That was my first lesson of adolescence.
Heartbreaks were dealt with discreetly. In the back alleys of your soul. On the outside, I was strong. But inside—I cracked.
After the swimming competition—in which Nicky indeed annihilated me—I avoided him the entire first week of summer break.
I did it casually. Made plans to go to Saks with some friends one day, went to the library on another. I even went as far as joining my mother and her boring friends for brunch.
But Nicky still came every day and had the determined, stoic expression of someone who wanted to make our friendship work. And each day, I came up with something else to do. Something that didn’t include him in my plans.
I knew I was punishing him for not kissing me, even if in a roundabout way. Ruslana made him help her around the house to keep him busy. She allowed him a few breaks each day, which he took on the living room balcony, which adjoined my bedroom terrace. Hopping between the balconies was doable but risky. The glass barrier was too tall, so you had to go over the rails and hang on the edge of the skyscraper for three feet until you made it to the other side.
One time during that first week, when Ruslana had taken out the trash and I’d just come back from another pointless outing to avoid him, Nicky hurried to the glass window between us, pressing his hands against it. I did the same, instantly drawn to him like a magnet.
“Are you punishing me?” he asked, no hint of anger in his voice.
I laughed incredulously. “Now, why would I do that?”
“You know exactly why.”
“Wow, Nicky. Inflated ego much?”
He studied me expressionlessly. I felt like the world’s biggest jerk. He tried another tactic. “Are we still friends?”
I gave him a pitying look I hated. The kind of look popular girls gave me at school when I said something nerdy or uncool. “It’s okay if I don’t want to spend all summer with you, you know.”
“Guess so.” He was watching me so closely I felt like he was undressing me of my lies, one item at a time. “But it looks like you don’t want to spend one minute with me.”
“I do. I’ll swim with you tomorrow. Oh, wait.” I snapped my fingers. “I promised Dad I would go to his office and help his secretaries to do some filing.”
“I’m losing to filing?” His eyes flared.
“Whatever, Nicky. It’s work experience. We should both be thinking about getting summer jobs next year, anyway. We’re getting too old for this.”
He narrowed his eyes, glancing between the railing and me. I shook my head. I didn’t want him to die. I mean, okay, maybe just a little, because he’d rejected me and it hurt, but I knew I wouldn’t survive if something happened to him.
“Don’t cross the barrier,” I warned. I had a feeling we were talking about much more than just the banisters.
He made a move, though. About to cross. I gasped.
His mother called him to come back. He smiled.
“For you, Arya, I just might.”
And he did.
After nine excruciating days, punctuated by a weekend full of screaming into my pillow. I was lacing my sneakers, getting ready for an afternoon of wandering around Manhattan aimlessly to avoid him. Ruslana was out, getting groceries, and my parents were at work and at a tennis lesson respectively. The house was quiet save for Fifi, a shih tzu, who was barking up a storm at a new statue Beatrice had won in an auction over the weekend. That dog had infinite amounts of cuteness and stupidity.
In my periphery, I noticed movement on my terrace, and when I turned my head to get a better look, I saw Nicky hanging between life and death.
I shot up from my bed and ran to the balcony.
“You jerk!” I cried, my heart beating five thousand times a minute.
But Nicky was lithe and athletic, and he jumped to safety and was dusting his hands off before I unlocked the balcony door.
“You could’ve died!” I pushed him into my room, railing.
“No such luck, silver-spooned princess.”
I loathed and enjoyed this nickname in equal measures. The dig was annoying, but he did call me a princess.
“Well, I could’ve been naked!”
“I could’ve been lucky,” he responded smoothly, closing the door behind us and sloping against a credenza, his ankles crossed. His face looked soft yet intense. Like an oil painting. I wanted to cry. It wasn’t fair that he wasn’t mine. And it wasn’t fair that even if he could be, we’d always have to keep it a secret. “We need to talk, pal.”
The way he said the word pal told me he did not consider me one anymore.
“Be quick about it. I’m seeing friends in half an hour.”
“No, you’re not.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I was already on the defensive. I felt foolish. Up until now, Nicky and I had been kindred spirits. Tangled together by an invisible bond. Two forgotten kids in a big city. Even though we came from different backgrounds, we had so much in common. Now, it all felt wrong. He had the upper hand. He knew I liked him like that. The balance had shifted.
“Look.” He rubbed the back of his obsidian hair. “I freaked out, okay? It’s not that I didn’t want to kiss you. It’s just that I would really like my balls to be intact by the time I go to high school, and . . . well . . .”
“You cannot guarantee that’d happen if my dad catches us together,” I finished for him.
He smiled, a smile that told me he didn’t give a rat’s ass about what my dad thought about him, only about the consequences that might follow if he crossed him. “In a nutshell, yeah.”
I took a step forward, letting my arms fall at my sides. “I know my dad is overprotective of me. It’s an Aaron thing—”
“No,” Nicky said flatly. “It’s a rich-man-poor-boy thing.”
“Dad’s not like that,” I protested.
“He’s exactly like that, and a half. Honestly? If you were my daughter, I wouldn’t want you anywhere near me either.”
His conviction told me there was little point in trying to convince him otherwise.
“Anyway, I never would have offered if I thought we’d get caught. I’m sorry. I was being stupid. And reckless. And—”
“Arya?”