Been Here All Along

by Sandy Hall

It feels just the way it’s supposed to.

  An older woman walks past us and says, “Aren’t you two just adorable?”

  Gideon hides his face in my chest and groans in embarrassment.

  “I like this new side of you,” I tell the top of his head. “This cuddly, bashful person who blushes at the drop of a hat.”

  “I’m just really happy,” he says, rolling away from me and leaning up on his elbow. “I’m so happy it makes me want to hide, because I don’t know what to do with it all. I want to store it up and save it for winter.”

  “But winter just ended.”

  “Fine, I want to store it up and save it for when I don’t feel like it’s bursting from every single one of my pores. I didn’t know this was possible. To feel this way.”

  I lean up on my elbow to face him, smiling.

  “What? Are you going to make fun of me?” Gideon asks.

  Someone shushes us from a nearby blanket, so I pitch my voice low and whisper in his ear. “I can’t make fun of you because I feel the exact same way.”

  We settle back down and watch the movie, falling silent for most of it as the story unfolds before us.

  “I haven’t seen this in a really long time,” Gideon says at one point.

  “I know. I feel like I forgot half the plot.”

  “And you miss so much when you’re a kid. A lot of this went way over my head,” Gideon says.

  When the movie is over, we pick up our blankets and stumble to the car, half in a daze. Gideon parks the car in his driveway and then walks me to my door, our hands intertwined.

  “So this was a real date?” he asks.

  “I would say it was a very successful real date.”

  “Good, good. Maybe we should do it again sometime.”

  “I think I’m supposed to wait three days before calling you or something, though.”

  “Well, that’s going to be a problem, because today is Saturday and on Monday I’m going to need a ride to school,” Gideon says with a grin.

  “Oh, right, yeah. There goes that idea.”

  “You’re not cool enough to wait three days anyway. You want everything right away. Instant gratification.”

  “That’s true,” I admit.

  “I really did have fun tonight,” he says.

  “Me too. I was kind of worried there for a second in the beginning that you were going to freak out and just want to go home.”

  “I’m way cooler than that,” Gideon says. “Or at least now I am.”

  “See you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

  He leans in, kisses my cheek, and then jogs away.

  Damn that was perfect.

  nineteen

  Ruby

  There are less than two months left until graduation, and I finally have to come to terms with the fact that I might not have enough money to cover all my college costs in the fall. I’d still really like to live on campus. But if I don’t get loans, there’s no way that’s happening with my parents’ financial situation. Hopefully it’s not too late to apply.

  I scan the financial aid bulletin board in the guidance office, trying to figure out what would work for me without actually having to tell anyone what my problem is. I almost roll my eyes at how desperately I’m trying to keep control of my image. But it’s just this one thing. I would like to leave high school mostly unscathed, without people feeling sorry for me or realizing just how poor I am.

  I finally come to terms with the fact that I’m going to need to actually talk to a guidance counselor when Kyle appears from one of the offices. He’s chewing his thumbnail, looking nervous and a little bit twitchy, like he doesn’t want anyone to see him. Takes one to know one, I guess.

  I try to hide a little, turning toward the ficus plant in the corner of the office. But I guess that little bit of movement is enough to call attention to me.

  “Hey, Ruby,” Kyle says.

  “Oh, hey,” I say. “What’s up with you?”

  “Um, well,” he starts, and then glances behind him. “Just needed to have a meeting with people, about stuff.”

  “So you really are failing a class,” I say.

  “Kind of?” he says, squeezing one eye closed. “I was, but I’m probably not anymore because…”

  At that moment his parents file out of the office behind him.

  “Because you ran to Mommy and Daddy and they’re taking care of everything?” I mutter. I can’t help but be annoyed. I hate kids who do stuff like that. As if they can’t take care of their own business. My parents would never come in to have a conference with my guidance counselor just to bail my ass out.

  “No,” he says, but doesn’t have a chance to continue.

  “Oh, hello there, Ruby,” Mrs. Kaminsky says, coming up to me and giving me a hug right there in the guidance office.

  “Ruby,” Mr. Kaminsky says. I swear if the man were wearing a hat, he would have tipped it.

  “Hi,” I say, none too warmly. I always thought the Kaminskys were better than this. That they made their kids take responsibility for their shortcomings.

  “How’s everything going with college? Have you made your final decisions? I know you were getting close last time I saw you, but it’s been a while,” Mrs. Kaminsky asks.

  She’s too damn nice for her own good, I think, as I say and do the right things for the next ninety seconds. I make small talk and remind myself that Mrs. K in particular has never been anything but kind to me.

  “Well, we’d better get going,” Kyle’s dad says.

  “Yes,” Mrs. K says, squeezing Kyle’s arm. “We’ll see you later, sweetie.” Then, turning to me, “It was good to see you, Ruby. I’m glad to hear that things are going well.”

  I smile. It’s a little tight-lipped, but I manage it.

  When they leave I expect Kyle to follow them, but instead he turns back to me, his expression angry and put off.

  “For the record, I didn’t run to Mommy and Daddy about this. If anything, I didn’t even want them involved.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say, sort of shocked by how passionate he is. “You rich kids are all the same.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I thought you were different. I thought maybe you had a little more self-respect.”

  He shakes his head. “You have no clue what’s going on.”

  “I know what was going on. Gupta gave you a bad grade and you turned into a whiny little bitch.” I’m not sure where this anger toward Kyle is coming from, but now that I started I can’t seem to stop.

  “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I shouldn’t have to defend myself to you, but as it turns out, I have a learning disability that no one ever noticed before.”

  That gets my attention. Before I can say anything, he continues. “Like, that’s why reading has always been so hard for me. But now I had to take all these tests, and it turns out all this time being disorganized and having a hard time was mostly because of this thing. That I have no control over.”

  I stare at him. He looks like he might cry and then takes a deep breath and hitches his thumbs through the straps on his backpack.

  “You’re the only person who knows. So I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to anyone.” He stares at the bulletin board next to us, and his whole body radiates discomfort.

  “No, of course not,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I assumed.”

  “Whatever.”

  Then he shrugs coolly and walks out.

  I’m left standing there, trying to process all this new information.

  Kyle

  After talking to Ruby, I know I need to tell Gideon everything as soon as possible. The last thing I want is for someone besides me to tell Gideon my news. Ruby said she wouldn’t say anything, but I’m not sure I can trust her.

  I don’t see him after school, and then I remember that he has a yearbook meeting. He’s going to be editor next year, and he takes the whole thing so seriously. As he takes pretty muc
h everything.

  Because he’s Gideon.

  We hadn’t made plans for after the meeting. He usually gets a ride home with Maddie, so it would be silly for me to wait, but today isn’t a usual day.

  I decide to go hang out outside and pull my car across the parking lot so I’m parked right next to hers. Then I hop up on the trunk and settle in to wait for Gideon.

  It’s a pretty nice day outside, so that helps.

  I know I have plenty of things I should be doing at home. There is this whole new plan for how I’m going to tackle homework and assignments from now on. But it doesn’t really seem as important as making sure I talk to Gideon.

  I think I might have even dozed off for ten minutes when a voice next to me says, “Hey, I thought you’d be long gone by now.” Gideon is standing next to my car with a huge smile on his face.

  I sit up, feeling a little dizzy and out of sorts after lying in the same position for so long in the afternoon sun. “Um, yeah. It’s just—” I start to say, and then I notice Maddie is still standing there.

  “Hey, Maddie.”

  “Hey, Kyle. You look like you got some sunburn,” she says.

  I touch the tip of my nose, and it’s really warm. “Oh man!”

  “It’s kind of cute,” she says. “I promise.”

  “Hey!” Gideon says. “Stop flirting with my man.”

  She swats him with her bag and then opens her car door. “I’m assuming Kyle will give you a ride home.”

  I nod.

  “Cool. See you guys tomorrow.”

  She drives off.

  “So, really, what’s up?” Gideon asks, turning back to me.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” I say, hopping off the trunk. “Wanna go hang out in the park?” I gesture toward the little plot of green that’s across from the school. It’s barely a park, but it has a Revolutionary War monument in it, so I guess it counts.

  “Sure, but I’m not gonna lie, you’re kind of freaking me out.”

  “No, it’s nothing to worry about,” I say. We both toss our bags in the car, and I take his hand as we cross over to the empty park.

  “Just tell me right now,” he says as we sit. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No, Gideon, seriously, nothing like that.”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m a little nervous about this.”

  “You think you’re nervous. I’m having heart palpitations.”

  At least that makes me smile, and I feel a little more normal. I bounce my knee up and down and Gideon puts a hand on it, stilling me, making me feel even better.

  “So you know how I’ve kind of always had trouble reading?”

  “I guess?” he says.

  “Like, you wanted me to read the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and a million other books and I never did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I never make a big deal about it, but reading is just not fun for me. It’s hard, and, like, I read too fast or too slow and the words never really make sense.”

  Gideon’s looking at me with such concern that I know I need to speed up this explanation before he starts to assume I have brain cancer or something.

  “The past couple weeks, I’ve been getting tested for learning disabilities. My parents came in and we had meetings. It all started with Ms. Gupta.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.”

  “But do you have one? A learning disability?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s basically dyslexia, but there are some other issues mixed in there that can go along with dyslexia, but they’re not really sure. But that’s why I have such trouble with reading comprehension. And organization. And even knowing my left from my right.”

  “You’re dyslexic?”

  “Yes. Like I said, there might be more to it than that, but that’s what they’re leaning toward.”

  “How did no one know this before? Like, how do you get through so many years of school without anyone noticing?”

  “I mean, honestly, you used to help me with everything, all the time. We were always in the same class in elementary school and then mostly the same classes in middle school. It was only really in high school where we got split up. And I guess no one really noticed, because I know how to compensate. It wasn’t until Ms. Gupta took over my English class that anyone really noticed.”

  “I helped you?” he asks.

  “God yeah, all the time. Looking back, you helped me more than anyone else.”

  He’s quiet then for a minute, and that minute stretches into two.

  I feel like I might not be able to take it anymore when he finally speaks. “Why were you so nervous to tell me?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t want you to think I was stupid.”

  “I would never, ever think that about you,” he says, shaking his head slowly and looking me in the eye. “You’re so much more than just how you do in school. You’re my best friend. You’re my favorite person on earth.”

  “Thanks. You’re all that stuff to me,” I say.

  Gideon lets out a long breath and I do the same.

  “Thanks for telling me,” he says.

  “I didn’t want it to turn into a fight like when I came out to Ruby, so I figured I’d tell you as soon as I knew the facts.”

  We walk back over to the school building, and I tell him all about the meeting where they decided that part of why I got so good at compensating was thanks to learning Elvish.

  Gideon loves it.

  He eats it right up.

  twenty

  Gideon

  I’m in the hallway after physics class. I’m not thinking anything in particular, except that I don’t want to go into the chemistry classroom until the teacher in there is done giving that other kid a talking-to. He doesn’t look like he’s having a good time.

  It’s Friday. I just want this week to end so I can spend time with Kyle, since he’s still on lockdown on school nights.

  Ruby and Josh come up the stairs from the opposite direction. She has her arm threaded through his and a big smile on her face.

  I shrink in next to the wall, half hiding myself around the corner, because really the last thing I want to do is interact with my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. And her big, stupid, mean jock of a new boyfriend.

  Josh has never been a favorite person of mine. He’s the kind of guy in gym class who picks out the weakest one in the herd. I’m not usually the weakest, but I’m usually second or third, so if those other guys are absent, I’m up shit creek. I have taken one too many dodgeballs in the chest.

  Logically, I get it. I’m on the small side. Even if five-seven going on five-eight isn’t really that short, some of the gorillas at this school seem to think it is. And I could still grow. I only just turned seventeen. Lots of guys grow even when they’re in college.

  But like it or not, I am a small guy right now. I can’t change that, and for some reason guys like Josh Barton take that personally, so they spike volleyballs at my head in the name of physical education.

  I’ve spent a solid chunk of my high school career avoiding him and his ilk. Hence my involuntary response to seeing him is to shrink. Become one with the wall.

  Luckily, he doesn’t see me. He seems to be listening to Ruby. I can’t hear what she’s saying from here, but I don’t think Josh is particularly impressed. His gorilla face seems kind of angry. And then it goes from angry to enraged.

  “For Christ’s sake, Ruby, I am so tired of hearing about this. All you do is talk shit about people. I don’t care what those cheerleader chicks are doing. I just really don’t, and I don’t know why you think I do.”

  “Fine. I’ll stop talking about it,” she says. She shrugs and backs away from him a little, like she’s scared he might get violent. If I were a better person, I would make myself known, because it’s kind of obvious that his anger made her nervous. “No big deal.”

  “Nah. You know what? I’m done,” he says, shaking his h
ead. “I think we should break up. You’re not as much fun as everyone made you out to sound.”

  “But—” she says.

  He cuts her off. “No. I think you got way too into that pansy Kaminsky, and now you don’t even know how to be a decent girlfriend anymore.”

  The second he drags Kyle’s name into this I want to leap out from my hiding spot and scream and yell and claw his eyes out. But I’m probably just as weak as guys like Josh Barton think I am, because instead I stay frozen, barely breathing.

  “Well, that’s a crappy thing to say,” Ruby says. “And Kyle’s not a pansy.”

  “I see him all over the place, him and his pansy-ass boyfriend.”

  “Stop saying that, stop calling them that.”

  “Pansy, pansy, pansy.”

  I peek around the corner just as Josh slips into the boys’ room.

  “We’re done,” he says, backing through the door, dramatically wiping his palms together, like he’s dusting Ruby off them.

  Ruby slumps against the lockers across from the doorway and slides down. On the way, her bag snares on the lock and rips open at the seam.

  “Shit,” she says. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Their whole conversation happened within thirty seconds, and just as I’m wondering why we’re still the only people in this hallway, I hear the tide of other students coming in our direction. I look again to where Ruby is scrambling to pick up all her belongings and decide to be a good guy.

  “Hey,” I say, kneeling down to grab for loose pieces of paper and some gum wrappers that are strewn about. “That sucked.”

  Ruby’s crying, but I pretend not to notice. “You heard what he said?”

  “Yeah, I was over there,” I say, pointing vaguely over my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to listen, I swear.”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “Of course you’re the one who saw what happened. Of course.” She swipes at her eyes with her fingertips.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. And I mean it. I’m sorry about everything that happened. It all sucks, but I don’t have a chance to say anything else because she grabs her stuff from me and hugs it close to her chest before making a break for it down the hall and out of sight.

  Kyle

  I come up behind Gideon at his locker after school and poke him in the side.