Ab changed the subject, and she and Nat started talking about their vacations. I kept quiet. My family didn’t take the kind of regular vacations Abby and Nat’s family did. My mother said that with three boys who were heading to college, we needed to save everything we could. We mostly took day trips and what my mom called backyard vacations.
And then I heard my name, and when I turned around, Sarah was standing next to me, smiling. I tried to play it cool, be nice without doing anything to make Ab and Nat suspicious. We were just rehashing the whole sprinkler episode when the bell rang, and the whole crowd of kids surged into the school.
I lost Ab and Nat, but Sarah stuck with me. I felt bad, because I had promised to help Nat at his locker. But by the time I found them, we were at my homeroom and Nat was going in the room with me. Abby made another comment about Sarah and about her being my girlfriend. I didn’t like how that made me feel. On one hand, she wasn’t my girlfriend. But part of me wouldn’t have minded if she was. On the other hand, I didn’t want to hurt Ab’s feelings, and I had the sense that inviting any girl into our little circle was going to do just that.
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Chapter 7: Nathan
The two weeks I spent with my parents in the mountains of Pennsylvania were a roller coaster for me. I would wake up in the morning, bursting with excitement over my newly-realized love for Abby. And then by lunch time, I’d be brooding and depressed, sure that she could never see me as more than her best friend from childhood. I spent hours trying to remember whether Abby had ever acted interested in any boys in our class, and I spent an equal amount of time remember how often she had chosen to be with me over other people.
By the time we got home, two days before school began, I was nervous and jumpy. My parents turned to their fall-back position of worrying that this was some new symptom of my disease, but I explained that I was just anxious about the new school. They bought that. My mom told me long stories about her life as a teenager, and my dad just kept patting my shoulder, telling me it would all work out.
I didn’t call Abby before school began because we never did that. If I had called her just to talk she would have known something was up. So I suffered in silence by myself until my mother dropped me at school on the morning of the first day.
I scanned the lines of kids milling around in loosely formed lines, but there was no sign of Abby. After a few minutes, Jesse came up behind me and gave me his signature light punch on the arm.
“Hey, Nat. You ready for this?” He spun his finger around in a circle, encompassing the whole school, the kids, everything.
“I think so,” I said. “Just another school, right? Hey, have you seen Abby?”
“I don’t think she’s here yet. At least I haven’t seen her.” We both looked around, checking it all out. It was weird to see older kids, people we hadn’t seen since they left our elementary school. They looked a lot older than I remembered. Jesse eased back until he was leaning against the brick wall of the school, and I moved to stand with him.
A few minutes later, Jesse caught my eye and tilted his head. “There’s Ab.” I turned and saw her mother’s car, and then Abby coming around from the passenger side. My heart began to pound. This was the first time I’d seen her since I really knew that I loved her, that I was in love with her. I couldn’t remember how to act, what to say or where to look.
Abby looked so pretty. She was wearing a skirt that was made out of jeans material, and a pretty blue top. Her hair, always so curly and unruly, was partly pulled back into a clip so that I could see her face, her eyes bright as she caught sight of Jesse and me.
She smiled, and my breath caught. She was beautiful. The girl I loved, the girl who would always have my heart, was really and truly beautiful. I wanted to run and jump and shout and do all those things I’d never been able to do, just to show the world how I felt.
I smiled back as she approached us and blurted out the first thing I could think to say. “Hey, Abby. You look really pretty.”
She looked down as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing and ran a hand down the skirt. “Thanks, Nat.” For a fleeting moment I had her full attention and her gratitude, and it felt amazing.
And then I saw her glance up at Jesse, who was still standing against the wall. Something flickered in her eyes that I didn’t quite understand. Jesse made some comment about how her mother must have dressed her, and Abby snapped back. She lost the look of eagerness that I’d seen on her face a few minutes earlier.
I was confused, wondering what had changed. Abby and Jesse had always had that kind of relationship, where he teased her and she shot back at him. I didn’t know why it would have bothered her now.