What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know

  for like the ninety-millionth time.

  The three of us just sit here,

  listening to it ring and ring and ring …

  till the answering machine

  finally gets around to picking it up.

  Then Dad clears his throat and says,

  “Your mother and I were thinking

  of skipping the convention tomorrow.”

  “No!” I almost shout. “I’ll be fine here by myself.”

  “Are you sure?” Mom says.

  “I’m positive,” I say.

  “You guys don’t have to worry.”

  “But we like to worry,” Dad says with a grin.

  “Yeah,” Mom says. “We’re great at worrying.

  We’re a couple of worrying geniuses.”

  “I’ve noticed that about you,” I say.

  And they both crack up at this,

  like it was way funnier than it actually was.

  Saturday Morning

  I don’t remember

  getting out of bed

  or coming down the stairs.

  But I must have.

  Because here I am,

  sitting at the kitchen table

  like a zombie.

  I don’t remember

  grabbing hold of the telephone wire

  or yanking it out of the wall.

  But I must have.

  Because here I am,

  holding the cord

  in my hand.

  I don’t remember

  opening up the cabinet

  or getting out the milk or the cereal.

  But I must have.

  Because here I am,

  staring down into

  a bowl of soggy Cheerios.

  Saturday Afternoon

  I’ve been lying on my bed for hours,

  feeling as demolished as Van Gogh must have felt

  right before he slashed his own ear off,

  just lying here

  staring at the portrait I drew of Sophie

  that I’ve got tacked up on my wall,

  when, for some reason,

  I start thinking about

  Honk and Eve and Tessa and Richard,

  thinking about how the four of them

  are the closest thing I’ve ever had to actual friends,

  maybe the closest thing I ever will have.

  And about how I wish I had their phone numbers

  so I could call one of them up right now and

  tell them my troubles, like friends do with friends …

  But if I did that—

  if I told them about Sophie and me,

  told them about why I’ve got to break up with her,

  I’d have to admit that I’m still just in high school.

  And then I’d have to explain

  about the whole Murphy thing.

  Which would make me feel twice as demolished

  as Van Gogh must have felt

  right before he slashed his own ear off.

  Oh, No!

  The doorbell’s ringing!

  Sophie?

  I rush over to the window

  and peek through the curtain.

  But it’s only Mrs. Jeffries,

  the cranky old ball thief who lives next to us.

  I tramp down the stairs and pull open the door.

  “What on Earth took you so long?” she says.

  But she doesn’t wait for me to answer.

  She launches right in,

  telling me that the only reason

  she dragged herself all the way over here

  is because my parents just called her.

  She says they’ve been phoning me all day,

  but they haven’t been able to reach me,

  so they asked her to knock on the door

  to make sure I was all right.

  She says I should be ashamed of myself

  for worrying my folks like that,

  and that if I was a decent young man,

  I’d phone them back right this minute

  and apologize.

  So I force my lips into a smile and say,

  “Thanks, Mrs. Jeffries. I’ll give them a call.”

  Even though I’m not a decent young man.

  In fact, I’m not a man at all.

  I’m just a wuss.

  A pathetic little wuss

  who’s too scared to face

  his own soon-to-be-ex girlfriend.

  Mom Sounds So Relieved

  “Robin!” she cries. “It’s you!”

  “You recognized my voice,” I say,

  making a feeble attempt at humor.

  I can almost feel

  the feathery touch of her fingers

  on my forehead.

  She asks me how I am.

  And I tell her I’m fine.

  But both of us know I’m lying.

  Then Dad gets on the line

  and tells me there’s a blizzard

  falling in Vermont.

  So they won’t be able

  to make it home

  until the morning.

  Suddenly I feel like I’m Wile E. Coyote,

  and Road Runner’s just flattened me

  with another one of those Acme anvils.

  Because what good will it do me

  to have the house all to myself,

  if Sophie isn’t here

  to be alone with me?

  Now Mom Gets Back on the Line

  “Promise me you’ll leave the phone plugged in.

  You can let the machine answer all the calls.

  But that way, if you hear it’s us,

  you can still pick up.”

  So I say that I will,

  and then I apologize for worrying them—

  as per my annoying next-door neighbor’s

  instructions.

  But as soon as I say good-bye,

  Mrs. Jeffries starts ringing the bell again.

  And she’s really leaning on it

  this time.

  The echoing clang of it

  ricochets off the walls of my skull.

  Why won’t old Freezerface

  just leave me alone?

  I do not feel like dealing with her right now.

  But it doesn’t sound like she’s getting ready

  to stop beating up on our bell anytime soon.

  So I guess there’s no way out of it…

  I trudge back over to the door

  and yank it open.

  Only it’s not Mrs. Jeffries—

  it’s Sophiel

  My Heart Catapults Up Into My Throat

  Then boomerangs

  right back down

  into my feet.

  I never knew a person could feel

  like jumping for joy

  and jumping off a bridge

  at the exact

  same

  moment.

  I Don’t Know What to Do

  So I don’t do anything.

  And neither does Sophie.

  She just stands there

  watching me squirm,

  with this almost smile on her lips,

  her arms folded across her chest,

  her cheeks all rosed from the cold,

  her eyes shooting sparks straight into mine,

  looking so outrageously beautiful that I just about keel over.

  I want to scoop her up into my arms.

  I want to grab her and kiss her.

  I want to zip our bodies together,

  like we’re two halves of the same sleeping bag.

  But I just stand here,

  with my arms pressed stiffly to my sides.

  Because I can’t do any of that stuff with her.

  Ever again.

  And I’m Gonna Have to Tell Her That

  Right now.

  But just as I’m about to open my mouth

  and force the awful words out,

  Sophie brushes past me,

  marching straig
ht up the stairs

  and down the hall toward my bedroom.

  I watch her disappear through the door,

  and my heart starts flopping around in my chest

  like a fish fighting for its life.

  I’m gonna have to walk right up those same stairs

  and tell her it’s over between us.

  Even if it kills me—which it definitely will.

  So I force myself to spring into action,

  like Spider-Man on a mission,

  and sprint up the steps two at a time.

  But a second later,

  when I burst into my room,

  Sophie doesn’t even glance up.

  She’s sitting on my bed,

  drawing something on the huge sketch pad

  that I keep by my desk.

  I open my mouth to speak.

  But the words refuse to cooperate,

  cowering in the back of my throat like scared dogs.

  When Sophie Finally Looks Up at Me

  Her face is a neutral mask.

  She motions for me to

  sit down next to her on the bed,

  then continues crisscrossing the paper

  with straight black lines,

  separating the sheet into what look like

  the empty frames of a page out of a comic book.

  Then she starts filling in the first frame,

  while I sit here next to her,

  watching her drawing take shape,

  trying to ignore the shivers

  that ripple all through me

  every time the smooth, warm skin

  of her bare arm brushes up against mine.

  Sophie’s drawing a picture of a girl—

  a girl who looks a lot like her.

  The girl’s standing in the middle

  of a snow-covered football field,

  watching a boy who’s running away from her.

  Sophie draws a teardrop

  trickling down the girl’s cheek.

  Next, she adds a thought cloud

  above the girl’s head.

  But she doesn’t write any words inside of it.

  She just draws this big question mark.

  And then she passes the pencil

  and the sketch pad

  back to me.

  So I Start Working on the Second Frame

  I draw a close-up of the boy.

  (Guess who he looks like.)

  I draw him

  with this expression on his face

  like maybe someone just told him

  he flunked out of school.

  Or that his house

  just burned down to the ground.

  Or that he’s got to tell his girlfriend

  he’s breaking up with her.

  Even though

  just thinking about doing that

  makes him feel like

  he’s having open-heart surgery—

  without an anesthetic.

  When I Finish the Boy’s Face

  I draw a thought cloud above his head.

  And inside of it, I write:

  I CAN’T TELL HER …

  I JUST CAN’T TELL HER …

  Then I pass the sketchbook back to Sophie,

  and she draws the girl walking down the street alone,

  a trail of jagged question marks

  following after her like a gang of evil spirits.

  And then I draw the boy,

  rushing up the stairs past his mother.

  And Sophie draws the girl,

  knocking on the boy’s front door.

  And I draw the boy,

  standing at the window,

  watching the girl walk away—

  a small figure hunched against an icicled world.

  Then Sophie fills in the next frame.

  And I fill in the next.

  And we keep on going like this,

  passing our story back and forth …

  But I still

  can’t bring myself to tell her

  what I’ve been avoiding telling her

  all along.

  Finally

  Sophie draws a picture of the boy and the girl

  sitting together on a bed.

  The girl’s drawing a picture

  in a sketchbook.

  Then Sophie passes the story

  back to me,

  letting her fingers touch mine

  as she hands me the pencil,

  sending rivers of wanting

  all through me,

  rivers so deep

  that I ache.

  But I’m Gonna Have to Learn to Live with That Ache

  So I grit my teeth

  and make myself draw a picture

  of myself telling Sophie

  the terrible thing I heard Dylan say yesterday:

  YOU ARE SUCH A STEIN.

  My hand shakes when I write these words

  into the speech cloud above my head.

  But I make myself keep going:

  AND WHEN I HEARD DYLAN SAY THAT,

  I REALIZED I WAS GONNA HAVE TO

  BREAK UP WITH—

  But Sophie plucks the pencil from my hand.

  She looks at me and I look at her,

  and neither one of us even blinks.

  Then, at the exact same moment,

  we say, “I love you.”

  And both of us start laughing.

  But sort of crying, too.

  Then, at the exact same moment,

  we lean in for a kiss.

  And it’s one of those

  waves breaking,

  cymbals crashing,

  thunder and lightning kinds of kisses.

  When We Stop to Catch Our Breath

  Sophie tells me

  she knows what Dylan’s been saying.

  She says lots of people at school have been saying it.

  For weeks now.

  And when she tells me this,

  my heart turns to roadkill in my chest.

  “I thought you knew …” she says.

  shake my head no.

  “I’m not gonna lie,” she says.

  “I’m not gonna tell you it doesn’t hurt.

  It flips me out whenever I hear someone say it.

  But we can’t let those idiots break us up.”

  And when she wraps her arms around me,

  I feel like I’ve been rescued.

  Like I’m a passenger on the Titanic,

  and Sophie’s my lifeboat.

  “Everything will work out…” I say. “It will.”

  “Sometimes you just know things, too,” she says.

  And we lean in

  for another kiss—

  the type of kiss

  that if someone had been turned into a frog

  and then he got a kiss like this,

  it would definitely turn him back into a prince.

  Or maybe even into a king.

  It Feels So Good, I Don’t Ever Want It to Stop

  But, after a while,

  Sophie unlocks her lips from mine.

  Then, staring steamily into my eyes,

  she stands up next to the bed

  and slowly starts pulling off her T-shirt.

  Whoa—!

  I practically pass out…

  But then I see that she’s wearing

  a tank top underneath it.

  Dang … I adjust my jeans

  while she grabs a marker

  from the coffee can on my desk

  and spreads her T-shirt out flat on the floor.

  Then, in big black in-your-face letters,

  she writes: I AM SUCH A STEIN,

  and on the back she puts:

  AND PROUD OF IT!

  All of a sudden, I’m tearing off my own T-shirt,

  laying it out on the floor, grabbing a marker,

  and scrawling: I’M WITH STEIN.

  “I love it!” Sophie says.

  Then I reach out, pulling her in to me. br />
  And she feels unbelievably soft

  against my bare chest.

  “Outlaws rule …” I murmur,

  pressing my lips to hers.

  Somehow

  We end up back on my bed.

  I don’t even know how we got here.

  Floated, probably.

  We haven’t taken off

  any more of our clothes.

  And we still haven’t gone past first base.

  But I sure am

  starting to think about

  stealing second …

  The currents of electricity

  surging between us

  could light up the entire city of Cambridge.

  Between kisses,

  I tell Sophie that my parents

  won’t be coming home tonight.

  “No chaperones?!” she gasps,

  pretending to be horrified.

  “I must inform my mother at once!”

  Now we’re laughing and kissing

  and pressing our bodies together so hard

  that it feels like we’re merging—

  merging

  into one breathless being

  with two hammering hearts …

  And Then the Telephone Rings

  I force myself to break away from Sophie

  and stagger over to my bedroom door,

  so I can listen when the phone machine picks up

  and hear if it’s my parents.

  Sophie comes up close behind me,

  and lets her silky hair

  brush against my bare shoulders,

  covering me with goose bumps

  Then—“Robin?”

  Mom’s voice calls out through the speaker.

  “Sweetie pie? Are you there? If you don’t pick up,

  your father and I will worry …”

  Sophie runs her fingers lightly across my back.

  Then she gives me a playful shove out the door

  and says, “You better answer it.

  Sweetie pie.”

  Grrrr.

  Now I Switch into Hyper Gear

  Because

  the sooner I answer the phone,

  the sooner I can get back to Sophie

  to continue right where we left off.

  I charge down the hall like the Energizer Bunny

  and grab the phone.

  “’Sup, Mom?” I say,

  trying to sound all casual.

  She asks me how I’m feeling,

  and I tell her I’m better.

  “You do sound a little more up …” she says.