Chapter 18
18
FRESHMAN YEAR
ON THE LAST DAY BEFORE high school, everything changes.
I’m sitting on the front steps of our house. My foot taps out an anxious rhythm on the step below: tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap . My eyes are glued to the street beyond, the same intersection upon which our house has always sat. A paved cross surrounded by streetlights, varyingly green lawns, and an electrical box atop which I used to sit while waiting for the school bus. I’m waiting for a black car with tinted windows to appear in that intersection. I’m waiting for it to make the left turn that means it’s going to pull into our half circle of a driveway.
I haven’t seen Manuel in almost a month. He came up to Cradle for a bit, as always, but he had to leave early for a two-week-long track-and-field camp, followed by another two weeks in Colombia, visiting family. Naturally, we’ve kept up over text and FaceTime, but it isn’t the same as having him here, in person, sitting side by side as I’ve always known we were meant to be.
After a small eternity, the Escalade finally appears. I jump to my feet, grinning as it rounds the intersection and pulls into our driveway. The driver has barely brought the car to a halt before the back door swings open and Manuel slides out.
The moment he lands on the pavement, I freeze.
My best friend is nearly unrecognizable. Gone are his round cheeks and the tuft of hair between his eyebrows. Gone is the acne that flooded both of our faces in seventh and eighth grade. Gone are his gangly, awkward arms and legs, the ones that used to be far too long for his small torso. Gone is the curly hair that he never quite knew how to tame.
In their place?
“Beck!” hollers the devastatingly handsome stranger bounding up the front steps. He sweeps me into his arms with impossible ease and swings me in huge circles. When he sets me back down on the top step, he grins and places two strong hands on my shoulders, squeezing them affectionately. His smile is dazzling. “I missed you.”
Oh no.
That’s my first thought after finally seeing my best friend again.
Oh no. Oh shit. Oh fuck.
His thick dark eyebrows pull together, creating lines in his smooth tan skin. His skin is always slightly bronzed, but after two weeks under the Cartagena sun? God. And has his jaw always looked like that? Strong and stately, two perfectly carved lines meeting at that round, dimpled chin?
“Beck?” he asks, frowning his heart-shaped lips. “Are you all right?”
“Stop talking,” I blurt before I can stop myself.
Those strong eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline. “What?”
“I mean…”
I mean, stop talking, because when you do, I have to look at your lips. Those round, cherry-pink lips. And I’ve never noticed how soft they look before, two plump, juicy fruits that I’d love nothing more than to take a big—
I inhale sharply. Where the hell did that thought come from?
Manuel is still staring at me, his expression growing more nervous by the second.
Pull yourself together, Eliot , I think desperately. He’s still Manny. He’s still the boy you said goodbye to a month ago, even if he’s grown, like, six inches, and also gained a disturbing amount of muscle. And probably a six-pack. None of that matters, because he’s your best friend. The only person at school you’ve ever been able to stand. The only person who makes your Worries go quiet, even if it’s just for a few minutes at a time.
He is your best. Fucking. Friend.
And I would never jeopardize that friendship for something as trivial as him becoming insanely hot overnight.
Never.
So I don’t. I push my observations about his looks down, deep down, just as I do with my Worries. I push them down, and I lock them away in a box that I will never, ever allow myself to open. Not for anything. Because nothing could possibly be worth ruining what he and I have.
I curve my mouth into the most convincing sarcastic smile that I can manage. “I mean, stop talking, Valde, because we have a fresh box of Fruit Roll-Ups to eat inside.”
His expression falters. It’s barely a half second of change, but in that moment, I think I see something bizarre.
I think I see disappointment.
It’s gone just as soon as it appeared. He matches my smile, throwing a muscled arm over my shoulders and tugging me toward the front door. “Well, we wouldn’t want those to go to waste, now, would we?”
—
THAT YEAR, WE START DATING. Both of us—Manuel first, then me, like dominoes collapsing toward romance. For him, it’s inevitable. And at the sight of his newfound height and lean, muscular runner’s body, girls practically flock to him. He has his first girlfriend by the end of the first week of school, they’ve broken up by the end of the second, and he has another by the third.
Me, I’ve never had a boyfriend before. Not even one of those preschool boyfriends, the ones you hold hands with one week and break up with the next. But something must have changed about me over the summer, too, because I catch guys checking me out in the hallways on multiple occasions. They never approach me, though. Not the way girls do with Manuel. In class, a few guys start flirting with me, but it always ends after a week or two. I never know why. One day they’re friendly, and the next they give me the cold shoulder when I say hello.
More than once, I check to see if my deodorant is still working.
It’s not surprising that Manuel finds love well before I do. I mean, I’m not ugly . I have clear skin, high cheekbones, and a mostly symmetrical face. A mouth that, when it laughs, could swallow a small school bus. I wear my dirty-blond hair long and straight. I almost never put on any makeup but mascara and the occasional zit-covering foundation. To be honest, I haven’t thought much about my looks until this year.
“You look like that folk singer,” Manuel once told me.
“Which one?”
“The one with the long hair and the middle part.”
“That’s, like…every folk singer ever.”
“No, no, no. I’m thinking of just one. She married Johnny Cash.”
“June Carter?”
“Yes. June Carter. You look like June Carter.”
I tried to picture Carter, but all I remembered was Reese Witherspoon playing her in Walk the Line . All I remembered was Carter holding Cash as he shivered and screamed, a decade’s worth of addiction bleeding out onto his bedsheets.
—
THREE YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE I first went to see Dr.Droopy. Since then, we’ve kept a regular appointment schedule—every week, twice a week. I don’t know if I’m getting better or worse. I still worry about being a lesbian almost every day, even though I know I’m not. Or, at least, I’m pretty sure I’m not. Or, at least…
Ack.
Some days, the thoughts are bad. Torturous. Some days, I can turn them into background noise, a steady hum of worry. Every day is different. Every hour, really. Every minute.
They’re quietest when I’m with my best friend.
—
ON THE DAY I TURN fifteen, Manuel and I carry a backpack full of Busch Light down to the beach. It’s October, and the air is still warm, but we dig a small hole in the sand, just deep enough to reach the layer that holds the lake’s freeze. We press a few beers into the hole and wiggle them down. We push until only the tops stick out, tabs and locked lids gasping for air. Manuel covers the hole with his backpack.
He sighs, and I glance over to see him staring at his phone.
“What?” I ask.
“Is this what all American relationships are like?”
I peer over his shoulder. He’s texting Sara, the latest in his line of women. I see little grey bubbles popping up in quick, angry succession. Some contain entire paragraphs.
I shrug. “You’re asking the wrong girl.”
“Man, dating was so much simpler in Colombia.”
“You mean…back when you were nine?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot you were Se?or Popular .” I drain the last sip of beer and toss the can over a rotting driftwood log. “Manuel Garcia Valdecasas: first-grade lady-killer.”
He sighs. “You have no idea.”
Honestly, I probably shouldn’t be drinking. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions, right? If I had to guess, that also means that it loosens the locks that we keep on the boxes within ourselves. Very important boxes, in my case, such as the one that I chained up on the day my best friend returned from Colombia. And as I sit here, snuggled deep in the sand, I can feel that box rattling. I can feel it as my eyes slide sideways, drinking in Manuel’s profile as he squints down at his phone screen. His smooth skin. The sharp pitch of his jaw. The—
Stop. I tear my eyes away, forcing myself to look out at Lake Michigan instead. You can’t let yourself go down that road.
But I can’t let ridiculous, unattainable fantasies keep me from enjoying myself and being young, either. I only turn fifteen once. I’m going to enjoy it.
I grab another Busch Light and crack it open.
“Something weird is happening at school,” I say as I lift the can to my lips and take a sip. The beer is watery and too warm.
“Oh?” Manuel doesn’t look up from his phone. “What’s that?”
“I don’t even know how to describe it.” I scratch the back of my head with my free hand. “It almost feels like I’m wearing a Do Not Disturb sign on my back and don’t even know it.”
He snorts. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that…well, there have been a couple of times in the last few months where I genuinely thought that a guy might be interested in me…”
Manny’s head jerks back suddenly, eyes snapping up from his phone to my face. He looks shocked. Alarmed even.
“But every time,” I continue, ignoring his expression, “just when I think they might ask me out, they suddenly lose interest. Like that .” I snap my fingers. “They stop texting me, stop talking to me in class…” I shake my head. “It’s bizarre.”
His face relaxes. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Beck. They’re probably just cowards.”
“But what could they possibly have to be afraid of?”
His lips twitch, as if he finds my question funny.
“I’m serious, Valde. It’s borderline offensive. I mean, you have a new girlfriend every week, and I can’t even get one guy to ask me out?” I smile wryly. “I get that you and I are in completely different leagues, but am I really that hideous?”
I meant it as a joke. A little self-deprecation that I thought would make him laugh.
Instead, his face ignites with fury. Eyes narrow, nostrils flare. I startle, twitching backward. I’ve never seen my best friend look at me like this before, and—to be perfectly honest—it’s terrifying .
“Don’t you ever say that about yourself again,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “ Escúchame , Eliot. Don’t call yourself ugly. ?Me entiendes? ”
I can only stare back, mouth hanging open.
Manuel leans forward, grabbing my shoulders as he repeats himself in English. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes. Yes , Jesus.” I shake off his hands. “I was just kidding.”
He turns back to the lake, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. “Well, I didn’t find it funny.”
“Clearly,” I mutter. What the hell has gotten into him?
After a few minutes of tense silence, Manny exhales. “And,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “there’s something else I should tell you.” Pause. “It’s probably my fault that you’re getting the cold shoulder from so many guys.”
I blink. “What?”
“I may have, um…” Is that a slight pink I see creeping into his cheeks? “Insinuated a few things to the guys on the track team. About you. And what I would do if they tried to pursue you.”
My heart stumbles. I try desperately to push it back into line as I ask, “What kind of…things?”
“Oh, you know.” He still doesn’t look at me, but I swear his blush deepens. “Nothing much. Physical violence. Bodily harm. Secret Colombian assassins that my parents are in contact with.” He shrugs. “The usual.”
Is he…?
I shut off that question before I can finish it. Don’t get carried away, Eliot . He’s just being overprotective, the same way that Caleb or Clarence or Taz would be. Nothing more.
Then, as if he could read my thoughts and wanted to confirm them, he quickly added, “But I may have taken it too far. You clearly want to be able to date these guys, and you should be able to. I’m sorry for my interference.”
“That’s not…” I search helplessly for the right words. That’s not true. Those aren’t the guys I want to date. There’s only one guy I want to date, and he’s sitting right next to—
Nope. Stop. None of that. You don’t think about your best friend that way.
I do the only thing I can. I smile and say, “Thanks, Valde.”
—
I MEET HIM LATER THAT year, during my first day at the Trevian , our school newspaper. I already know who he is, of course. I’ve seen him everywhere. On Facebook. In the lunch room. From afar. From behind, as Manuel and I bring up the rear of a group wandering down a street called Elm or Oak or Pine. In the McDonald’s parking lot, where on certain Saturday nights a crowd gathers. Not to eat cheeseburgers or smoke weed or drink stolen alcohol—just to show their faces. Just to show that they know where to loiter.
Manuel forces me to join the paper. “You quit soccer ages ago,” he says. “You need a new thing.”
“A thing ?” I ask.
“Yes. A thing. Colleges want you to have a thing.”
We’re freshmen, but college is already top of mind for Manuel.
“Okay, Mom,” I say. “Why the newspaper?”
“Come on, Beck. You’ve been in love with words since the day I met you.”
“Have I?”
“Of course you have. Remember all those stories you wrote in the Fort?”
“Absolutely not,” I groan. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t remind me.”
“ And you have an entire shelf full of journals in your room.”
“Fine,” I say. “Fine, fine, fine.”
It starts innocently enough, as all dangerous relationships do. On my first day at the Trevian , I choose a section. I already know I can’t do News. Every comment on my English and history papers reads the same— Good argument, voice too informal. I don’t get it. To me, writing is just transferring the words in my head onto paper. I don’t write with a certain “voice”—I just write.
A history paper written like an anxious fifteen-year-old girl?
Yeah. Doesn’t play well.
So I join Op-Ed, instead. Which is how I meet Leo.
Leo is popular. Not the normal kind, the kind that comes from good looks and a mean spirit. He’s different. Weird. Loud and unselfconscious. He has opinions about everything. He interviews teachers and spies on the AV Club and gives presentations on the time his little brother put the cat in the freezer. He tries, really tries , in a way no cool kid is ever supposed to. But it works. For him, it works. He figured out, long before anyone else, that laughter is the way to get someone to like you. Give it freely. Reek with irony. Apologize for nothing. Live your life as one long inside joke.
And he’s cool. Cool cool, a block of ice in a warm room, dripping at the corners, and everyone else is thirsty. They gather around him and lap at the puddles, and their tongues sound like laughter, and for some reason, for whatever reason, out of all those people, he chooses me.
—
HE KISSES ME AT A party. To be more specific, he pulls me onto his lap on a couch in the middle of a party and sticks his tongue down my throat. A dog marking his territory. Manuel sees it from across the room. The next day, everyone knows, which I suppose makes me his girlfriend.
—
TO SAY MANUEL IS SKEPTICAL would be an outrageous understatement.
“What’s this guy’s deal?” he asks grouchily. “Doesn’t he sit at the jock table?”
“You’re a jock,” I say.
“I’m a runner . It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it? Because I’m pretty sure rowing and cross-country are actually the same sport. Both are just dudes with long legs wearing tiny shorts.”
“Good one. I’m just saying. What do we even know about him?”
“What do you even know about the eighty-seven girls you’ve dated since setting foot in America?”
“That’s different.”
“Sure it is.”
He sticks out his tongue. So do I.
—
DESPITE MANUEL’S SKEPTICISM, LEO TURNS out to be the perfect boyfriend. He writes me love notes on wrinkled paper and shoves them through the slits of my locker. He brings flowers to the Trevian on our one-month anniversary. He waits for me after second-period math just to walk me to my next class. Just the way you’re supposed to.
Despite all of that, being in a relationship doesn’t feel the way I thought it would. Looking at Leo doesn’t create that cloud at the base of my gut, the one you hear about in romance novels, that feels at once both tight and loose, both heavy and light as a feather. But maybe none of that matters. Maybe love has many narratives, and that’s one, and this is another.
—
THE FIRST FEW WEEKS OF my relationship with Leo are, for the most part, sunshine and rainbows. And then— surprise, surprise! —who walks in? The Worries.
It’s another day at the Trevian. I’m in my usual position—back corner, fingers laced with Leo’s—when I hear my name called from out in the hallway. I crane my head around and find, out in the hallway, Manuel.
“Hey!” I spring out of my chair, bounding out into the hall and throwing my arms around Manny’s neck—my typical greeting. I feel Leo’s eyes drilling into my back, so I pull quickly away, smiling up at my best friend. “What’s up?”
He smiles back. “Nothing urgent. Just wanted to see if you’re down for a Tarantino night after you’re done at the paper.”
“Obviously.”
“ Qué chimba. ” He nudges my shoulder with his fist. “See you at seven.”
On the s in seven , a spit droplet soars out of Manuel’s mouth and lands on my chin. Just below my bottom lip. We both see it happen, but in the name of sparing his embarrassment, I pretend like it didn’t.
Wipe the spit off your face , say my Worries.
I can’t, I say back.
You have to. That spit came from his mouth. If it goes into yours, that’s as good as kissing him.
No, it’s not. That’s ridiculous.
It’s not ridiculous. Do you want to feel guilty about cheating on Leo?
I plaster a smile onto my face and bump Manny with my hip. “See you at seven.”
When I get back to my usual corner, Leo takes my hand. “What did Handsome Manny want?” There’s a strange bite to his voice when he says Manuel’s name, but I don’t have the mental capacity to analyze it. All I can think about is that spit droplet.
Wipe the spit off your face.
Normally, I would just wipe it, right? Use the back of my arm. Not think twice about it. But I can tell that this droplet has taken on increased significance. If I wipe it away, I’ll be giving in to the Worries.
So I do the opposite. I lick it. I lick the spit right into my mouth.
Take that , I think proudly.
—
THE PRIDE LASTS ROUGHLY TWELVE seconds. That’s how long it takes for doubt to creep in. You just licked the spit of another boy. On purpose. Do you think Leo would like that?
No, I realize. I don’t.
After class, I dig out my phone and google is it cheating to lick someone else’s spit while you have a boyfriend . I click through each of the top links, scrolling through listicles and blog posts that, one day, I will understand have been written by a copywriter or a PR firm or a bored sixteen-year-old with no college degree but, at the time, are the closest I can come to moral guidance.
I keep searching. I press on a page called “Does This Count as Infidelity?” That’s how I first learn the terms precheating and emotional affair —which, as the experts agree, is in some cases even worse than sleeping with someone. I scroll frantically through headlines and subheads and four-line blocks of text. The more I read, the less certain I become.