“Hey,” he says.
His voice makes my throat hurt. “What's wrong?”
“I just got off the phone with Josey.”
And my brain goes where it has the past few times he's told me that; a part of me seems to be convinced that he's going to have a conversation with Josey and she'll reveal that he'll get back together with him if he breaks up with me. I am devising this theory out of absolutely nowhere, but for some reason every time he says he talked to Josey I'm prepared to be dumped. I guess this just goes to show that I can find a way to be unbearably insecure in any possible relationship set-up.
But of course, what he actually says is a million times worse. “She doesn't want me to go with her on Saturday.”
I sit up. “What?”
“That's what she said. She called to tell me.”
“Well is she going with her mom?”
“She didn't say. She said she didn't want to talk about it anymore but that she was going to take care of it and it would be fine.”
“You don't think she's...you know, she's not going to go through with it, do you?”
“What? It's not like anyone was pushing her into this....are you saying I was pushing her into this?”
“No, come on. I'm just saying, this is like...she wouldn't be the first girl to change her mind.”
“Why would she break up with us if she was going to keep the baby?” he says. “That makes no sense.”
“I don't know.”
“Can I tell her she can call you?”
“She wants to call me?”
“She didn't...I said I'd ask you if it was okay if she did. And she said that if it was okay with you then maybe. I don't know. I thought maybe you'd be able to get more out of her on this than I could.”
“What do you want me to tell her?”
“Nothing, just listen. See if you can find out if she's okay. See if...I don't know. If she's having second thoughts, I guess.”
“What if she is?”
“Then...clearly she doesn't want to talk about it with me right now. At least she'd be talking to someone, y'know?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“So it's okay?”
“Uh-huh, she can call.”
I miss dinner so I can sit up in my room holding my phone, waiting for it to ring. It never does.
When I get to school, I skip my first two periods and barter with the athletic director to be let into the pool during some other grade's gym class. I take a far lane away from everyone and swim slow and deep, pushing each stroke far enough that it pulls on my muscles.
Because the fact that she didn't call me is simultaneously a bigger relief and bigger concern than I've felt in a very long time.
I have a feeling she's not going to be sitting with us at lunch today.
Theo doesn't come to my study hall, which is also disconcerting, but it's not as if it's the first time he's ever missed one. He tells me at lunch that he skipped all morning and just got to school a few minutes ago. Fair enough, except that at some point we are both probably going to be very expelled.
“You really can't afford to get suspended right now,” I tell him.
“Yeah, you're one to talk!”
“Technically I had permission from someone. There's a paper trail. You're a senior waiting on college decisions.”
“Lectures, lectures.”
“I'm just saying.”
“I know. I get it.”
And now we are both standing outside the cafeteria and staring through the doors and getting in everybody's way like we're both terrified of going in, because we are.
“Do you want to make out in the bathroom for a while instead?” Theo says.
“Yes. Yes I do.”
So we sneak into a stall in the boy's bathroom and do just that, which I'll admit helps a little bit with just about everything, and then it's time to brave encountering an ex-girlfriend who may or may not be getting an abortion and may or may not want to talk to us about it. I'm pretty sure that as a Catholic, straight (well, probably not entirely, it seems) virgin I was supposed to be able to avoid these kinds of things.
She's there when we go inside, sitting at her usual tiny table by herself. That's a pretty clear sign that she doesn't want us; the three of us couldn't even all fit at that table.
She's been crying. I hate that I can recognize that from a glance now.
Theo and I get our trays and sit down at our usual table without saying anything. He's facing her, I'm facing away, but our table is at enough of an angle that I can still see her out of the corner of my eye. I can't see her as much as I can see blurry bits of her movements—picking up her cup, putting it down, flipping through a textbook without pausing to actually read it.
Eventually, I say, “I don't think her mom's going with her.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”
“Why, though?”
He sighs. “Because she's trying to prove she can do it on her own.”
“Why?” I say again.
“Because she told us she was going to.”
“And she's Josey.”
And Josey will not leave that box. She won't be a person who changes her mind, or a person who admits that she can't handle something. She told us that she would be stronger on her own and now she's trying to prove it, because she does not know how to back down, and she does not know how to let anything of herself go, and because at this rate she will grow up the same unflinching, beautiful, stupid person she is right now, and she will do it alone.
