I know something’s wrong as soon as you pick me up. Just a sixth-sense thing. But when I jump into the car and press my lips against yours, you kiss me back. You ask me how my day is. You almost trick me, but I can tell something’s off.
“You okay?” I ask as you pull away from school and head to the park. Even though it’s only the middle of March, it’s already getting warm, so we’ve decided to have a picnic before I have tech rehearsal at six.
“Yeah, fine,” you say.
But your hands tighten on the steering wheel, your knuckles white. I don’t want to fight today. We haven’t seen much of each other since I got back from Oregon. Your band is playing lots of shows and I hardly have any free time, now that rehearsals are taking over my life. There’s distance between us, a widening crack, and I don’t know what to do. You’ve started partying—a lot. You want me to be a rocker’s girlfriend who smokes out with the band and gets drunk and gives you blowjobs in the dirty bathroom of whatever club you’re playing at. Having a girlfriend with a curfew is a buzzkill, I get that. But whether you realize it or not, you blame me for being in high school, as if I have any choice in the matter. I can’t be in your world right now, no matter how hard I try.
You park and we grab the blanket and food you brought, then head over to a secluded patch of grass under an oak tree. We kick off our shoes and I go through the grocery bag as I sit down.
“Nice job,” I say, holding up a pack of Oreos.
You nod, picking at the grass. I set the cookies down.
“Gav. What’s going on? There’s obviously something wrong.”
You sit there for a minute, quiet, and I think you’re not going to get into it when you suddenly explode.
“I saw you. Yesterday. You were talking to some guy and he put his fucking arm around you.”
Gideon’s been slowly breaking down the wall I’ve built between me and every guy I know. I remember that half hug because I was sad when it was over.
“What do you mean you saw me yesterday? Were you on campus?”
A knot of worry grows in my stomach. I still haven’t forgotten that day you secretly watched me at the mall. It’s made me paranoid at work, especially when Matt and I have the same shift. But how are you watching me at school? It was during lunch.
“I just wanted to see how you were with other people when you’re not with me,” you say.
“You were spying on me?”
“No. I mean, I was gonna take you out later, but after I saw that guy all over you I was like, fuck it. Who is he?”
“Just Gideon—he’s in the show.” I sigh. “Honestly? I think it’s a stupid rule. I have friends that are guys. You have friends that are girls. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“The big deal is that I don’t want other guys trying to get down my girlfriend’s pants.” You grab my hand. “You’re mine. I don’t want to share you.”
I pull my hand away. “Gav, it’s just not realistic.”
You raise your voice and a couple of moms over by the playground look over at us. “I put up with so much shit and you can’t even do this one thing for me? You have no idea what this does to me. No idea. I can’t sleep at night, okay? All I can think about is you, surrounded by all these guys at lunch, at rehearsal, at the mall.”
I decide right then: I’m breaking up with you. I am so fucking over this bullshit. I want to be with Gideon. I have to stop lying to myself, to you. I don’t care how much we’ve been through, what we’ve given up to be together. Nat and Lys are right—you are controlling. And it’s only going to get worse. I will not turn into my mom. I will not.
I brush invisible crumbs off my skirt. I need to channel Lady Macbeth. Screw your courage to the sticking-place.
“Gavin…” I swallow. “Gavin, I think … I think we should—”
But you don’t let me finish because you know what I’m trying to do, don’t you?
“If you break up with me, I swear to God I’ll kill myself.”
My mind just … freezes.
Kill.
Myself.
How could I have once thought trying to kill yourself was beautifully tragic? I saw you as the spurned lover, the ultimate romantic. God, what was I thinking?
The freeze breaks and suddenly I’m angry. Fuck you for telling me this, for putting a gun to your head and telling me it’s my finger on the trigger.
“No you won’t. You won’t kill yourself.” I whisper these words, as if saying them more quietly will calm the sharp-beaked thing inside you.
“Yes. I will.” You say this slowly, as if you’re talking to a child, as if me still being in high school and you being in college automatically makes you the mature one. This is your Calm Boyfriend voice. I hate it.
“I’ve thought about it,” you say. “I have a plan.” You look at me. “You know I’ll go through with it.”
“Jesus fuck, Gavin.”
“Do you want to know how I’d do it?”
“No.” Then I lose it, anger trumping fear. I’m shouting and the sound of my voice punches the air and I don’t care that we’re in a park and that people are staring at me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Do you think I like being like this?”
You turn away, but not before I see tears sliding down your cheeks. I want the anger to stay, but it’s going … going …
I can’t stand seeing you in pain. You cry messy tears and you’re breaking right in front of me and I did this, I did this. I reach up and put my arms around you and you wrap yours around me and this is how it’s supposed to be, this is where I belong, in the circle of your arms.
“I love you, I love you,” I whisper.
How many times have you been my protector? How many times have you talked me off the ledge? I can’t abandon you now.
You press your lips against mine and they’re salty with tears and I breathe you in and the smell of you whisks me away from that lonely shore and back to you.
“I love you more than anything,” you say.
I think about you in that bathtub. The razor, the blood …
I pull away. “Gav, you need help,” I say. “Let’s talk to someone. Miss B or your mom or—”
“I don’t need help. I need you.”
“If you won’t talk to someone, I will,” I say.
“What, you’ll tell your school counselor your boyfriend is crazy—”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say. “I think you’re depressed and—”
“Because of you, because you let these guys all over you—”
I stand up then. Fuck it. Fuck. It. “You know what, Gavin? I am so fucking tired of this stupid jealousy. I haven’t cheated on you, but if you can’t stop treating me like I have a fucking scarlet letter on my chest, then that’s a pretty good sign that we shouldn’t be together.” The words fall out of my mouth. I want to vomit them all over you. “And telling me that I’m basically responsible for whether you live or die is fucked-up and I don’t deserve that shit.”
You stand up, just inches away from me. “I wasn’t lying, Grace. That’s how much you mean to me. You’re not just some girl I fuck once a week, you’re my life.”
I turn away as frustrated tears pool in my eyes. Why can’t you trust me? Why can’t we be happy? Why can’t I stop thinking of Gideon?
“This stuff,” I say, my voice soft, “is pushing me away from you, Gav. I need space. I need to breathe.”