Love and Other Theories (13 page)

T
wo hours later I’m squished in front of the mirror in the bathroom at Celine’s with Shelby, Danica, and Melissa. We’re fixing our hair and passing around Melissa’s new lip gloss and my new perfume, because we are strict believers in that whole “What’s mine is yours” friendship motto. We always complain about dressing up for Celine’s VD party, but every year we have fun doing it. We’re all in black, which is not an accident.

That’s when Trip sends me a text.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY. I’M NOT OUTSIDE :)

Last year, in an attempt to surprise me for Valentine’s Day, Trip dropped by my house at four in the morning
and woke up my entire family by mistakenly throwing rocks at my little brothers’ window. Trip claimed that he “just needed to see me.”

I think that’s when my parents officially decided they did not like Trip Chapman and they were going to stop hiding it. My father told me he didn’t he trust someone so good-looking and my mother said she thought he was manipulative.

The next text he sends says:
THANK YOU FOR AGREEING TO HELP ME.

“Aww, that’s really sweet,” Melissa says. Her lips are stained red from her drink.

“Sweet of him to stay away. Yes.” Shelby leans toward the mirror and runs the mascara wand over her eyelashes one more time for good measure.

“I don’t know,” Danica says. “I think
sweet
is Nathan taking her to Solstice.” It reminds me of Sandra and her friends, and being thirteen and listening to them talk about the men they were dating, when money seemed to be the biggest factor, and they noticed it but pretended not to care about it.

When we emerge from the bathroom, the first thing I see is that Nathan isn’t wearing his tie anymore. I’ve been obsessed with Nathan’s tie since he picked me up, using it to pull him toward me, flipping it around my hands as I speak to him, tightening and loosening it around his neck. I can’t help it. Ties are sexy. I had no idea. They’re
classy and mature—something every other boy has been missing.

Nathan’s standing at the island in the kitchen, laughing as Robert, Patrick, and Jared get ready to take a shot of something brown.

“. . . I have to take her home at midnight,” I hear him say. A reason he’s not joining them. When I asked Nathan if he had a curfew, he said no, he never has. The truth is he’s probably never needed one.

Patrick guzzles down the shot, and before the liquor has settled in his stomach and his face is still puckering, he pats Nathan on the shoulder. “Dude, you should come back after you drop her off. You can crash at my place. Courtney will drive us.” And it’s true, Celine’s little sister, Courtney McGillicutty, has a horrible case of acid reflux and doesn’t drink. She’s been offering people rides since she got her learner’s permit. I suspect that’s the only way Celine will be nice to her.

Shelby comes up behind me, handing me the same red drink that’s stained Melissa’s lips.

“Oh, look,” she says, and the guys all turn to stare at her even though she was talking to me.

“This is the first new friend Robert and Patrick have made in years,” she says like she pities them.

Robert holds up his empty glass. “Growth.”

It’s obvious from the way the corners of Nathan’s mouth turn up, and how he glances at everyone around
him who might be paying attention, that he’s pleased that this news has been declared so publicly. I turn away from them and face Shelby.

“He used to be wearing a tie,” I tell her, though I’m not sure why.

Nathan spends the next twenty minutes with Robert and Patrick. Every time I look over, they’re laughing. Huddling together, sharing jokes, not wearing ties.

“He’s a big boy, Aubrey.” Shelby pats my shoulder. “He’s becoming one of our friends—this should make you happy. I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

I don’t know why you’re surprised you don’t get to keep him to yourself forever
is what she’s really saying. And she’s right. This is a good thing. Nathan is friends with Robert and Patrick—who basically go anywhere we go. He no longer needs me as his connection to
other people
at Lincoln High. That’s fine. It was inevitable that this would happen, that Nathan would branch out on his own, without me. I have been preparing for this.

The truth: a little voice inside me keeps saying that it’s really not going to change anything between us, that no matter how weird it is to see him having fun with guys like Robert and Patrick—guys I didn’t think he had anything in common with—he’s still going to keep me as his first choice.

I realize this type of thinking is dangerous.

“Um, when did Sam Perkins get hot?” Shelby asks
as we take a seat at Celine’s dining room table. The rest of our friends join us. It’s the best place to be, since it’s within easy walking distance to the kitchen, where the drinks are, and we still have a full view of the living room.

“Sam Perkins has always been hot,” Melissa confirms. This is only partly true. Sam Perkins has always been hot, but alas, he’s a year younger than us so he was invisible. But now he’s a junior and the new consensus is that because we’re about to graduate—and once we graduate—we’re not allowed to dip back into the high school pool; it’s only fair that we have them now. Especially second semester of our senior year, when the junior boys have turned seventeen and are starting to get that very senior look about them.

“He’s way hotter now that he doesn’t have Nicole Maki’s tongue down his throat,” Danica notes. It’s true. Sam must’ve noticed the increased attention he’s been receiving from the senior girls and decided it was wise to end it with the one holding him back: his sophomore girlfriend, Nicole Maki.

“Maybe.” Shelby shrugs and takes a sip of her drink.

“Hey, Aubrey.” The way Celine says my name, smiling with glittering eyes, makes my stomach drop. “I hear you’re tutoring Trip.” Her eyes are still dancing when she not-so-casually glances at Nathan.

Nathan looks confused. Like he knows he should be
offended but has no idea why.

“You know better than anyone that he never had to study in high school,” I say to Celine.

Shelby slowly turns away from Sam to look at me. She doesn’t want to be too obvious, but I can see it on her face. She’s pleased. This is the first time I’ve ever insulted Celine.

Celine’s eyes slide to look at Jared, to make sure he didn’t hear or understand my jab. He didn’t, so she smiles, and I know I’m in for some kind of classic-Celine passive-aggressive insult.

Shelby always says something ten times ruder back when Celine tosses an underlying insult at her. Like when Celine told Shelby her skirt looked “vintage,” then asked her with wide, innocent eyes and in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, if she got it too small on purpose. Shelby had replied, “No, I got my skirt from the same place you shop. At Sluts Us.” A clear insult. Not even a good one, but sometimes Shelby will stoop that low to make sure Celine knows she’s being insulted. Because that’s the thing about Shelby: she’s in no way passive. But of course she came off as the bitch, not Celine.

Celine opens her mouth and is about to lay into me—I know she is—but Nathan speaks before she has the chance. “Who are we talking about?”

My friends must have radar, because they abandon their other conversations and lean in, giving us
their full attention. They aren’t going to give Celine the opportunity to answer this one. According to the theories, it shouldn’t matter who Trip is, especially to Nathan. According to the theories, Nathan won’t care. But Celine’s still throwing Trip’s name around like it’s a threat. A threat to make me define Nathan the way she’s stupidly decided to define Jared.

“Trip Chapman,” Shelby says quickly. “He graduated last year. He’s totally failing out of college and needs to borrow Aubrey’s brain.”

“He probably wants to borrow more than that.” Leila chuckles and smiles a perverted smile.

“He wishes,” Shelby says.

“Interesting that he chose you. To tutor him, I mean,” Celine says. Passive-aggressive bitch—one point.

“Fuck off, Celine,” Shelby snaps. “Everyone knows Aubrey’s smart. She’s going to Barron. I know it’s a stretch for you to understand that Trip might be interested in actual help instead of just watching a cheerleader bend over his dining room table, but try to open your mind.”

This works exactly the way Shelby intended it to. Celine turns away and starts talking to Jared, who, once again—and lucky for Celine—was too occupied in a different conversation to hear Shelby’s insult.

Shelby gives me a look that says,
Can you believe her?
and I smile. I’m a little stunned, to be honest. Not
that Shelby insulted Celine or defended me against any remarks that might make Nathan think I care about Trip—but that she acknowledged I was going to Barron. She told me she was happy for me after I got accepted but never really brought it up again.

“So Trip is your ex?” Nathan asks, trying to keep up with the banter.

“Not—no,” I say, and I watch Nathan’s face harden.

Robert Jules bursts out laughing. “Close, but no cigar.”

Nathan nods. He chews on his lower lip the same way he does when he’s trying to memorize a verb conjugation for Spanish class. He’s not laughing with Robert.

I’m afraid for a moment that Nathan won’t get it. That he won’t understand why we need to be evolved like this, the same way he doesn’t understand that he’s good-looking.

“So you guys aren’t into labels?” Nathan addresses all of us, not just me.

It makes it easier to answer him. “Not just labels. Any of it. We’re not into any of it.”

Nathan tilts his head as he stares at me.

In this moment, I look across the table at Shelby. She looks calm, bored, a little annoyed.

“Anyone who thinks their high school relationship is going to last longer than five seconds is delusional,” Shelby says. She pointedly stares at Celine, who scowls.
“Especially when we’re all about to graduate. Nothing is going to stay the same.”

“Hey, I have no complaints, baby,” Robert says, putting his hands in the air in surrender and then sliding his arm around Danica. She beams. In this moment, I’m almost positive Robert is thinking about how grateful he is for Evolved Danica, who hasn’t asked him to define their relationship or forced him to answer the question plaguing Celine and Jared: what they’re going to do next year when there isn’t Lincoln High keeping them together.

Celine sits up. She’s spunkier, less reserved now that Jared left the table to refill her drink. “I’ll never understand: what do you guys have against love?”

Shelby and Danica answer at nearly the same time.

“Making,” Shelby says.

“The physical act of,” Danica says.

It seems like this isn’t the first time they’ve been confronted about the theories and they’ve made these jokes before, at parties I missed.

“We’re realisticists!” Melissa says. The entire top of her lip is red. She’s slurring a little too.

“It’s just common sense,” Shelby says. “Relationships in high school are so unrealistic. Fun is realistic.” Robert and Patrick nod along, laughing, and hooting a little. They agree with this statement and want everyone to know it. Shelby is playing this perfectly in accordance
with the theories, and all the theories have worked on Nathan so far—why wouldn’t they? There’s nothing for me to be worried about. Logically, I know this.

“I believe the primates call it dating,” Nathan says, laughing at his own joke. Everyone else laughs too.

You’re welcome
, Shelby mouths to me from across the table. She’s smiling as she waves over Sam Perkins, who very obediently comes and stands next to Shelby’s chair. He laughs with her for a little while before they decide to take shots together in the kitchen. Body shots—just a guess.

Patrick cracks open a beer. He nods to Nathan. “Have one, Diggs. Courtney can take Aubrey home.”

“It’s all right,” Nathan says.

“I don’t mind getting a ride from Courtney,” I tell him.

He stares at me for a moment, like he’s debating this. “I’ll take you,” he says.

“Oh,
great
,” Celine says, leaning forward in her chair so she can see into the kitchen. “What the hell are Shelby and her latest victim doing?”

Nathan and Robert laugh at the words
latest victim
, and Patrick laughs because Nathan and Robert are laughing. We all look in the kitchen.

Shelby and Sam are facing each other with barely a foot in between them. They’re each holding a full shot of tequila and a lime. Shelby rolls up the hem of her tank
top and lowers her skirt half a centimeter, exposing three inches of her stomach. Sam starts to mimic her, rolling up his shirt, but Shelby shakes her head and tells him something. Sam nods, sets down his shot glass and lime, and takes off his shirt.

We can’t help it. As girls in full view of a six-pack, Leila, Celine, Danica, Melissa, and I all gasp.

Next, Shelby whispers something in Sam’s ear. His smile barely fits on his face. She grabs something else off the counter—a saltshaker. Shelby gives Sam a sly grin and kneels in front of him.

“What is she doing?” Nathan says in my ear, sounding both curious and worried. I don’t answer because I don’t know, but we all keep watching.