the most cheerful person in the world want to slit his wrists.

While Vanessa shuffled through her duffel bag, I heard the commentary from the middle row. “What do you think this is, school? Fuck, Byron. It’s a goddamn road trip. Who died and made you the god of making rules?”

Haley’s head popped over the top of the seat for the first time in several miles. She stood up on her knees, leaning over the middle seat with her head between Adam and Jordan’s. “You assholes did when you invited yourselves along. No one asked you to come. And Vanessa and By and I had already decided on some rules before that, so if you don’t like them, you can get the fuck out of the car and walk home. Because I like rules and I especially like any rule that you two hate!” By this point, she was practically screaming.

Adam leaned forward, away from her. “Dude,” he said in a spooked voice, looking at me in the rearview. “Your girlfriend’s crazy.” At that moment, I was a bit inclined to agree. This was something new for Hay. There was a crazed look in her eye, her face was beet red, and tears streamed down her face. While I’d seen her cry before, it had never been like this, with so much emotion behind it.

I didn’t dignify Adam with a response. Vanessa had selected a CD and popped it into the jury-rigged system that played through the car’s old tape deck. Janis Joplin came pouring out of the speakers as the car’s occupants fell silent again. Hay sat back down, crying much in the same way she laughs. Jeff’s eyes never left the window. Vanessa flipped a page in her book and took a swig of coffee. And Adam and Jordan looked at each other, both trying to decide if they wanted to take Hay’s advice and jump out of the moving car and both looking sorely tempted.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Janis sang from the tinny car speakers.

Oh, yeah. This had to be the worst start to any road trip in the history of the world.

***

We were all silent and fretful for a while after that. Vanessa’s CD was a mix CD, and after Bobby McGee, I couldn’t even begin to tell you what most of the music was, because I didn’t recognize it. Vanessa was still reading. Adam and Jordan had discovered the cooler and were munching grapes. Jeff hadn’t moved a muscle from the window, and I’m pretty sure Hay had cried herself to sleep. We were about three songs in when we hit the highway. I merged going north.

A moment later, Jordan leaned over Adam, watching the car’s progress. “What are you doing?” he exclaimed. “Byron, you’re going the wrong way.”

I kept my eyes on the road, tense at all the traffic this early on a Sunday morning. “No, I’m not.”

“Did you fail geography? Florida is south of here, man. You’re going north.”

Vanessa and I exchanged a look, and she nodded. She put down her book and turned around, looking at our brothers. “Florida? What do you mean, Florida?” she asked. “We’re going to Maine.”

Adam and Jordan gaped. “Maine?” Jordan echoed. “Maine? Who the hell goes to Maine during spring break? What’s the matter with you people?”

I had finally gotten to a comfortable position on the highway and put on the cruise control. “Maybe next time, you’ll find out where the car is going before you invite yourself along.”

A small chuckle erupted from somewhere else, and I had to check around before I realized it was Jeff. “Oh, my God,” he said, turning away from the window. Our eyes met briefly in the rearview before he turned to my brothers. “You guys are priceless.” He was still chuckling, but that one look at his face told me that he wasn’t really happy. His eyes looked sad and lost. “You tell me we’re going to go to Florida. It’s going to be me and the guys, just like the old days. And then we get in the car, and not only are there girls going— no offense, Vanessa and Haley—but I find out we’re not actually on the guest list. And now, we’re going to Maine, of all places.” He shook his head and turned back to the window. “Maine,” he repeated, as if he couldn’t believe it. “What’s in Maine?”

Despite the fact that the question was obviously rhetorical, Vanessa answered him seriously. “Mountains,” she said. “Mountains and the ocean. Sometimes you just need to go somewhere that soothes your soul, you know?”

Jeff turned away from the window for the third time and met Vanessa’s gaze. “Yeah, I do know.” He looked up to the roof of the car, as if it might hold the answers to all life’s questions. “Okay,” he said, flashing a brief smile that actually looked like he meant it, “Maine.”

***

We stopped at the two hour mark for a pee break and driver switch. Since Vanessa wouldn’t be driving during the trip, I volunteered to give up my turn in shotgun and let her keep the seat. Adam, who had won a game of rock, paper, scissors with Jordan, was going to drive next. Jeff had turned down an offer for the wheel, and Hay was still sleeping restlessly in the back and we hadn’t wanted to wake her.

She was awake, however, when I came back from the john. “Need to stretch your legs?” I asked, climbing around the luggage to join her. Hay shook her head and pulled her blanket even tighter around her. All that was visible was her face, which was puffy from dried tears and sleep. I sat close to her and put my arm around the lump of blanket. “Hay. I’m so sorry.”

I felt her shrug. “I know.” Her voice was hoarse and still sounded a bit wavery. She lifted a blanket encased arm and wiped at her face. “I don’t really blame you. You can’t be held responsible if your brothers are little bastards. Or if you don’t have the balls to stand up to them.” I sighed but didn’t say anything. She was correct, after all. After a moment she finally turned and looked at me. “I just wanted to get away from myself, you know? And having them here is the exact opposite of that.”

I met her gaze. “Believe me, I know.” Hay put her head on my shoulder. I went on. “Remember what you called this trip back when we first put it together? Well, I’ve got a different name for it: By and Hay’s Bogus Journey.”

Hay made a happy noise for the first time since the boys had shown up. She closed her eyes and relaxed into me, but her stomach made angry sounds. “You haven’t eaten anything today yet, have you? What are you in the mood for?”

She shook her head. “Nothing right now. Just stay right where you are, okay? I need this more than I need breakfast.”

I closed my eyes, too, and put my head on top of hers. We sat like that for a few minutes, and I might have fallen asleep if it weren’t for a pounding on the window. “What are you fuckers doing back there?” Jordan shouted, his face up against the window.

Another voice, more garbled, responded, “You got that right. Fuckers.” Both Adam and Jordan started to laugh. I squinted my eyes more tightly shut and pretended not to hear either of them. From the way Hay tensed, she was doing the same.

The front passenger car door was open and Vanessa had been sitting in the seat, stretching her bare feet out the door, enjoying some weak rays of sun. “You guys are absolutely charming.” She pulled her feet back into the car and placed them on the dashboard.

I still hadn’t opened my eyes. “Vanessa, can you pass the rest of the muffins back here for Hay?” I called as Adam and Jordan settled into their seats, still chortling.

Haley sat upright as Vanessa passed the bag back to Jordan. Jordan placed the bag on the seat between us, and I grabbed it up. There were two muffins left, and I peered into the bag. “Blueberry or bran?” I asked.

“Yuck.”

My brothers were getting antsy. Adam threw the car into drive and laid on the horn. “Yo, Schafer!” he shouted out the open window. “Let’s get moving.”

Jeff appeared, not from the gas station, but from the dinky little market across the parking lot. He was carrying a small paper bag and ducked his head as he ran between the parked cars over to us. Taking a quick glance to see where everyone was sitting, he ran to the door next to the open seat and quickly climbed in. “Sorry,” he said, not really sounding apologetic at all.

The door was barely closed when Adam peeled out of the parking lot, just a little faster than necessary. Vanessa started telling him off, smacking him several times with the map. Jordan put ear buds in and turned up the volume loud enough to compete with Vanessa’s anime soundtrack. Once the others were distracted, Jeff turned around. “Uh, hey guys,” he said in a low voice. Hay and I turned toward him. He lifted the bag up, like it was a peace offering. “Nectarine?”

Haley looked at me, and we had a brief, wordless conversation which ended with me shrugging. I was getting more like my dad every day. “Sure. Thanks.” We wiggled apart and sat at opposite ends of the seat, our knees facing towards each other. Hay kicked the blanket off and accepted the bag, pulling a nectarine out of the bag and then handing it back to Jeff. “If you’re going to give any to By, you’d better take yours first. He eats more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

I kicked her sandal with the toe of one of my Converse. Jeff nodded. “I seem to remember that.” He pulled out a nectarine himself and took a bite. When he was done chewing, he looked at us expectantly, but didn’t say a word. Instead he handed me the bag and used it as an excuse to break eye contact.

I grabbed a nectarine but didn’t eat it. “Uh, it’s been a long time.” I said to Jeff as I spun the nectarine around and around. I watched the fruit instead of his face.

“Yup.”

Hay’s eyes darted back and forth between us for a moment. She opened her mouth, and then closed it. She took another bite of nectarine and exhaled loudly. I could tell that she was finding both of us, with our amazing communication skills, extremely frustrating. Both Jeff and I looked at her. She smiled an infuriating little grin as she swallowed. “So, Jeff. You’re a senior, right? Got plans for next year?”

Jeff shrugged. “Probably the community college. My grades are okay but not that great. Plus my dad...” he trailed off, looking briefly pained. “I dunno. I guess I just haven’t thought about it too much.” Another bite of nectarine and a pause while he chewed. “What about you two?”

Hay cocked her head to one side. “Well, I’m just a junior, but I’m thinking about being a professional sign language interpreter. They’re in big demand for courtrooms and schools and all sorts of places. But another part of me wants to do something Indiana Jones-y, like archaeology or anthropology. Once I decide what I want to study, I’ll decide where to go.” She shifted around a bit. “But Byron got an early acceptance to Duke for the biomedical engineering program.” Hay loves saying that. She says it makes me sound like a cyborg.

Jeff stared at me as if Haley had said I was going to be going to Hogwarts or outer space. “Wow. What are you, some kind of super brainiac?” I ducked my head, feeling my face flush.

“Seriously. Why do you think I do as much of my homework with him as possible? I’m always hoping some of that will rub off on me.” Hay’s attention drifted back to her nectarine, which was dripping down her lap. She enacted a furious feeding frenzy, leaving behind just the pit, and then looked at me. “Look at this. I am going to need to change before we get there.”

It was my turn to shrug again. “Change now.” I suggested. “Or you can see what kind of filthy-ass gas station Adam pulls into in a couple of hours.” I still didn’t look up. The nectarine, rotating in my hand, was getting sort of mushy. I finally took a bite.

Hay stared at me, horrified. “Change in here, in front of your pervert brothers?”

I didn’t move. “They’re a little busy.” It was true. Jordan had a magazine in his lap—if I’d had to guess, I’d say soft-core porn, like Maxim or Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition— and was focused in on that and his music. In the front seat, Adam was dealing with a slight case of road rage, only it was directed inside the car. Vanessa had taken to singing along to the soundtrack playing. Only problems with that are 1) Vanessa can’t sing and 2) she didn’t really know the words, so she was making them up by phonetically sounding out the Japanese. Had he not been driving, it would have been pretty neat to see Adam’s head explode. I figured it wouldn’t be too much longer before someone would have to intervene or the car would end up crashing into the median, with multiple casualties.

I finally looked up as I directed my attention back to Haley. “You’ve got the blanket, don’t you? And you know I won’t bother you. Can she trust you, Jeff?” My eyes flickered onto him for the first time since he’d handed me the nectarine. He was following the conversation by leaning his head onto the seat behind him and turning it at an angle. His eyes were half open, and he looked both sleepy and distant. And yet, still cute as can be. Damn.

Jeff shook himself and then met my gaze. “Yeah. No problem. I’ve got this window. I can count the number of red cars that we pass while you change.” Even though he was talking to Hay, this statement was made while looking directly at me. I felt an involuntary shiver go through my body.

Hay’s eyes ping-ponged again, and then stopped on me. She eyed me critically for a moment, but I wasn’t able to read her expression. Then she vaulted out of the seat. She’d tucked her bag over in one corner, and it was still accessible. She dug through the clothes, pulling out a skirt and t-shirt combo that’s one of her favorites, and then zipped the bag back up. I grabbed the blanket and handed it to her. “Want me to hold it up for you?”

She shook her head. “Naw. I got it. Just scoot over and give me some room, ‘kay?”

I wiggled over into the far corner of the seat. Jeff made a big show of turning to the window. Hay put the blanket down, and, just as I thought she was going to do, threw her new clothes on over her old. Then she covered herself in the blanket and started maneuvering underneath it to remove her jeans and shirt. I turned and looked out the window also, to give her an extra element of privacy. Jeff’s head was right next to mine, and with us both looking out the window, I could see his profile. He turned a little in his seat and looked at me again. “How long have you and Haley been going out?” he asked in a low voice, soft enough that I barely heard him.

I shook my head and whispered back. “We’re not dating.”

Jeff looked straight out the window again. When he spoke, he sounded confused. “Oh?”

“She’s just my friend. My best friend. Pretty much my only friend.” I didn’t know why I was telling him this. “We basically just have each other, so we’re pretty close.” Jeff raised his eyebrows at that but didn’t say anything. Desperate to change the subject, I squinted into the lane of cars next to us. “One!” I yelled, startling Jeff a bit.

Vanessa turned the radio down and turned around over the seat, looking irritated. “One what?”

“Jeff and I are counting red cars.”

“Oh.” She raised her eyebrows. “Do I want to know why?”

Jeff looked at her. “No, you really don’t,” he said. She laughed. It was the first time I’d heard Vanessa laugh about anything in a long time. It was a really nice sound.

About this time, Haley emerged from the pile of blanket and nectarine-juicy clothes with an amused look on her face. “Hey, Vanessa?” she called, letting her mess drop temporarily to the floor, “Do you mind changing CDs? I think I’ve heard all the Japanese I can take for one day. I hate not knowing what the song is about.” I sent her a telepathic thank you as she turned to me and gave a mischievous little grin.

Jeff was starting to open up a little. “You know what I hate?” he asked, looking at Haley this time, “When the song’s in English, and I still don’t know what it’s about.” Hay laughed and I nodded in agreement.

Vanessa smiled. “Okay, okay. Let me see what else I have, alright?”

I beat her to it. “Here,” I pulled a CD case out of my back pocket and handed it to Jeff. “Try this one, Vanessa.” The case and CD were unlabeled, and after Jeff handed them to her, Vanessa looked at them, and then me, suspiciously. “Oh, just put it in. Don’t you trust me?”

She shook her head. “No.” But she put the CD in and pressed play. Slightly cheesy, pop-py sixties harmonica music started playing, followed shortly by the John Lennon singing “Love Me Do.” Vanessa quirked an eyebrow at me and Jeff turned his head to the side, like he was suddenly realizing I had three nostrils or something. Even Adam gave me an odd look in the rearview mirror.

I shrugged. “What?” I asked, playing innocent. “Everyone likes the Beatles, right?”

Hay answered on behalf of the car as a whole. “Yeah,” she said as she finished stuffing her dirty clothes back into her duffel, “but most of us don’t carry the Beatles in our butt pockets.”

I felt myself turn a little pink despite not having done anything wrong. I guess I just hate having so many people stare at me at once. “Back up plan? I didn’t think we could stand to listen to Vanessa’s music for four hours straight. I’m surprised it took me this long to pull it out.” Vanessa crumpled up a muffin wrapper and a napkin and threw them at me. I ducked and they bounced off the side window, landing in among the bags.

The trip was actually starting to feel like it might be fun. Maybe.