So I’m in. I have to be in. What else do I have?
Joe and I have a free period together in the afternoon. We could do homework, but Circle Community doesn’t enforce any activity on a free period, as long as you are on school grounds. You get them because you’ve earned them, and sometimes I’ll read or catch up on math homework. But usually I play hearts. Hearts has taken over the junior and senior classes, and I’m addicted. So is Joe. I guess it’s maybe when I started falling for him. That competitive sort of sparring that turns into flirtation and then morphs into desperation when you realize how badly you want him and how taken he is.
Yep. That pretty much sums it up. Hearts. The card game that changed it all.
It’s two p.m. and the last period of the day, so I’ve got eleven hours left to make something happen, and Joe is dealing cards out. Four people are already gathered around a little table, so I pull up a chair and sidle up next to him.
“Need help?” I say, smiling.
“Not really a team game, Tab,” Joe says, keeping his gaze squarely on the cards and not letting his eyes dart even for an instant in my direction. I guess he didn’t like my email. And maybe the avoiding eye contact is supposed to let me know that he’s not interested, but it does the exact opposite. All I gather from that lack of eye contact is how scared he is. And how sad at the prospect of losing me.
“Then I’ll watch,” I say. I don’t say it sexy or move any closer to him. I don’t think I have to. I can just sit here and watch him and trust in the slow simmer between us leaping into a boil.
Joe doesn’t respond except to bite his lip.
I watch. He keeps not looking my way. I lean in from time to time like I want to get a better look at his cards. I steel myself against the girls who look at me funny when they walk by. If I were Sasha I’d seduce him, or write him a sexy poem, or, if last night is any indication, slip him a naked picture of myself. But I can’t do any of that. So I sit, and wait, and watch the game unfold play-by-play.
Until: The school day officially ends, and everyone puts their cards down, gets up to leave. Joe has to pack his cards back up, and while he does, I take his chin and press on it so that his face has to finally shift toward mine. It does not feel the way it looks when women in movies with hair extensions and diamond earrings do it, I can tell you that much. It’s a lot more awkward, for one thing. He looks at me like I’m going to knock him out.
“Can we talk?” I say. There’s a shake in my voice. It’s not smooth. It’s not pretty or breathy or low or intimate. And even as the words come out, I can feel that head-swell of feeling and the possibility of crying. I am becoming one of those crying girls, but only in theory, because I never actually let the tears out in public. Which is maybe a mistake, since it’s apparently so becoming on Sasha Cotton, but I won’t sink to her level.
He nods in agreement. I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy. I was amped up for more convincing, so I let out a funny laugh. It’s contextually awkward, but probably better than the crying or vomiting that my body is threatening to do, so I’ll take it.
“Car?” I say. I need to get this done quickly so I don’t miss my meeting with Mrs. Drake.
“No. That will look weird.”
“Okay. Where?”
“Gym,” he says. Which seems much weirder to me. Plus, it’s a hike from here, a good seven-minute walk, since our campus is sprawled out over acres and acres of Vermont’s finest land.
“Fine,” I say anyway. I can do this anywhere.
And we start the walk down to the gym.
We don’t talk. We keep a safe distance between us, like maybe we’re walking together but maybe we aren’t. Halfway there, Joe doesn’t shift his gaze to meet mine, but he finally speaks up. His voice is a beacon in the cold November air. It interrupts the white-noise whooshing of wind.
“Okay,” he says. “Talk.”
I shake my head. “You said at the gym. We can have our talk at the gym.” This is an unformed plan. I have never done something like this without a mapped-out strategy, a script in my head about how things will go. I breathe deeply while the silence between us stays put.
Once we’re at the gym, Joe looks at me like he’s expecting a beating, and for a minute that’s all I want to do. I want to bitch him out, tell him how much I feel for him, how messed up what he’s doing to me is, how ridiculous a human being Sasha Cotton is.
I want to beg him to be with me.
And I almost do it. I almost give in to the dizzy about-to-cry feeling and the shakiness of my limbs and the tough handsomeness of his face, and the way the very fact of him makes me feel: unhinged and furious and in the worst kind of love.