Gabby looked at him then, her expression perfectly, terrifyingly even. “Am I?”
Ryan blinked at her, his vision doubling for the briefest of seconds before she snapped into focus again. Crap, his head really hurt. “Of course,” he said. “What else would you be?”
“I don’t know,” Gabby said, and it looked like she was going to say something else entirely in the moment before she shook her head. “Maybe we should just hang out apart tonight, okay?”
But you don’t know anybody, Ryan didn’t say. He had no idea what was happening here, how this fight had even started. What they were even fighting about. But by now he knew better than to argue. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Yeah. Whatever you want.”
GABBY
Gabby realized what a moron she was being pretty much as soon as Ryan disappeared into the dining room, leaving her utterly alone in a sea of people she neither knew nor liked. After all, he’d been right: of course there was nothing between them other than friendship. She didn’t think there was any reason for him to sound so completely horrified by the proposition, but it wasn’t like he was wrong. And if occasionally over the last year and a half she’d thought he was maybe, possibly flirting with her—and if she’d maybe, possibly hoped that he was—what the hell did she know? He was probably like that with everybody. And it wasn’t like she had anything to compare it to. The only time she’d ever been flirted with was—never.
She wanted to take off and run all the way home as fast as her unathletic legs could carry her. She wanted to hide under her bed. Still, it felt like she was too deep in it now, like she’d picked this hill to die on and now she had to . . .
Well. Die, probably.
She made herself do a lap of the first floor of the house, trying to convince herself that nobody was looking at her and wondering why on earth she was wandering around by herself like a huge pathetic loser. Eventually she spotted a couple of girls from her global studies class hanging out in the hallway, forced herself to walk over and say hello.
“Hey, Gabby,” said one of them, an Indian girl named Anita with dark eyeliner and a curious expression. “What are you doing here?”
In her head, Gabby knew it was a benign question—a friendly one, even—but she might as well have told Gabby her fly was down. What was she doing here? Still, she forced herself to smile: “I came with Ryan,” she explained, then immediately winced at how high and reedy her voice sounded. God, what was wrong with her? She was like an alien from outer space trying to approximate human behavior.
They chatted for a while about the test they’d had this morning, about why Mrs. Mattiace wore the exact same cardigan every single day. Gabby tried to get herself to relax. But her anxiety was like an invisible bully, sitting on her shoulder filing its nails and offering running commentary. Her laugh was weird and wheezy; her forehead was probably shining in the glare of the recessed lights. And why had she worn these jeans? They bagged weirdly at the knees, blown out from too many runs through the dryer. God, she couldn’t even dress herself. The familiar refrain started up in her head again, an overplayed song: You don’t belong here. Everyone thinks you’re an idiot. You’re a giant weirdo, Gabby Hart, and the only reason you’re not actively bullied every day of your life is because usually you know enough to stay out of people’s way.
She could bail, she reasoned. Nobody would need to know. Nobody would even notice, probably. But when she said her good-byes to the global studies girls and started to edge toward the front door, she saw Ryan in the living room, watching a bunch of hockey bros play flip cup and, apparently, having the time of his life. There was no way to get out without him seeing her. Without admitting to him that he’d been right.
Instead she turned sharply into a hallway off the kitchen, scurrying up the staircase to the second floor like a mouse diving for cover in a suddenly lit room. At the very least she could take five minutes of quiet to compose herself before she tried again. When in doubt, she thought, hide.
It was quieter upstairs, the hallway thickly carpeted and the walls hung from ceiling to waist level with a million family photos. Gabby smiled in spite of herself. She loved other people’s pictures: the chance to peek in on lives she’d never live herself, to study faces she’d never actually meet.
She was staring at them—Jordan Highsmith’s family at Disney World a few years ago next to a shot of somebody’s ’90s wedding, a black-and-white snapshot of a cluster of serious-looking people standing in front of a barn—when the bathroom door opened and a startlingly beautiful girl ambled out of it.
“No toilet paper,” the girl warned her. She was wearing white jeans and a chambray button-down that revealed sharp, angular collarbones; her hair was dark and thick and wavy, the kind you could wash every three days or even less without it turning into an oil slick. A tiny gold necklace in the shape of a wishbone nestled in the hollow of her throat. “Savages.”
“It’s okay,” Gabby said. “I don’t actually have to go.” Right away she felt like an idiot—after all, what exactly was she doing creeping up here if not looking for a bathroom?—but the girl only nodded.
“Just looking to hide out for a bit, huh?” she asked.
Gabby nodded. “Something like that.”
“Well, there’s a lot to look at,” the girl said, motioning to the pictures. “I’m such a snoop in other people’s houses. I’m always like, looking at the bookshelves and what people have hanging on their fridges and stuff. Jordan Highsmith’s sister got an A-minus on her essay about the causes of World War I, in case you were wondering.”
Gabby laughed. “Good for Jordan Highsmith’s sister.”
“I think she could have worked a little harder on her five-paragraph structure, personally,” the girl said, shrugging. Then she grinned and stuck her hand out. “I’m Shay.”
“Gabby.” Gabby felt herself flush at the contact as they shook. She’d known she liked girls as long as she’d known she liked boys, basically—since way back in middle school when it occurred to her that she was equally attracted to both of the leads on Celia’s favorite sexy doctor show. Still, aside from one aborted kiss with Kerry Caroll when she and her sisters were visiting her aunt Liz in Cincinnati last summer, she’d never been so immediately drawn to one in real life. She wondered what Shay’s deal was. On first glance she wasn’t giving anything away, but something about the extra second she held on to Gabby’s hand made her wonder. “You go to Colson?” Gabby asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Shay said. “I’m a junior.”
“I’m a sophomore,” Gabby said.