Filed to story: The One That Got Away
“No, I’d really love to know.” Chris has that hungry glint in her eyes, and I know she’s just getting warmed up.
“You just want to make fun of it, and I’m not going to let you,” I say.
Chris rolls her eyes. “Fine. But there’s no way they haven’t boned.”
I think Chris talks like that on purpose to get a reaction from me. She loves a reaction, so I’m careful to not give her one. I calmly say, “Can you please stop talking about my sister and Josh having sex. You know I don’t like it.”
Chris takes a permanent marker out of her bag and starts to colour in her thumbnail. “You need to stop being such a scaredy-cat. Seriously, you’ve built it up in your head to be this huge, life-changing moment, but it’s actually done in under five, and it’s not even the best part.”
I know she’s waiting for me to ask what the best part is, and I am curious, but I ignore her and say, “I think permanent marker is toxic for your nails,” to which she shakes her head at me like I’m a lost cause.
I wonder, though … what would it be like? To be that close to a boy and have him see all of you, no holding back. Would it be scary only for a second or two, or would it be scary the whole time? What if I didn’t like it at all? Or what if I liked it too much? It’s a lot to think about.
“Do you think if a guy and a girl have been dating for a long time, they’ve automatically had sex?” I ask Louis. We’re sitting on the floor of the library, our backs against the wall of the reference section nobody ever goes to. It’s after school, the library’s empty, and we’re doing homework. Louis gets Cs and Ds in chemistry, so I’ve been helping him study.
Louis looks up from his chem book, suddenly interested. He tosses the book aside and says, “I need more information. How long have they been dating?”
“A long time. Like two years, something like that.”
“How old are they? Our age?”
“About.”
“Then most likely but not necessarily. It depends on the girl and the guy. But if I had to put money on it, yeah.”
“But the girl’s not like that. The guy isn’t either.”
“Who are we talking about here?”
“That’s a secret.” I hesitate, and then say, “Chris thinks there’s no way they haven’t. She says it’s impossible.”
Louis snorts. “Why are you going to her for advice? That girl is a train wreck.”
“She is not a train wreck!”
He gives me a look. “Freshman year she got wasted on Four Loko and she climbed up on Tyler Boylan’s roof and did a striptease.”
“Were you there?” I demand. “Did you see it with your own two eyes?”
“Damn straight. Fished her clothes out of the pool like the gentleman I am.”
I blow out my cheeks. “Well, Chris never mentioned that story to me, so I can’t really speak to that. Besides, didn’t they ban Four Loko or whatever it’s called?”
“They still make it, but a shitty watered-down version. You can dump Five-Hour Energy in it to get the same effect.” I shudder, which makes Louis smile. “What do you and Chris even talk about?” he asks. “You have nothing in common.”
“What do we talk about?” I counter.
Louis laughs. “Point taken.” He pushes away from the wall and puts his head in my lap, and I go completely still.
I try to make my voice sound normal as I say, “You’re in a really strange mood today.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “What kind of mood am I in?” Louis sure loves to hear about himself. Normally, I don’t mind, but today I’m not in the mood to oblige him. He already has too many people in his life telling him how great he is.
“The obnoxious kind,” I say, and he laughs.
“I’m sleepy.” He closes his eyes and snuggles against me. “Tell me a bedtime story, Rupert.”
“Don’t flirt,” I tell him.
His eyes fly open. “I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were. You flirt with everyone. It’s like you can’t help yourself.”
“Well, I don’t ever flirt with you.” Louis sits back up and checks his phone, and suddenly I’m wishing I didn’t say anything at all.
I’m in French class, looking out the window as I am wont to do, and that’s when I see Josh walking towards the bleachers by the track. He’s carrying his lunch, and he’s alone. Why is he eating alone? He has his comic-book group; he has Jersey Mike.
But I guess he and Jersey Mike didn’t hang out so much last year. Josh was always with Alice and me. The trio. And now we’re not even a duo, and he’s all alone. Part of it’s Alice’s fault for leaving, but I can see my part in it too – if I’d never started liking him, I wouldn’t have had to make up this whole Louis K. story. I could just be his good friend Bella like always.
Maybe this is why Mommy told Alice not to go to college with a boyfriend. When you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you only want to be with that person, and you forget about everybody else, and then when the two of you break up, you’ve lost all your friends. They were off doing fun stuff without you.
All I can say is, Josh sure is a lonely figure eating his sandwich on the very top bleacher.
I take the bus home from school because Louis had to leave early for a lacrosse game with his club team. I’m in front of the house, taking the mail out of our mailbox, when Josh pulls into his driveway. “Hey!” he calls out. He climbs out of his car and jogs over to me, his backpack slung over his shoulder.
“I saw you on the bus,” he says. “I waved, but you were doing your daydreaming thing. So how long’s your car going to be in the shop?”
“I don’t know. It keeps changing. They had to order a part from, like, Indiana.”
Josh gives me a knowing look. “So you’re secretly relieved, right?”
“No! Why would I be relieved?”