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“Alex.” Her name slips through my teeth as I collapse, utterly spent and crushing her.
Crushing Branley.
“What. The. Fuck.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Bran. I’m so, so, sorry.”
And I am, because that was shitty as hell. Branley shoves me away and rips through the covers looking for her clothes. How could it be so dark in here a few minutes ago I could let that happen, but now be damningly light? Light enough to see that she’s crying.
“Branley, wait,” I say, reaching for her hands, trying to stop her as she struggles into her jeans.
But she’s saying only one word, over and over. “No, no, no, no, NO. You don’t do that to me. I’m Branley Jacobs! Do you understand that? Branley Jacobs!” She says her own name the way most of the guys do, a mix of How the Hell Can That Even Exist and Can I Make It Mine?
“Guys fuck other girls and think of me,” she says. “Not the other way around. You’re an asshole, Jack Fisher. A real fucking asshole.”
She slams the door so hard I feel the reverberations in my spine. I collapse back onto the bed, and for the first time in a long time, Branley has my undivided attention.
Because I think she might be right.
18. ALEX
I never thought it would be Jack Fisher.
In third grade, our class went on a field trip to the state park. We were at the end of a hike, the last hundred feet or so impossibly angled and difficult. Most of the kids and all the teachers were taking the stairs, gripping on to the rails, holding hands and saying encouraging things to one another about almost being there. I left the trail, not wanting to move at their pace. I climbed the hill on my own, reaching for tree branches and pulling myself forward, feeling a deep burn in my calves and loving the half second of panic every time I slipped a little.
I passed Jack and Branley as they picked their way up the stairs, him carrying her little plastic bag of whatever she’d bought for herself at the gift shop. I remember the slightest trace of impatience on his face as he offered Branley an arm, pulling her up where a step had been washed out. Our gazes met as I moved past them, ripped hands and filthy knees making my own way, and I saw a flash of envy, quickly stifled. And I knew that he’d rather be off the path with me, moving quickly, tearing his clothes.
But he stayed where he was, and I heard another boy’s voice behind me. “It ain’t easy but it sure is faster,” he said, just as he lost his foothold. My arm shot out and he grabbed for me instinctively, and I steadied him until he got a firm grip on a tree trunk. We climbed up together, passing our classmates and ignoring the adults who yelled at us that we were going to break our necks. Sweat dripped off our foreheads, cutting clean tracks through the dirt on our faces, but we beat everyone to the top, breaking out of the shade and into the light.
We looked at each other and he said, “I have a tree frog in my pocket; don’t tell anyone.” I promised I wouldn’t and we huddled together in the back of the bus on the way home, marveling over the little creature.
We fell into the habit of meeting each other outside at recess, climbing trees and wading in mud puddles, not worried about getting dirty. His name was Mike and he came to school dirty anyway. Mike was gone the next year. I stood on the playground on the first day of fourth grade, looking for the only person I called my friend, and he wasn’t there.
I think he was the first boy I ever noticed.
And now Jack Fisher has my attention. Jack, who I always thought was like everyone else, loud and boring. Jack, who is more intelligent than I gave him credit for. Jack, who looks like he has something he desperately wants to say to me, and doesn’t know how. Jack, who wouldn’t leave the trail to follow me when we were little.
Maybe now he will.
19. PEEKAY
It’s like Adam and Branley got married over the weekend and now we all get to watch the honeymoon.
“She’ll be pregnant by fourth period at this rate,” Sara says, tossing her books onto the desk. “I mean, I don’t know if you saw, but he had her pressed up against—”
“I saw,” I say a little too sharply. Everyone in the room looks at me, and I realize how nasty I must have sounded, because I even have Alex’s attention.
I lower my voice. “Sorry,” I tell Sara. “It’s just not cool.”
She nods and touches my hand, but I hardly feel it. I might as well still be out in the hallway, watching Branley drape herself all over my boyfriend (ex-boyfriend, dammit). Adam was always casual with me. Some hand-holding at lunch, a peck on the cheek in between classes, a tossed “See you, babe” as we walked out of school.
Branley he can’t get enough of. Branley he touches constantly. Branley he won’t be separated from. Branley—
—walks into the classroom reapplying her lipstick because it’s all been kissed off by my boyfriend.
And I’m going for her. There’s no logic involved, no weighing of pros and cons or thought of consequences. I smack the lipstick out of her hand just as it reaches her lips and she yelps in surprise.
Violence in real life is not the streamlined performance art of movies. It’s not sexy. It’s awkward and confusing. Branley just looks at me, like maybe there’s been some kind of mistake, some weird blip in physics that made my hand hit hers and makeup fly across the room.
