We sit in silence for a moment. I know what’s coming and cringe when he clears his throat. “You don’t have to go to Duke if you don’t want to.”
“What?” That’s not what I thought was coming.
He gives me a sad smile. “You don’t have to go to Duke. If you want to go somewhere else, that’s fine.”
I stare at the counter, drumming my fingers. “It’s not Duke, specifically. It’s just … big.” I hate rushing from the high school to my calculus class on the far side of campus. I hate the frats and the sorority girls and the party culture and the stadium-sized lecture halls. “I know what big is like and I’m tired of it already.”
“Do you have something else in mind?” he asks.
I shrug. “Just something smaller.” A stab of guilt twists my gut. “Is Mom still pissed?”
Dad shoves his drink toward me and I take a big gulp. It tastes like Pine-Sol. “Matt,” he says, swiveling to face me, “we both know Raychel’s too smart to stay here.”
“But—”
“But your mom’s right. There’s a reason we chose to move here, to raise you kids here and not in Chicago or Houston.” Dad did two residencies, a normal one at Northwestern and then a special fellowship type of deal in Texas, because he’s that smart. “Raychel will be fine. And she doesn’t need you making it harder for her.”
I want to put my head down on the counter, but I sit back, tipping my chair on two legs.
“Where are you thinking about?” he asks.
I hesitate, lowering my chair. “There are a couple … Amherst, maybe? Or Pomona and Middlebury are good.” Dad looks concerned. “There are some closer ones, too. Austin College is in north Texas, and Sewanee and Rhodes are both in Tennessee.”
He nods. “I have a friend at St. Jude’s Hospital, there in Memphis, whose wife works in admissions at Rhodes. You want me to talk to her?”
“Sure.”
He sighs. “Look, I know you’re frustrated with Raychel, but all you can do right now is be there for her,” he says. “Be her friend.”
“I don’t seem to be very good at that,” I admit.
“You’ve been at it for more than a decade.” Dad watches me. “Unless you want to be something more than her friend.”
I exhale. “I don’t know what I am, exactly.”
He flattens his lips and pops them apart. “Have you asked her?”
Bastard. He might be super smart, but he got that one from Mom.
RAYCHEL
Andrew’s mouth is erasing my mind, but one more important question pops up. “Wait.” I push him back. “Keri. You guys really weren’t hooking up?”
Relief floods me as one side of his mouth rises. “No. We were taking an ACT prep class together.” He shrugs at my surprise. “I decided to take your advice.”
“I’m glad,” I say quietly. “And I’m glad there’s nothing with Keri. Even though I like her.”
“I like her too,” he says, smiling, “but not like I like you.”
I would blush, but something else occurs to me. “But didn’t she tell you? About Carson? She’s told half the school.”
He grimaces. “At the party, she just said I should come with her, but it was too wild for explanations. She kept trying to talk to me later, but I thought she was just trying to pass me a message from you.” He looks down. “I should have just listened. I hated being mad at you. I hated not being with you.”
“I hated it too,” I whisper. He leans forward and puts his mouth on mine and I’m so grateful to have him back that after a minute I fumble with the button of his pants.
He stills my hands. “Not tonight.”
“‘Not tonight’ what?”
He looks at me, his dark hair flopping into his eyes. “I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”
I can’t answer. I have nothing in mind. That’s the whole point.
He sits back up, then rolls onto his side. “If you’re trying to forget Carson with me, it won’t work,” he says. “I don’t want you to, uh, do to me what he made you do to him.”
“I … thanks,” I say, trying not to tear up again. “But that wasn’t … I just wanted to … get closer.”
“Closer,” he repeats, and smiles. “You tell me the limits,” he says. “I don’t want to do anything wrong.”
“I just want you,” I mumble. I don’t care. Suddenly I don’t care at all. “To hell with everything else.” This is my life and my body and my chance to do what I want, when I want.
And I want Andrew.
I pull him to me and fumble with his pants again. He raises his eyes to my face. “Have you ever … before?”
His eyes widen when I say no, and it’s his disbelief, the impossibility of me still being a virgin, that pushes me over the brink. This is mine to give, and if Andrew really wants me, let him really have me.
Let him take it before someone else decides for me.
I flip off the light and reach for his belt again.
MATT
Exhausted, I stumble upstairs from my talk with Dad, and Andrew almost barrels into me. “What the hell, man?”
“Left my phone in the car,” he calls over his shoulder.
I don’t know who he’s calling at 1 a.m., and I don’t care. I just want to talk to Raychel. But when I stop outside the guest room, I can hear the fan through the door, and no light shines beneath it.
Andrew bolts back up the steps while I’m still deciding, and Dad follows. “You find it?” I ask.
“I think it’s in my room.” Andrew rubs the back of his neck. “If not, I’ll find it tomorrow.”
“Good night,” Dad says, ruffling his hair. Andrew messes up Dad’s comb-over and disappears into his room. “Raychel already asleep?” Dad asks me.
“Yeah.”
“You can talk to her in the morning,” he says.
I nod. Everything always seems easier in the morning.
RAYCHEL
I lie perfectly still, scared to breathe until Andrew tiptoes back into the room. “Did you find one?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. He gets back in bed and lowers himself over me. “Are you sure?” he asks again.
I put my mouth on his to answer. He puts his body on mine.
Romance novels always talk about the guy “sliding” into the girl, but there’s no sliding here. It’s damp hand squeaking over a balloon, peeling static cling skirt from sunburned leg, slowly sanding rust off of metal.
But it’s ours and it’s awkward and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
“Is this okay?” he asks, breathless, and I want to crack up. So I do, as quietly as possible. He stops. “What?”
I bite my lip and shake my head. He stares down into my eyes, gently brushing a piece of hair off my forehead.
Andrew’s not taking. He’s giving too.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he whispers, laughing.
I crack up again. “I’m glad we did.”
MATT
I wake up alone.
I knew she wouldn’t come to me, but I guess I still hoped.
At breakfast, I return her watery smile, trying to let her know we’re okay. Andrew keeps staring at her and it’s so irritating that when Mom leaves the table, I kick him in the shin.
“Son of a—”
“Watch your mouth,” Mom scolds from the sink.