I said earlier that Hutch and I never spoke about Noel and me. Only now: I wrote him an e-mail explaining the whole debacle. The sordid details of the breakup, the Halloween party, the argument in the parking lot. Plus everything Claude had told me: the accident, Booth, Noel’s wanting to forget.
Because Hutch is my friend.
And he’s my only friend who’s really and truly Noel’s friend.
I needed my friends just then.
I thought maybe Hutch would freak out at the excess emotion and hysteria in my note, and do a typical guy thing and ignore it. But he didn’t. He wrote back three days later.
Then, after several paragraphs about his Parisian adventures, he wrote:
A Nighttime Escapade!
Noel,
It may have come to your attention that while I have abdicated the dubious throne of the bake sale and let Nora take the damn thing over, I am still yoked into trying to recruit the masculine contingent of Tate Prep to bake stuff for December 20.
Your chocolate croissants, though shockingly late in their delivery last year, were nevertheless enjoyed by both humans and Great Danes alike. Can you repeat the performance? Or pledge some alternate French pastry–type item?
Ruby
the above e-mail may not look like it, but it was a love letter.
Noel had made me the chocolate croissants last June—he had pledged them under serious pressure for the springtime edition of the sale, but then hadn’t delivered them because we weren’t speaking to each other. When he finally did bake them, it was to show me that he wanted me the way I wanted him.
Reminding him of the croissants—asking him to make them again—was asking him to start over with me.
I spent a lot of time thinking about whether to send that e-mail.
Last time we’d spoken, he and I had been yelling at each other in the parking lot.
And if Noel was immature and in denial, like Doctor Z thought, did I really want that kind of boyfriend? Shouldn’t I find someone new, like Meghan said? Or just focus on my backstroke and my college apps, like Varsha and Nora advised?
No.
It might be deranged, but I still wanted Noel. Now that I knew he wasn’t going out with the vampire and in fact had only kissed her to get my attention, there seemed like there might be some hope that he wanted me. Going after him might not be the smart choice, the logical choice—but it was how I felt, and Doctor Z always encouraged me to try to get what I wanted.
To feel I
“If I don’t have panic attacks and I’ve flushed my self-loathing down with all the poo,” I said to Doctor Z, “then who am I?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve thought of myself as the girl with serious mental health issues for, like, more than a year now,” I said. “So if I don’t have them, what girl am I now?”
“You wonder who you are,” she said.
“My point is that I think I’m over my self-loathing,” I said. “I think I might actually be a functioning human at this point.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve let go of this idea of yourself as mentally ill.”
“Um. Yes. I mean, I’m not saying I’ve handled things well or anything, but I don’t think I handled them like a deranged person.”
“Because you’re not deranged, Ruby.”
“I know,” I said. “I think I actually know that. Do you know what Noel said to me once? He said: ‘You’re not mental. You
“Interesting.”
“I didn’t know what he meant then. I thought, What’s the difference? But I get it now.”
Doctor Z smiled.
“It feels weird,” I went on.
