David Levithan - Another Day

I take his hand and hold it. If he’s willing to step back from last night, I am, too. This is what we do. When the stupid fights are over, we’re good.

“I’m glad you’re not mad at me,” I tell him. “I just want everything to be okay.”

He knows I love him. I know he loves me. That is never the question. The question is always how we’ll deal with it.

Time. The bell rings. I have to remind myself that school is not a thing that exists solely to give us a place to be together.

“I’ll see you later,” he says.

I hold on to that. It’s the only thing that will get me through the empty space that follows.

I was watching one of my shows, and one of the housewives was like, “He’s a fuckup, but he’s my fuckup,” and I thought, Oh, shit, I really shouldn’t be relating to this, but I am, and so what? That has to be what love is – seeing what a mess he is and loving him anyway, because you know you’re a mess, too, maybe even worse.

We weren’t an hour into our first date before Justin was setting off the alarms.

“I’m warning you – I’m trouble,” he said over dinner at TGI Friday’s. “Total trouble.”

“And do you warn all the other girls?” I replied, flirting.

But what I got back wasn’t flirtation. It was real.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

This was his way of letting me know that I was someone he cared about. Even at the very beginning.

He hadn’t meant to tell me. But there it was.

And even though he’s forgotten a lot of other details about that first date, he’s never forgotten what he said.

I warned you! he’ll yell at me on nights when it’s really bad, really hard. You can’t say I didn’t warn you!

Sometimes this only makes me hold him tighter.

Sometimes I’ve already let go, feeling awful that there’s nothing I can do.

The only time our paths intersect in the morning is between first and second periods, so I look for him then. We only have a minute to share, sometimes less, but I’m always thankful. It’s like I’m taking attendance. Love? Here! Even if we’re tired (which is pretty much always) and even if we don’t have much to say, I know he won’t just pass me by.

Today I smile, because, all things considered, the morning went pretty well. And he smiles back at me.

Good signs. I am always looking for good signs.

I head to Justin’s class as soon as fourth period is over, but he hasn’t waited for me. So I go to the cafeteria, to where we usually sit. He’s not there, either. I ask Rebecca if she’s seen him. She says she hasn’t, and doesn’t seem too surprised that I’m looking. I decide to ignore that. I check my locker and he’s not there. I’m starting to think he’s forgotten, or was playing with me all along. I decide to check his locker, even though it’s about as far from the cafeteria as you can get. He never stops there before lunch. But I guess today he has, because there he is.

I’m happy to see him, but also exhausted. It’s just so much work. He looks worse than I feel, staring into his locker like there’s a window in there. In some people, this would mean daydreams. But Justin doesn’t daydream. When he’s gone, he’s really gone.

Now he’s back. Right when I get to him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say back.

I’m hungry, but not that hungry. The most important thing is for us to be in the same place. I can do that anywhere.

He’s putting all of his books in his locker now, as if he’s done with the day. I hope nothing’s wrong. I hope he’s not giving up. If I’m going to be stuck here, I want him stuck here, too.

He stands up and puts his hand on my arm. Gentle. Way too gentle. It’s something I’d do to him, not something he’d do to me. I like it, but I also don’t like it.

“Let’s go somewhere,” he says. “Where do you want to go?”

Again, I think there has to be a right answer to this question, and that if I get it wrong, I will ruin everything. He wants something from me, but I’m not sure what.

“I don’t know,” I tell him.

He takes his hand off my arm and I think, okay, wrong answer. But then he takes my hand.

“Come on,” he says.

There’s an electricity in his eyes. Power. Light.

He closes the locker and pulls me forward. I don’t understand. We’re walking hand in hand through the almost-empty halls. We never do this. He gets this grin on his face and we go faster. It’s like we’re little kids at recess. Running, actually running down the halls. People look at us like we’re insane. It’s so ridiculous. He swings us by my locker and tells me to leave my books here, too. I don’t understand, but I go along with it – he’s in a great mood, and I don’t want to do anything that will break it.

Once my locker’s closed, we keep going. Right out the door. Simple as that. Escape. We’re always talking about how we want to leave, and this time we’re doing it. I figure he’ll take me out for pizza or something. Maybe be late to fifth period. We get to his car and I don’t even want to ask him what we’re doing. I just want to let him do it.

He turns and asks, “Where do you want to go? Tell me, truly, where you’d love to go.”

Strange. He’s asking me as if I’m the one who knows the right answer.

I really hope this isn’t a trick. I really hope I won’t regret this.

I say the first thing that comes to my mind.

“I want to go to the ocean. I want you to take me to the ocean.”

I figure he’ll laugh and say what he really meant was that we should go to his house while his parents are gone and spend the afternoon having sex and watching TV. Or that he’s trying to prove a point about not making plans, to prove that I like being spontaneous better. Or he’ll tell me to go have fun at the ocean while he gets lunch. All of these are possibilities, and they all play at the same time in my head.

The only thing I’m not expecting is for him to assume it’s a good idea.

“Okay,” he says, pulling out of the parking lot. I still think he’s joking, but then he’s asking me the best way to get there. I tell him which highways we should take – there’s a beach my family used to go to a lot in summer, and if we’re going to the ocean, we might as well go there.

As he steers, I can tell he’s enjoying himself. It should put me at ease, but it’s making me nervous. It would be just like Justin to take me somewhere really special in order to dump me. Make a big production of it. Maybe leave me stranded there. I don’t actually think this is going to happen – but it’s possible. As a way of proving to me that he’s able to make plans. As a way of showing he’s not as afraid of the future as I said he was.

You’re being crazy, Rhiannon , I tell myself. It’s something he says to me all the time. A lot of the time, he’s right.

Just enjoy it , I think. Because we’re not in school. We’re together.

He turns on the radio and tells me to take over. What? My car, my radio – how many times have I heard him say that? But it seems like his offer is real, so I slip from station to station, trying to find something he’ll be into. When I pause too long on a song I like, he says, “Why not that one?” And I’m thinking, Because you hate it . But I don’t say that out loud. I let the song play. I wait for him to make a joke about it, say the singer sounds like she’s having her period.

Instead, he starts to sing along.

Disbelief. Justin never sings along. He will yell at the radio. He will talk back to whatever the talk radio people are saying. Every now and then he might beat along on his steering wheel. But he does not sing.