How to Love

He slid behind the wheel, groped around in the backseat, and produced a gray hoodie. He looked annoyed. “Reena, can you forget your principles or whatever for one second and just take it? It’ll be a few minutes before the car warms up.”

He looked awfully good in the dark, and I found myself nodding. “Okay.”

“Good.” Sawyer stepped on the gas. “That wasn’t so hard, right?”

I didn’t answer. “It’s going to cost them a lot of money,” I said instead.

“That’s what insurance is for.”

“I guess.” I pushed a CD into the stereo. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme. I leaned my head against the window as the music started up.

“So,” he said. “About before.”

I exhaled. “Sawyer, can we please, please, please just forget about before? I was a bitch for no reason. Sometimes I just act that way.” That was a lie. I’d had a reason—in fact, I’d had two—but I’d rather have Sawyer think I had a random mean streak than that I’d been jealous of the attention he’d been paying to other girls. Jealousy made you vulnerable. Meanness just made you an ice queen. “Let’s just not talk about it, okay? I’m sorry I was nasty to you.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry.”

“Of course you’re not.”

“Why do you keep saying shit like that to me?”

“I don’t know. See? Bitch for no reason.” I closed my eyes and moved as close to the window as the seat belt would allow. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, exactly, but if I kept looking at him I was afraid I’d lose it completely, in front of this boy I had wanted and wanted and wanted for so long that wanting him was built into me, part of my chemical makeup, part of my bones, so that now, even when I had him, I couldn’t stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Okay.” He was quiet then, let the music play on and on until I had lost track of how long it had been. The engine growled, steady and loud.

“Oh, Christ!” he said next, half laughing but stepping hard on the brakes.

“What?” My eyes flew open as Sawyer’s Jeep skidded for half a second in the middle of the deserted road. “What’s wrong?”

He nodded at the windshield. “Look.”

I squinted. “Is that a … ?”

“I think it’s a peacock.”

It was. A full-grown peacock stood stock-still in the center of Campos Road, tail feathers spread. It was enormous. It blinked once. I peered at it through the glass as Sawyer pulled over. “Do we have peacocks here?”

“I don’t think so.” He unbuckled his seat belt.

“What are you doing?”

“I just want to see if it has tags or something.”

“Like if it’s someone’s pet? Sawyer, that thing probably has rabies.”

“Do birds get rabies?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re supposed to know smart-person stuff, Reena.” He grinned once. “Relax over there.” Sawyer got out of the Jeep. “Maybe it’s from the reserve or something.”

The bird allowed Sawyer to get within several feet, watching him with cautious eyes. Of course he would be a peacock whisperer on top of everything else. Sawyer crouched down. “Hey, buddy,” he said.

The peacock didn’t reply. They stood there staring each other down for what must have been a full minute, and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened the door.

The motion startled the bird and it let out a loud squawking noise before sweeping its plumes back, a swish like a paper fan snapping shut. It galloped away toward the opposite side of the road with a lot more speed than I would have expected. I blinked. “Did that seriously just happen?”

“You scared him away,” Sawyer said mildly, coming over to stand by the passenger side of the car.

“Well, I tend to have that effect on people.”

“Nah.” He reached down and picked up my hands, pulling me out of the Jeep and onto the grassy shoulder. I could feel the calluses on his palms. “Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Oh, I don’t.”

“No?” His hands moved up my arms, so lightly, then back down until he was holding mine again. He pulled them up and locked them behind his neck.

“I don’t even like birds,” I said, and Sawyer laughed. I blushed a little, glanced down at the negative space between us. “I like you, though.”

“Well,” he said, and kissed me. “That’s good.”

I could still hear Coltrane. I couldn’t decide if I was hot or cold. Sawyer’s face against mine was soft, like an apology. He was standing closer now, impossibly close, and when I leaned back against the Jeep I could feel the metal through his sweatshirt. “You my girlfriend?” he muttered into my ear, so quiet. I laughed, loud and singing, to say yes.

31

After

Shelby’s sitting at a table in back when I get to the restaurant two days after my breakup with Aaron, wiping down the thick folders we use for menus and adding the inserts with tonight’s specials. “Don’t talk to me,” is all she says.

My stomach twists meanly. I hate the idea of fighting with her, of having screwed up the one great friendship in my life: I’ve been down this road before, and it’s lined with total suckage. “Shelby—”

“No,” she says, barely glancing up. Her red hair, curled today, falls into her face like a veil. “I need you not to talk to me for a little while. I’m pissed at you. And I don’t usually get pissed at you, Reena, I don’t have a whole lot of experience doing it, so what I need right now is to just sit here and wipe the crap off these stupid menus and have you let me be until I figure out what I’m going to do about it.”

“That’s not fair,” I protest. I sit down across from her against my better judgment, hoping at least to plead my case. “You said you weren’t going to get involved in whatever happened between me and Aaron—”

Shelby looks at me now, rolls her eyes like I’m being stupid on purpose. “I said I wouldn’t get involved in whatever happened between you and Aaron as long as you weren’t shitty about it, which— whoops.”

I have the strangest, sharpest flash of Allie just then, that night in front of her swing set a hundred years ago. You want to win this fight? Here I am all these years later, still fighting with my best friend about Sawyer. It makes me hate myself a little. It makes me hate Shelby a little, too. “Fine,” I say, cavalier as I can manage. “I’m a shitty girlfriend, and a shitty friend.”

“Okay, listen.” Shelby sighs noisily and sets the menus down on the table, an expression on her face like she didn’t want to do this but I had to go ahead and push her, so here goes. “I know you’ve had a rough couple years, Reena. And it sucks in an Alanis Morissette, isn’t-it-ironic kind of way that you were like, the least risk-taking person in the history of the world and all this shit still happened to you, but I feel like you did a pretty good job making a life for yourself in spite of that and now that Sawyer’s back you’re just acting like it’s junior year all over again.” She ticks off a list on her fingers, like potential side effects of some new, unapproved medication. “You fight, you make up, he’s your favorite person, you hate his guts, and maybe it’s out of character for you or maybe he’s the only person you can really be yourself around, I don’t know. That’s fine, that’s your business—as long as other people don’t get dragged down while you’re figuring it out.”

“I was trying not to drag Aaron down!” I argue, bristling. “That’s why I broke up with him in the first place.”

Shelby makes a face. “Oh, Reena, don’t even kid. You broke up with Aaron because of Sawyer, directly or