As soon as he mentions the maple trees a memory rises up, expanding, like something breaking the surface of water and rippling outward. We were sitting in this little space in between two enormous roots that curved out of the ground like animal spines. I remember that he split two maple-wing seeds and stuck one on his nose and one on mine, telling me that this way everyone would know we were in love. I was probably only five or six.
“I—I…” The last thing I need is for him to remind me of the good old days, when I was all knees and nose and glasses, and he was the only boy who would come near me. “Maybe. Trees kinda all look the same to me, you know?”
He laughs even though I wasn’t trying to be funny. “So you think you’ll come tonight? To my party?”
This brings me back to reality. The party. I shake my head and start backing away. “No. I don’t think so.”
His smile falters a little. “It’ll be fun. Big. Senior memories. Best time of our lives and all that crap.”
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “High school heaven.”
I turn around and start walking away from him. The cafeteria is packed, and as I approach the double doors—one of which is propped open with an old tennis shoe—the noise of the students greets me with a roar.
“You’ll come,” he calls after me. “I know you will.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I call back, and I almost add, It’s better this way.
THE RULES OF SURVIVAL
“What do you mean you can’t go out?”
Ally’s looking at me like I just said I wanted to go to prom with Ben Farsky (or Fart-sky, as we’ve been calling him since fourth grade).
I sigh. “I just don’t feel like it, okay?” I switch tactics and try again. “We go out every weekend. I just—I don’t know. I want to stay in, like we used to.”
“We used to stay in because we couldn’t get into any senior parties,” Ally says.
“Speak for yourself,” Lindsay says.
This is harder than I thought it would be.
I flash on my mom asking if I’d had a fight with Rob and before I can think too much about it I blurt out, “It’s Rob, okay? We…we’re having issues.”
I flip open my phone, checking for texts for the millionth time. When I first came into the cafeteria Rob was standing behind the registers, loading his fries with ketchup and barbecue sauce (his favorite). I couldn’t bring myself to go up to him, so instead I hurried to our table in the senior section and sent him a text: We have 2 talk.
He texted back right away. Bout?
2nite, I wrote back, and since then my phone’s been silent. Across the cafeteria, Rob is leaning against the vending machines talking to Adam Marshall. He has his hat twisted sideways on his head. He thinks it makes him look older.
I used to love collecting all these little facts about him, storing them together and holding them close inside of me, like if I gathered up all the details and remembered them—the fact that he likes barbecue sauce but not mustard, that his favorite team is the Yankees even though he prefers basketball to baseball, that once when he was little he broke his leg trying to jump over a car—I would totally understand him. I used to think that’s what love was: knowing someone so well he was like a part of you.
But more and more I’m feeling like I don’t know Rob.
Ally’s jaw actually drops. “But you’re supposed to—you know.”
She kind of looks like a mounted fish with her mouth open like that, so I turn away, fighting the urge to laugh. “We were supposed to, but…” I’ve never been a good liar and my brain goes totally blank.
“But?” Lindsay prompts.
I reach into my bag and pull out the note he sent me, which is now crumpled and has a piece of gum, half unwrapped, sticking to it. I push it across the table. “But this.”
Lindsay wrinkles her nose and flips open the card with the very tips of her fingernails. Ally and Elody lean over and they both read. They’re all silent for a second afterward.
Finally Lindsay closes the card and pushes it back to me. “It’s not that bad,” she says.
“It’s not that good, either.” I was only trying to fake an excuse to keep us away from the party tonight, but as soon as I start talking about Rob, I get really worked up. “Luv ya? What kind of crap is that? We’ve been going out since October.”
“He’s probably just waiting to say it,” Elody says. She pushes the bangs out of her eyes. “Steve doesn’t say it to me.”
“That’s different. You don’t expect him to say it.”
Elody looks away quickly, and it occurs to me that maybe, despite everything, she does.
There’s an awkward pause, and Lindsay jumps in. “I don’t see what the trauma is. You know Rob likes you. It’s not like it would be a one-night stand or anything.”
“He likes me, but…” I’m about to confess that I’m not sure that we’re good together, but at the last second I can’t. They would think I was insane. I don’t even understand it myself, really. It’s like the idea of him is better than the him of him. “Look. I’m not going to have sex with him just so he’ll say that he loves me, you know?”
I don’t even mean for the words to come out, and for a second I’m so startled by them, I can’t say anything else. That isn’t why I was planning to have sex with Rob—to hear the words, I mean. I just wanted to get it over with. I think. Actually, I’m not sure why it seemed so important.