"I know what it means to me," he said. "But it's different for different people."
"Well," I said, then stopped, not sure how to explain. "First, he was upset that I wasn't taking my job, which had been his job, more seriously. And then, I said I loved him in an email, and that made him a little skittish."
"Skittish?"
"Do you need a definition of that, too?" I said.
"Nope. Know it." He tipped his head back, looking up at the moon. "So things went sour because you said those three words, and because you weren't as serious about the library as he wanted you to be."
"Right," I said. Again, it sounded stupid, but of course everything does when you're just getting the bare bones facts, only the basics, without—and then it hit me. "Wait," I said. I stopped walking. "I never said anything about the library."
"Yeah, you did," he said. "You—"
"Nope." I was sure of it. "I didn't."
For a second we just stood there.
"Kristy," I said finally.
"Not exactly. I just heard you guys talking that night, out at the clearing."
I started walking again. "Well, now you've heard it twice. Although I think you should be penalized in some way, because you asked a question you already knew the answer to, and that is totally against the rules."
"I thought the only rule was you had to tell the truth."
I made a face at him. "Okay, so there are two rules."
He snorted. "Next you'll tell me there are service charges, too."
"What is your problem?" I asked.
"All I'm saying," he said, shrugging, "is that I vote that the second one be done away with."
"You don't get to vote" I said. "This is an established game."
"Clearly it isn't." He was so freaking stubborn, or so I was noticing. "You seem to be making up rules as you go."
"I am not," I said indignantly. He just looked at me, obviously not believing this, so I said, "Fine. If you're proposing a rule change, you have to at least present a case for it."
"That is so student council," he said with a laugh.
I was pretty sure this was an insult. "I'm waiting," I told him.
"You should be allowed to occasionally ask a question you know the answer to," he said, as I reflected how it was so like a guy to change the rules when he'd only just started playing, "so that you can be sure the other person is telling the truth."
And then we both saw it: headlights, in the distance. They came closer, even closer, and then finally swung left, disappearing down a side road. So close, and yet so far.
Wes sighed, shaking his head, then looked at me. "Okay, forget it," he said. "I drop my case. We tell the truth, or else. Okay?"
I nodded. "Fine with me."
"Go ahead then," he said. "It's your turn."
I thought for a second, really wanting to come up with something good. Finally I said, "Okay, fair's fair. What was the story with your last girlfriend?"
"My last girlfriend," he said, "or the girlfriend I have now?"
I had to admit I was surprised. Not just surprised, I realized, gauging the sudden drop in my stomach, but disappointed. But only for a second. Of course a boy like him had a girlfriend.
"The current girlfriend," I said. "What's the story there?"
"Well," he said. "To begin with, she's incarcerated."
I looked at him. "You're dating a prisoner?"
"Rehab." He said this so easily, the way I'd told people Jason was at Brain Camp, as if it was just that normal. "I met her at Myers. She was in for shoplifting, but since then she got busted with some pot, so now she's at Evergreen Care Center. At least until her dad's insurance runs out."
"What's her name?"
"Becky."
Becky. Becky the shoplifting pothead, I thought, and then immediately told myself I was being petty. "So it's serious," I said.
He shrugged. "She's been in and out of trouble for the last year, so we've hardly gotten to see each other. She says she hates for me to see her at Evergreen, so we're sort of waiting until she gets out to see what happens."
"And when's that?" I asked.
"End of the summer." He kicked at a rock, sending it skittering across the pavement. "Until then, everything's just sort of on hold."
"That's me, too," I said. "We're supposed to get together in August, when we'll know better whether we want the same things, or if it's best to make this break permanent."
He winced, listening to this. "That sounds verbatim."
I sighed. "It is. Right off the email he sent me."
"Ouch."
"I know."
So there we were, me and Wes, still walking, in the dark, on a break. It was weird, I thought, how much you could have in common with someone and, from a distance, never even know it. That first night at my mom's he'd just been a good-looking boy, one I figured I'd never see again. I wondered what he'd thought of me.
"Okay," he said, as we started up a hill lined by trees, "my turn."
I slid my hands in my pockets. "Okay, shoot."