“Yeah, like, come one, come all,” he says as he sits down and rummages through his brown paper lunch bag. “I’m really into this idea of universal salvation. I mean, he doesn’t use those words, but you get the impression that everyone’s going to heaven.”
“Right. Like, why would God make all these people and then send most of them to hell?” I say. I remember once I saw a street-corner preacher describing the horrors of hell and it’s stuck with me ever since—wailing and gnashing of teeth. Scary stuff.
“Dude, you guys are so freaking weird,” Lys says as she plops down onto the carpet beside us.
“Says the girl wearing a neon-green dress with kittens on it,” I say.
Lys laughs. “All right, touché.”
I want to be alone with Gideon, but I’m glad she’s here: I need a chaperone or else Peter will tell you I’m eating lunch alone with Gideon.
Gideon pops a chip into his mouth, then hands me the bag. “Have you ever thought, dear Alyssa, that we’re the normal ones?”
She looks from him to me. “No,” she says, deadpan. “I have never thought that.”
We talk about our production of Twelfth Night, which opens next week.
“So what do you say, Ms. Director?” Gideon asks. “Are we in good shape for opening night?”
“You guys are in awesome shape,” I say. I mean it. Everything is coming together at the last minute, which always happens in the theatre. It’s like clockwork. How? I don’t know. It’s like Geoffrey Rush’s character says in Shakespeare in Love: It’s a mystery!
I love directing. I love watching actors do their thing, then trying to figure out how they can do it better. The best part is when I’m right or when we come to a whole new idea together. We brainstorm magic.
“It must be nice,” Lys says, “not having to memorize lines and shit.”
“Dude, it’s the best,” I say. “I used to get so nervous onstage. Just doing scenes in class freaks me out.”
Lys and Gideon start talking about a scene they’re in and I get distracted, playing my silly game with the apple in my hand. I hold on to the stem and turn it around and around, counting off the letters. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. G again. When I was a kid, we’d say this is the person you’re going to end up with. I look over at Gideon. Maybe he was the G way back when I played this game before you and I got together. What if I’ve gotten it all wrong, Gavin? What if we aren’t meant to be?
G, G, G.
The drama room door opens and Nat strides in, looking frazzled. Her normally perfectly smooth hair is in a messy bun and there are wrinkles in her dress (she usually irons her dresses every morning before school—she says it gives her a sense of control in a world full of chaos).
Between midterms and rehearsals, none of us have slept more than four hours a night. I like this energy—it zips through me, kinetic, frenetic, and I latch on and let it take me for a ride. It helps me forget to dread the hours I’ve promised to you this afternoon.
“Hey, when do you guys find out about your colleges?” Gideon asks.
“Next month,” Nat says. “Except Grace didn’t apply to the one school she really wants to go to.”
I shoot her a glare. “It’s too expensive.”
“That’s a bunch of malarkey,” Nat says.
Gideon laughs. “Oh man, I need to add that one to my vocab. Takin’ it way back.”
She sticks her tongue out at him.
“What she means,” Lys says, giving me the stink eye, “is that’s total and complete bullshit.” She turns to Gideon. “Did you know Grace’s number one school was NYU but she didn’t apply because her psycho boyfriend told her she couldn’t?”
My face warms as Gideon looks at me. “It’s more complicated than that,” I mumble. “And I object to the word psycho.”
The bell rings before anyone can give me more shit for not applying to NYU. Gideon and I walk together, since our sixth-period classes are across the hall from each other. He’s uncharacteristically quiet. I know he’s working through something—he’s got that little furrow between his brows. It’s not hard to guess what he’s thinking about. Goddamn Natalie and Alyssa.
We get to our classes and I start to move toward mine.
“Okay. Um. See you later,” I say.
But Gideon’s not having that. He reaches out and pulls me into a hug. I go stiff, as if you could see us from wherever you are. What if Peter sees and, like, sends you video of it? I’ll be in so much trouble. I try to pull away, but Gideon holds on a little tighter.
“You might think you have to follow your boyfriend’s rules,” he says, his lips against my hair, “but I don’t have to.”
I’ve told him all about you—not everything—not about backseats and how you know just where to touch me to make me gasp—but Gideon knows about your rules. He knows because I’ve had to explain why I can’t study at his house, or why I dodge his hugs or can’t talk to him on the phone. I think he’s told me to break up with you approximately five thousand times.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble,” I mumble against his shirt. But I melt against him.
We fit perfectly together.
He’s so tall and skinny. Smells so different from you—instead of the rock-god scent of cigarettes and rare showers, he smells like soap and incense. Clean, full of possibility.
He tightens his hold on me for a second before letting go.
“You know what I’m gonna say right now, don’t you?” he asks, pushing up his tortoiseshell glasses as he walks backward toward his class. Somehow he doesn’t knock into anyone—it must be all the meditation he does. He’s a total Zen master.
“Don’t say it.” But I’m smiling a little because I sort of like to hear it.
He mouths the words Break up with him, then looks at me for a couple of heartbeats before he turns and heads into his class.
For the next two periods I don’t think about NYU. I’ve made my peace with that.
I think about God. About how he/she might be so much bigger than I imagined. How maybe if I thought about God differently, I could think about you differently, too. I could go back to being the real Grace. Before you, I craved city lights and airplanes that went to exotic places. Before you, a reel played through my head constantly, a movie of me doing epic things: studying in NYC, traveling to Africa to help orphans, walking down red carpets, marrying a hot French guy and moving to Paris. But after you, my world has been whittled down to your hands, your lips, the sound of your voice singing songs you’ve written for me.
And this scares me, what I’ve become by being with you: my nos turned to yeses, my nevers to maybes. In the almost year we’ve been officially together, I’ve somehow morphed into my mother. I walk on eggshells, glass, coals—all to keep you happy.
Gideon asks me: What are you so afraid of?
He asks: What would happen if…?
He says: You deserve better.
Do I? I don’t even know anymore.
THIRTY