Love and Other Theories (6 page)

T
he falling-out with Chiffon happened when we were sophomores. It was before we knew how to talk to boys without smiling and blushing.

Before we understood that we had all the control. This was back when Chiffon was one of our best friends.

Melissa was in love with Ronnie Adams. Obsessed in a way that had her switching her class schedule to spend more time with him, and she wound up enrolled in Science Fiction Writing and Woodshop. Her obsession started the second day of high school and stayed strong and steady. But Ronnie was two years older than us. Our sophomore year was her last year with him.

He found us at Maria Vasquez’s party—the only party I attended that year—strategically standing in a circle between the kitchen and the living room. The place where everyone could see us.

Melissa beamed as he spoke and laughed at his jokes as though he was the funniest person she’d ever known. We all laughed, but not too hard. We smiled at Ronnie but weren’t too friendly. Because he was Melissa’s and we were just in the background. We were following rules—the wrong rules. Rules no one had ever told us but we somehow all knew. We were to be polite, but not inviting. Friendly, but not intriguing.

The problem was Ronnie. He wasn’t following any of these rules. He was being flirty, overtly friendly, and he couldn’t stop staring at or smiling at or leaning toward Chiffon.

Chiffon did what any one of us would have done: She pretended she didn’t notice. She ignored his gestures. She avoided eye contact. She didn’t laugh too hard at his jokes.

This behavior, of course, is ultimately what made him decide to pursue her. But this was before we knew how it drives boys crazy when they think you don’t care.

After Maria’s party, Ronnie started hanging around us a lot more. It was obvious that Chiffon was the reason. He tried really hard to make her laugh. He noticed stupid details, like what her favorite Starbucks drink was, and sometimes he even brought it for her in the morning.

Melissa was silent about the issue at first, and after she started to speak up, we tried our best to keep her safe in the arms of denial.

Melissa, don’t be ridiculous.

Of course he likes you.

It’s soooo obvious.

He’s playing hard-to-get.

He’s afraid of how he feels.

This was all behind Chiffon’s back, of course. Even we weren’t stupid enough to lie when the truth was standing right in front of us. Because the truth was, if Ronnie wanted Melissa, he wouldn’t have repressed his desire for her.

We
were the ones suffering from repression.

It all came to a head the night Ronnie Adams graduated and we could no longer pretend he hadn’t chosen Chiffon over Melissa.

He begged for Chiffon’s number after the ceremony. Right in front of us, too. He grabbed her hand. Told her he’d miss her. Insisted they hang out over summer break before he left for college. Chiffon was smiling, but you could tell she was trying not to. Caught between a rock and an older boy, she ultimately gave him her phone number.

He made her laugh. He made her feel special. She wanted him, too. This is how it works. This is how simple these things are.

All I remember about that night, besides being shocked that Chiffon would make an awkward situation even worse, was the sound of Melissa’s sobs drowning out the gravel crunching under our feet as we walked through the nearly empty parking lot.

Chiffon was silent because there was nothing for her to say. Her face was limp, drained. Not the way you’re supposed to look after a boy you like begs for your phone number and you give it to him.

Finally she said, “It’s not like I’m going to do anything with him, Melissa.” There was a hint of annoyance in her voice, enough to set Melissa off.

“You’re a bitch,” Melissa said, choking on a sob. Melissa never said things like this about people, so when she did, she really meant them. Shelby pulled her close and put her arm around Melissa. That’s when I knew something was about to change. I grabbed Melissa’s hand.

Shelby, Melissa, Danica, and I had been through a lot: Melissa’s surgery to fix her deviated septum, otherwise called “the nose job of the decade” by Shelby. The time Shelby’s dad unexpectedly showed up to see her and we helped slide her under her bed and told Shelby’s mom that she’d snuck out to see Zane Chapman—which was a much less worrisome lie when we were nine and Zane was twelve. The time in sixth grade when Mrs. Bergdorf gave me detention for texting during class and Melissa started crying so I wouldn’t be the only one crying over
it, and Danica called Mrs. Bergdorf “the most unreasonable teacher I’d ever had,” so I wouldn’t have to be in detention alone. We’d known Chiffon our whole lives too, but we hadn’t really been friends with her until seventh grade, when she made Shelby laugh so hard that Diet Coke spewed out her nose in the middle of an assembly.

I felt mad. Hurt. This was Melissa,
my Melissa
, who didn’t start cursing until she was fourteen, who hated spiders and fire, and who always drove below the speed limit. Back then, it was much easier to relate to the girl who’d been ditched than to the girl who’d stolen someone else’s crush.

When we reached Danica’s car, she hesitated before unlocking all the doors. That’s when Chiffon started to look scared. She put her hand on the door handle, and Danica shook her head.

“Why don’t you get a ride home with Ronnie?” Danica said, her voice darker than I’d ever heard it before. Some people say Danica always looks like she’s scowling. She’s perfected this look, but it’s especially effective when she wants to use it.

Chiffon’s eyes started to water. “Are you serious?” she said with a depressing laugh.

To be honest, I don’t know what would have happened if she had fought harder to apologize. On some level she probably recognized she shouldn’t have had to.

Chiffon rolled her eyes and walked away. But not
before I noticed the tear fall down her left cheek.

It should have made me feel bad, leaving one of my best friends in the parking lot at night, not knowing how she was going to get home, but at that moment I was just glad I couldn’t see her anymore.

The rest of the summer, it was easy to avoid her. It was too easy, in fact. Ignoring phone calls. Deleting texts. Blocking her online. School was out, so there were hardly any accidental run-ins, and if there were, we took care of them.

Chiffon is a bitch. Don’t let her in.

Chiffon slept with the entire baseball team at the community college and probably has an STD.

She’s desperate.

Have you seen her in a bathing suit? She never shaves.

She’ll fuck your boyfriend.

She’ll fuck anyone.

It was hard to feel bad about saying these things. Everyone wants a reason to hate on someone, even if it’s not a good reason, and everyone loves a good slut-villain. She didn’t help her cause either when she dressed in clothes that were either too low or too short. And Chiffon actually did start going out with Ronnie Adams that summer, so sometimes it felt like everything we’d said about her might have been true. Not the “facts,” of course, but what the lies insinuated about her character.

Chiffon Dillon was the sacrifice. We had to go
through the Chiffon-Ronnie ordeal in order to discover the theories. Had we known the theories, what happened with Chiffon wouldn’t have been cause for friendship annihilation or social slaughtering. It’s ironic, yes, but it’s just what had to happen.

“It’s a Catch-22,” Danica said once. “Some things in life
just
are.”

That’s why we tried to apologize, the summer before junior year.

With the Ronnie Adams situation, Melissa had been losing too many points for Team Girl to even count, and the rest of us were no better, tossing points and throwing the game. We’d talked about how we would have handled the Chiffon and Ronnie situation in a much different way, now that we had the theories. We would have winked at Chiffon and told her to go for it. Melissa would have already moved on, lost interest in him the second it became clear he wasn’t impressed with her. Chiffon should never have allowed Ronnie to call her his girlfriend for the entire month of July. And she should never have cried all the tears I know she must’ve shed for him when he dumped her. She should have spent those summer months kissing boys, no strings attached, and laughing with us in the sun.

It’s so easy to look back, but sometimes it’s no use.

Shelby was the one to attempt the apology, which was fitting because she’d been the worst to Chiffon. Chiffon
didn’t care to hear it. She didn’t forgive us. She stuck by her new friends—the girls with too much eyeliner and not enough hemline. So it’s not surprising that we’ve seen Chiffon crying in the halls over a boy on more than one occasion.

We hate Chiffon because she chose to fight back with eye rolls, giving us the finger, and calling us bitches instead of forgiving us when we tried to explain. But mostly we hate her because she’s everything we do not want to be.

A
fter school I walk slowly to my car. Of course, I’m looking for Nathan, as I’ve been doing ever since he took off for the library after Drama to study Spanish during lunch, but this time he finds me.

He pulls up alongside me in his car and rolls down the window.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He looks like a movie star in his leather jacket and aviators. I picture sliding his jacket off his shoulders and unbuttoning his shirt, and feel my knees start to buckle.

I shrug and smile at him.

“I’m parked way in the back of the lot.”
Where the
people with lives park
.

He gives me a playful frown. “Get in. I’ll take you.” A part of me really loves that to Nathan Diggs, parking in the back is terrible and not a confirmation that I’m cool.

“Okay.” I smile—I can’t stop myself—and I climb into the front seat of his car. I point him in the direction of my red Honda and he pulls up behind it.

“Are you doing anything right now?” he asks. Before I can answer, he tells me, “I could follow you home so you can drop off your car, then we could go grab some food. I’m in the mood for Italian.”

I really like that Nathan has a well-devised plan for us. Trip’s plans usually included the word
whatever
. And the only food he was ever in the mood for was microwave pizza.

“Right. Italian food. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” He has to know that I’m onto him. I’m not completely naive as to why he’s tracked me down again. He wants more kissing, more foggy windows, more shirts being tossed on the floor.

He laughs. “You’re going to be so embarrassed when you witness firsthand just how bad I’m craving chicken parmigiana.” Nathan’s eyes linger on me as I open the door.

He follows me the ten-minute drive to my house. He parks behind me in the driveway. I’m making my way to
his car when my dad pulls up, toting my two younger brothers. It’s unusual for my dad to be getting them from school, as he’s usually at work until five thirty, but I notice my brother Gregory and my dad have matching
PEACE, LOVE, AND PALEONTOLOGY
shirts, and I remember something about a field trip to the science museum. I wave at them as I walk to the passenger side of Nathan’s car. They note that I’m on my way out and simply wave back. My mother peeks her head out the front door, and I’m not sure if it’s to greet my father and brothers or to get a look at the boy whose car I’m climbing into. Nathan waves at them—the polite thing to do—but then he gets out of the car.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Your parents don’t want to meet . . . You don’t need to check in, or something?” There he goes looking confused and adorable again—and finally uncomfortable, which is what I’d expect. Boys do not want to meet your parents unless there is absolutely no way around it.

“What they don’t know . . .” I say. He knows the rest of the cliché.

He looks unsatisfied with this answer, and smirks like he finds
me
adorable. “Come on.”

I groan but follow him up the path to my house.

“This is going to be fun,” he says into my ear once I’ve finally caught up to him. “I’m curious about the people who bumped uglies to create you.”

“You did not just say that.” One hand swats at him, the other covers my face. “Vulgar!”

He tilts his head back and laughs lightly. “Your best friend is Shelby Chesterfield and you think
I’m
vulgar?”

I smile and roll my eyes and pretend that I’m not slightly perturbed that he’s only been at Lincoln High for two days and he already knows Shelby’s full name and that she’s vulgar. Of course, that’s what anyone would learn the moment they enter Lincoln. That Shelby is someone whose last name you should know. That she has no filter when she speaks. That I am her best friend.

“Just be good,” I say, pushing the front door open. But I already know he will be.