Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Oh wait, now I remember. Brian Porter’s in that class, isn’t he?”

  Sylvia shifted in her chair. Brian was the boy she’d been chasing around last spring during registration. Her pre-Ian crush. She’d caught Brian eventually, but he’d wriggled away by midsummer, right on schedule.

  “The worst part is that he dropped out, like, the second day,” she admitted finally. She shook her head.

  “You could have dropped out, too, you know.”

  “And have Brian know I was only in the class because of him? Come on, I still have a little pride.”

  “I hope for your sake that Ian doesn’t sign up for Comparative Literature or something next semester,” I said. “That one’s supposed to be the real killer.”

  “Whatever, I don’t care what Ian does anymore.” Sylvia was trying to sound tough, but her face got all quivery as she looked out over the crowded library. “You seriously don’t read my texts, do you? Hello, I think he’s cheating on me.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot.” I said. I hated that we were talking about Ian. Ever since he’d basically admitted to me that he was cheating, I’d been trying to avoid discussing their relationship. But if they didn’t break up soon, I was going to have to tell Sylvia. And I really, really did not want to do that. “Whatever, then, he’s a total idiot.”

  “See, even you’re not saying I’m crazy anymore. You think something’s up with him, too.” Sylvia looked sad as she went back to scanning the library, probably for Ian. “Whatever, boys suck.”

  I needed to change the subject away from Ian before Sylvia went off the deep end. And I had been wanting to tell her about Dylan, especially now that Ian knew. The perfect time was never going to come.

  “I’m with somebody,” I blurted out while Sylvia was still looking around. “I mean, I think. Anyway, you were right when you thought so before.”

  “Holy shit, I knew it!” Sylvia swatted at me playfully. “For how long? Who is it? You have to tell me everything. OMG, I am so excited!”

  Sylvia still managed to really surprise me sometimes. I didn’t think I’d be able to get her focused on me instead of Ian, not even for a second.

  “I guess it’s been, like, two weeks or something.”

  “Two weeks!” Sylvia yelled. The librarian shushed us loudly from the circulation desk. Sylvia flapped an annoyed hand in her direction. “I thought you were going to say a day or two. Two weeks and you didn’t tell me? Oh wait, please, please, please tell me you are not dating creepy Ben.”

  “I’m not dating Ben,” I said. “And he’s also not creepy.”

  “Not gay, very creepy,” Sylvia said. “But that’s fine, we can agree to disagree on that. I don’t want to talk about stupid Ben right now anyway. I want to talk about this hottie who finally got Amelia Baron laid. Who is it? Carter, George McDonnell—I swear those boys have been dying to get up your skirt for years.”

  I took a deep breath and stared at Sylvia. This was it. I was about to tell my best friend I was dating a girl.

  “I probably should have told you this earlier,” I started. It was going to be okay. Sylvia would be cool with it. I knew that she would be. She had to be. “Not that it matters, like, between us or whatever, but—”

  “Holy crap,” Sylvia said suddenly, ducking her head down. She leaned for a second to peek around me, then ducked back again. “Is that Ian over there? With a girl?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, turning around. Sure enough, there was Ian on the other side of the library, near the reference section and the big wooden globe. He was with a girl, but she bent down behind something before I could make out who she was.

  “Isn’t that Susan Dolan?” Sylvia hissed. “OMG, she is such a ho.”

  I’d seen her for only a second, but she could have been Susan Dolan. And if Ian was flirting out in the open with her, it wasn’t good. Susan slept around, a lot. Selfishly, I was relieved it wasn’t Zadie. At least Susan Dolan wasn’t a Maggie. The secret I shared with Ian had nothing to do with his being with her.

  “I’m gay, Sylvia,” I said, pressing on despite the surprise Ian drama.

  Because it was true, and it was time to start coming clean, about everything. And all of a sudden, it felt like now or never.

  Sylvia was still totally focused on trying to peek around me subtly. It was like she hadn’t even heard what I’d said. Then, suddenly, her eyes snapped over to me.

  “Wait, what did you just say?”

  “I think, maybe, I’m gay.”

  “No, you’re not,” Sylvia said dismissively, going back to her surveillance. “Gay is not, like, a maybe thing.”

  I’d imagined Sylvia surprised, or sad, or even a little freaked-out. But I’d never thought she wouldn’t believe me.

  “I don’t mean maybe,” I said. “I mean, I know. I know I’m gay.”

  Sylvia huffed all dramatically. “Okay, you do know gay people have sex, right? Being gay isn’t like a backdoor way to be abstinent because— Oh my God.” Sylvia ducked down again. “Is that his hand on her butt? I can’t look. You do it. You do it. Turn around and check.”

  I was trying not to get pissed off. Ian out in public with another girl—especially a girl like Susan Dolan—was big. But after the bomb I’d just dropped? I mean, a few minutes focused on me and my personal drama would have been nice. Then again, I did feel bad for Sylvia, too. Getting blown off like that, in front of everybody—it sucked.

  I tossed my pencil to the ground, giving me an excuse to turn and look in Ian’s direction. I didn’t see him at first as I groped around the floor trying to pick it up. But then he finally stood up from where he’d been crouched behind a bookshelf. A second later, Susan Dolan popped up next to him. I hung there for a second watching them smile at each other as they bumped shoulders playfully. Oh, it was bad. Really bad.

  “Looking for this?” someone asked.

  Next to my hand were a man’s trendy brown lace-ups. When I leaned back, there was Mr. Woodhouse, holding my pencil up in the air.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said, reaching out to take it.

  “Yeah, thanks for that,” Sylvia said, shooing Woodhouse away with her hand. “But we’re kind of trying to, you know, study here.

  Sylvia didn’t like Woodhouse because he kept threatening her with academic probation. Woodhouse was kind of a hard-ass about academics that way. Mostly kids either hated him or wanted to sleep with him. There wasn’t a lot of in-between. Woodhouse looked back at Sylvia for a second like he was trying hard not to hate her back. It kind of made me like him more.

  “Can you stop by my office after school today, Amelia?” he asked, turning to me. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

  “What? Why?” I sounded way too nervous. These days, I had such a guilty conscience. “I mean, because I have field hockey after school.”

  “I already spoke to Ms. Bing,” Woodhouse said. “It won’t take long.” Then he turned to Sylvia. “And Ms. Golde, I’m glad to see you’re studying. I got a call today from your Spanish teacher. Wherever your focus has been the past few weeks, it’s time to turn it back to your schoolwork. You can’t afford to be on academic probation again.”

  Sylvia was ignoring him, doodling in her notebook.

  “Sure thing, headmaster,” she said finally, still not looking up.

  “Terrific, Ms. Golde,” he said, looking bummed-out. “Just terrific. Anyway, Amelia, I’ll see you later.”

  As Woodhouse walked away, Sylvia waved at him like she was trying to physically remove him from her line of sight. Then she started looking around the library in every possible direction. But Ian and Susan Dolan were already gone.

  “Great, thanks, Mr. Fucking Woodhouse.”

  I got a text from Dylan in the middle of AP biology. YOUR HOUSE, FREE PERIOD?

  We wouldn’t have long, twenty minutes after travel time, which made the whole thing kind of risky. But kind of exciting, too.

  I jetted out o
f school as soon as biology ended. When I turned the last corner, I could see Dylan sitting on my stoop. Her face was resting on a hand, her head turned the other way, as if she were trying to shield it from the wind. And it was kind of cold out, even with the bright fall sun that was making her hair look like it was on fire.

  I was a few houses away when Dylan finally turned in my direction. Her face lit up as she grinned. Seeing her look at me that way, I knew she felt the same way about me as I did about her. I was finally sure of it. I was sure of something else, too. I wasn’t just into Dylan. I didn’t just have a crush on her. I was in love with her. Completely and totally, like, head over heels.

  In a way, it was kind of a relief. Because there was no turning back now, not anymore. There was no more being careful. And after being so weird and flighty for so long, it finally felt like something had changed for Dylan, too. I could see it in the way she was looking at me. I smiled back at her, my footsteps coming faster now.

  “Come inside,” I said, grabbing her hand and racing up the steps. All I wanted to do was kiss her right there, on the street. But two teenage girls making out on the sidewalk in the middle of the school day was a thing people would notice. Maybe even something they’d see fit to mention to my mom. “I have something to tell you.”

  We were still inside the vestibule, the door barely closed, when Dylan started kissing me, her hands moving to peel off layers of my clothes. In the rush of hands and skin and mouths, it felt like the words I’d been about to say, all the important ones, had already been said. Dylan knew how I felt. And I knew how she felt, too.

  Afterward, we lay together naked on my living room couch, our legs pretzled together.

  “I love that your mother is never home,” Dylan said, curling against me and resting her head on my chest. She traced a finger down the length of my arm. “It must be great just being left alone.”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “But I like hanging out with my mom. It would be nice if she could be here a little more.”

  I remembered how angry I’d been the weekend before when I’d woken her up super-early to yell at her about whoever my dad was. I’d just gotten another one of those texts about my dad the night before, and all of sudden I’d been super pissed off about it, so mad that I hadn’t cared anymore if it hurt my mom’s feelings. I’d even dug up all her old journals from the basement with this plan that I was going to read all of them to find out what had happened for myself.

  I’d started reading some of them, too—a few pages here, a few pages there—but I hadn’t gotten that far. I read a couple of entries from when my mom first found out she was pregnant and from right after I was born. It didn’t say who my dad was. Mostly, reading it just made me feel bad for her. My mom had been so alone and scared back then. I wasn’t mad at her feeling that not-so-good way about me as a baby either, but that didn’t mean I wanted to read a whole lot about it. Plus, it felt wrong. My mom didn’t go around reading my private stuff, at least as far as I knew.

  And what if my mom had been protecting me from my dad for a reason? She loved me. She would do that. She would let me be really mad at her if that’s what it took to keep me safe. And my mom was all I had—all I’d ever had—and I loved her. I didn’t want to find out anything that would change that. I could live my whole life with a hole where my dad was supposed to go, as long as my mom would be there to fill it.

  “My mom is always around,” Dylan said. “It’s a drag.”

  I’d met Dylan’s mom once, but otherwise I didn’t know much about her except that she was an actress who’d once thought she’d be the next Marilyn Monroe—and she was definitely glamorous, like Dylan—but had had to settle for a bunch of guest spots on all the different Law & Orders. She was intense with Dylan, too, pushing her to be an actress even though Dylan hated it, wanting her to wear her hair this way or that, always telling her to lose weight even though she was already crazy skinny. Like Dylan was a dress-up doll instead of an actual person. Dylan didn’t seem to mind, but a lot of what she told me about her mom gave me the creeps. It also made me glad I had my mom—even if I didn’t always have her around as much as I would have liked.

  “I thought you and your mom were really close,” I said.

  “We are. My mom and I are best friends,” Dylan said, as if she had it memorized. “Her and Zadie and my dad, they’re the only people who know the real me.” I tried not to take it personally that I hadn’t made the short list. I hadn’t known Dylan that long. “Anyway, I’m glad your mom’s not here. It gives us a place to be alone.”

  “Me too,” I said, a fluttery feeling rushing into my chest. “You know, I almost told Sylvia about us today.”

  “Almost?” Dylan sounded surprised and a little nervous.

  “Don’t worry, I only got to the part about me liking a girl,” I said. “Not which girl.”

  “But that’s the most important part.” Dylan smiled up at me playfully, her blue eyes shining.

  I let go of the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. I’d been worried that Dylan would be mad at me for even telling Sylvia that much.

  “You are definitely the most important part,” I said, grinning back at her. “The funny thing is that Sylvia didn’t believe me anyway. She thinks I’m confused about being gay.”

  Dylan lay back down and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Are you confused?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, wishing she would look at me. “Are you?”

  “I don’t trust people,” she said, as if that answered the question. She also didn’t sound as if she thought this was a bad thing, just a fact I should be aware of. “All they want to do is to put a label on you. Call you this or that. Then that’s all you are, forever.”

  I got the sense that she was talking about more than just us. Like her whole life she’d been trying to outrun people putting a label on her.

  “No one gets to decide who I am but me,” I said. And, wow, did I mean it. I was actually kind of impressed with myself. I looked over at Dylan, waiting for her to turn toward me, proud of me, too. But she kept her eyes on the ceiling. “I don’t care what other people think. I only care about you.”

  Dylan was quiet then for a long time, so long that it started getting hard to breathe. Finally, she looked at me.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. More like she was trying to agree with me than that she actually did. But it was a start. “Me too.”

  “Can I ask you something else?” I knew it was a dangerous question, but I had to know. Especially now. “Were you and Zadie ever, like, together?”

  “Zadie? Are you serious?” Dylan laughed hard. “That’s so gross. We’re like sisters. We’ve known each other since we were five. Zadie’s the only person besides my parents who knows everything about me. She’s always been there for me, too, especially when I really needed someone, which sometimes feels like it’s all the time.”

  “Oh,” I said, not feeling nearly as relieved as I’d hoped to. I wanted to ask Dylan what she meant about needing someone all the time. I sort of understood a friendship like that because of the one Sylvia and I had. Except I felt like Dylan was talking about something different. “That’s cool.”

  “Anyway, Zadie’s into guys,“ Dylan went on. “She and I are just best friends, okay? She watches out for me, but that’s it.”

  “Okay,” I said, smiling. Because even if I still didn’t totally believe her, I really wanted to. “Good.”

  We hugged then, and I closed my eyes and breathed in the sweet smell of Dylan’s wild hair. Then I had the one bad thought I’d been trying not to think about for days.

  “Ugh,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I just remembered that those pictures of me are supposed to go up on that stupid blog tomorrow,” I said. I’d been having major second thoughts ever since Ian had taken the pictures. And if I had Dylan now—for real—what did I even need the Maggies for? “I’m not psyched about gross old fat guys with sticky fingers si
tting around in their underwear liking pictures of me.”

  “Yum,” Dylan laughed. “You make it sound so delicious.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, but I was laughing, too, making Dylan’s head rock back and forth on my chest. “Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable having that out there?”

  When I looked at the side of Dylan’s face, her smile was fading.

  “I guess,” she said. She shrugged. “But pretty much everything makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Half-naked pictures on the Internet probably should.”

  Dylan was silent. Her pictures were already up there. I’d probably insulted her.

  “Well, anyway,” I said in a lame try at changing the subject, without really changing it at all. “I’m going to tell Zadie I don’t want to play anymore. That I changed my mind.”

  “But she’ll kick you out of the Maggies,” Dylan said, jerking up to look at me. Her eyes were all jumpy and scared. “I mean, she definitely will.”

  “You’re the only part of the Maggies I care about.”

  Dylan lay back down and was quiet for an even longer time. It kind of sucked. I’d been hoping she’d say something like “Yeah, screw Zadie, we don’t need her!” But she hadn’t. She hadn’t said anything. We were still lying there, bodies threaded together, when I heard the front door open.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered. “It’s my mom.”

  We were both naked. Our clothes were all the way over in the vestibule. It was one thing to tell my mom about Dylan, but it would be totally different for her to walk in on us like that. I grabbed the throw from the back of the couch and tossed it on top of Dylan. Then I crossed my arms over my naked chest and bent forward, hoping to hide as much of myself as possible. I squeezed my eyes shut like a little kid willing myself to disappear.

  “Well, well,” someone said. The voice was not my mom’s. “Isn’t this romantic?”

  When I opened my eyes, Zadie was standing there in my living room. In one hand she held our clothes. In the other, she had her iPhone out. She was filming us.

  “How did you get in here?!” I yelled. “You can’t just come into my house!”