And at the same time, I know that's not possible, and that it's also not really reasonable; I'd always have something I'd be jealous about, every once in a while, because I'm an imperfect human, and because everyone loves their huge cast of people, poly or no.
I just don't understand how Aanya and Jake are so perfect. And I'd think they were lying about it if I hadn't seen it firsthand for a bunch of years. Even when they fight, they fight like a TV couple you know will be fine in a few episodes, at most. They argue like they're supposed to, they go out the way they're supposed to, they love the way they're supposed to.
So I still haven't answered her, and by the second she's looking more and more smug, as Theo hangs up the phone and heads towards the door.
“I just need you to be supportive,” I say.
She sighs. “Okay, I'll try.” And I had no idea how much I want her approval until it's clear now that I'm not really going to get it.
Theo comes through the door and stands by the booth, plays with my sleeve. “We've got to go,” he says.
“What? Why?”
“Josey got rejected from Cambridge.”
“Shit. How is she?”
“We've got to go,” he says. “Aanya, I'm so sorry.”
“Taylor has to go too?” she says.
I get out of the booth. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” She gets up and hugs me. “If you gotta go you gotta go. You've got priorities.”
Josey sits at her kitchen table and cries like someone died, while we hold her hands and her mother rather frantically makes hot chocolate.
“There's still all the in-state stuff,” Theo says.
“I don't want to go there. I just applied there in case this fucking happened and I really didn't think th-this was fucking gonna happen!”
“There's still Penn!” I say. “That was just a deferral, and you said that might be your favorite after all, right?”
“You did?” Theo said. “Hey look at that, Josey! Maybe this is just a sign that you were right.”
“That's stupid,” she says.
“Okay.” He scratches at the back of her head. “Okay.”
“And deferrals just mean you're going to get rejected later and everyone knows it.”
“I don't know it,” we both say together.
She wipes her eyes. “You two are being dense just because it's nicer.”
“Hey.” Theo kisses her head. “I'd never intentionally be nice to you.”
“Maybe I could have done more extra-curriculars,” she says. “Or maybe I should have done fewer and specialized more in something, some people say they prefer that, but it's not as if I didn't move up the ranks or that I did stuff for a semester and gave up, so I thought it was fine...”
“There's nothing more you could have done,” Theo says. I squeeze her hand.
“Maybe my grades could have been better,” she says.
“Your grades are amazing,” he says. “You did everything you could, Jos.”
“Then I'm just not good enough,” she says. “That's the conclusion there.”
“Or Cambridge is stupid,” he says.
“Cambridge isn't stupid.”
“Maybe they just had a ton of people apply,” I say. “Like more than usual. And maybe since you're American they were just like well, let's not let in any Americans this year.”
She laughs a little and wipes at her eyes again, so hard it looks like it hurts. “Yeah.”
Her mom sets three mugs of hot chocolate down on the table in front of us. “Here you go, sweet things.” We all say thank you together.
“I have to get into Penn,” she says. “There's not a safety net anymore. Or the safety net is like, so far down that if I have to land in it I'll probably break all my arms and legs anyway.”
“Maybe you and Theo could go to the same school this way, though.”
Theo says, “It's a pretty screwed-up world if she has to go to the same school I do. I didn't try. She tries. She deserves better than a school that accepts lazy kids like me, and I'm not even being self-deprecating here.”
Josey leans her head against his shoulder and squeezes my hand back. We sit in silence for a while, drinking our hot chocolate, passing Josey tissues every so often.
Eventually she says, “I need to be alone and think.”
“Okay,” I say. We kiss her cheeks.
Theo drives me home, and we curse some and say the same reassurances we said to Josey because what else is there to say? He drops me off, and I hope my mom isn't creepily peering through the windows at an inopportune time to see that it's someone she doesn't know dropping me off rather than Aanya.
Luckily, she's busy boraxing the kitchen counters. “Hi, sweetie! How's Aanya?”
I kiss her cheek. “She's good.”
“Did you get to show her your friends?”
“Yeah, a few of them. And we drove her around to where we hang out a lot. Got milkshakes at that diner.” It feels nice to not tell one lie, at least.
“Aww, sounds fun. I'm sorry I didn't get to see her!”
“Eh, no you're not. She drives you crazy.”
Mom laughs. “Maybe a little.”
“I'm gonna go up to my room and do some homework, okay?”
“Okay, mija.”
I go upstairs. I can hear Alexis playing alone in her room, singing to her dolls. I close my door quietly so she won't know I'm up here and ask me to play with her, and then probably turn on me like the terrifying child she is and bite me or something.
Instead I just sit down on my bed and cry like someone died.
20
Tutoring sessions with Lucas take on a bit of desperation, since the threat of not getting into a good college now seems very real. I'm pushing myself in my real class, doing extra exercises, taking extra practice tests, and that
