“This is ridiculous,” he says, laughing, after our eleventh round, where I beat him 76 to 62. He leans back on the pool table, shaking his head.
“And you thought I was just talking a big game,” I say with a grin.
“You were,” he points out. “But it turns out you have the skills to back it up.”
I hoist myself onto the pool table beside him, letting my legs dangle. “Well, thanks for being such a good sport.”
He looks surprised. “Yeah … it’s kind of weird. I usually hate to lose.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, but he shakes his head.
“No, I mean it. I really, really hate to lose. I hate doing things I’m not good at, so if I love something, I get really into it, but if not, I can’t be bothered. I’m usually either all in or all out.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”
“It is,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “Nobody likes a sore loser.”
“You don’t seem like a very sore loser to me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing,” he says, turning to look at me, really look at me, for the very first time, and there’s something about catching his eye that feels like winning a prize. “With you, I don’t seem to mind it as much.”
* * *
The display case holds a ragtag assortment of dubious prizes: On the top shelf are baskets full of bouncy balls and candy, key chains and plastic rings, and below that are the bigger-ticket items, stuffed animals and inflatable bats, miniature footballs and gumball machines—everything wildly overpriced and a little bit dusty.
Griffin and I lean over the glass together, his shoulder brushing against mine in a way that makes my heart beat faster. I want him to notice, to lean into it, to turn and look at me again or to take my hand, to pull me close or kiss me—anything.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he rubs at the smudged glass with the sleeve of his shirt. In the column of light from the window, he looks impossibly handsome and incredibly far away.
We’re both quiet for a long time, for too long, and I start to get edgy, searching for something to fill the silence, because that’s what I always do. But I stop myself, deciding that it’s his turn, which only makes me more anxious. Because suddenly it seems important, whatever he might say next. Suddenly, it feels like it has the power to tip this maybe-possibly-date in one direction or the other.
I stare down at an orange plastic frog as I wait, and it stares back up at me through the filmy glass. Please let it be something meaningful, I think. Please let it be romantic.
But after a moment, he frowns. “This stuff is such a rip-off,” he says, and all the hope goes draining right out of me. He points at the basketball, which is tucked away toward the bottom. “In what world is that worth five hundred tickets?”
We pool our tickets together and I shuffle through the stack. After hours of playing, we still have only about a hundred and fifty between us.
“Maybe we could pay the difference,” I suggest, but Griffin shakes his head.
“They make a lot more money when you have to play for it.”
“Well, it’s still really sweet of you,” I tell him. “To think of Noah.”
“It’s not for Noah,” he says, his eyes still on the case. “It’s for me.”
“Oh,” I say, blinking at him. “Oh. I didn’t—okay.”
“Annie,” he says, turning to face me, and I can see that he’s smiling. “I’m only kidding.”
I let out a laugh, relieved. “Sorry. It’s just that you don’t usually … I mean, you’re always so … I guess I didn’t…”
He tilts his head to one side. “Are you trying to say that I’m not very funny?”
“No,” I say quickly, then pause and reconsider. “Well … yeah.”
Griffin smiles. “It’s okay. I’m really not.”
“Well, you have lots of other good qualities,” I say, watching as he rests both hands on the display case, rocking forward. “You’re different.”
Something flickers on his face, and there’s a slight tensing of his jaw.
“In a good way,” I say, hurrying on. “You’re not like everyone else. You’re nice. Not fake nice—actually nice. And you’re not full of yourself, even though…”
He glances sideways at me, a question on his face.
I shake my head. “Never mind. All I’m trying to say is that it’s refreshing, how you don’t play games the way other guys do. You’re honest. Maybe the most honest person I’ve ever met…”
“Annie.”
“I’m serious,” I continue, feeling oddly light-headed. I’m not prone to speeches like this, and I can’t quite believe I’m saying all of it, but there’s something about Griffin that makes me want to tell him everything I’ve been thinking. And so I do.
“And you were amazing with Noah yesterday. I’ve been trying to connect with him all summer, and I haven’t been able to get through, and then you come along, and—”
“It’s because I have Asperger’s.”
“—you’re such a natural with him, and you two are bonding over—” I stop midsentence, not sure I’ve heard him correctly. “What?”
Griffin turns to face me, though he keeps his eyes on the floor. “I have Asperger’s. Or … autism, I guess. I mean, that’s what they’re calling it now.”
There’s a long pause, and though I’m desperate to fill it, I’m having trouble figuring out how to respond. I need to choose my words carefully. I don’t want to get this wrong. But, in the end, all I manage is a quiet, “Oh.”
Immediately, I regret it. It hangs there between us, a punctuation mark arriving far too early in a conversation I’m hoping has only just begun.
“Yeah,” he says, his face entirely blank.
“So…”
“So that’s why I act the way I do, I guess.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m not always great with conversation. And sometimes I can be too honest.” He shrugs. “It’s why school can be hard, and why I don’t have a lot of friends, and why I don’t like to talk about it, and why…”
When he trails off, I bite my lip, waiting for him to continue. This is the most I’ve ever heard him speak at once, and the thought pops into my head swiftly and suddenly, like a puzzle piece snapping into place: That’s why.
That’s why he’s so quiet in school. That’s why he’s so obsessed with numbers and facts. That’s why he can never seem to tell when I’m joking. That’s why he’s always so guarded, so closed off. That’s why it’s so hard for him to look me in the eye.
Griffin takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, it’s like he’s plucked the words straight from my head. “That’s why,” he says, dragging his eyes up to meet mine, “I don’t really go on a lot of dates.”
“So this is a date?” I ask, before I can think better of it, and Griffin looks doubly embarrassed now.
“No,” he says, then shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
My face goes hot, and I scratch at my forehead. “Oh, yeah, I mean…”
“I didn’t want to assume…”
“No, me neither…”
There’s a brief pause as we both study our feet with great fascination, and then Griffin sighs. “I kind of wanted it to be.”
I glance up at him. “Wanted it to be…?”
“A date,” he says, just as the bartender pokes his head into the room, glancing from Griffin to me and then back again with obvious suspicion.
“Everything okay back here?” he asks, and I’m not sure how to answer that.
Griffin nods. “Fine.”
“We’ve had some issues with theft lately.” He points at the display case, as if it’s full of diamonds instead of jelly bracelets and yo-yos. “So if you want a prize, you need to come talk to me…”
“That’s fine,” I say, at the exact same time Griffin says, “We were just leaving.”
“Okay,” the bartender says, clearly pleased to he
ar this. “See you next time.”
“Sure,” Griffin says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
* * *
On the way back, the silence in the car is stifling, and I have a feeling there’s an easy cure for it, if only I can find the right words or ask the right question.
But I’m too afraid of asking the wrong one.
One of Griffin’s hands is on the wheel, the other is resting on the gearshift between us, and it’s alarming how much I wish I could take it in mine right now. But I don’t. I simply stare at the veins on the back of his hand, the ragged fingernail on his thumb, the knobs of his knuckles, the curve of his wrist.
This is usually my specialty. Some people are good at math, others are good at sports; I’m good at saying the right thing at the right time. I’m the one you want around when the room is still thick with anger after a fight, or when you need someone to smile sympathetically and listen to what’s wrong. I can smooth over even the most awkward of silences, cheer you up when you’re feeling down, lift the mood by sheer force of will. For better or worse, I’m a top-notch listener, a tireless ally, a relentless supporter.
But right now, I’m at a loss.
I want to say, This doesn’t change anything.
I want to say, It’s not a big deal.
I want to say, It’s going to be okay.
But it does. And it is. And it might not be.
I clear my throat, not quite sure where to begin. “Listen, I’m sorry if I—”
But Griffin lurches forward in his seat and punches the button for the radio, turning the volume up high. The conversation is clearly over, and even though he’s sitting in the exact same place he was earlier, the exact same distance from me, it’s like I can feel him retreating, getting further and further away until it’s almost hard to see him at all.
* * *
He drops me off at the school, where my car is the only one still left in the parking lot, sitting alone beneath a yellow cone of light. Griffin pulls up beside it, but he doesn’t turn off his engine, and we sit there in the quiet car, neither of us speaking.
“I had a good time,” I say eventually, and even in the blue light of the early dusk, I can see the corner of his mouth twitch. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. “Really,” I say, pushing forward stubbornly. “It was a lot of fun.”
He doesn’t answer, only gives a grudging nod.
With a sigh, I open the door and step out, but once I’ve shut it again, I lean into the open window. “Seriously,” I say. “Thank you.”
This time, he lets out a grunt, as if I’ve said something preposterous, and I realize all at once that I’m not the one doing this wrong. He is.
He shifts the car into gear and starts to pull away, but I jog after him.
“Hey,” I shout, hooking a hand around the open window, and he looks over at me, startled, then slams on the brakes. I bend down again, staring at him hard, and this time he looks back at me. But there’s a challenge in his eyes. He’s daring me to say the wrong thing, and I understand now that it was always going to be like this, no matter how I reacted. It’s like he’s been steeling himself for this moment for so long that it almost doesn’t matter how it actually unfolded. He’d already made up his mind about how it would go. He’d already decided how I’d feel about it, before I even had a chance.
But, for once, I don’t feel like acting the way someone else wants me to. I don’t feel like going along with anything, or being agreeable, or putting on a happy face.
For once, I feel like being honest.
“I thought this was a date, too,” I tell him, my cheeks already burning. “Or at least I wanted it to be.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Griffin,” I say, so sharply that he looks over. His expression is hard to make out in the growing darkness. “I’m not just saying that. I’m not trying to be polite. I really like you, okay?”
It’s true. I’m not saying it to make him feel better. Or because I feel bad for him, or even because he’s so distractingly good looking. I’m saying it because it’s a fact. And if I can spend so much time saying nice things when I don’t really mean them, why shouldn’t I be able to say them when I actually do?
“I’ve liked you since the first day of Spanish,” I continue, in spite of the fact that he’s turned away again, making it hard to tell just how much of an idiot I sound like at the moment. “Te gustar.”
He glances up at me with a frown. “Me gustas.”
“Why, thank you.” I beam at him, but his face remains impenetrable, and my smile slips. “Look, the point is, I had no idea you had Asperger’s then, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about you. So why would anything be different now?”
“It just is,” he says quietly.
I shake my head. “Not for me.”
“How could it not be?”
“Because I like you. You. The same you I’ve liked all year.” I laugh. Something about all this honesty is making me giddy. Or maybe it’s just Griffin. “How many times are you gonna make me say it?”
“It’s not that easy,” he says, but if he’s expecting me to agree with him tonight, he’s picked the wrong girl.
I grin at him, then give the hood of the car a tap, just before turning around to leave. “What if it is?”
* * *
As soon as I get into my car, my phone lights up with a text from my sister.
The glowing white letters read Date: yes or no?
I text her back: Inconclusive.
But then, a moment later, I change my mind and write, Yes.
* * *
The next day, I’m standing in the middle of the blacktop, a whirling blur of kids running circles around me. In the distance, the older campers are playing a well-coordinated game of kickball, and usually I’d be jealous of the order of it all, the calm sense of purpose to their activities. But today I can’t help laughing at the younger kids—my rowdy, frantic, overexcited crew—who are ostensibly making chalk drawings, though only two of them are actually sitting on the pavement with a fat piece of chalk in hand. Elan Dwyer is drawing an elephant with wings, and Bridget DeBerge is tracing her foot. The others have started an impromptu game of tag, and they’re sprinting around with obvious joy, red-faced and giggling and utterly delighted.
All of them except Noah, who has found a basketball.
I bend down beside him so that we’re both surveying the hoop from the same angle. He’s already panting from the heat, which is muggy and thick, and he smells the way all little kids do in the summer: like bug spray and sunscreen and sweat. He’s holding the ball with both hands as he considers his next shot, his arms already sagging.
I think of the miniature basketball from yesterday with a pang.
“How’s it going?” I ask, and he continues to squint at the basket as if he hasn’t heard me. “You know,” I say, pointing at the hoop, “the trick is to line yourself up just right.”
“No it’s not,” comes a voice from behind me. “The trick is to get the ball in the basket.”
I whirl around to find Griffin standing on the grass just beyond the pavement, wearing his usual outfit and holding the green and white basketball from the display case in one large palm.
“Hey,” I say, looking from the ball up to him and then back at the ball again. “What are you doing here?”
He nods at Noah, who is staring at him, too. “I thought this might work better,” he says, holding out the ball. Noah doesn’t move; he just continues to watch Griffin for what feels like a very long time. But then some switch flips inside of him, and his face brightens, and he rushes over to grab the ball.
“What do you say?” I yell after him, as he tucks it under one arm and runs back toward the basket.
“You’re welcome,” Noah calls over his shoulder, and I laugh.
“Close enough.”
Griffin is still standing a few feet away, looking nervous and out of place. Amid the frenzy of high voices and peals of laugh
ter and churning legs, he’s like an oasis: calm and still and focused.
He clears his throat. “Do you think we could talk for a minute?”
“Sure,” I say, looking behind me and catching Grace’s eye. I make a motion toward the corner of the building and mouth, “Be right back.” When she nods, I turn back to Griffin. “Come on,” I say, and he follows me around the side of the brick wall, where it’s shady and cool and the voices are muffled and distant.
We stand facing each other, and he steps forward so that he’s very close to me. This time, I’m the first one to look away, glancing down reflexively, where I notice an apple juice stain on my camp shirt. I lift my chin again, forcing myself to meet his eyes, surprised when he doesn’t waver.
“That was really, really nice of you,” I say, trying to hold onto my thoughts beneath his clear gaze. “To go buy a ball for him.”
There’s a hint of a smile on Griffin’s face. “I didn’t buy it.”
“What do you—” I stop, and my mouth falls open. “No way.”
He nods. “I went back last night after I dropped you off.”
“It must’ve taken so many hours.”
“It did.”
“And so many quarters.”
“It did.”
“Well, thank you,” I say. “I mean, I have no idea how you managed to do that, given your Pop-A-Shot skills, but—”
“I need to tell you something,” Griffin says, cutting me off. He looks instantly apologetic. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to … Well, see? This is what I mean. This is why I don’t have very many friends. I interrupt a lot. And I don’t always notice other people as much as I should. I once left my grandma in a department store because I was so busy reading about mycology on my phone.”
“What’s mycology?”
“The study of fungi.”
I squint at him. “What does that have to do with your grandma?”
“It doesn’t,” he says impatiently. “But I was so wrapped up in it that when I got up to leave, I totally forgot she’d come there with me.”
“Oh.”
“It’s something I’m working on. But there’s a lot that I’m working on, and I have been my whole life. I don’t always listen. And I spend too much time talking about certain things—”