Love and Other Theories (26 page)

T
his is who Nathan Diggs is now. Impulsive. Confident. He knows that when he kisses someone they’ll kiss him back. Nathan Diggs can kiss whoever he wants, and he wants me.

The sheets on Nathan’s bed are cool against my skin, Nathan is hot against it. I want to laugh, I want to scream, but I don’t wind up doing either. I just let myself go.

And then I do it again the next day.

Maybe Nathan’s back here with me because Shelby’s bored with him. Maybe he only likes me because I don’t make him apologize or ask him to explain what happened
between him and Shelby. But that’s not what he tells me.

“I’m happiest when I’m with you.”

I spend the entire weekend with Nathan, not with my friends. They all know where I am. “Huddled up in the love shack,” Shelby says. But it doesn’t matter to them, and of course, it really doesn’t matter to Shelby.

Shelby and Nathan are still friendly Monday at school. They walk to second period together, just the two of them, because they both have classes in the science wing. At lunch, they banter back and forth, trading sarcasm for wit. She rides with us on the way to the park, throwing out snarky comments from the backseat that make Nathan laugh so hard he spits out his Coke. They act like they always do, except they don’t hook up. They don’t share secrets. Whatever was between them is gone. Erased.

It’s the theories, basic and simple. They’re the reason I was the first girl Nathan wanted the moment he stepped foot into Lincoln High. They’re the reason I got to keep him for months. And now he’s back.

Nathan tugs on my hair during Drama. He grabs my hand after lunch and holds it until I have to turn right and he has to turn left. He pulls me in for a kiss after school even though we’re both going to the same place. He does all the things I thought he was done doing.

And then he does them again, and again, all week long. And I let him.

WE’RE WALKING UP the steps to Robert’s house when Nathan tells me he’s sorry. He’s sorry for things he was never supposed to be sorry for.

I hold his hand tighter and tell him to stop apologizing. He doesn’t listen.

“I wish I could take it back,” he says, tilting his head like he’s going to kiss me. But he lingers. He waits for me to close the gap. “I want to be with you,” he whispers.

I kiss him, but I don’t say anything. All I can think about is girl points and how many I’ll be losing if I say
I want to be with you
, too, the way he seems so badly to want me to. How many other girls will be in this position in the future if I tell Nathan I forgive him for the all the things he doesn’t have to be sorry for; when he tells me these things like he’s waiting to be let off the hook. But there was never supposed to be
a hook
, there was never supposed to be a restriction. There was supposed to be nothing we could have done that would hurt each other. Did he know that all his apologies would fall to the floor and we’d be back like this again—the same way Patrick weaves in and out of Leila’s life? The preferred way. The way Nathan wiggled out of my favor and into Shelby’s. I think that maybe this is what he planned all along—coming back to me—and we’ll be here a hundred more times. Apart and together, apart and together, in a cycle. Never really moving on, always trusting that stupid, lingering hope that if he detaches, a few weeks later I’ll find
him pacing in front of my dorm room. And him always knowing he can come back, easily, just by kissing me, just by telling me I make him happy, just by offering me an apology. Will the things he says to me always expire when he meets another funny, too-beautiful-to-describe girl who has secrets?

It’s just like Shelby said.

You should be ready. You don’t have the luxury of escaping him after graduation.

We could detach and exit but never really be free of each other. And I wonder if I’ve just made myself available to it, and if we’ll be back here again, and again.

And maybe it’s stupid, the rules shouldn’t be any different for Nathan just because of Barron—I know that—but I can’t seem to forget that this is all fleeting and temporary. When Nathan kisses me, I try to forget that he’s going to stop one day. When we ride in his car, just the two of us, with the windows down and the music low, I try to pretend that no one else has ridden here.

And as I kiss him in the dark of Robert’s driveway, I tell myself that next year doesn’t matter, and concentrate on his hands on my back, his lips against mine, the way I’m leaning into him with my whole weight and he’s got me. But the theories are still there, in the forefront of my thoughts, reminding me that all of this with Nathan is either for the moment or a lie, and only time will tell how well Nathan Diggs can fake sincerity.

W
e all gather at Shelby’s on Monday for the season finale of
Mercy Rose
. We’re sitting on Shelby’s bed, painting our toenails and eating junk food, waiting to see if Scarlet will just die already, and waiting for Jude to admit his true feelings for Scarlet’s sister.

We’re celebrating, too, because Danica got her acceptance letter from the university. Robert’s going to State. The theories are necessary here. I don’t ask her how she feels about it.

“I can’t believe it,” Melissa says during a commercial.

“What?” I ask.

Shelby takes the opening. “That Tommy Rizzo
hasn’t had his way with you yet?”

My mouth flies open. “The Riz, Melissa?”

Danica laughs. “Melissa’s been shacking up with the Riz almost as much as you’ve been shacking up with Nathan.”

“Although technically
shacking up
involves more than just
oral
exams.” Shelby’s made Melissa’s face turn red. She leans into me as she laughs. “Right, Aubrey?”

It makes me feel rotten when I remember that she really does know what it’s like to be
shacked up
with Nathan Diggs.

“That’s not what I was going to say!” Melissa says. “I was going to say that we’re all leaving each other. And that’s sad.”

But Melissa is still red, and Shelby is still snickering at her dirty joke. Danica jerks to cover Shelby’s mouth when the show comes on, knocking the popcorn bowl, making kernels fly everywhere. And now it’s a battle, between laughing like we want to and giving our undivided attention to the show.

My phone beeps. I ignore it. It’s Nathan, I know, because it’s nearly nine, and Nathan always calls at nearly nine. That brief moment when he’s done with dinner and homework, before he heads up to bed to read or watch TV. That window of his time that belongs to me. But right now I belong to Shelby, Danica, and Melissa.

Shelby’s phone beeps next. She taps her fingers over
the screen and then she does the unthinkable. She peeks at it, even though Jude is yelling and Scarlet is crying, and we’ve been waiting all season for this blowup to happen. Shelby’s face is expressionless and she doesn’t look at us. It’s as if she doesn’t know that reading a text during
Mercy Rose
, not even waiting for a commercial, wouldn’t make us all curious. Then she does something I never thought I’d see any of us do, and returns the text.

Melissa breathes out when the commercials start—a deep and neurotic sigh of relief. “Who was that?” she asks in a small, worried voice, like maybe she thinks something is terribly wrong—a family crisis: Shelby’s grandmother dead; Sienna in jail—because why else would Shelby answer a text message during the last ten minutes of the season finale?

Now Shelby’s eyes stay glued to the television. “No one,” she says. She shakes her head, gives the television a smirk. “Fucking Patrick.”

“Lame,” Danica says, but her voice is vacant.

Shelby would never return a text from Patrick in the middle of our show—I know we all must be thinking it. And Patrick’s been attached to Leila for the past month, barely even noticing Shelby. Sam would have been a more believable answer, I think. And that’s when I realize it: Shelby’s lying.

“I can’t believe you ate all the Oreos,” I say quickly to Melissa, who’s still clutching the empty Oreos container to
her chest the way she has been through most of the show. I don’t want anyone to ask Shelby what Patrick wanted. I don’t want her to know that I’m onto her.

“I can’t help it,” Melissa says, shaking her head, taking a quick swipe at her face like she’s afraid she’s got Oreos smeared across it. “I’m a stress eater.”

“You’re such a mental case,” Shelby says, smiling. The words are wrapped and padded with love, the way so much of what Shelby says is.

I hate myself for not believing her about the text. For thinking that what she’s hiding will hurt me. The thought that’s looming, deepening inside me, I push away: the last time Shelby had secrets, Nathan had them too.

N
athan isn’t at school. He told me when I spoke to him after I got home from Shelby’s that he felt like he was coming down with something. That’s why he couldn’t talk longer than two minutes. That’s why he probably won’t answer his phone today.
I’ll most likely be asleep
, he said.

Doubt is ugly. It’s consuming and fluid and chameleonlike. It’s as if my feelings are actually stinking up the air, making it cloudy.

Sienna brought Shelby to school today, and Shelby never takes rides from Sienna unless it’s a Friday night
and she’s desperate to get somewhere. But no one else seems to notice. No one asks her about it, so I don’t either.

Leila and Patrick cling to each other, but not too much—not the way Patrick clings to her when he’s wandered away and is desperate to gain her affection again. He doesn’t even acknowledge Shelby except to steal a few fries from her plate when she’s not looking.

I feel ridiculous and I wish I could shake whatever it is that’s plaguing me, forcing me to theorize and accuse. It’s lonely, thinking the worst about other people, stacking up all the things that are wrong. But I can’t stop. I’m alone in this pit of assumption, and at this rate I’m going to keep finding ways to dig myself deeper and deeper, until I’m alone in the dark with the truth looming above me, shaking its head:
You should have known better
.

At lunch, Robert tells us all to go to the park after school, but Shelby declines. “I’m doing this thing for my mom.”

“What?” Melissa asks. “Does Sandra need our help too?”

Shelby waves a hand. “We’re picking out a present for my grandma. Dishes, maybe. Something for her kitchen.”

The first thought that pops into my head: This is a smart lie. None of us would dream about tagging along for a shopping trip involving kitchen supplies.

“Sienna’s going too.” Shelby must’ve thrown this in for good measure.

The murkiness is getting thicker, pressing down harder, blurring everything.

Shelby gets up from the table to bus her tray. She leaves her purse on the floor, leaning slightly against my foot. My eyes follow her. Some seniors on the basketball team stop her on her way back from the trash. She does the move—hands in pockets, chest up—and I know she won’t be back right away. I bend forward, reaching into her unclasped purse. It’s almost too easy, to fold my fingers over her phone. Next, I feel my way past a wallet, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a tube of lip gloss, until I find her gum. I take a piece and pop it in my mouth for everyone to see while I slide Shelby’s phone from my hand into my purse, which is resting between my feet under the table.

“I have to get something from my car,” I say, groaning my way through the sentence. No one will want to go with me all the way out to the parking lot.

My breath picks up as I shove out the doors of the school. I start to run. Doing this makes me insane, I know that. It makes me a bitch, too, but it’s better than being alone with all these dark thoughts.

I shut myself in my car and look around. I’m truly alone with this awful thing I’m about to do. I press the screen and
go straight to the text messages. Shelby has not received a text from Patrick since Saturday. There are recent texts from Nathan. Several. Not only from last night at nearly nine, but also from today. Just thirty minutes ago.

ARE YOU OKAY?
Nathan wrote right before lunch.

R U?
Shelby’s response.

NOT REALLY.
Nathan.

I scroll down to read Nathan’s texts from last night.

GOT YOUR MESSAGE. WE CAN MEET AT MY HOUSE AFTER SCHOOL. NO ONE WILL BE HERE. THIS WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER EITHER WAY.

Shelby answers with:
FINE. SEE U TOMORROW.

The rest of their texts from earlier in the month are the kind I would expect between Nathan and Shelby.

WE’RE ALL AT THE PARK WHERE ARE YOU?

DID YOU BRING MONEY FOR THE VODKA?

MELISSA NEEDS SOMEONE TO CARRY HER.

PATRICK CAN’T REMEMBER WHERE HE LEFT HIS CAR.

DID MR. TINSKLEY NOTICE I CUT SECOND PERIOD?

I’m careful not to scroll up too far, afraid of what I’ll see if I allow myself to stumble onto the texts from when they were hooking up.

I take a deep breath. I don’t have very much time left before Shelby might come back to the table. The rest, whatever Nathan and Shelby said to each other when they were hooking up, is in my hand. Just a few more flicks of the finger, to expose what could hurt me.

Of course, I do it. I hate myself for being so predictable. I hate myself for having no control. I hate myself for caring.

But what I hate the most is that Shelby and Nathan still have secrets.

MEET ME HERE.

LET’S LEAVE FOR LUNCH, I CAN’T WAIT.

I’LL CALL YOU IN FIFTEEN.

I’M OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE.

WE’LL GO TO THE PARTY LATE.

WHAT TIME SHOULD I PICK YOU UP?

ARE YOU READY YET? HURRY UP!

The texts aren’t scary. They’re vague, which is worse. It’s a choice I have now, to let my mind run away with them:
It must’ve been the Tuesday after the Detach when they left for lunch; was it Sam’s party they decided to go late to? Could the night he was waiting outside her house have been the first time they “hooked up to the max”?
And that’s the easiest thing to do, to assume the worst. To soak up all those moments that hurt and weren’t supposed to—that weren’t supposed to matter at all but somehow in the emptiness of the parking lot, alone in my car, they seem like all that matters.

Nathan and Shelby have arranged a meeting, and she’s been lying to me. There were no texts from
fucking Patrick.
The pain is reaching up and pulling me further and further down again. I grip the steering wheel. My
keys are in my lap. It would be so easy to drive away, to go home and bury myself under the covers.

Or going to Nathan’s might offer the quickest relief. It would be best if I arrive and he’s actually very sick. And then he could tell me he’s only meeting Shelby to discuss her money or her options for community college. That’s the thought I hold on to as I pry my fingers off the steering wheel and hustle back to school.

I need to remember the theories. Despite what I’ve allowed myself to believe about Nathan, the theories are still relevant. Without them, I’ve turned into a crazy and clingy girl with no regard for girl points or reality—a girl Nathan would never want. A girl Shelby Chesterfield would never be friends with.

When I get back to the cafeteria, Shelby is still with the basketball players. She’s got Jimmy “Treetop” Mulinski by the wrist and is swinging his arm back and forth, like it’s her own human yo-yo. Aaron “Red Beard” Billson leans down to say something to her and she lets go of Jimmy’s arm to push Aaron against his chest, letting her hand linger, while Sam stands laughing with them, waiting for his turn to be touched.

“Maybe the text last night was from one of them,” Danica says, and it startles me. I hadn’t realized she’d come up beside me.

“Maybe.”

I feel the girl points slipping away at our assumptions. But how many does Shelby lose for lying to us?

I return to my seat at the cafeteria, even though most everyone has abandoned the table in favor of mingling. I’m confident as I slip the phone back into her purse that no one notices.