You never really drank much before college—just a beer or whatever at a party—but suddenly you’re drunk-dialing me in the middle of the night or hungover on our dates. You grab a cigarette from a pack lying on top of the dashboard, another new habit of yours.
“What, you expect me to get excited about fucking pizza and Spin the Bottle? Or wait, a dance party where Peter grinds against you?”
“Seriously? You’re bringing that up?” I shake my head. “Just drop me off, then, if we’re all suddenly too lame for the great Gavin Davis to hang out with.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I grind my teeth. “Nothing. Whatever. It’s too late to get a ride from someone else. If you can take me, I’ll go home with Nat and Lys.”
You lower the cigarette. “Wait, you’re seriously gonna go to this party when I haven’t seen you in a week?”
“Gav, it’s our cast party. Come on, you know how important this is. I’ve worked my ass off on this show and I want to celebrate. Remember how my mom made me miss the last one?” I roll down the window as your cigarette smoke wafts toward me. “And, seriously, put that shit out.”
You growl something inaudible and throw the cigarette out the window, then peel out of the parking lot, going way too fast.
“Gavin!”
You don’t say anything, just turn up the music and drive. We stay silent as you navigate out of downtown and head toward Peter’s house, which is in the country, ten miles outside of town. I was so high on adrenaline during the show, watching the final performance, the culmination of all my hard work, but now I’m just tired.
I watch you out of the corner of my eye. The lights on the dashboard play across your face and your headlights cut through the night, which is darker now that we’re in the country. I check my phone. I have two and a half hours before I have to be home.
“This is so stupid,” I say. “What are we even fighting about?”
“I don’t know,” you say.
I unbuckle and lean across the console, my lips against your cheek, your ear, your neck. You smile and put a hand on my hair, your fingers running down the length of it.
You pull off to the side of the road near a stand of birch trees.
“What are you doing?” I say as you cut the engine.
You smile. “What are you doing?”
I lean toward you and kiss the tip of your nose.
“The party…,” I whisper.
You lift your chin so my lips land on yours.
“Screw the party,” you say.
I let you kiss me some more and I’m tempted, I am, but I pull away.
“Gav. I’m the assistant director. I have to go to this party. I want to go.”
I should have gone with Nat and Lys. I feel trapped in this car with you and for the first time since we’ve gotten together, I want to be somewhere you’re not.
“Please just take me to the party,” I say. “I’ll get a ride home from Nat if you don’t want to stay.”
“I haven’t seen you for a week.”
“That’s not fair—”
“You know what’s not fair? What’s not fair is that I have a girlfriend whose parents won’t let me see her. It’s not fair that she has a ridiculous curfew and that she doesn’t come to any of the shows I play. It’s not fair that I see the fucking baristas at Starbucks more than her.”
“I can’t control any of that,” I snap. “And I’ve snuck out of the house for three shows since school started.”
You turn your head away from me and stare out the window. I grab your hand and gently turn your face so you’re looking at me.
“Hey. I want to be with you all the time. But I have to be at this party. Not going would be like a slap in the face to the whole cast and crew. You know that.”
My phone buzzes, but before I can read the text from Lys, it’s out of my hands and in your pocket.
“Please, can it just be us?” you say quietly.
“Gav, give me my phone.”
“The party or me—which one is it?”
A plane flies overhead, its red taillights blinking. I watch it arc across the sky before I answer. I wish I were on it.
“Can’t we do both?” I say, my voice small. “Compromise?”
You check your phone. “You have to be home in, like, two hours. If we go all the way out to Peter’s, that’s a half hour of driving. So what, you’ll stay at the party for forty-five minutes, then save fifteen for me? That’s all I get with my girlfriend this week?”
“But if you came with me, then we’d be together.”
You explode. “I stayed in this shitty town for you and you won’t even skip one party!” You hit your hand against the steering wheel. “What the fuck, Grace?”
“Wait. What?”
You get out and slam the door. I sit in the car by myself for a minute, fuming. I think about Nat and Lys and the rest of the cast and crew hanging out. I can’t believe I’m stuck here on the side of the road, arguing with you, and I can’t even text anyone about it because you still have my phone. I take a breath and slide out of the car, then walk around to where you’re leaning against the driver’s side.
“Gav. What do you mean you stayed here for me?”
You glance at me, then shake your head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“I never asked you to stay here. Why would you say—”
“I turned down LA schools so you and I could be together. Okay?”
I stare at you. “Are you being serious right now?”
You sigh. “I didn’t want to tell you. Ever. I knew it would only make you feel bad.…”
“You didn’t…” I swallow. “You didn’t get into UCLA … right?”
Your dream school.
“Gavin. Right?”
You don’t say anything.
I wait, staring at you, my breath suddenly coming out in labored clumps.
“I got in,” you say quietly.
Something in me sinks, falls down the length of my spine like a stone.
“But we’d just gotten together,” I say, almost to myself.
You shrug. “I’d already fallen in love with you by the time I got my acceptance letter. It wasn’t even a question, not really. You’re the most important thing. Always.”
And I know this: if I get into NYU, I won’t be strong enough to do what you did. I’ll be on the first plane out. I think about the NYU application I’ve already started. The personal statement essay that I’ve written approximately five hundred times. Miss B’s promise to write me a letter of recommendation.
“You gave up your dream school for me,” I whisper, stunned. I had no idea how much you love me.
“I’d give up anything for you.” You run the backs of your fingers across my cheek. “Anything.”
My mind’s reeling, like I’m on one of those merry-go-rounds in the park, going faster and faster and trying like hell not to fall off into the sand.
“I didn’t ask you—didn’t expect you—to do that.”
“I know.” You give me a half smile. “Guess I’m a romantic like that.”
“But when I move to New York, what are you—”
You stand there, waiting. There’s something I’m missing, something I … Oh. I lean against the car, the realization of what’s happening right now washing over me, cold as the Pacific. It suddenly becomes harder to breathe. To think. To feel.
And then I feel everything all at once.
How can you ask this of me? Before you, this was the one thing getting me through. And you want to take it away. Nobody knows more than you how much I need to go to New York.
“Gavin…”