BITTY: He likes ridiculous books about road trips and angry graffiti and men with beards.
I picture his face. His hands and his mouth. The ding on my computer when he comes online. The searching way he looks into my eyes. That shining feeling that comes from really loving someone spreads in my chest, and I’m ready to speak a tiny bit of truth.
BITTY: We talk, you know? About everything. He talks to me like I’m his best friend. He calls me kiddo, which I would hate with anyone else, but it makes me feel like I’m cute and he’s gonna watch out for me. He reads and plays sports. He’s, like, all these contradictions. He wants to join the Peace Corps and a fraternity, but hasn’t told anyone either of those things. He tells me everything. He really loves his sisters. And he’s so much like my dad. With the smoking, I guess, but also with the way he Is, you know?
Plus. You know. I want him. And he wants me. And he tells me all the time. I can, like, feel him thinking about me.
STAR: OMG you have to be with him.
@SSHOLE: My parents met this way. He was with someone else and she stole him away. It happens.
STAR: It sounds like he feels more for you than he does for her. Just a feeling I get.
@SSHOLE: That’s exactly what my dad said. That eventually his feelings for my mom so outweighed the feelings for his GF that he had to just be honest with himself.
And then I’m soaring. It doesn’t matter that Joe is going to bring a brownie to Sasha after school. It doesn’t matter that Alison and Jemma and Elise and maybe the whole school kinda-sorta suspect something’s up with us. It only matters that his fingertips feel like fireworks on my skin.
Three o’clock hits and Zed’s said nothing about my secret.
When classes end, I catch sight of the red exclamation point that signifies an Assignment. My heart stops when I click on it. But it doesn’t lead me to the page where I posted about my father and his smoking. It leads me back to the conversation about loving Joe.
ASSIGNMENT, Zed’s written underneath the conversation. Still mulling over your other secret, Bitty, but where there’s passion, there’s usually the need for action. So a follow-up Assignment with your guy.
BITTY: I didn’t know that was . . . an option.
People start responding right away, my page jammed with comments. This is what happens when an Assignment goes live. Suddenly everyone is on the site, ready to go. I can barely keep up. I turn toward my locker, open the door, and hide my head and phone inside. It’s awkward, but at least no one will see what I’m seeing.
ZED: Everything’s an option, once a secret is up. We gotta see things through, right?
I nod, even though no one can see me. I do remember that from other people’s entries, but I hadn’t thought about it when I posted mine. Does that mean he can make all the decisions from here on out about Joe? Does that mean I’m basically required to let him run that whole relationship?
I try to get my heart to slow and my hands to still. I want to trust in the power of the group, but I’ve sort of jumped into all this without looking to see what it is. Deep-sea diving without asking about sharks.
AGNES: That’s the beautiful thing. All things are options. That’s what you’re going to learn, Bitty.
BITTY: But aren’t there, like, rules?
ZED: Sure. That’s what you’ve been doing this whole time, right? Rules. We’re trying to help you get rid of those. More options. Less rules.
AGNES: And then, ultimately, no rules.
I check behind me, squirrel my phone, and head away again. No rules. I like that. And I like Agnes. Her breathless bravery. She’s almost cool. Dark and angsty and weird but cool.
ZED: You ready for this? Here’s the Assignment: Make him jealous. Tell him there’s someone else. If you can, find someone else.
ELFBOY: Yes. This.
AGNES: I kind of hate that. But I’d do it. That’s the thing. Sometimes the assignments you hate are the ones that end up best.
BITTY: Yeah . . .
I don’t want someone else. I don’t want him to think there’s someone else. I only want him.
I want Star’s happy love story and shiny red shoes and freckled knees and crazy talk of forever-ness.
I keep thinking about this one part of The Secret Garden. The Red Pen Margin Note Taker made an asterisk, a huge one, next to this bit of dialogue. Mary and her new friend Dickon are discussing the flowers Mary has planted in her newfound secret garden. Mary and Dickon are pondering what the garden will look like. “‘Don’t let us make it tidy,’ said Mary anxiously. ‘It wouldn’t seem like a secret garden if it was tidy.’”