*
Ryan dropped me off. We kissed and he said, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” but I watched him driving off, feeling anxious when he burned rubber at the end of the road. I knew it was crazy, but I couldn’t help worrying, for the first time ever, that he might break up with me, that this had changed things between us. My mom was serving dinner, but I said I wasn’t feeling well, ignored her curious look, and went straight to my room. She’d be the last person I’d confide in about a problem with Ryan—hell, she’d probably throw a party and celebrate. Safe in my room, I put on some music and lay on my bed, my hand on my stomach, trying to hold in the sick feeling. I told myself it would be fine, Ryan would get over it. Then I got mad. If Ryan wanted to dump me over something I did three years ago, he was a jerk. It’s not like he’d been a total saint before we met. Still … my gaze drifted over to my photo of us.
I couldn’t imagine my life without him, couldn’t imagine facing school or even walking down the hall if I didn’t have Ryan. The thought was so awful, the pressure in my chest enormous. I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then stayed under the hot spray until I felt a little better, the terrifying emotions flowing out of me. It was going to be okay. It had to be okay.
An hour later I was on my bed writing Ryan a letter when I heard a soft knock at my window. It was Ryan. He was wearing a brown knit hat pulled low, almost to his eyes, and an older leather jacket, open over a gray sweater. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold. I motioned for him to stay there and checked that my door was locked. I could hear my parents talking downstairs and dishes clanging in the kitchen. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to hear anything, but my window could be loud, the wood tight so that it always squeaked when I slid it open. I turned up my music, then opened the window fast.
“What are you doing here? My parents are downstairs.”
He must have climbed up to the roof from the tree behind my house. The tree Nicole and I had climbed down last summer, sneaking to the beach for a late-night swim, coming home cold and shivering but exhilarated by our bravery.
“I missed you.” He smiled.
I didn’t smile back, still upset about earlier. “You could’ve called.”
His smiled dropped. “I had to see you. I’m sorry, baby. For how I was being after school. I don’t like thinking about you with anyone else, and sometimes I forget it hasn’t always just been you and me, you know?”
“It’s the same for me when I see your ex.”
He leaned into the window, grabbed some of my hair, and pulled me closer until we were eye to eye. “I never felt anything for her like I do for you. She was nothing. What we have is real and forever, okay?”
“Okay.”
We kissed for a long time, him still sitting on my roof, the cool winter air wrapping around us and swirling into my bedroom, my hands on his warm back under his sweater. His hands on my face, my hair, our mouths desperate, needing to show each other how much we mattered, how this was all that mattered.
*
The next morning at school, Amy met me at my locker and said, “Oh, my God. I just heard. Are you and Ryan okay?” She’d been sick the day before and never saw what Shauna had done, but she’d already heard the rumors. When I told her what Shauna had written and how Ryan and I had made up last night, she gave me a big hug and told me not to worry about it, that Ryan was a good guy.
“And don’t worry about Jason Leroy,” she said. “I’ve messed around with a few losers myself.” I laughed.
At lunchtime, Shauna drove by me and Ryan while we were making out in the parking lot. I peeked at her from the corner of my eye. Shauna’s face fell when she saw us, and it was obvious she was trying not to stare, but she looked shocked. The other girls weren’t smiling either. I kissed Ryan harder.
The next day at school Amy didn’t come to my locker in the morning, which was unusual. We always walked to our first class together—Ryan’s was in the other building. Thinking she might still be sick, I headed down to her locker, passing a few kids who gave me dirty looks in the hallway. One of the girls, Tricia, was someone Amy and I hung out with sometimes. She was a toughie like us, always wearing black and had lots of piercings. When she passed by, she gave me a shove with her shoulder.
I stopped. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
She turned around and said, “I can’t believe you did that to Amy.”
“Did what?” I was getting a sick feeling.
“Like you don’t know.”
Then I saw Amy coming down the hall toward me, a few of our other friends behind her. Her face was angry but she also looked like she’d been crying. She stopped in front of me. “Thanks a lot, Toni.”
“For what? What’s going on?”