“You can too. He’s supposed to go after you if you’re upset. Finn would never leave me crying on the street talking to a mailbox.”
No. None of Meghan’s boyfriends would ever have done that.
“You have bad luck with guys, Roo,” Meghan went on. “It’s like, you pick ones who have zero talent at being boyfriends.”
“Jackson was a good boyfriend.”
“Jackson? Please.”
“He was a good boyfriend to Kim, at least,” I said, “if not to me. He was
“Uh, yeah,” said Meghan sarcastically. “He cheated on her and then dumped her at school. Roo, hello?”
“Whatever. The problem is obviously me. Guys don’t want mental-patient girlfriends. Except in the movies.”2
Meghan pulled the Jeep into her driveway. “Noel should have gone after you. Even if he wants to break up, he should still have gone after you.”
“Maybe,” I said, looking at beautiful Meghan in the setting sunlight.
Her reddish brown curls hung across her shoulders. She wore a pair of Finn’s old jeans and a Tate Prep tank top. Even though I knew most of the girls at school hated her, even though I knew she had lost her dad and saw a shrink, even though she couldn’t
Because she never seemed to second-guess her thoughts.
Me, I second-guess everything.
1 This is precisely the kind of behavior that makes girls generally hate Meghan. Like: Why does she need to be rubbing her sexy body up against my boyfriend’s torso? Why?
But I have learned to ignore this aspect of her because she is so freaking nice to me—and in this case, I was grateful. There I was, red-faced with embarrassment, anger and tears, and she was able to act like nothing tragic had happened.2 Movies where a quality guy loves a girl and sticks with her even though she’s one or another kind of insane—maybe alcoholic, maybe addict, maybe psychotic or depressed:
Surprise Kissing!
e-mail from Hutch:
I am eating a strange pretzel in the airport. It is warm, with cinnamon sugar and frosting. Long and thin, not normal pretzel shape. Like the baby of a cinnamon bun and a pretzel.
Seems wrong, somehow.
My flight doesn’t leave for another hour.
The real purpose of this e-mail: Are you okay?
I wrote back:
Sorry about last night.
Again, sorry sorry sorry.
Re: Pretzel. That is your last American deliciousness! Savor its American pastry goodness, as from here on in it will be all patisserie.
(You poor thing. Can you tell I am v. jealous?)
Re: Am I okay?
Yeah.
Slept at Meghan’s.
Home now.
Mom giving me silent treatment.
I tried to apologize, but she said she wouldn’t accept it until I took back what I said about her bossing Dad.
But you know what? She bosses Dad.
So I wouldn’t take it back.
Hutch replied:
Re: Last night. No worries. Honestly was relieved not to have to eat white chocolate.
They are boarding my flight now.
I threw the pretzel out and got a giant bag of Sour Patch Kids for last American deliciousness.
Au revoir.
Hutch never wanted to talk about me and Noel. And so we never did. It was almost a forbidden subject between us—not that we ever talked very intimately anyway. Those e-mails were probably some of the most personal things we ever said to each other.
It’s funny how you can see a person in your greenhouse every day, and you can watch movies next to him on the couch and sometimes go get pizza or something for most of a summer, and you still don’t share all the dark secret details of your lives.
Back when I was friends with Nora, Kim and Cricket, the dark secret details of our lives were what friendship
