She was sent away right at the strange, obsessive peak of her fascination—after she’d watched him for two years, after she’d decided to ask him to the first girl-boy dance at school. But at recess, instead of finding him reading under a tree like usual, she’d found him limply ricocheting between two bullies on the playground. Delilah had kicked Ethan Pinorelli in the shin, punched James Towne in the jaw, received a reflexive shove to the face, and promptly been expelled.
Horrified, her parents had sent her to live and attend private school near Delilah’s eccentric grandmother. But far from the strict Catholic school Delilah’s parents had hoped for, Saint Ben’s was the key that had unlocked Delilah’s imagination.
The distance might have also muted her crush over the years, but Delilah found she could hardly stop watching Gavin now.
“What are you staring at?” Dhaval asked, nudging her shoulder and bringing her out of her thoughts.
She swallowed a bite of apple and lifted her chin toward where now-teenage Gavin sat beneath a tree, reading alone.
Dhaval snorted. “You’ve been locked up too long in the school full of girls if you think that’s the best you can do.”
Shaking her head, Delilah insisted, “No, look at him.”
“I’m looking.”
“He’s so tall now. . . and long.” Gavin had always been that way, long and gangly with joints that seemed to be too big for the parts they connected. Now his skyscraper legs fit his huge feet, and his arms were a perfect match for the torso that kept going and going. Gavin was all grown up, and looking like he had a million secrets: He was Delilah’s form of kryptonite.
Beside her, Dhaval hummed in neutral agreement.
“And he’s not that skinny anymore,” she added. “He’s actually kind of muscular.” Even Delilah heard the way her voice shaped that word—“muscular”—like it was a little dirty.
“If you say so.”
“And. . .” Delilah trailed off. What could she say? I’ve been sort of obsessively fascinated with him since we were nine, and I’m shocked to find out he’s even better than I expected?
“Didn’t you slip a note in his locker?” Dhaval asked. “Before you were shipped off to Saint Ben’s?”
Delilah nodded, laughing. Apparently, her fascination with Gavin Timothy wasn’t as secret as she’d thought.
“What did it say again?” he asked.
“It said, ‘I don’t want you to hide. I like you.’”
Beside her, Dhaval burst into laughter. “That’s so cheesy, Dee. Also, it’s still true.”
She chewed her fingernail, unable to look away from the shadow of a boy beneath a tree. “I wonder if he ever got it.”
“He did,” Dhaval said through a bite of sandwich. “Then someone—I don’t remember who—took it from him and made a big deal out of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘made a big deal out of it’?”
Dhaval waved his hand dismissively. “Like, read it in front of a group of kids on the playground, made kissy noises, whatever.”
“What did Gavin do?”
“I think he laughed along for a minute and then asked for the note back.”
Delilah smiled a little. Gavin wanted the note, at least. Sadly, it might be the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her and she was only hearing about it six years later.
She had a thousand questions about life in Morton since she’d left for boarding school. One day Delilah was a sixth grader at Morton Middle School. The next afternoon she was on a plane to Massachusetts. Coming back for a week here, two weeks there was never enough time for her to get back into the rhythm of the small town. Just when she was catching up, it was time to leave. Other than Dhaval, who would have been her friends? Who would have been her first kiss? Who was dating whom?
But now most of her questions were about Gavin. Did he have a girlfriend? Did he still play the piano? And, of course, had Dhaval ever seen a parent, or any grown-up really, near him? It was the biggest mystery of Delilah’s childhood: Gavin had been the one kid without anyone at Back to School Night, or school plays, or even waiting for him at the curb at the end of the day.
Her fascination had always been a mixture of preteen longing and bearlike protectiveness.