“Probably humping Summer,” Ryan says. He’s your best friend so I guess he would know. He takes a bite of one of the soggy burritos they sell on campus, oblivious to the horror on my face.
I get a pins-and-needles feeling in my heart. It’s kind of like a heart attack but worse because it’s a heart attack for unloved girls. This is a medical fact: when a girl hears another girl is engaging in sexual activities with the boy said girl likes, her heart turns into a pincushion. Pure science.
“Humping? Ewww.” Natalie wrinkles her nose. “Summer doesn’t hump.”
I hope that’s true. I hope your worst is the PDA you two engage in all over school: kissing against the lockers, your hands gripping the skin at her waist, fingertips under her shirt. Because that is seriously bad enough. But you just look like someone who has sex a lot. I’m not holding out hope that you’re saving yourself for me.
“Oh, sorry,” Ryan says. “Would you prefer make love?”
“Or, do the nasty?” Kyle says.
“Get boned?” Peter adds.
In an unspoken decision to shun the boys in the group, Alyssa, Natalie, and I close ranks.
“This,” Lys says, “is yet another reason I thank God I was born a lesbian.”
Lys just came out last year and has yet to find a girlfriend. I wonder if that’s why she keeps saying Valentine’s Day is a social construct of The Man.
“Oh, baby, baby, how was I supposed to know…?” Kyle and Peter start up, serenading us.
“Remind me why we hang out with these fools again?” Natalie asks.
“I don’t remember,” I say.
Lys pulls out her trig homework. “I have better things to do, anyway.” She shoots the boys a glare. “FYI, you look like a bunch of asshats. I hope you weren’t intending to lose your virginity anytime soon.”
“Oh, burn,” Ryan says.
My stomach growls and I start edging toward the cafeteria. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
I turn and hurry into the thick mess of students outside before anyone can react. Despite wanting to be invisible, a part of me is sad because none of the boys in our group seem to notice my departure. None of the boys notice me, period. This sucks, but I’m a drama girl and I know my casting. I’m not the ingenue, the pretty one, the one who bursts with life. That’s Natalie. Summer. Instead, I’m somewhere hovering on the edges: of talent, of popularity, of intelligence. I’m in honors classes, but I have to study twice as hard as everyone else to keep up. The only reason I get to be involved in every show at RHS is because I take the part nobody wants: stage manager, assistant director, Everyone’s Bitch. I was the sophomore class secretary last year, but that was just luck: I impersonated a stoner in my speech and it won me the popular vote. I know lots of in-crowders (cheerleaders, jocks), but I’d never be part of their cliques. I barely get the slightest glance from them in the halls between classes. Knowing you, the Gavin Davis, is weird luck that proves I’m on Dionysus’s good side, long may the god of drama reign.
I have just enough time to scarf down the slice of pizza the government paid for and make it back to the drama room before the bell rings. I walk through the door and stop. Somehow, in just a few minutes, a black cloud swept in to block out our sun.
Summer is there sans you, her usually smooth auburn hair a frizzy mess. There are dark circles under her eyes and her face is red and puffy from crying.
A little part of me—an evil part of me—lifts. Did you break up with her?
“What’s wrong?” I murmur as I come up.
The group’s energy has gone from ten to zero in a matter of minutes. Kyle is bear-hugging Summer. He looks … stricken. I’ve never seen him this serious.
Natalie edges closer to me. “It’s Gavin,” she whispers. My stomach turns. I don’t like the way she says your name, the horror on her face.
“What about him?”
“He…” She shakes her head, big brown eyes filling. “He tried to kill himself.”
The words fly through my mind, around and around, a dog chasing its tail. Kill himself, kill himself. The bell rings and we all stand there, lost.
It can’t be true. People like you don’t kill themselves until after they’re famous. Then, and only then, are you supposed to overdose on heroin or drive an expensive car too fast on Mulholland or do any number of things that rock gods do.
I will later hear that Summer had broken up with you, that you’d gone to her house and sobbed on her front porch and said you would do it, you’d kill yourself. And she kept that door closed on you anyway. It will take me a long time—over a year—to see that her dumping you was an act of bravery.
You’d left her house, your Mustang roaring down the street. Later that night, your parents found you in the bathtub, fully clothed. The only thing that saved you was that you’d cut the wrong way and fainted before you could finish the job.
I learn all this on the five-minute walk to history, where Natalie, Kyle, Peter, and I discuss you at length. The guys can’t believe Summer was stupid enough to break up with you—you walk on water for them, too. They fall to competing over who’s most in the know about your and Summer’s relationship. This knowledge is suddenly a status symbol—whoever knows the most is your BFF. I secretly think Summer’s crazy to give you up, but I keep quiet because I don’t know you like the guys do—but I’ve wanted to and here’s my chance.
I pull out a piece of paper, suddenly compelled to write you a letter. I still don’t know exactly why I did it. I guess the thought of a world without Gavin Davis was too horrifying.
I know we don’t know each other really well …
If you ever need someone to talk to …
I’m here for you …
I don’t realize now, but this is the moment. The moment when the rest of my life in high school—the rest of my whole life—will change. The moment when I begin to lose a part of myself I’ll have to fight like hell to get back for five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
All because of a love letter in disguise.