“Yeah,” she whispers.
“No one ever understood it,” I say. “I don't think even Theo really did, all the way. How you could be my sister and my girlfriend all at the same time. Nobody understood it and now nobody ever will.”
“Firefly,” she says, and I look at her finally. She's still crying and I think I am too. Her mascara's all over her face. She wears her makeup really subtle, so this is the first time I've ever been really aware of it, now when it's ugly and all over her face.
“You want away from me too,” I say. “If you're trying to...simplify your life by not being a relationship, then that's me too.”
“I don't want any of this,” she says.
“You're pregnant,” I say. “You realize that you're pregnant, right?”
“I won't be for much longer.”
“So you're just going to go get it done by yourself, then.”
“I...yeah. I guess.”
“You didn't think about that, did you.”
“Taylor, stop.”
I do. Because I can't hurt her anymore. Because it's Josey.
“I want to still be friends,” she says.
“That's the most hollow damn sentence in the world.”
“I mean it, though.”
“Have you ever actually stayed friends with any of your exes? Has that ever worked?”
“We're different,” she says. “You know we're different.”
“I don't know what we are anymore,” I say. And we sit there without saying anything else for a long time, until eventually she unbuckles her seatbelt, gets out of the car, and walks into her house without looking back.
At home, Theo is robotically making Alexis a sandwich. I want to talk to him, to know where he is, but I've cut it really close with Mom and Dominic coming home, and the last thing either of us needs is to deal with him meeting them today.
I guess I could do that now. Get them to approve of our relationship. It's just the two of us now. Nice and simple.
Maybe at some point there will be some kind of relief about that.
So I bring Lexie the sandwich and she watches TV while Theo and I just hold each other in the kitchen until he really does have to go. I'll see him in the morning at school, but he promises to call tonight too. I think I'll probably call him first, though, just to show him that I will. He needs reassuring right now more than I do.
As soon as he's gone, Lexie appears in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She's bouncing her knees a little, just making little “Mmmm” noises.
“You okay?” I say.
“What's going on?”
“Nothing, everything's okay.”
“You were yelling.”
“When?”
“On the porch.”
“Oh. It's okay. It's all over now.”
“Are you getting divorced?” she says.
Lexie.
22
“What's up with you?” Elisha says.
I snap back to life and realize I've been staring out her car window into the drizzle like iI'm in an emo music video. “Nothing, sorry.”
“You don't have to apologize, I just want in. Most exciting part of my life is this burned latte.” She stuffs it in her cup holder and it crumples and spills onto her hand. “I give up,” she says.
“Heh.”
“So come on, what's up? I'm a good listener.”
It's true, she is. But I feel like saying well, today's my first day at school where I am my boyfriend's only girlfriend, and I have no idea what either of us is going to do when we see the ex-girlfriend is going to require a lot more explanation afterward than I feel up to doing. I wish it were possible to find someone who could understand it without all the backstory. I'm not angry about it; I'm not even really complaining. I haven't lost sight of the fact that what I'm doing isn't traditional, and that some people might never have even heard of it.
What I was doing, anyway.
I'm not angry. I'm just tired.
So I wrack my brain for a home life story interesting enough to throw her off-track but benign enough so I don't slander anyone undeserving, because the truth is that we've had a few weeks of smooth sailing. Though, to be honest, this might have a lot to do with Dominic and I tiptoeing around each other somewhat since the Christmas party blowout which, as far as I know, no one has told my mother about. I guess it's official at this point that everyone's more comfortable when he isn't my father, and I can't say I'm not a little disappointed in both of us for that. I'd been very excited about having a new parent, and I really thought he was very excited about having me. Now I'm wondering if this whole time I was really a—not unwanted, but not particularly not unwanted—tag-along of my mother's.
I should be happy that he loves her enough to be fine with her grumpy teenager in his house. I could possibly express this happiness by being less grumpy. Which would probably be easier if the happiness were real.
So I'm trying to figure out how to package that all up and give it to Elisha, but she zooms right in instead and says, “Is it boy trouble? It has to be boy trouble. It's not Mark, is it?”
“No way.”
“That guy Lucas?”
“That guy Lucas is my stepbrother.”
“Not technically.”
“Okay, that guy Lucas is a sophomore.”
“That,” she says, “Is fair enough.”
“What about you?” I say, as smoothly as possible. “You haven't dated anyone since I've known you.”
“Yeah, I don't know,” she says. “I had a summer boyfriend and we did this whole thing about how we were going to stay together after summer was over, and we made all these jokes about oh, that never works for anyone,
