“Well, don’t be. I’m fine.” But I wasn’t, and he knew it. He rested his hand on my shoulder and didn’t say anything else. I was disappointed by that in an odd way. Part of me wanted him to press, wanted him to force it out of me. But he’d given up, and so had I. When we got home, my mom was in her office. I closed my door and turned on my music. She knocked a little while later but I ignored her. I heard my dad say something to her, then they both walked away.
I’d tried to call Amy a couple of times, but her mom said she didn’t want to speak to me—and the way her mom’s voice sounded, stiff and cold, told me that Amy had confided in her. It made me feel even worse, thinking her mom believed I’d really said all those mean things. She’d always been so nice to me.
Nicole had heard what happened, but I was too upset to even talk to her. I also didn’t want her telling Mom all about it because then she’d get involved and probably talk to our teachers or something stupid like that. I told Nicole some girls had been spreading lies, and acted like I didn’t give a shit, blowing it off. But inside, I was a mess. I was barely eating and was losing weight.
Ryan was really upset with me about it, saying, “That’s a stupid way to deal with it. You have to eat.”
We got in a fight about it one night when I couldn’t finish my hamburger, hadn’t even touched my fries. I tried to explain that I just didn’t have an appetite, food turned my stomach, but he kept pressuring me to take another bite. Finally I said, “Jesus, Ryan. Get off my back and stop treating me like a little kid!” I threw my food out and made him drop me off early. Then I tossed and turned for hours, feeling bad for how I’d snapped at him when I knew he was just worried about me. I was worried about me.
I closed my eyes and sent Ryan a mental message. It was something we’d started doing a couple of months ago. If something was bothering one of us, we’d close our eyes and mentally tell each other our problems. My fights with my mom. His fighting with his dad and worrying about his mom, who was working all the time, so tired she could barely drive home. The next day we’d check if the other person had sensed something and we always had, always knew when the other was upset.
Around one in the morning, Ryan came to my window, knocking softly. I opened it a crack, holding my breath against the noise.
“What are you doing here? My parents—”
“They’re sound asleep. Your dad has his window open and I could hear them snoring.”
“Nicole might hear you.” She was a pretty solid sleeper, but you never knew.
“Stop worrying so much. Let’s go for a drive.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.” He held up a joint with a smile.
If I got caught I’d be in big shit, but my life was already so screwed up it didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Ryan and I drove around for an hour, smoking a joint, filling the truck with the sweet scent of marijuana while Pearl Jam wailed in the background. We didn’t talk about anything serious, not until we parked up at the lake, overlooking the water. Then he turned to me.
“I’m sorry I was giving you a hard time,” he said. “But it scares me that you’re not taking care of yourself.”
My face hot with shame, I stared out at the water. “I know. You don’t have to be with me if you don’t like it.” It was a challenge, one I didn’t really mean, and he knew it.
“Shut up. I’m not going anywhere. I know it’s because things are so shitty at school right now, but you have to hang in there and push past it.”
“Things are more than shitty. I don’t have anybody.”
“You have me.”
I turned to him, tears dripping down my face.
“I miss Amy.” Though I’d been spending more time the last year with Ryan, which had obviously annoyed Amy more than I realized, Amy was still my best girlfriend. I missed her sense of humor, missed talking about music, our boyfriends, helping each other with homework, gossiping, all of that.
“I shouldn’t have said that stuff about her following Warren around,” I said. “She was kind of right, I haven’t been calling her as much. I feel really bad.”
He wiped away one of my tears with his thumb. “I know, babe. But don’t forget Amy’s also pissed she got found out—it’s not your fault she cheated on Warren. You guys might still work things out.”
I took a breath, looked at him, and said, “Tell me again how good things are going to be soon.”
We talked for a while about the apartment we were going to get, the stuff his mom had given us, how much money he’d saved, all the places we were going to travel. I closed my eyes and focused on his words, letting my head drop against the back of the seat, letting the marijuana take over. He was right, none of this shit counted in the big picture. School was over in a few months. I could make it until then. Screw Amy if she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. If she was willing to believe Shauna, she was an idiot.
Ryan stretched out on the front seat with his head in my lap. He lifted up my shirt and rested his head on my belly for a moment, his cheek warm against my stomach, his breath sending shivers down my legs. He kissed my stomach.
I put my hand in his soft hair, running my fingers through the strands, tugging on a few. He whispered against my skin, “You’ll always have me.”