12. Then
T he remainder of August, leading up to the start of school, is painfully quiet.
I work more hours to take my mind off the fact that the boys are gone, but I feel their absence every minute of the day.
Sometimes, when I’m passing Danny’s room, I stop and peer in, hungry for something: a scent, a memory.
As if I can stand here long enough to carry myself back in time.
There’s nothing, of course. The sheets on the twin beds have been changed, the laundry is gone, the floor is swept.
Our dinners are simpler, and quieter. The pastor and Donna talk, and I sit in silence with nothing to add.
It’s hard to contribute when all I’m allowed to say is what they want to hear.
I can’t tell them I dread school and dread work and that I have this strange, constant ache in my chest that just won’t go away.
The one thing I gain in Danny’s absence is time.
I don’t play guitar when the pastor is home—he is bothered when he sees me being “unproductive”—but when he’s gone, I practice, and those moments fill me in a way nothing else seems to.
Donna always manages to give me a quick hug afterward, to tell me how pretty it was.
It’s her way of letting me know she approves.
But aside from that, I’m empty—so empty—and it wasn’t like this last year.
Yes, I was often tired, and I wished my life was a little more exciting—but it wasn’t this .
Those few months with the boys here have changed everything, and not for the better.
I no longer fit in anywhere. Not here, and not at school, where everyone but me is talking about college.
I’ve done the math: all those long hours I spent last summer cleaning up ketchup-covered tables, being hit on and condescended to…
they don’t even amount to enough to cover a single semester.
And I know I could get loans, but then what?
The only thing I’m really interested in is singing, and how’s a degree going to help me there?
I let most of the rites of passage slip by, simply because of the cost. I had to replace the bike—getting to the high school in Haverford requires three different buses without it—but I don’t feel safe biking at night and can’t afford Uber, which means no football games or parties.
I spend Senior Skip Day working. Shane Harris asks me to Homecoming “just as friends” but a dress would cost money I shouldn’t be spending, and I can’t imagine explaining to the pastor and Donna that I’m going to a dance with someone else.
Hailey’s the only one who still texts, and even she has stopped asking me to hang out because she’s tired of my excuses.
The highlight of my week, the only highlight, is watching Danny’s games on TV every Saturday.
“I can’t tell them apart,” says Donna. “I’m not sure I’d even recognize Danny if they ever let him play. Which one is Luke again?”
“He’s the wide receiver,” says the pastor.
I know exactly which one Luke is. Even in a helmet and pads, no one else on the field combines his height and agility. He’s as graceful and powerful there as he is in the water.
When he runs, it’s a thing of beauty. When he leaps in the air, his large hands plucking a football high above him without a moment’s hesitation, I marvel at what the human body is capable of.
The pastor has never said a single word on Sunday that makes me believe in God, but watching these games makes me think there must be something greater out there, something miraculous.
Because what else could possibly explain Luke?
“You sure you don’t want to go to Homecoming?” Danny asks during our next phone call. “If this guy said it was just as friends, I really don’t mind.”
“He doesn’t want to be her friend,” growls Luke, closer to the phone than I first realized. Something lights up inside me at the sound of his voice. “Pull your head out of your ass, Dan.”
Danny laughs. “You’re too cynical, Luke.”
“And you’re too fucking trusting,” Luke replies.
Luke’s right. Danny’s too fucking trusting.
* * *
When San Diego plays San Jose State in November, Donna, the pastor, and I all attend.
The pastor wanted to save money by driving out on the day of the game, but for once, Donna prevailed and we left the night before.
It’s our only real chance to get time with Danny since he’ll be busy before the game and will leave immediately afterward.
The pastor didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to stay in the same room as him and Donna but agreed to let me pay for an adjoining room.
Donna swallowed down her disagreement…she’d pushed him to let us come a night early and she’s worried he’ll just abandon the whole plan if she continues to fight.
I’m not sure how she wound up in this position—with so little power, begging to ever get her way about anything—but I know I don’t want that for myself. I wonder if there’s a way to attain Donna’s kindness and contentment with life without giving myself away entirely.
The team has already arrived by the time we check into the hotel. We meet Danny in the lobby to take him to dinner. “Thank you for coming,” he says against my ear as he hugs me. “You have no idea how good it is to see you.”
The pastor takes us to a restaurant in town. Donna asks about Luke, and I listen without saying a single word. “I wish he’d come with us to dinner tonight,” Donna says, and Danny looks from her to his father.
“I told Danny this should only be family,” the pastor says.
I catch the briefest flash of anger in her eyes before she gives her husband a small but firm smile. “Luke is a part of the family.”
Good for you, Donna.
The pastor’s mouth opens to argue, but something in her face silences him. Maybe he’s starting to realize he doesn’t hold all the cards, that there’s nothing to stop her from leaving him now that Danny’s out of the house and I’m nearly out too.
After dinner, we return to the hotel. Danny and I tell his parents goodnight and take a cab to some sorority party on campus. My stomach is tied in knots on the way—I don’t know how the team got invited, but it certainly seems like the kind of thing Luke would be attending.
I follow Danny into a stunning house that is crammed with people, most of whom already appear to be drunk.
The lights are bright, the music loud. Couples are pressed to walls, atop each other on chairs, ignoring the splendor—the high ceilings, the built-in bookshelves and ornate moldings, the hardwood floor a guy scuffs carelessly as he drags a chair across it.
I wonder if the girls who live here—on someone else’s dime, with no supervision—can even grasp how free they are, how lucky they are.
They don’t have to help make dinner. They don’t have to clean.
They probably don’t even fucking work. No one’s going to ask them why they’re late, no one’s going to make them feel guilty about drinking a beer on a Saturday night or taking their boyfriends upstairs.
“Out back!” someone yells to Danny, and we go through the French doors leading to the terrace.
Outside, there are kids everywhere in folding chairs, couples entangled with no shame whatsoever.
Someone calls Danny’s name from the darkest part of the yard, and we follow the sound blindly, eventually stumbling on a group of guys in a circle, Luke among them and already with a girl, of course.
He gives me the smallest nod in greeting, nothing more, as if I don’t matter, as if he’d forgotten me. I’m not sure why I care.
We sit and I listen to them talk about some incident at dinner with the coach, and a bunch of football stuff I don’t understand.
They ask Danny if the pastor is going to let him sleep in my room, then they tease Luke about spending more time in the water than in class.
“If you were half as interested in football as surfing,” one of them says, “we’d be winning this season. ”
Luke doesn’t look at me once the entire time, and I’m not sure how I ever convinced myself there was something between us that shouldn’t have been there. Maybe I just got so accustomed to hostility from him that I mistook its absence for care.
There’s a couple pressed to the bathroom door when I go inside, the guy’s hand in the girl’s skirt. I ask if I can get by and they don’t stop what they’re doing, but simply scoot over a foot. They aren’t ashamed of what they want—that’s the part that strikes me most.
When I reach Danny again, he’s alone, waiting for me. I wonder if his friends are trying to give him some privacy. This part of the yard is entirely dark, so we’d have it.
“You ready to head home?” he asks.
No. Enough . I’m tired of acting like we are ten years old.
I swing my legs over his lap to straddle him, the way I’ve seen girls do to Luke.
“Juliet,” he whispers, suddenly tense. “This isn’t a good idea.” He places his hands on my hips as if he intends to push me away. I ignore him. I want more. I need more.
I can’t keep being this girl who holds hands and doesn’t drink or dance and who only gets one moment to be who she is—that solo in church, singing something I didn’t choose and don’t even like.
I need more. This discontentment, this dissatisfaction with him, is a barrier I can just break through if he’ll help me do it.
There has to be a way I can remain with him and also… like my life.
I kiss him.
“Juliet,” he argues, but I feel him pressed between my legs, hard, and all the blood in my body seems to flow to that exact spot.
I shift against him and stifle a groan. The walls at the Allens’ house are thin and the rooms are close together.
Even in the dead of night, I’m too scared to touch any part of myself.
“You should probably get off my lap,” he says. Despite the dim light, I can tell he’s flushing, unable to meet my eye.
I place my hands on either side of his face. “I think that’s a natural reaction to having a girl in your lap.”