Back at his mom’s house he tried to nap but couldn’t settle; he made himself a sandwich but didn’t really feel like eating. Finally, he did what he always did when he was feeling shitty and wanted to forget about it: he looked for a party.
It was a Sunday in December and slim pickings, but his buddy JP was driving down to Golden’s Bridge to hang out with some of his brother’s friends; Ryan caught a ride in the passenger seat of JP’s Civic, rolling the window down so it was too loud to talk. The whole thing was kind of a dodgier affair than Ryan was used to: a low-slung ranch with a scruffy lawn and dingy curtains over the windows, the sweet reek of pot smoke heavy in the air. In the yard was an ancient hot tub of indeterminate cleanliness, a dog prowling back and forth across the porch.
He probably would have bailed out early under normal circumstances, but tonight the whole thing struck him as kind of fun, exactly what he needed to take his mind off . . . whatever it was he was trying to take his mind off, exactly. See? Ryan thought as he dug another beer out of the fridge, pleased with himself. It was already working.
“Well, hey, Ryan,” said a girl’s voice behind him, surprised and cheerful; somebody nudged at his lower back. “What are you doing here?”
Ryan turned around, a little unsteady: it was Michaela Braddock, wearing tight skinny jeans and a sweater that showed off her excellent cleavage. Her dark hair hung in ringlets down her back. She smiled at him, tilting her head to the side a little the way girls did when they were being flirtatious. Ryan smiled back.
“I am considering getting in that hot tub, Michaela,” he said, although he hadn’t been until right this moment. Gabby was never going to want him, that much was obvious. But plenty of other girls did. It was time to start acting like it. “What about you?”
NUMBER 3
THE MEET CUTE
FRESHMAN YEAR, FALL
GABBY
“Can I put Grandma in your room?” Celia asked late Saturday afternoon, coming into the kitchen with the heavy copper urn in her arms.
“Seriously?” Gabby asked, a jar of peanut butter in one hand and a spoon in the other. “This is the kind of party where you need to hide Grandma? I thought you were having like five friends over.”
Celia shrugged and set the urn down on the counter. “It got a little bigger once people started hearing about it,” she admitted.
Gabby swallowed her mouthful of extra-crunchy. “Mom and Dad are going to kill you.”
“Mom and Dad are never going to know,” Celia said sweetly.
Gabby sighed. Her grandmother had died back in August, just before school started; her parents were in North Carolina this weekend, starting to clear out her old house. They’d taken Kristina with them, so it was just Gabby and Celia here, and Celia was pulling rank. “Fine,” she said, tossing her spoon into the sink with a clatter. “I’ll take Grandma.”
Celia rolled her eyes and made a big show of fishing the spoon out of the sink and putting it in the dishwasher. “Go stay at Michelle’s if you don’t want to be here,” she suggested brightly.
“This is my house too,” Gabby snapped, although in reality she would have if Michelle wasn’t touring colleges in Pennsylvania for her older brother this weekend. She definitely was not above vacating the premises to avoid a crowd.
“It is your house,” Celia agreed. “And like I said, you’re totally invited to hang out.”
“Gee, thanks,” Gabby muttered, hefting the urn onto her hip like she was carrying a baby and praying she didn’t trip on her way up the stairs. “But I’ll pass.”
Celia frowned at her, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms in a way that made her look spookily like their mom. “You’ve been in high school for two months, Gabby,” she pointed out. “Have you made a single friend so far?”
“Seriously?” Gabby felt her face flush. “Of course I have.”
“Really?” Celia looked skeptical. “Who?”
“Wha—people,” Gabby said inanely. “I don’t report every social interaction I have back to you.”
“Oh, okay,” Celia said. “People. Because every time I see you in the hallway you’re either by yourself or with Michelle, who honestly isn’t exactly helping the situation. If you liked being alone all the time, that would be one thing. But I don’t actually think you do. I think you’re just letting yourself be scared.”
“Oh, I’m letting myself.” Gabby scowled. She was pissed at Celia for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, but mostly embarrassed that she’d noticed at all. God, had other people noticed? Did everyone at school already think she was a creepy loner? “I don’t know what makes you think you know anything about what I like, actually.”
The worst, most humiliating part was that Gabby knew her sister had a point: she wasn’t exactly thriving in high school so far. Last week Michelle had stayed home with cramps, and the only thing she’d said out loud all day was “here” when her homeroom teacher took attendance. She didn’t understand how other people did it, how they just strolled right up to strangers and started conversations—how they made themselves into people strangers would ever want to meet. She wasn’t shy, not exactly. She was afraid.
“Look,” Celia said. “Mom and Dad don’t give you a hard time about this kind of thing, and that’s their choice, I guess. But I don’t actually think they’re doing you any favors by babying you.”
“Babying me?” Just like that, Gabby was done with this conversation. Screw Celia. Screw anybody who thought they knew anything about her. “I’m not talking about this,” she announced, turning her back and stalking out of the kitchen. “Bye.”
She felt Celia’s scowl more than she saw it. “Don’t you ever want to have fun, Gabby?” Celia called, her voice downright saccharine. Gabby let go of Grandma with one hand and flipped her the bird.
Before people started showing up she squirreled provisions up in her room like an animal getting ready for the winter: two peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches, an apple, a bag of chips, plus a Nalgene bottle big enough to cross the Mojave with should the need arise. She set Grandma on her desk, flipped the lock on her bedroom door, and settled in with the long, sedate book about Henry VIII that she liked to read when her anxiety was particularly bad.
The thing about hiding out like this was that it did get boring, every once in a while. It occurred to Gabby to wonder if possibly she was missing something great. For all her bravado, it bothered her sometimes, that she couldn’t make herself do what seemed to come so naturally to everyone else.
Next time, maybe.
For now she made a nest for herself out of blankets. She clicked on the bedside lamp and began to read.
RYAN
Ryan’s parents told him they were getting divorced on a crisp, sunny Saturday in the middle of autumn, right after he got home from an early-morning hockey practice.