The Boy I Love (19 page)

But at the exact second we saw Tim and Jay in the bright light—moments before our car would have pulled in front of the house and blocked the sight of them—who should come walking out of the house but Devon and Rachel, along with two other girls I didn't know. Rachel's cheerleader friends.

“Oh no,” I said.

“You get Allie,” Mom said, instantly understanding. She turned off her headlights, but it was a little late for that. “I'll get the guys.”

From the swift and expert way my mom moved, you would have thought Tim and Jay were a pair of thoroughbreds loose in somebody's meadow. She flew out of the car and to the middle of the lawn and guided them into our backseat. It took me slightly longer to get Allie up off the porch. I pushed her into the passenger seat next to my mom and climbed in back with Tim and Jay. To my mom's credit, she didn't peel out, though I could see her hands shaking on the steering wheel. She just eased that car down the driveway, while the hooting and shouting of drunken witnesses rose up behind us. I heard glass shatter, like someone had chucked a bottle at us. But I didn't turn around and look. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of my worried face, peering back at them. And believe me, my face must've looked plenty worried.

“Well,” my mother said, as she drove carefully up Woods Hill Road. “Can you introduce me to your friend, Wren?”

Obviously she knew Allie and Tim, so I said, “This is Jay. Jay, this is my mom.” I shrugged out of the jacket and handed it to him. He took it without looking at me, just folded it up in his lap. From the way Jay and Tim sat, staring straight ahead with their hands on their knees, you would have thought they were riding in the back of a police car.

“Can I drop you at home, Jay?” my mother said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Jay said. His voice sounded so deep, he could have been a sports announcer. “Thank you, ma'am,” he added, and he gave her directions. Turns out he lived only a few blocks away.

My mom made sure Jay was safely in his front door, then headed toward Tim's house. Tim sat beside me, still staring straight ahead. He looked like a wax statue of himself. It scared me, seeing his face like that. I wanted to grab him, shake him, snap him out of it. I wanted to yell, “Tim! It doesn't matter! Can't you see? It doesn't matter one bit!”

But of course it did matter. I felt sick to my stomach, imagining what the kids would be saying at the party. If only there were some way for me to protect him, from everything. If only we could take him home with us, where I could watch him every second—and make sure that he'd be okay, and know that he was fine, and loved.

I reached over and grabbed hold of his hand. Tim clasped mine tightly, so tightly that the scars from my burn began to ache. But I didn't pull my hand away, just let him hold it so that my bones crunched, all the way to Cutty River Landing.

When I opened my eyes
the next morning, I had that feeling you get when something terrible has happened—something that changes everything—but for a moment you can't quite remember what. There was just a hollowed-out place in my chest where nerves jangled into one another, jittery and off balance.

Then I remembered, the single image, the one everyone would take away from that party whether they'd seen it or not: Tim and Jay, kissing. I closed my eyes.
Tim
. Was he awake, too? What must he be feeling and thinking? I threw my feet over the side of the bed so fast that Daisy, who'd been sleeping at the foot of my bed, sat up, her face alarmed and ready for action. My whole body buzzed with this need to get to Tim as fast as humanly possible. I didn't know if there was any good I could do, but I needed to try; I needed to
see
him and know that he was all right.

The morning light made everything too bright as I rooted through my drawers for clothes. Daisy still sat at attention, watching me. Despite feeling very urgent, I tried to be quiet so as not to wake Allie, who was asleep on the twin mattress that I pulled out from under my bed when friends spent the night. Her mouth was wide open, and a string of spittle fell out onto the pillow. I had woken up to see her on that mattress a thousand times. By now she had grown way too long for it—the heels of her feet rested on the carpet, on almost the exact same spot she'd spilled paint when we were decorating the nesting dolls I'd gotten for my eighth birthday. She wore a gigantic denim shirt of my dad's that Mom and I had wrestled her into last night because her clothes reeked of whiskey and puke. Splayed out on that old twin mattress, Allie looked like the same best friend I'd had my whole life. I imagined how
she'd
feel when she opened her eyes. Poor Allie.

But between the two of them, Tim needed me more. Daisy thumped off the bed and followed me downstairs. My mom sat at the kitchen table, holding a mug of coffee and staring into space. I could tell she'd already gone for a morning ride: Her hair was in a braid and she smelled like horse sweat, which may sound to you like a negative thing but is actually quite nice.

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

“Hi, Wrenny.”

I reached in front of her and pulled an apple from the fruit bowl. Almost no humans in our house ever ate apples; we kept them for the horses. “I thought I'd go for a ride,” I said. “Allie's still sleeping.”

Mom nodded. “Leaving me to deal with her on my own, eh?”

“Well,” I admitted, “I really want to go see how Tim's doing.”

She smiled, but a sad smile. “Okay, Wren,” she said. “We haven't even taken you for your driving test, have we? If we had, you could drive over.”

“It's okay,” I said. “It's more fun to ride, anyway.”

She nodded, like that was the end of the conversation, but then just as my hand started to turn the doorknob, she said, “You're a good friend, Wren.”

I let my hand drop to my side and turned around. “You're a good mother,” I said. She looked at me like I had gone crazy. “No, really,” I said. “I mean it. I'm serious.”

“I can see that,” she said. “I just didn't expect to hear those words from you. At least not during the troubled teenage years.”

I smiled at her. I hope she could tell how grateful I was for how she'd acted last night, and how thankful I felt, because all I could manage to do was mutter, “Thanks,” and head on out the door.

*   *   *

As soon as I rode Pandora through the open gate at Cutty River Landing, I wished I'd ridden my bicycle instead. What was I thinking? Pandora's hooves clip-clopped loudly on the paved road, past the swimming pool and all the brick houses that looked more or less the same. They all had giant SUVs, or Volvo station wagons, or shiny black Lexuses parked out front. I wondered how people weren't always walking through the door of the wrong house. All the lawns were perfect, and I prayed that Pandora wouldn't poop, even though these were exactly the sort of people who paid loads of money for bags of fertilizer over at Agway.

Tim's mother was standing out front hosing down the car that must've belonged to Tim's dad. She shaded her eyes as I came toward her, looking a little alarmed, and then she pasted on a smile when she realized it was me.

“Well, look at you, little cowgirl,” she said. “I'm sorry to tell you, your friend Tim is in a world of trouble.”

My heart stopped. Despite a little bit of grimness around her mouth, Mrs. Greenlaw looked mostly cheerful. Could she possibly know about Tim and Jay? I didn't dare say a word.

“How about you, Wren?” she said. “Did you get in trouble for drinking last night?”

“No, ma'am,” I said.

I tried to think of some little joke I could make, but before I had a chance, she turned off the hose and said, “At least Tim had the good sense not to drive in that state.” I
guessed Tim hadn't told her it was my mom who brought him home. “He's inside getting ready for church,” she went on. “I'll go get him for you. You'll have to stay here with your horse; we don't have a hitching post.” She laughed as she wound the hose back on its little hanger and went inside to get Tim. I sat there on Pandora, not sure what to do, feeling kind of stupid. Pandora strained her head down toward the grass. I wasn't sure whether they'd thank me for the extra mowing, so I gave the reins a little tug and pulled her back a few steps.

Tim came out of the house wearing a coat and tie, his surfer blond-hair flopping across his forehead. From a distance he almost looked like his normal, handsome self, but as he walked close I could see his face was pale. Really pale. Even his freckles seemed washed the color of sand, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Hey, Wren,” he said. He reached out and petted Pandora's neck.

“Hey,” I said. “I came by to see how you were doing.”

He nodded, still looking at the horse instead of me. I had this feeling that if he said anything at all, he would lose it. To tell you the truth, I was about to lose it too. For a lot of reasons.

The only thing I could think to say was, “I think Jay is a nice guy.”

Tim stopped petting the horse. He looked at me like I'd
gone crazy. “That's the last thing in the world I expected you to say.”

“Well,” I said, “I just think it's nice when someone you like likes you back.” I tried not to let my voice crack, because how would I know?

“You see things in a funny way, Wren,” Tim said.

“I think it's the way most people see things. It's just the people who think different are a whole lot louder.”

“That's unfortunate,” he said. “I get to spend an hour listening to the loud ones in about five minutes.”

“I could save you,” I said, hoping he could hear from my voice, I was only half-kidding. “You could climb right up on the horse with me and we could gallop away.”

He leaned his head into Pandora's neck, like I had done a million times. She nibbled the collar of his jacket. I hoped against hope that it made him feel at least a little bit better.

“Well,” I said, when I could tell he wasn't going to say anything, let alone run away with me. “Come on over to the farm after church, if you want.”

I wish I had climbed down off my horse to give him a hug. But instead I just waved. He waved back, and I rode off through that brick-house world, lonesome and powerless.

*   *   *

When I got home, Mom and Allie were sitting at the kitchen table. Allie had a hot drink. It must have been tea or cocoa, because like me she didn't drink coffee. She still wore my
dad's denim shirt, and I could hear the dryer tumbling away with her clothes from last night.

“Hey,” I said to Allie. “How are you feeling?”

She let out this dramatic little groan. “Like I'm about to die.”

“How's Tim?” Mom asked. I shrugged.

“Did he get wasted too?” Allie asked. Mom and I glanced at each other.

“Is your mom coming to get you?” I said, changing the subject.

“In an hour,” Allie said. “After which I will be grounded for the rest of my life.”

“Well then,” I said. “Maybe we better take a walk while you still have your freedom.”

*   *   *

Allie's clothes had dried. She pulled on her jeans and shirt and put my dad's shirt back on over it. Her hair looked lank and still smelled faintly of vomit, but she'd washed her face, and though her eyes looked narrow with exhaustion, I thought she looked prettier than I'd seen her in a long time, even if she didn't smell very good.

We walked up to the top of the west ridge. Most of the trees had gone bare, and you could see a whole lot of Leeville, the way it switched back and forth between farms and little suburban neighborhoods. I squinted toward Cutty River Landing, trying to pick out Tim's
house, but the whole development just looked like a faraway Lego set.

Allie sat down on the ground. “I can't even believe how terrible I feel,” she said. “My head is pounding, my insides feel just raked out. I really would want to die if I thought I was going to feel this way more than a day.”

“Allie,” I said. “Something happened last night.”

Her eyes widened with horror. “Oh my God. What did I do?” She put her hands over her mouth and waited. For a second I felt a flare of anger, like why did she immediately make it about her? Then I thought about how scary it must be, not remembering what you'd done the night before.

“No,” I said, deciding to forget the mean things she'd said to me, not to mention puking in the bushes. “It's about Tim.”

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that it wasn't a secret anymore. I could say it out loud. And I wanted Allie to hear it from me—hear about Tim and Jay—before she heard it in a much uglier way.

“Something you don't know about Tim,” I said.

She didn't react much, just a little twitch at her jaw as she stared up at me, listening. It felt too bizarre to just come and say the words,
He's gay
. So instead I told her about when Tim told me himself. Her eyes got kind of wide, and I hurried ahead and told her what had
happened last night, how Tim and Jay were kissing, and how Devon and his friends saw. Listening to the words come out of my mouth, after all this time, I couldn't quite believe I was saying them.

By now Allie's hands sat flat on her knees. She stared wide-eyed, the color coming back into her face. After a long while she said, “God. I feel like such an idiot.”

“Well,” I said, not able to let this opportunity go by, “that's because you are an idiot.”

She ratcheted out a little tuft of brown grass and threw it at me. Since the grass didn't weigh anything, it only traveled half an inch or so, landing just shy of her toe. We both laughed, then fell serious.

“Poor Tim,” Allie said, and I nodded. Then she said, “Wren, I know I owe you an apology. Even if it weren't for all this—even if he really was your boyfriend—I owe you an apology. I had no right to just declare he was mine. I don't even know him.”