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The three of us chatted for a while about nothing important. Aaron kept trying to make George feel like an outsider: he’d whisper fu
At one point, when George was still in the middle of telling us a story about his sister’s boyfriend, who had come to their Thanksgiving di
“We could all move to the living room.”
“How about we sneak out to a movie?”
I glanced over at George.
“You could come too if you wanted,” Aaron said to him begrudgingly.
“Thanks,” George said. “I don’t want to strand my brother—we came in one car.”
“So how about it, Ellie?”
“I’m fine staying,” I said.
Aaron leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’m going to scream if we sit here any longer. Can’t we just run out and do something? Anything? Just us two?”
“I’m really happy here,” I said, and shifted sideways in my chair so I could lean back against George. His arms went around me just like I knew they would—not in a proprietary way, just settling me against his chest. “You see?” I said to Aaron. “Happy.”
He stared at us. “Excuse me?” he said.
I put my hands over George’s and pressed them hard against my arms. “He’s a really good tutor,” I explained.
It took him another moment. “You two?” he said. “Seriously?”
“Define ‘seriously,’” I said. “I mean, I make a lot of jokes about it. . . .”
“I can see why.” He forced a laugh. “This is . . . unexpected. You could have said something.”
“Yeah, I really should have,” I agreed. “I hate when people sneak around and don’t tell you the truth about their love lives, don’t you?”
“Ah, I see what you did there. Clever.” He stood up. “Excuse me. I’m going to need a lot more wine to process this.” He picked up his glass and stalked down to the far end of the table, where another bottle had just been opened.
We sat quietly for a while. I watched Jacob—now on Grandma’s lap—methodically stab his pumpkin pie with a fork until it was completely dead. Apparently he wasn’t a fan.
“When you move your head, your hair tickles my nose,” George said sleepily.
“Your nose tickles my hair.”
He slid his fingers up my neck and tugged at my curls from underneath. “There’s so much of it. Maybe you should cut it all off.”
“Never!”
“It’s just dead cells, you know.”
“Yes, but my dead cells are so much more beautiful than anyone else’s.”
“Vain, aren’t we?”
I tilted my head back to look up at him. “Have you seen my hair? It’s extraordinary.”
“It is,” he said.
My phone buzzed and I moved back into my own seat to glance at it.
Meet me in the kitchen.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and got up. I went into the kitchen, which was amazingly clean. The servers Carlos had arranged for us had left already, but they had washed all the dishes and counters and put all the leftovers in the refrigerator. You wouldn’t even have known that an entire Thanksgiving meal had been cooked and eaten there that day—except for the good turkey and pie smells that lingered in the air.
Aaron was leaning back against the counter, his arms tightly folded across his chest, his wineglass next to him.
“We need to talk about this,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s so clearly a mistake.”
“And again I say, why?”
“Because you’re—” He waved his hands in the air. “You’re fireworks and symphonies. He’s moldy books and everything that’s boring. And he’s way too old for you.”
I regarded him amiably. “Aaron, my love, are you really going to go there? Living in that glass house of yours and all?”
“That’s why!” he said, flailing his arms around. I was begi
I put my hand on his arm. “Here’s the thing: I like George a lot, and if you can’t be nice to him and about him, he’s not going to be the one I cut out of my life. Got it?”
“Really?” he said like he couldn’t believe it.
“So really. Just be a good friend and be happy for me.”
“Bleargh,” he said miserably. “Happiness.”
I squeezed his wrist. “I know things have been bad. They’re going to get better.”
He pushed my hand away. “Traitor,” he said. “You were supposed to belong to me. What about my needs? What if I’m sad and lonely and you’re the only person I can stand to be with, but you’re off with him?”
“Then I guess you’ll have to wait for me to come back.”
“If I have to, I will,” he said. “But I’d rather have you all to myself. I’m supposed to be the most important guy in your life.”
“Yeah, no,” I explained.
thirty-seven
I was alone in my room when I found out online that I’d been accepted to Elton College. I screamed and Mom and Lorena came ru
“Why would I?”
“You told him my SAT scores without my permission.”
“That was when he was your tutor, not your boyfriend,” she pointed out. “And I was paying him for the time he spent with you. I’ve stopped doing that, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I should tell him to submit a bill,” I said. “He’s been putting in some long hours with me over the last couple of weeks. Lots of late nights . . .”
“I don’t want to hear about it!” she said, putting her hands over her ears. She was in a much better mood these days, willing to laugh and be silly. Jacob had a whole weekly regimen with various therapists and had added about fifteen more words to his vocabulary in just a few weeks, and Mom had said to me a few days earlier that knowing he was getting help and seeing him respond to all the interventions made her feel better about everything. And I could see that in her face every day—that little line between her eyes had virtually disappeared.
She dropped her hands and said more seriously, “But can you still apply somewhere else? You got in so easily—maybe you didn’t reach high enough. The Ivies—”
I cut her off. “Too late. I’m committed now—early decision, remember?—and it’s good news, so don’t harsh my buzz.” I slipped my feet into flip-flops, twisted my hair into a knot, threw on a sweatshirt, and was out the door before she could say anything else.
It was late afternoon on a weekday, and traffic was predictably hellish going over the hill into the Valley. I listened to music and tailgated every car in front of me. Not that it helped.
About halfway there, I got a call. Heather. My stomach tightened. It was the first time she’d called me since I’d told her about George. I’d texted her a bunch of times, asking her if we could please just talk, but she never responded. I kept trying; she had a right to be mad at me, and I had a right not to give up on our friendship.
But now she was breaking the silence. She must have heard from Elton.
I hoped she was calling to say, “Hey, since we’re going to be going to school together, let’s make up!”
Please let it be that.
I hit the car’s Bluetooth speaker and said hello. I heard weeping on the other end, then finally some broken words. “You got in, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”