Love and Other Theories (19 page)

T
here’s music, but I hear the clinking of glass over everything else. Patrick gave us real martini glasses to drink out of. They’re tinted blue and so glamorous. It’s spring break, our last one during high school, and everything deserves a toast. I don’t know why Patrick has trusted us with these precious, breakable, beautiful things.

Then all I can hear is Shelby’s laughter, loud and unforgiving.

“Open your eyes, Aubrey.” It’s Nathan’s voice, so I open them. His hand is on the side of my face.

“Can you play? Do you need to lie down?” Melissa’s
face comes into focus and I realize it’s not so bad with my eyes open.

“Maybe you take it easy for a while, baby.” Robert. I see his hand reaching for mine, removing the martini glass.

I look at Nathan. He’s smiling, so I smile too.

“She’s good,” I hear Shelby say. “She just needed a minute.”

She’s right. Once my eyes are open and I’m walking down the hallway holding Nathan’s hand, everything feels fine. I don’t feel dizzy from that shot I took with Nathan anymore. Now I feel like dancing, like singing, like I could do anything. I squeeze Nathan’s hand and he squeezes back.

“I feel like I’m flying,” I tell him, and he laughs and nods like he’s flying too. He’s flying with me.

But then we’re sitting. Shelby’s got the empty bottle we were passing around taking shots from earlier. She holds it above her head, she twirls it, she drops it, she laughs. I’m surrounded by people sitting in a circle—Nathan and Patrick and Robert and Danica and Shelby and Melissa and Sam and Leila and the Riz and Celine and Jared and two junior girls who cheer with Leila and Celine and two junior boys who play basketball with Sam. A circle, with the bottle in the middle.

“I don’t want to go first!” Melissa cries out. Tommy is rubbing up next to her greedily, his hands on her
shoulders, pushing her toward the center of the circle.

I feel laughter, so much of it, bubble out of my lips. I can’t believe we’re playing the game we thought we were too old to play in middle school. We’re about to graduate high school; we’re so close to the real world but still too far away to touch it, and that makes us so, so young.

Danica’s smoking, sharing her cigarette with the boy next to her. I wait for Patrick to tell her to put it out, his mother will kill him, but he takes a drag himself. Robert spills on the beige rug when he’s refilling Leila’s drink. I stare up at the walls towering around us so high, the ceiling stretching up and to a point. The ceiling looks a million miles away. I hear laugher and shouting and glasses clinking together.
This room is barely big enough to contain us and everything that we are
, I think.

When I stop staring at the ceiling, everyone’s looking at me. The bottle picked me. My name is being called; I can hear it coming from every direction. Before I can ask what’s going on, Tommy Rizzo is in front of me. He puts his hands behind my head, and then he’s kissing me. All I taste is Wintermint. I’m kissing him back. I’m laughing in his mouth. I was never supposed to get to kiss Tommy Rizzo again.

When he pulls away, there are hands patting my back and so much noise I want to cover my ears. Nathan presses his face into my shoulder. I think he’s trying to snuggle with me, but I realize he’s only leaning forward because he’s
laughing so hard and this is where he’s landed.

He straightens up and whispers in my ear. “Your turn.”

I fumble with the bottle until it finally spins, whirling around so fast it makes me dizzy to watch. So instead I watch Nathan. Nathan watches the bottle, his eyes moving, spiraling, leaping. If it lands on him, everything I’m wishing for in this moment will come true.

But everyone starts chanting Sam’s name, and when I look back to the group I see the bottle is pointed at Sam. My eyes find Shelby next because Shelby’s kissed Sam so many times before, and now I’m going to kiss him. She’s smiling that rare smile, showing all her teeth, and laughing, gripping Melissa’s arm to keep from toppling over as she bounces on her knees.

We meet in the middle and Sam’s kiss is soft, exactly what I would expect from him. All I can think about are
the numbers
. How Shelby used to be the only one of us who kissed Sam, and now I’m kissing him, and Melissa or Danica or Leila could kiss him next. All I can think about is Nathan’s head against my shoulder, his breath in my ear, the first time he kissed me—how all his kisses belonged to me, and now, any second now, that’s not going to be true anymore.

The bottle lands on Shelby next. She falls into Sam and he’s not as gentle with her. I wonder if that’s the last time she’ll ever let Sam kiss her.

She grips the bottle tightly and smiles wickedly at all
of us before she spins. This time the bottle is all I can watch. I don’t even blink as I watch it spin furiously with a blur of moving shapes behind it. It stops on Nathan.

Seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours, that’s how long it takes for Nathan and Shelby to meet in the middle. I have the slightest urge to push him—so this can be over. There’s no rule that I have to watch, but I’m scared. I don’t want to be caught looking away. And I’m afraid that if I don’t watch, Nathan and Shelby will have one more thing between them that I don’t know about.

So I watch as they face each other, both on their knees. They can’t seem to stop laughing; Shelby’s red and I can’t decide if it’s from the alcohol or Nathan or both. Nathan rubs under his chin, fidgeting, stalling.

Just do it, just do it, just do it!
—this is all that’s screaming through my mind.

And then they do. A moment ago they were staring at each other, red and laughing and fidgeting, and now they’re kissing. Shelby’s holding on to his shoulders. Nathan’s hands are gripping her waist. The seconds are still minutes and the minutes are still hours and their lips are still together. Their entire bodies are suctioned together. There is not even enough space to stick a pin between Nathan and Shelby.

I can breathe when they stop, and I try my very best to laugh and clap and hoot the way everyone else is. Shelby fans herself and winks at me or maybe at Nathan, I can’t
tell. Nathan’s laughing, and his lips are red and wet.
Used.

But we’re supposed to be like this. We’re supposed to be reckless and careless and wild. And none of it is supposed to hurt. If we’ve kissed too many people, smoked too many cigarettes, had too much to drink, laughed too hard, offended too many people—we’ve done it right. We haven’t wasted any time. And Nathan and I have a lot of catching up to do.

He looks at me before he spins the bottle, his eyes wide and amused. He’s in awe. He’s drunk. He’s happy. We’re going to Barron next year, and these are the last moments of freedom carved out for just us—before summer jobs and Barron college courses will take over. Soon everything we do will matter on a greater, grander, larger scale. This is our last chance to be like this. Nathan Diggs seems to have just figured out what that means to him.

THAT NIGHT I can’t sleep. I’m next to Nathan in one of the rooms in Patrick’s ridiculously large house, in a bed so big we could spend the whole night ignoring each other if we wanted. But my back is pressed against Nathan’s chest and his arms are around me. It’s so quiet I can hear him breathe, crisp and clear. It’s really dark in here too, thick curtains allowing for no light to get through.

“Hey, Aubrey?” he whispers. His breath tickles my ear. “Are you awake?”

“I’m awake,” I whisper back. In here, our whispers sound loud.

“Remember when I told you I was going to stay, that I wasn’t going back home for spring break?”

I nod. My head rubs against his arm so I know he felt it.

“I think—I think I’m going to go.”

“You’re going to leave?” I turn to face him even though it’s impossible to see him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t know when I’ll get the chance again, to see everyone. After graduation, or before I leave for Barron.”

“You just decided tonight?” I don’t know why I want to know, why it’s important. It just is.

There’s a pause before he speaks. “Yeah.”

I open my mouth, thinking the right words will come out, but nothing does. I don’t want to tell him I’ll miss him even though I will. I don’t want to tell him that I’m scared of what he’ll do with all the people he’s known forever, now that he doesn’t know when he’ll get to see them again—now that he knows his time is running out and he doesn’t want to spend every one of these hurried, blissful seconds with me.

WHEN I WAKE up, I’m cold. Nathan’s not beside me anymore. The room is still dark, but I think it’s morning because there’s light peeking out from under the door and I feel
well rested. Nathan could be downstairs with Patrick and Robert, laughing while Leila and Danica cook breakfast and Shelby and Melissa sit on the couch wearing sunglasses and complaining about not having enough sugar for their coffee.

Or he could have left. He could already be on an airplane and a million miles away.

My chest stings with something I’m becoming way too familiar with. I take a deep breath and close my eyes and remind myself that it’s going to be okay.

I’ve managed to keep him for three months, but in no way does that mean I get to keep him forever. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?

This is what the theories prepare us for. This is why, when he’s finally gone for good, it won’t hurt as much. It doesn’t matter that I’ll be at Barron with him next year. That was never what would keep Nathan and me together, and I know that. If anything, it’s what’s going to make everything—trusting the theories, letting Nathan go—sharper and harder. But I know I can do it. I picture my pain separated into fragments. Instead of getting pierced with a giant knife that has the potential to kill, I’ll just be stabbed occasionally with razor blades. So when he finally leaves me for good, and the last cut is inflicted, I’ll be used to the pain.

S
helby and I go to the park on Friday. It’s the place we go every day during spring break even though it’s crowded with little kids with kites and mothers with large hats. We’re the only ones who stayed in town, and I’m glad. I never have to work during spring break, but usually I go somewhere with my family. Last year it was Washington, DC. This year my parents asked my brothers and me how we felt about skipping a spring break trip and we all favored it. Gregory and Jason missed playing their video games every day while we were in DC. And I missed Shelby.

It’s getting warmer. Shelby and I can sometimes go
the entire afternoon wearing just our T-shirts.

“Patrick or Robert?” Shelby rips up the grass and lets it slide between her fingers. I’m doing the same thing. All around us smells like fresh-cut grass and lush dirt.

“Robert.” We’ve played “Who would you rather?” a million times. Our answers are always different, depending on the day, the hour, the second—who made the winning point of the basketball game, who just broke up with his girlfriend, who would make Celine more jealous. “Jared or Sam?”

“Jared. Nathan or Trip?”

I throw a handful of grass at her. She turns away just in time and the pieces stick to the side of her head, tangled in her hair.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming.”

And I can’t—Nathan or Trip—it’s been coming, creeping up with the grace and concealment of a herd of elephants. If Shelby and I aren’t at the park sitting in the sun, or in Shelby’s room watching movies, or in my living room eating junk food, we’re at the Chapmans’. Our “spring break hideaway,” Shelby calls it. State has the same spring break as Lincoln High, and Trip didn’t go away either.

“Remember the rules of the game,” she says quickly before I can answer. “It’s only for a night. Just sex, no consequences. Like it never happened. Just one night you can erase.”

Right now, with my legs stretched out in front of me and the low afternoon sun shining in my eyes, having only communicated with Nathan via text but still hearing from him every night, a night of
just sex
, something I can erase, forget—a night that will blot out quicker than any of the other moments we’ve vowed to smear away—doesn’t sound like anything I want from Nathan. It sounds like exactly what I would get from Trip.

I answer her honestly, even if I give her the wrong answer. “Nathan.”

Her smile is small and close-lipped and her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses. I can’t tell if I’ve surprised her.

“So Nathan’s that good, huh?” Her smile tilts sideways and I throw grass at her, two handfuls, because I can’t be as blasé about sex as I wish I could. Talking about it embarrasses and delights me—and the delight is embarrassing. And now I’m laughing way too hard to feel anything but happiness.

I don’t like the idea of Shelby staying and me leaving in the fall, but I like the idea of coming back—to this. To my best friend, with her loud laugh and rare smile, to our once-in-a-lifetime friendship—where everything will always be this easy and we’ll always be this close.

And sometimes I love that Shelby will be here next year, right where I left her. She’ll be my lifeline when I come home just like she was my lifeline all four years
at Lincoln. When Danica, Melissa, and I come back for Thanksgiving or Christmas or summer, Shelby will remind us of where we came from and what we’re capable of. We’re always the strongest when we’re with Shelby.

I HELP TRIP with his English essay that evening. In college the professors don’t let up on homework over spring break. And in this case it’s a good thing, because Trip really needs a whole extra week to finish his research paper and make it good.

I lie on the couch with my feet in Trip’s lap, reading his paper and marking it with my red pen. The TV’s on mute, but there’s a basketball game on. He taps my feet, a nervous tic I’m used to.

“You have some sentences in here that are bullshit.”

Trip leans back into the couch. “Bullshit like the grammar is bullshit, or bullshit like I made that up bullshit.”

“You know what kind.”

Trip smiles. He looks caught. No one should look that good when they’re guilty. I hate him for it. “Nothing gets past you, Housing.”

I toss the paper at him but keep the compliment.

There’s a voice in my head when I’m around Trip. It’s been there ever since I saw that first text message from him in January.
Resist, resist, resist.
He’s a vortex that I don’t want to be sucked into, a place where I’ll be disappointed,
where the answer to what everyone assumes—that Trip Chapman’s had me exactly the way he wanted me—is yes. It’s a place I don’t want to go. Nothing else matters as much as me not going there. Not even Nathan.

“What about the sentences in the third paragraph?” he says. He lightly pushes my feet off him so he can sit close and show me what part of his essay he’s talking about.

“Those, I liked,” I admit. “You put the facts together really well. It’s your conclusion that needed help. And your intro. Lucky for you, those are my strong suits.”

Trip smiles at me; I can feel it without even looking at him.

“You’re good at the things I’m not good at. And vice versa,” he says. “We make a good team.” He pats my knee so I’ll look at him, and I do. “Admit it, Housing.”

I shrug.

“And there is one thing we’re both really good at,” Trip says lowering his voice, leaning closer to me. “And that makes us a great team.”

“Stop it.” I put a little extra malice in my voice. I have to. My smile is so big.

Trip leans away, but I know he’s still studying me.

“I have to go.” I get up casually, so he won’t know I’m in a hurry to get away from him.

“Now?”

“Yeah, now,” I tell him instead of good-bye.

I MEET SHELBY later that night in her bedroom for bad television and too many Oreos. I tell her about Trip. I confess that it’s not that easy.

“Just kiss him then.” She smiles and pinches my side so I’ll laugh, so I won’t be so serious.

“I don’t want to kiss him. I just think about it sometimes.”

“Really, Aubrey. Just kiss him. Who cares?”

And I realize that the answer to that question might be no one. I realize it might just be me alone, worried about what going back to kissing Trip Chapman would mean.

But I can’t be sure. And Nathan returns tomorrow.