He just blinked at me for a moment, like he was trying to make sense of the fact that I was standing in front of him—or that I was going up to him to say hi, and not the other way around. “Hi,” he finally said.
“I just wanted to say hello,” I said, after a slightly strained pause. I’d kind of forgotten just how painful conversations with Gideon could sometimes be, and I was beginning to regret starting this one.
He nodded and rolled the bottle between his palms, and when nothing followed, I finally got the hint that he really didn’t want to talk to me. I took a breath to tell him that it was great to see him, and that my friends were waiting—one of which was true—when he looked up at me. “Have you had a good summer?”
“Oh,” I said, gathering my thoughts, and not just replying with a standard “Great!” Gideon didn’t ask these questions just to be polite, and never wanted to hear that everything was fine when it wasn’t. “It’s not what I expected,” I said. As I did, I realized we’d all had summers we hadn’t been expecting—Frank, Dawn, me, Collins, even Beckett and my parents. “But it’s been good. I’ve been having fun.”
He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “I’m glad,” he said, in that slow, careful way of his. “Have you been . . .”
“Well, hello there.” There was suddenly someone next to me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. I turned, expecting to see Collins or a Stanwich College freshman pushing his luck, but took a tiny, startled step back when I realized that it was Benji.
“Oh,” I said. I took another step away, extricating myself from his arm. “Um, hi there.”
Gideon had stood up and was frowning down at Benji—no small feat, since Benji was pretty tall himself. “Emily, you know this guy?”
“Oh yeah, she does,” Benji said, with a wink at me—maybe it was a Collins family trait—clearly not reading the room very well and taking another step toward me. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, fine,” I said, a little too brightly.
“Em,” Gideon said, and I could hear the hurt in his voice, though he was clearly trying to cover it up. “Are you two—”
“What am I thinking?” I babbled, mostly so Gideon wouldn’t ask his question and I wouldn’t have to answer it. “This is Gideon,” I said, making the introductions. “And that’s Benji.”
“Ben,” Benji said, his smile fading.
“Right, of course,” I said quickly. “Well, this was fun, but I should probably—”
“So what have you been up to?” Benji asked, smiling at me again. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“Well, no,” I said, wondering what he was getting at, since the only place I’d ever seen him before had been in Frank’s pantry.
“So you guys . . . ,” Gideon said, looking from me to Benji, his expression hard.
“No,” I said quickly, just as Benji replied, “Well, this one time . . .”
“Emily,” Gideon said, now just looking confused.
“There you are.” I turned and saw Frank, a bottle of water in his hand, walking up to me.
“Hi,” I said, smiling at him, happy to see him even though I’d just seen him that morning. Now that he was in front of me, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about not coming here.
“What’s going on?” Frank asked, looking slightly confused as he glanced from Gideon, to Benji, to me.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, realizing this might be my opportunity to make an exit and leave unscathed. “We should go, right? To celebrate your birthday? Now?” I widened my eyes at him, hoping that he would get the hint.
He seemed to, because he gave me a smile that was clearly concealing a laugh and said, “Yes. My birthday. Absolutely.”
“Bye,” I said to Gideon as Benji wandered away toward the keg guy. Gideon was now looking from Frank to me, his expression crestfallen. “I’ll see you around?” I asked him. But Gideon had never made things like this easier when he didn’t have to, and he didn’t say anything, just steadily looked back at me for a long moment.
“Okay,” Frank said brightly after a moment, morphing into the student body president, capable of organizing large groups of people and doing it smoothly. “Have a great night. Emily, if you want to follow me, we’re set up over this way . . .” He steered me toward the far picnic table, where there was what looked like a supermarket cake, Collins talking to a girl entirely out of his league, and Doug standing awkwardly next to some of Frank’s school friends.
I could sense the question that Frank wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to answer it, and just looked straight ahead, not meeting his eye as we walked toward the party.
MAY
Two months earlier
“You have to let me see it,” Gideon said, trying to twist around to see his arm and the Sharpie tattoo I was currently working on.
“No,” I said, turning his head away. “Not until I’m finished. You know how bad I am at this.”
He reached over and brushed one of his big hands over my hair, smoothing a piece of it behind my ear. “You’re not bad at it,” he said.
“Ha,” I said. “It’ll be worse if you don’t hold still.”
“Holding,” Gideon said, shooting me one of his small, rare smiles. In the two months that the four of us had been hanging out, Sharpie tattoos had become a thing we did. While we started the evenings together, Sloane and Sam would inevitably break off on their own, and then it would be me and Gideon and a Sharpie, passing the time. It had started that first night we’d gone to the Orchard, and had just become a tradition, though it had taken me a while to build up the courage to draw one on him. I had less than no artistic talent, and Gideon was a natural and gifted artist, though he denied this and insisted it was just something stupid he did for fun. I’d started to really look forward to mine, even though I knew as it was being drawn on that it was temporary. The tattoos faded over time and with every shower until there was just a faint suggestion of whatever it was that had been adorning my hand or arm or ankle.
Sloane clearly thought that Gideon would be the perfect solution to my problems with Sam. This way, we could all hang out, but she could spend time with Sam as well. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like Gideon. He was a really nice guy, a good kisser, and had a sly sense of humor that only came out once you got to know him. But I was still left with the lingering, nagging thought that I hadn’t chosen him, he’d been presented to me. And I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if we’d just met, without the expectations of both our best friends pushing us together.
But it was nice with him now, in Sam’s TV room, sitting next to each other on the couch. The movie we’d all been watching was on pause, the TV having long switched over to the screensaver of generic pictures—a butterfly on a leaf, an African vista, a lighthouse. We’d all been watching together when Sam had gotten a text. Sloane had seen it and said something to him I couldn’t hear. Sam had stormed into the kitchen in a huff, and Sloane had followed. That had been over twenty minutes ago, and when it had become clear they weren’t reappearing any time soon, Gideon had paused the movie and procured the Sharpie, raising an eyebrow at me. It was my turn, and since you couldn’t erase marker, I had planned out this design and was working very carefully on it. It was a series of ocean waves that wrapped around the front of his arm. I could draw waves, they were pretty easy, just a continual scrolling pattern. And then atop one of the waves, I’d drawn a bear on a surfboard. I knew it didn’t make much sense, but cartoony bears were one of the few things I could draw well, so I just hoped Gideon wouldn’t question it too much. I put the final details on the bear’s ears and leaned back a little, looking at my handiwork. I realized I was actually pretty happy with this one. Gideon was still turning his head away, and impulsively I scrawled Emily xoxo on his arm, then sat back and capped the marker. “Done,” I said.
He turned his head, looked at it, and smiled. “That’s awesome,” he said. “The best one yet.” He squinted down at his arm. “Is that a bear?”
“Um,” I said. It didn’t seem like such a great sign that he had to ask this. “It’s supposed to be.”
“I love it,” he said. “It’s great.” He looked at me for a moment, then leaned forward and kissed me. After hesitating for just a second, I kissed him back, and I felt the Sharpie fall from my hand. He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around me.
“Whoa.” I pulled away and sat up slightly, seeing Sam standing in the doorway of the TV room, a sour expression on his face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Didn’t see you there,” Gideon said, sitting up straighter, his face flushed red.
“Clearly,” Sam said, with one of his smiles that never seemed to have all that much humor in it.
“Where’s Sloane?” I asked, looking behind him, but not seeing my best friend.
“Kitchen,” he said with a shrug, like it didn’t concern him all that much. He nodded at the TV. “We watching this?”
“Sure,” I said, moving closer to Gideon to make some more room on the couch. Sam crossed to sit against one end of it, grabbed the remote and pointed it at the TV just as Gideon picked up his phone, resting on the coffee table, and groaned.
“I have to go,” he said quietly to me as he set the phone back down. “Curfew.” I had never been to Gideon’s house or met his parents, but from the little he’d told me, I had gotten the distinct impression that they were very strict. His curfew was a full two hours earlier than mine. I nodded, and he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, while I felt Sam watching us. “Call you tomorrow,” he said, pushing himself up off the couch. He and Sam did the thing they always did—it was half a high-five and half a handshake. “Say good-bye to Sloane for me?” he asked as he headed toward the front door, and I nodded.
“Sure thing,” I said. He smiled at me, and a moment later, I heard the door slam and the sound of his car engine starting up.
“You know,” Sam said from his side of the couch. I suddenly wished I could move to sit at the other end of it—or even leave the couch entirely—without it being incredibly obvious that I wanted to get away from him. “I think that was directed to me.”
I just looked at him for a moment. “What was?”
“When he asked about saying good-bye to Sloane. I think that was to me, not you.”
“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t believe that this mattered to him, but apparently it did. “Um, sorry about that.” I glanced back toward the kitchen, wondering if my best friend needed me. I was actually feeling a little uncomfortable about it being the three of us here; I usually left around the same time Gideon did. “I think I’ll go find Sloane,” I said, starting to get up.
“And leave me all alone?” Sam asked. If he’d been smiling, or joking, I might have laughed at this, but he was just looking at me, his face serious.
“Ha,” I said, glancing back to the kitchen again. I knew I should just get up, go find Sloane, and tell her good-bye.
“So you and Gideon are getting close,” he said, moving a little nearer to me on the couch.
“I guess so,” I said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. And Sam moved closer still, his expression almost carefully blank, like he knew he was making me nervous, and he liked it.
Sam leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You want to know what he told me about you?”
“I really don’t,” I said, forcing a laugh that even I could hear fell flat. “Want to watch the movie?”
“Nope,” Sam said, still looking right at me. “We should be friends, Emily.”
“We are,” I said lightly, just wanting this strange exchange to be over as quickly as possible. It was underscoring for me that I was never alone with Sam; I was beginning to realize that I preferred it that way.
“Really?” he asked, leaning even closer to me.
Two things happened then, very quickly, the kind of quick where you don’t have time to think anything through, you just react and hope for the best. Sam leaned in to kiss me and I saw Sloane rounding the corner, coming in from the kitchen, carrying two glasses in her hands.
And I could have just ducked or turned away from Sam. But I didn’t. I let him kiss me, and I waited just a second more before I broke away, pushed him away from me and said, loudly, “What are you doing?”
There was the sound of glass breaking, and I looked over to see Sloane, her blue eyes wide, shattered glass at her feet and what looked like Coke spilling onto her shoes, the new white pony-skin ones she’d saved a month to buy.
Sam’s head snapped around, and he looked from Sloane to me, shaking his head. “It isn’t . . . ,” he said, talking fast, his voice high. “Emily was totally throwing herself at me after Gideon left, and . . .”
Sloane looked at me, like she was looking for the answer. I looked right back at her and shook my head. There was a fraction of a second where I wondered if she would pick Sam, his version of things, their three months over our two years. But this worry faded when I saw in her eyes how completely she believed me. “Em, would you mind waiting by the car?” she asked, her voice quiet and breaking. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”
I nodded, scrambled to my feet, and grabbed my purse. As I headed to the front door, I saw that Sam’s expression was equal parts shocked and angry. “Wait, you don’t even believe me?” he asked, his voice rising.
“Nope,” I heard Sloane say, still quiet, before I stepped out into the night and pulled the door shut behind me.
I just stood on the Welcome, Friends! mat for a moment, trying to put everything that had just happened into some kind of order. Deep down, I knew I could have stopped it. But if Sam was going to try and kiss me anyway, shouldn’t Sloane have seen it? So she could finally see what kind of guy he was?
I knew I was justifying something that I shouldn’t have done, but before I could continue to talk myself into it, an SUV pulled into the driveway. Through the windshield, I recognized Gideon, who was already smiling at me as he killed the engine and got out of the car. I walked down Sam’s front steps and over to my car, and we met halfway.
“Hey,” he said. “Leaving already?”
I glanced back toward the house. I knew I didn’t have a ton of time, if Sloane did go through with ending it, like I was fairly sure she was going to. Sloane didn’t fight with people, ever, so even if Sam wanted a long, drawn-out breakup, he wasn’t about to get one. “I am,” I said slowly. I had no idea what—if anything—I should tell him. I had no doubt that Sam would soon spin this story whatever way suited him.
“I forgot my phone,” he said, nodding toward the house.
“Listen,” I said quickly. Between his curfew and the fact that I had a feeling that Sloane wasn’t going to want to linger, I had to make this fast and get it over with. Because Gideon and I were done. I felt a small pang as I realized this, but I pushed on past it. We had always been the add-ons to our best friends’ relationship, and it wouldn’t make much sense for us to continue, just the two of us. There probably wasn’t enough there to last on its own. Better to get out now, before we’d had the chance to try and preserve something that wouldn’t have worked. “I think Sloane and Sam are breaking up,” I said, glancing back toward the house.
“No,” Gideon said, his face falling. “Are you sure they’re not just fighting? Because—”
“So I just . . . ,” I started, then stopped when I realized I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I’d never had to break up with anyone before. “This has been really great,” I said after a moment. “But . . .”
Gideon just looked at me, and I saw understanding slowly dawn on his face. “Wait,” he said. “Emily. What are you saying?”
“Just that I think it would be too hard now,” I said, realizing as I did that there had been very few actual nouns or verbs in that sentence. “I just do.” The door opened, and Sloane came out barefoot, carrying her ruined flats. “So . . . take care, okay?” I asked, hating myself even as I asked it, but telling myself that this was for the best. It w
ould be better to end it right then, rather than drawing it out.
Gideon was still looking at me like he was hoping that at any moment, I might tell him this had all been an elaborate joke. But I made myself turn away from him and headed to my car, but not before I got a glimpse of the xoxo I’d drawn on his skin not very long ago.
Two hours later, the cake had been eaten, the birthday song had been sung, and most of the guests had departed.
And I was tipsy.
It wasn’t something that I had planned on, at all. But when I arrived at the picnic table, Collins had given me a red cup of beer and a fork—he hadn’t remembered to get plates for the cake. He’d gotten the cake at a discount, since someone hadn’t picked it up, which was also the reason it read You Did It, Wanda! There was no indication of what, exactly, Wanda had done, just a few lopsided red sugar roses on the corners. The cake was sickly sweet, and at first, I’d just sipped at my beer to balance out the taste. But as I’d had more, I found it made my strained conversations with Frank’s other friends a little easier to get through. None of them could understand why I was there, most of them appeared to think I worked with Frank and Collins, and the remainder seemed to be convinced that I was dating Doug. And it wasn’t until I’d finished my second cup that I realized I was officially tipsy. I was baffled as to why until I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat that day except for birthday donuts with Frank, hours and hours before.
Which explained my current state, but didn’t help me do much about it. I ended up sitting on a picnic table with Collins, who was finishing up the last bites of the cake and bemoaning his romantic woes to me. It was perfect, because it seemed like he was more interested in a monologue than a dialogue, and whenever I had too much to drink I got oddly honest and told people things I never would have otherwise.
“And I’m a catch, right, Emily?” he asked, waving his fork in his general direction. “I mean, the C-dawg’s got style. He’s got panache, you know? And he knows how to please the ladies.”
Since You've Been Gone Page 24
