Real Live Boyfriends

Of course I had felt guilty.

Of course that was why I hadn’t told him.

Suddenly, I looked around me. I was standing in the center of Dittmar’s office, revealing my ugly, unfaithful heart to everyone there. Confirming every rotten thing anyone had ever said or thought about me.

“Ruby!” It was Kim. “We’re trying to deal with our college applications. This is really important to everyone here but you. So will you please leave?”

Dittmar scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “To the headmaster, both of you. Go, now. And don’t bring this personal agony back into my office. Ever. Again.”

“I can’t tell you anything since you got back from New York,” I said to Noel as I snatched the piece of paper from Dittmar. “You don’t react. You don’t have anything to say. It’s like talking to a lobotomy patient.”

He looked at me silently.

“That came out wrong,” I said.

“Yeah. I bet.”

I grabbed my bag and left the office. As I headed down the spiral steps of the math building, I could hear Noel’s footsteps behind me.

“It’s like you don’t care anymore, Noel,” I yelled up into the stairwell. “That’s what it feels like. And I’ve tried and tried to talk to you about it, but the not-caring means you don’t want to hear what I have to say about it, and then—”

“Would I be mad about you going out with Gideon if I didn’t care?” called Noel. I kept running down the stairs.

“I didn’t go out with him!” I called back. “Nothing happened.”

A mathematical-looking freshman nearly collided with me as I rounded the landing. She squeaked and ran down the hall to her class.

“Stop being jealous!” I went on, yelling up to Noel.

And what I meant was:

Believe in me.

Don’t listen to what people say.

Don’t read the writing on the walls.

You, of all people.

Believe in me.

I kept stumbling down the stairs, but Noel ran cross-country and he caught me easily. He grabbed my upper arm. “Won’t you just listen?” he said, his voice taut.

“Don’t grab me,” I said. “You don’t get to grab me like that.”

He didn’t let go. “It is so unfair,” he said, “to accuse me of not caring and then harsh on me for being jealous.”

Okay.

I could see that.

But you know what?

Through this whole argument he hadn’t said he cared.

He’d said, “Would I be mad about you going out with Gideon if I didn’t care?”

But not that he actually cared.

“Jealousy is not the kind of caring I want,” I said. “And stop grabbing me.”

“How can I trust you when you’re going out with other people behind my back?”

“Not other people. One other person.”

“One is enough.”

“You’re not really here,” I told him. “You’re not my real live boyfriend.”

“I’m not your boyfriend?”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, you’re not acting like a boyfriend. Not a real live one. Not like the ones Meghan has.”

“I don’t know what you think one should act like!” Noel was shouting, and his voice echoed up the staircase.

“Will you please stop grabbing me?” I said.

“This isn’t making me happy,” Noel said, without letting go. “I came back from New York and I thought you would make me happy but I’m not happy.”

“Are we breaking up, then?”

Noel didn’t answer.