I could borrow a line from a TV show it would feel like a TV show instead of my actual life. After she’d left my house I’d paced around the living room, working up the nerve to call her and tell her. But every time I tried to imagine not talking to her, I couldn’t. It was like my brain didn’t have the right files. Does not compute. And anyway, it didn’t really feel like a choice. If I admitted I couldn’t be friends with her, I lost, even more than I already had. I’d have to be the one to sit somewhere else at lunch. I’d be the one who had to stay home when Jamie and our other friends hung out. I’d lost my girlfriend, and that was already more than I could take.
So we would be friends, and it would be fine. One day I wouldn’t dread walking into the class I knew we had together—a now-unwanted miracle, really, since Jamie was always in AP everything and I was not. One day I’d be able to sit down to lunch with her and Ronni and Alexis without worrying exactly where I sat, because the spot next to her wasn’t safe, and neither was the one directly across from her. One day I’d again be happy instead of furious that our lockers, thanks to the goddamn alphabet, were separated only by the locker assigned to Alex Ruiz, who, historically, didn’t seem to make much use of it. He was popular, and the popular boys never seemed to carry books or folders or anything, really, around school with them. It was like they were here for something else altogether. I once asked my straight friends (Ronni and Alexis) to look into this issue for me, but they shrugged it off. Alexis said, “Who knows why they do anything the way they do?” They being boys, in general.
At home, and in the safety of my truck, I still ached when I thought about that last conversation with Jamie. I still held back tears multiple times a day. But I knew I couldn’t be that version of me in school if I wanted to make it through the year. It was bad enough knowing in my bones that everyone at school had already heard that the only out queer couple in Westville’s incoming senior class had broken up, and worse, that I was the dumpee—Alexis had surely been briefed by Jamie, which meant it was only a matter of time until people three school districts away found out. If I started my senior year as the tragic spinster lesbian, that would be how everyone remembered me. At our ten-year reunion, instead of asking me what it was like playing for the U.S. women’s national soccer team, or how many free shoes I got as a result of my Adidas sponsorship, or if they could go for a ride in my Aston Martin, my former classmates would ask me if I still kept in touch with Jamie (who would be too busy in the Senate to attend), and from their expressions I would know they were really asking if I’d ever gotten over her.
I couldn’t let that happen. Everything I felt had to stay here, in the truck, with Céline. I slung my backpack and soccer bag over my shoulders, and by the time I’d crossed the parking lot I really did feel like a new person, almost.
* * *
—
I thought I saw Jamie about a dozen times before I actually did. In the hallways, between classes, I kept seeing girls with dark hair, and my throat would go hot with panic. Then I’d get another look and realize they didn’t look like Jamie at all. It was embarrassing, and draining, and by lunch I was almost eager to see her, just to get it over with. Our first post-breakup encounter had to happen sometime; this way, at least, I was prepared for it.
I spotted Ronni sitting at our usual table, alone so far and completely unembarrassed by it. Even though I’d seen her last weekend, at the last club tournament of the year, I rushed toward her like it had been months. When Ronni saw me, she cupped a hand around her mouth and yelled “RYAN!” at the same time as