Bad Romance

  “This song isn’t romantic at all,” I say. I’ve heard it a million times but I’m only just now getting it. “He’s a total creepy stalker.”

  Every breath you take, every move you make … I’ll be watching you.

  Sound familiar, Gav?

  I snort. “Gavin could have written this crap.”

  Mom raises her eyebrows. “I thought things were maybe not going well.…”

  Then TALK to me about it! I want to scream. If there wasn’t this wall between my mom and me, would you and I still be together? If I wasn’t so desperate to escape my house, would I have let myself go on dates where I knew you’d probably treat me like shit, but that were still better than a night in with the stepfather from hell? Because sometimes—a lot of the time—you’ve been the lesser of two evils. That’s not true love. Not even close to it.

  I want the real deal.

  “Yeah, not so much,” I say. “He’s—we’re just growing apart, I think. He’s not very nice.”

  “Honey…” Mom bites her lip, looks away. “Trust me, you don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t treat you well.”

  I nod. “I mean, honestly, I don’t know that we’ll stay together.”

  This semblance of closeness gives me such a warm, unexpectedly cozy feeling. I grab onto that. I want to make it last. So the floodgates open and all this stuff I haven’t told her bursts out. I tell her as much as I can about you and me without admitting to sex and sneaking out and other rule breakage. I tell her you’re suffocating me.

  She takes a sip of her tea, then bursts into tears.

  “Mom!” I reach over, put a hand on her arm.

  “I’m sorry,” she wails as she tries to hold in the sobs.

  “Here,” I say, handing her the little pack of tissues in my purse.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  She wipes her eyes, blows her nose. For a minute, she looks like this little girl I saw in the mall last week who was lost. Lip trembling, eyes full of panic, she walked in a daze, trying not to cry. Then she sat down right where she was and sobbed. It was the saddest thing I’d seen in my life.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She takes in a shuddering breath. “I’m just so sorry things have worked out this way.” A wistful expression crosses her face. “Do you remember the purple house?”

  Now I’m having trouble keeping the tears in. I nod and at the same time, almost as if by silent agreement:

  “Ewww, the purple house!”

  The words are magic and they work through me, burning away all the pent-up bitterness I’ve had toward her. I’m still angry, still hurt, but the words remind me of the bond we have. Even a giant can’t break it.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I say. It’s forgiveness, as much as I can give at this point. I take her hand and squeeze it.

  She doesn’t let go.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Natalie loops her arm through mine and rests her head on my shoulder. “I love this time of year,” she says.

  Spring. It’s all about new beginnings, but I feel like autumn inside. Tomorrow is our closing night, and it’s bringing me down. When I have a show to work on, I spend less time at home. Now it’s back to long afternoons filled with chores and yelling. It’s also April, which means we’ll be finding out what colleges we got into any day now. How could I have not applied to NYU?

  “So, what’s happening with Sadie’s?” she asks.

  The Sadie Hawkins dance is next week. The girls ask the guys and all the couples wear matching clothes.

  I shake my head. “It’s a no-go for me. Gav has a show that night.”

  Natalie stops, dropping my arm. “Dude. Senior year. You promised.”

  I did. Nat, Lys, and I said we would do every senior activity together and now I’m breaking that promise.

  “My boyfriend can’t come,” I say. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Um. How about go?” She gets a sneaky look in her eye. “Gideon doesn’t have a date yet. I have a feeling he wouldn’t mind going with you at all.”

  I bump my hip against hers. “Stop it, you.”

  “Okay, but seriously,” she says. “Fly solo. I’ll ditch Kyle and dance with you all night, I promise.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t go. And it totally sucks because I really want to.”

  I love school dances. I love getting dressed up with my friends and dancing the night away.

  “Then freaking go,” she says, pulling open the door to the theater. “Seriously, Grace. It’s like you have no control over your life anymore. Are you really gonna let your psycho boyfriend take this away from you?”

  Her voice is raised as we enter the lobby and I wince. Gideon catches my eye and I fall into the dark wood of them, forget that your best friends and my best friends are watching as we stare at each other, as Gideon leaves the people he was talking to mid-sentence. As I float away from Nat. We break out into simultaneous smiles, giddy and reckless.

  I can’t breathe. It’s like an entire battalion of soft winged things have settled all over my skin. Like I said, when I fall, I fall hard.

  “Hey, you,” he says when he reaches me.

  I force myself not to touch him. Not to throw my arms around him and press my lips against his, and what am I thinking, I’m a terrible person, I’m leading him on and hurting you and—

  “Hey yourself.”

  He reaches into his pocket and hands me papers folded into a small rectangle. Another one of his epic, wonderful, smart, talented, perfect letters. It’s his turn to give me one—I wonder what he’ll say about my ode to Radiohead, what he’ll think about all my confusion regarding … everything. Home and school. You. I wonder if he’s read between the lines, how much I like him, but how I can’t say that because it’d be wrong. We can’t be together.

  When I reach out to take the note, he holds on to it a second longer, waiting for my fingers to settle against his. It’s unspoken, these secret ways of touching each other. No one will see. We can pretend that we don’t even see. I look up and he’s watching me blush, a question in his eyes.

  But I can’t answer it, I can’t.

  “Did you write me a book?” I tease.

  “Working on it.” He grins and I slip his letter into my pocket.

  Kyle and Peter come up, eyes like X-rays, and without intending to, Gideon and I step away from each other. I feel frazzled, certain they can see everything I’m starting to feel for Gideon right there on my face.

  “Hey … guys,” Peter says, looking from me to Gideon. I sort of hate Peter now.

  “Hey.” My tone is deliberately casual. “Only two more shows. Can you believe it?”

  Kyle shakes his head. “It’s so freaking crazy that this is it—the last one.”

  “There’s still the dance concert,” Gideon says.

  Peter shakes his head. “Doesn’t count. Not like this.”

  Huge things are happening in the world—terrorism, refugees, disease—and yet here I am, obsessing over my small, stupid problems. Seriously, my boy troubles are nothing. But they feel like freaking everything.

  Soon Miss B is corralling everyone onto the stage. I lead the actors in their warm-ups, doing tongue twisters like “You know New York, unique New York, you know you need unique New York.” My favorite one is from Hamlet: “Speak the speech I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.” I leave the actors to their stretching and running of lines and I lose myself in checklists and lighting cues and yelling at the crew, and for the first time in days I feel like myself.

  But then the show is over and my mom is late and I have too much time to think about you. What are we doing, Gav? Why can’t we let each other go?

  “Where’s your ride?” Gideon asks, coming to stand beside me.

  I’m in front of the theater, leaning against one of the Greek-style pillars. I should have taken Nat up on her offer to drop me off at home, but I assumed my mom was already on her way.

  I brea
the out a frustrated sigh. “Who knows?”

  “I just so happen to own a vehicle that could transport you to any location you so desire,” he says. “I even put it through the car wash yesterday, so you’d be in for a treat. I only clean Fran on the night of the full moon.”

  “I’m not sure which is weirder—the fact that you named your car Fran or that you base your car washes on the lunar cycle.”

  “What can I say? I’m a man of mystery.” He nods toward his beat-up VW Golf. “Come on. Your carriage awaits.”

  Like you wouldn’t totally freak out about me getting a ride home from Gideon.

  “My mom’s on her way, but thanks anyway.” I smile. “I’ll have to meet Fran some other time.”

  Gideon sets down his bag and stretches his arms over his head. “Well, all good things are worth the wait.”

  I don’t think he’s talking about his car. He moves closer and I shiver a little when his arm brushes mine. Stupid girl, stop it.

  “You don’t have to wait with me,” I say.

  Don’t go.

  “I’m not waiting with you. I’m … taking a break. Before I go home. I might meditate here after you leave.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “That is such bullshit.”

  He laughs, soft. “Yeah.”

  We stand there for a little, quiet.

  “Grace—”

  “Don’t,” I whisper. I know what he’s going to say. It’s time and it can’t be because I don’t want to break any hearts.

  “We have a situation,” he says quietly. “You know that.”

  I cross my arms, hugging myself. “I love him.”

  I don’t look at Gideon as I say this. I don’t want to see the look on his face.

  “I know that. But you’re not in love with him—and that’s where I come in.”

  I turn to him, staring. He just said it all out loud, just like that.

  And the world didn’t fall apart.

  “I can’t break up with him,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kill. Myself.

  “Try,” Gideon says, gentle. “Try to explain it to me.”

  “It’s been so hard,” I whisper. “And we both keep saying that once I graduate, it’ll be okay. I mean, you know my parents, how strict they are.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And, like, if all those rules weren’t in place, maybe everything would be fine.”

  “Okay … but there’s still the question of—”

  He points to himself.

  “I know.” I stare up at the stars, wishing I had courage. Wishing I could take his hand.

  My mom pulls up then and I give her a quick wave.

  I grab my backpack, relieved and disappointed at the same time.

  But Gideon, I’m learning, doesn’t give up so easily. He hands me a note written on the back of the rehearsal schedule.

  “Sweet dreams, Grace,” he says.

  He’s walking away before I can say anything else.

  Grace—

  Did you know there’s a place in Zagreb, Croatia, called the Museum of Broken Relationships? I read about it in National Geographic. People from all over the world send in objects and tell the story of their breakups. Isn’t that sort of sad and weird and beautiful?

  G.

  I FIND MYSELF wondering what I’d send in after you and I break up. That’s the scary thing—not if we break up, after we break up. Gideon knows me better than I realized.

  The star necklace, I decide.

  G—

  It is sad and weird and beautiful. I can’t help but think this is a hint of some kind.

  —Grace

  Grace—

  Hint? Who, me?

  G.

  * * *

  I WALK INTO the drama room on the afternoon of closing night and the whole cast is here because we’re all a little sad that it’s almost over and we want to be together as much as possible before the show spell is broken. Gideon is at the piano, playing a velvety jazz tune I don’t recognize. He’s intent on a handwritten sheet of music in front of him, oblivious to the whole world, squinting a little—he must have forgotten his glasses at home again. His long, thin fingers fly over the keys, and every now and then he stops and makes a note on the music sheet, then starts back up again. I lean against the piano and he looks up at me and smiles, like he’s now utterly content, and without missing a beat he scoots over on the bench and I sit next to him. You know I’m a sucker for musicians. The music flows into me and it’s like skipping down a sunny city street, but I catch the melancholy flowing under the bright notes, an enigmatic underneath. Oh, I think, I have to write that in a letter to him. He’d love that phrase—we trade words like kisses: enigmatic underneath.

  He finishes with a flourish and glances at me. “What do you think?”

  “I love it. You know I love it. I charge you with fishing for compliments.”

  He laughs, and am I imagining it or is he scooting a little closer to me? His arm rests against mine.

  “What’s it called?” I ask.

  Gideon plays the refrain: I hear raindrops and the sound of clinking glasses. Laughter and sighs.

  “Still thinking of a title,” he says.

  “Wait, you wrote that?”

  I just assumed he’d copied it from somewhere onto a sheet of music paper. I often see Gideon noodling around on the piano and he’s good—really good—but I had no idea he could do something like this.

  He shrugs. “Not that hard—notes on a page, you know.”

  “No, I definitely do not know. Gideon—that’s … I mean, that’s amazing you can do that.”

  He looks down at the keys, runs his fingers through a scale.

  “Give me your hand,” he says softly.

  I place mine in his, and there’s a jolt, soft and sudden, and we both look up, right into each other’s eyes. I hear warning bells in the back of my head, but they’re muffled by the blood rushing through me, the beating of my heart.

  He clears his throat, his lips turning up a little. “Here,” he says, placing my fingers on the keys. He shows me a few notes and I try to mimic him.

  “I sound like a stampede of elephants,” I say.

  “Um…” He laughs and I bump my shoulder against his.

  “You weren’t supposed to agree with me! That is so not, I don’t know, chivalrous.”

  He covers my hand with his own and presses my fingers down slowly. It’s better together.

  I slip my hand out from under his, confused and guilty.

  “I’m ruining your song,” I say.

  “Well, technically you’re ruining your song.”

  “What—” Oh. Oh.

  “Gideon!”

  We turn around, both jumping a little. Peter and Kyle are staring at us. Oh god. Your best friends just saw … whatever this was.

  “We gotta run through the sword fight,” Kyle says. He won’t look me in the eye.

  Before I can say anything, Gideon scoots off the bench and grabs the sheet music. “It’s not ready yet.”

  His rests his hand on my shoulder for just a minute before he goes to join the others. I stay on the piano bench, staring at the keys. Black and white. No gray.

  Natalie sits on the bench almost as soon as Gideon gets up, straddling it.

  “Yes,” she says.

  “What?”

  She nods to where Gideon is. “Yes to him. Si, oui, ja, darling.”

  I shake my head, face burning. “Stop it,” I growl. “I love Gavin.” She gives me the stink eye. “I do.”

  “No, you’re brainwashed by him.”

  “Dude—”

  “Everyone can see it—you and Gideon. You don’t just like each other. This is something … big. He gets you, Grace,” she says. “You’re not fooling any of us.”

  My heart snags on her words. “Please tell me that’s not true.”

  Because if that’s the case, it’s only a matter of time before you find
out. Oh god. What have I done?

  “It’s true,” Natalie says, soft. “And it’s okay. You’re only eighteen; you can’t stay with Gavin the rest of your life just because he says he’ll kill—”

  I shake my head. “I have to go.”

  “Grace—”

  I give her a backward wave. “See you tonight!”

  I don’t look back to say good-bye to Gideon because I don’t trust myself around him anymore.

  I rush to the library and it’s only there that I see the tiny square of paper tucked into the pocket of my jacket.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Grace—

  Okay, it’s like this: the universe is huge, right? And we’re just the tiniest speck on a tiny planet and we’ll live for not even a second of a star’s life. And yet. We’re stardust. I read it in a science magazine, I’m not being poetic here: you, me—we’re the stuff of stars. So keep that in mind when shit’s getting you down.

  Meet me by the gym after school, okay? Promise? Double pinkie swear?

  G.

  The bell rings and I find myself rushing to the gym, books clasped in my arms, stomach hurting in a good way because I’m going to see Gideon and then everything will be all right. But that’s wrong, wrong, I should go home. Wait by the phone for you to call. You’re coming to the show tonight and I’m here doing—what, exactly? It’s not technically wrong to talk to my friend, it’s not. Your rule is unrealistic and childish. It’s a rule that’s meant to be broken.

  Gideon’s already there, leaning against the gate that surrounds the pool across from the gym. He’s reading one of his thousand manga books, engrossed. Nerdy and cute, and I love how he purses his lips when he’s concentrating. Gideon drops into other worlds the way other people walk into rooms.

  “Hey,” I half whisper.

  He looks up and smiles. “Hey, you.” He throws the book onto his backpack, which is leaning against the gate. “Tell me your day.”

  It’s this phrase he only uses with me. We tell each other our days like it’s a story, embellishing, as though we were sitting around a campfire.

  “Well, a gentleman wrote me a song,” I begin. God, here I am flirting with him. Again.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Do tell.”