“To Columbia?” Gabby scraped her chair back with a clatter. “You did?” She let out a delighted cackle and jumped out of her seat, ignoring the nasty look from the librarian and throwing her arms around Shay’s neck. “I mean, of course you did, of course you were always going to get in. Shay! You’re a champion.”
“I am kind of a champion,” Shay agreed, preening goofily, but Gabby could tell from the fall of her shoulders how relieved she was. Gabby was relieved, too, letting out a breath she’d been holding more or less since she and Shay had started dating a year ago: Columbia was literally the best possible scenario, only two hours away from Colson on the train. Sure, Shay had always talked like they’d stay together even once she left for school, but Gabby wasn’t an idiot. She knew it would be way harder to make it work if Shay was at one of the conservatory programs she’d auditioned for in Chicago or even Boston. New York City, though, felt strangely manageable. New York City felt safe.
“We should celebrate,” Gabby said.
“So weird,” Shay said with a grin. “I was thinking the same thing.”
She picked up Gabby’s backpack and led her back into the stacks, the dusty old nonfiction section where nobody ever went unless they wanted to talk on their cell phones or fool around. “Top ten places for a clandestine makeout?” Gabby joked.
“Huh?” asked Shay, and Gabby shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. Shay made a face.
“Nobody’s looking,” she promised, curling her hand around Gabby’s waist and pulling her closer.
“I know.” Gabby felt herself blush. Despite the fact that their very first encounter had involved a semi-public makeout, it had taken Gabby a little time to be okay with Shay being affectionate with her when they were at school or out in town, kissing her hello in the mornings or nuzzling her neck in the coffee line. Colson was a pretty progressive place to grow up, as suburbs went, but as somebody whose entire life’s work was basically to be looked at as little as humanly possible, Gabby still couldn’t always shake the feeling of being on display.
Shay, though. Shay never seemed to mind. Gabby had never met someone who seemed so preternaturally comfortable in her own skin before. She’d had three different girlfriends before Gabby; she’d played the classical cello since she was four. She’d read more books than Gabby could ever keep track of and knew exactly how smart she was, loved nothing more than to debate and spar and argue—occasionally whether Gabby wanted to or not. Sometimes being around her could be the tiniest bit exhausting, that constant pressure for Gabby to always be the smartest, sharpest, most articulate version of herself. Every once in a while it made her miss Ryan, whose house motto was basically “go along to get along”—and who liked a dopey YouTube video more than anyone Gabby had ever met.
Not that she spent her time thinking about Ryan these days. Their friendship had gone the way of the dinosaurs that night outside the ice center almost five months ago, after which they’d extricated themselves from each other’s lives with a totality so breathtakingly neat it made Gabby wonder if they’d ever been friends at all. To look at them now, you’d think they’d never even met. But that was high school, Gabby reminded herself. This kind of stuff happened; friends came and went. And if occasionally it made her want to scream like her heart had been ripped right out of her stupid chest, well, it was nobody’s business but her own.
“Speaking of celebrating,” Shay said now, lacing her fingers through Gabby’s and pulling her close in a shadowy corner next to a shelf full of faded, sticky-looking biographies, “my parents are going to Jersey to see Lanie this weekend.”
Gabby smirked. “Oh, they are, huh?” Lanie was Shay’s older sister, who lived in Hoboken with her IT-guy husband and two little kids; according to Shay, she used to be really cool but was now the kind of person who sniffed her baby’s butt in restaurants. “You going with?”
“I mean, I would, but I don’t want to.” Shay grinned. “Can you tell your mom and dad you’re staying at Michelle’s?”
The intention in Shay’s voice was unmistakable, but even if it hadn’t been, the careful way her thumb was stroking along the sensitive skin on the inside of Gabby’s wrist would have been enough to give her away. Gabby felt a slow smile spread across her face, pure anticipation; for once in her life, she didn’t feel nervous at all.
“Yeah,” she said. “I definitely can.”
GABBY
Saturday night, by the combined miracle of lying and luck, Gabby found herself alone with Shay in an empty house, watching Shay whisk together carbonara with terrifying efficiency while Gabby fidgeted and tried not to swallow her own tongue.
“I think you should do it,” Shay said, oblivious. She meant the summer program. Gabby had made the mistake of mentioning it—just as a throwaway, isn’t that a cool funny thing I will never really do—and now Shay wouldn’t let it go. “Really, Gabby-Girl, I think it would be good for you.”
“Good for me?” Gabby asked, making a face. “I don’t even want to go, remember? Also, you sound like my guidance counselor.”
Shay grinned. “Mood killer?”
“No,” Gabby said immediately, then looked down at the cheese grater so Shay wouldn’t see her blush. “Seriously though, this is overkill,” she heard herself repeat for the third time, gesturing around them at the food and the dimmed lights and two juice glasses full of siphoned wine. “You don’t have to, like, romance me.”
“I definitely have to romance you,” Shay said, shoving a mass of hair out of her face and frowning at the pasta. She was wearing more makeup than usual too, a slick of deep, purply lipstick that matched the wine. Gabby shivered and grated more cheese.
“Wait,” Shay said, pointing the whisk at Gabby. “Hang on. Do you mean I don’t have to romance you in a ‘Shay, I’m embarrassed’ way, or a ‘Shay, I want to skip dinner’ way?” She looked startled, as if the second meaning had never occurred to her. She’d refused to stand still for even a second since Gabby got here, flitting around the kitchen like a very tall, very nervous bird. She was wearing her heels and a strappy black top Gabby had never seen before.
Gabby laughed, and suddenly it was easy. “Shay, I want to skip dinner.”
Shay blew out a long breath and reached over to chug her wine. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She led Gabby upstairs by the hand, the whole house silent and breathless and waiting. When Gabby had first come over she’d thought it looked like something out of a Wes Anderson movie, all dark wood trim and hidden cupboards and glass doorknobs; if you craned your neck you could see the Hudson River from the window in the third-floor bath. There were knickknacks on every available surface, antique vases and a giant kaleidoscope and a marble bust of some Victorian countess holding court on the built-ins beside the TV. The clutter would have made Gabby’s mom insane, but Gabby herself kind of loved it.