How to Love

“That was dumb.”

“It was,” he agreed, rubbing at his tawny forehead, “but I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry. I’m tired of hearing that. I’ve treated you like an adult, Reena. I’ve trusted you even when it was difficult for me. I know you’ve had a hard time this year, and I haven’t forbidden you to see Sawyer so far, but I will if it’s the only way to get through to you.” It was getting dark; outside the window I could see the light changing, purples and blues. “I’m worried about you, Reena. Do you understand me? More than worried. I’m terrified.”

“Of what?” I demanded shrilly. “What exactly are you so worried about?”

My father stared at me like I was a child, like I honestly had no idea how the world worked. “Listen to me,” he said slowly, looking me in the eye for the first time since he’d walked into the office. “I’m your father. And I’m worried you’re going to make a mistake that I’m not going to be able to fix.”

I felt my spine straighten. I was tired of my father’s religion, of his judgment and his guilt and the oppressive smell of incense; I wasn’t a very good rule breaker, but I was tired of being so well-behaved. At times like this I couldn’t wait to leave for Northwestern, to be out from under his watchful, tyrannical eye—although that, of course, would mean leaving Sawyer, too.

“You are so beautiful,” my father told me, almost pleading. “And you are so bright. I cannot for the life of me understand why you’d want to risk throwing all that away for—”

“I’m not throwing anything away!” My voice rose dangerously. “I’m sixteen. I have a boyfriend. It’s normal. Not for me up to now, maybe, but for other people that’s normal. Can you please just relax and let me have some kind of a life?”

My father laughed at that, low and quiet and disbelieving. “Reena,” he told me softly, “that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

I opened my mouth to reply but he was finished with me by that point, heading for the desk to get whatever it was he’d come for in the first place. “Go back to your tables,” he said, almost absent. “And for God’s sake, tuck in your shirt.”

* * *

I don’t know when it first occurred to me that my father wasn’t the only one who wasn’t crazy about the idea of Sawyer and me. Lydia was looking at us sideways, for sure. “Your mom thinks I’m an idiot,” I told him after one particularly awkward encounter in the parking lot of Antonia’s, Lydia offering me a ride home in a way that felt an awful lot like a demand and me fumbling my way toward admitting I was actually headed to her son’s. Sawyer laughed like he thought I was kidding. I wasn’t entirely sure.

“She’s a bully, that’s all,” Shelby said when I told her about it during the free period we shared—how tongue-tied I felt around Lydia, how’d I’d watched her bring a burly line cook near tears with a cool, sharp reprimand about the quality of our hollandaise and then found myself completely unable to string a sentence together when she asked me a totally simple question about the new spring schedule. How she’d shot me a bored, irritated look and walked away. “You just have to stand up to her. It’s like when you punch the meanest kid on the playground.”

I snorted so loudly the study hall proctor shot me an irritated glare, her enormous glasses slipping down her oily nose. I glanced down at the article about the jazz band’s spring concert I was supposed to be writing, then back at Shelby. “You want me to punch Lydia LeGrande?”

“Oh my God, yes. With every fiber of my being, I want that.” Shelby laughed and reached forward across her desk, tugged my braid reassuringly. “Just watch, Reena. She’ll never know what hit her.”

* * *

I was sitting cross-legged in bed with my laptop and a spiral notebook alternating between my jazz-band article and a cover letter for an internship at South Florida Living that Ms. Bowen—who’d forgiven me, sort of—seemed sure I’d be able to get, when something small and hard cracked against the window frame behind my head. I jumped, sending my notebook sliding onto the hardwood, and got up on my knees, turning around and peering out the window just as a shiny white pebble smacked the side of the house next to my nose.

I pushed my hair back from my face and felt my stomach turn over—Sawyer was standing in my driveway in a T-shirt with baseball sleeves, one hand tangled in his shaggy hair. I sighed. Of course I would be in love with the kind of boy who threw rocks at windows.

I pulled the window open to a blast of hot, damp Florida air. The sky was dark, heavy purple-black clouds rolling in from the direction of the water, and the palm trees were already starting to bend a bit with the muggy wind. It smelled like rain. “What are you doing?” I hissed. I glanced behind me toward the open bedroom door, looking for any sign of life from my father and Soledad’s side of the hallway. After the scene in the restaurant office, the last thing I needed was for him to catch Sawyer at our house in the middle of the night.

“Hey,” he called back. “Can you come down from there?”

“What?” I said dumbly, even though I’d heard him fine. “Sure. Yes. Hang on.” I pulled a sweater on over my tank top and padded barefoot down the stairs. The kitchen was dark save the night-light under the microwave and quiet except for the low hum of the dishwasher on dry. He was standing on the back steps by the time I opened the door.

“Hi,” I said cautiously, still nervous we were going to get discovered. He kissed me for a long time without coming inside, like he was waiting for an invitation. He smelled warm like the earth, not entirely clean, and when he finally stepped into the kitchen, he tracked a little mud with him. “Sorry,” was what he said first, looking down. “Hi.”

“Hi. That’s okay.” I peered past him into the driveway, but his Jeep wasn’t there. “Did you drive here?”

“Nope. Walked.”

“From your house?”

Sawyer shook his head. “Was at a party.”

“Why?”

“Why was I at a party?”

“Why did you walk?”

“Wanted to see you.”

I squinted. “Are you drunk?”

“Only a little. “

“Are you just drunk?”

Sawyer made a face. “Can I sleep here?”

Jesus God. “Um,” I told him, hesitating. That was basically the stupidest plan in the universe. There was no way Sawyer could spend the night in my bed. I couldn’t even imagine how pissed off my father would be if he caught us—he definitely would tell me I couldn’t see Sawyer after that, and where would I be then? It was enormously dumb even to think about, a suicide mission, but: “Sure,” I heard myself saying. “Yeah. Of course. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I missed you. I’m dumb. You were probably sleeping.”

“Doing homework, actually.” I pushed his hair off his forehead. He needed it cut.

“Oh.” Sawyer’s face fell, just for one fraction of a second, just around the eyes. “If you’re busy, I can go.”

His voice killed me, so low and rumbly, cat purr and truck on gravel. I would have listened to him read the phone book, was the truth. “Don’t worry about it. Come upstairs. I can finish tomorrow morning.” I cringed a little as I said it, thinking of Ms. Bowen and my C in English, the promises I’d made to myself that I wasn’t going to do this exact thing. It was spring, with graduation on the horizon. I couldn’t afford to screw up. Still, I slipped my hand into Sawyer’s anyhow, pulling him closer. “Seriously, it’s fine.”

He hesitated, not moving much. “I don’t want to mess things up for you,” he said.

“You’re not messing anything up for anybody.”

“Yeah, tell that to my dad.”

“What did your dad say to you?” I asked, stopping to look at him quizzically. We were standing in the middle of the kitchen now, mugs for the morning’s coffee set meticulously out on the counter. Soledad never went to bed until everything was in its proper place. “When did you even see your dad?”

“I stopped by the house to pick some stuff up. I should shower.”

“Sawyer. What did he say?”