“I know,” Gabby said, a little too shrilly. “I know that. Things are just kind of the same, is all. School, yearbook. All the usual things.”
“Okay,” Shay said, still smiling a little bit indulgently. “Then I’ll start, how about?”
“Sure,” Gabby said. God, why did this feel so awkward? “Absolutely.”
Shay didn’t seem to have any trouble coming up with newsworthy updates. In fact, she was overflowing with them: the Western Civ professor she was in love with, the girls from her public speaking class who all lived together in an off-campus apartment called the Coven, the plays and concerts she and her roommate were always going to. “I can’t wait to introduce you to everybody on my floor,” Shay said, dark eyes shining. “We’re all kind of obsessed with each other. Everybody leaves their doors open, it’s like one big hangout all the time.”
That sounded completely horrible, actually, but Gabby knew better than to say so out loud, even to Shay. Especially to Shay. Instead she smiled and nodded and asked the occasional question, trying for all the world not to betray the panic thrumming under her skin. God, how boring was she, that she couldn’t come up with one new thing to add to this conversation? How boring did Shay probably think she was? Here she was in New York City having all these incredible new experiences; probably the last thing she wanted to do was spend all weekend entertaining her wet-blanket high school girlfriend, who was the same as ever only somehow duller, with nothing whatsoever to report.
Eventually Shay got tired of talking, though. “Come lie down with me,” she muttered, curling her chilly fingers around Gabby’s waist and squeezing. For the first time in the better part of an hour, Gabby felt herself relax. They stretched out on the narrow twin bed, which was pushed up against a window affording a view of the dirty brick building next door and a sliver of dove-colored sky. “I missed you,” Shay said, tucking her face up under Gabby’s chin and reaching up to twirl a hank of Gabby’s hair between two fingers. “Jesus Christ, Gabby-Girl, I missed you so much.”
Just then the door opened. “Whoops!” said a startled voice. “Oops, sorry. I’ll go, sorry sorry.”
“No no no,” Shay said, sitting up and pushing her own hair out of her eyes. “You’re fine, stay.” She gestured to the short, curvy Korean girl standing in the doorway. “Gabby, this is my roommate, Adria. Ade, this is Gabby.”
“I’m so sorry,” Adria said. “I texted you. My thing got canceled.”
“No no no, it’s totally fine!” Shay grinned, blushing prettily. “I’m glad you guys could meet, anyway.”
Adria was a studio art major who made intricate collages using tissue paper and tweezers; she was also colossally beautiful, although Gabby tried her best not to notice that part. She was so busy not noticing, in fact, that it took her a moment to realize that Adria had asked her a question. “What?” she asked dumbly after a too-long pause, then immediately felt like a moron. “Sorry. What?”
RYAN
“Can you stop screwing around with your phone?” Chelsea asked Ryan later that afternoon, flicking him in the arm with mitten-covered fingers. They were weaving through the thick, bundled crowds in Rockefeller Center; she’d wanted to get a look at the tree. It was coming on sunset now, though you could barely tell what with how brightly everything was lit up down here. “What are you even doing?”
Ryan tucked his phone back into his jacket pocket. “Looking at porn,” he joked.
Chelsea wasn’t amused. “Gabby’s fine,” she said, grabbing his elbow and steering him out of the path of an overcoated businessman jabbering into a cell phone. Trying to walk down here without bumping into anyone was harder than navigating the other side of the rink during playoffs. “That’s what you’re doing, right? Checking to see if she texted?”
Ryan shook his head, embarrassed without being able to articulate exactly why. “I just have a weird feeling it’s going to go sideways for her,” he said.
“Okay,” Chelsea said, eyes wide like, And that’s your business because . . . ? “Well, she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.”
“She’s my friend, Chels.”
“I know that,” Chelsea said, opening the glass door to a fancy, expensive-looking bakery and shooing him inside; her glasses steamed up immediately, and Ryan grinned in spite of himself. “She’s my friend too. I like Gabby a lot. You know I like Gabby a lot. This isn’t some gross thing where I’m being a bitch and telling you I’m jealous of your girl best friend. This is me saying we’re supposed to be having this night in the city together, I told a bunch of giant lies to my parents to make it happen, so please pay attention to me.”
Right away, Ryan felt like a dick of the first order. “You’re right,” he said, swinging his arm around her and swiping a finger through the fog on her glasses. “You’re right, totally.”
Chelsea smiled. “I usually am.”
They got giant hot chocolates with whipped cream and drank them while they watched the ice skaters swirl around the sunken rink beneath the Christmas tree; they sat under a smelly, moth-eaten blanket on a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park. Ryan knew Gabby and Shay would probably think it was dumb suburban-kid stuff, but he didn’t really care. Chelsea was having a really good time, he was having a really good time with her, and frankly he was really psyched about the idea of having sex in a hotel bed later tonight like he was James Bond or something.
But he couldn’t stop worrying about Gabby.
Ryan couldn’t figure out what his problem was. Ordinarily he was great at putting weird, unpleasant stuff out of his head in the name of a fun night. It was basically his superpower. But this reminded him of when he was eight and had gotten poison ivy, of lying in bed trying desperately not to scratch it: in the end he hadn’t been able to hold off and wound up spreading the rash everywhere, including on his balls. This was like that, only somehow worse.
“Hey,” Chelsea said now, snapping her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. They were eating dinner at a fake-old diner in Midtown where all the waiters and waitresses periodically burst into song. “Where did you go?”
Ryan blinked. “What?” he asked, realizing abruptly he was holding a bacon cheeseburger he had no recollection of picking up—or, for that matter, even ordering. “Nowhere.”
“Really?” Chelsea frowned. “Because you are not here.”
“I am,” Ryan protested, taking a big bite of his burger to illustrate and washing it down with a giant gulp of soda.
“Really?” Chelsea asked. “What did I just say to you, then?”