E. Lockhart - Real Live Boyfriends

“Seriously? I did not know that, actually.”

“Can we have this conversation in the car? Please?”

I sniffed. “Where’s Noel?”

“Driving Hutch home.”

“Did he say anything about me?”

“He asked if you were okay.”

“What did you say?”

“I said obviously you were not okay and he should go after you.”

“And he said?”

“Will you get in the car, Roo?”

“Do you think he’s turned into a pod-robot like Jackson did?”

“No.”

“He seemed like a pod-robot. He didn’t even hug me.”

“Will you just get in the car already?”

“I love you, mailbox. You have been very, very good to me,” I said, patting it. “I will come back and visit you often, even if it means I have to hide from the staff of Snappy Dragon, who will probably pour soup on my head if I ever set foot near their restaurant again.”

“Get in!” barked Meghan. “You have ceased to be amusing.”

I got in.

The girl had my house keys.

Meghan pulled into traffic and said: “So Noel was all, ‘I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.’ ”

“What?”

“He sat down at the table and ate a fortune cookie and said he didn’t know what to do. Then even Hutch said he should go after you, and Noel put his head down on the table.”

“Why?”

“He said, ‘I can’t deal right now.’ ” Meghan shrugged. “So I got the check.”

Ag.

“I don’t know what his problem is,” Meghan went on. “He needs to go to boyfriend school.”

I sniffed again. “Maybe. But I can’t expect him to go running after me when he just got into town and I’m crying like an infant and my parents hate me and I made a scene in the restaurant.”

“You can too. He’s supposed to go after you if you’re upset. Finn would never leave me crying on the street talking to a mailbox.”

No. None of Meghan’s boyfriends would ever have done that.

“You have bad luck with guys, Roo,” Meghan went on. “It’s like, you pick ones who have zero talent at being boyfriends.”

“Jackson was a good boyfriend.”

“Jackson? Please.”

“He was a good boyfriend to Kim, at least,” I said, “if not to me. He was capable of being a good boyfriend.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Meghan sarcastically. “He cheated on her and then dumped her at school. Roo, hello?”

“Whatever. The problem is obviously me. Guys don’t want mental-patient girlfriends. Except in the movies.” 2

Meghan pulled the Jeep into her driveway. “Noel should have gone after you. Even if he wants to break up, he should still have gone after you.”

“Maybe,” I said, looking at beautiful Meghan in the setting sunlight.

Her reddish brown curls hung across her shoulders. She wore a pair of Finn’s old jeans and a Tate Prep tank top. Even though I knew most of the girls at school hated her, even though I knew she had lost her dad and saw a shrink, even though she couldn’t really be as oblivious to pain and weirdness in her heart as she seemed on a day-to-day basis—sometimes I wished I were Meghan instead of me.

Because she never seemed to second-guess her thoughts.

Me, I second-guess everything.

1 This is precisely the kind of behavior that makes girls generally hate Meghan. Like: Why does she need to be rubbing her sexy body up against my boyfriend’s torso? Why?

But I have learned to ignore this aspect of her because she is so freaking nice to me—and in this case, I was grateful. There I was, red-faced with embarrassment, anger and tears, and she was able to act like nothing tragic had happened. 2 Movies where a quality guy loves a girl and sticks with her even though she’s one or another kind of insane—maybe alcoholic, maybe addict, maybe psychotic or depressed: Mad Love, When a Man Loves a Woman, Bed of Roses, Benny and Joon, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 50 First Dates, Almost Famous, Proof, Center Stage, The Hours, My Sassy Girl, What Dreams May Come, Rachel Getting Married, Forrest Gump (if you consider him a quality guy) and Betty Blue . But in real life, I think it’s more likely the guy gets sick of the girl’s insane behavior and goes off with a nice normal person to live happily ever after. And who can blame him?

Surprise Kissing!

e-mail from Hutch:

I am eating a strange pretzel in the airport. It is warm, with cinnamon sugar and frosting. Long and thin, not normal pretzel shape. Like the baby of a cinnamon bun and a pretzel.

Seems wrong, somehow.

My flight doesn’t leave for another hour.

The real purpose of this e-mail: Are you okay?

I wrote back:

Sorry about last night.

Again, sorry sorry sorry.

Re: Pretzel. That is your last American deliciousness! Savor its American pastry goodness, as from here on in it will be all patisserie.

(You poor thing. Can you tell I am v. jealous?)

Re: Am I okay?

Yeah.

Slept at Meghan’s.

Home now.

Mom giving me silent treatment.

I tried to apologize, but she said she wouldn’t accept it until I took back what I said about her bossing Dad.

But you know what? She bosses Dad.

So I wouldn’t take it back.

Hutch replied:

Re: Last night. No worries. Honestly was relieved not to have to eat white chocolate.

They are boarding my flight now.

I threw the pretzel out and got a giant bag of Sour Patch Kids for last American deliciousness.

Au revoir.

Hutch never wanted to talk about me and Noel. And so we never did. It was almost a forbidden subject between us—not that we ever talked very intimately anyway. Those e-mails were probably some of the most personal things we ever said to each other.

It’s funny how you can see a person in your greenhouse every day, and you can watch movies next to him on the couch and sometimes go get pizza or something for most of a summer, and you still don’t share all the dark secret details of your lives.

Back when I was friends with Nora, Kim and Cricket, the dark secret details of our lives were what friendship was all about. We talked about fights with our parents, dreams for the future, guys we liked, disappointments and small triumphs. There was an endless series of notes, e-mails and phone calls.

With Hutch, it was all about music and plants and sometimes not talking at all, just existing in the same room together, watching whatever Netflix had just delivered.

There was never a reason to call Hutch twenty minutes after he left my house.

The afternoon after the Snappy Dragon Debacle I worked at the zoo from two until closing. When I was done I changed my clothes, put some minty gum in my mouth and washed the goat smell off my hands, then drove to Noel’s house. My hands were shaking on the wheel, but I was determined not to have a panic attack. I found a parking space in front of Noel’s place and sat there in the Honda, taking deep breaths and blasting Queen’s greatest hits. 1

A hand knocked on my window.

It was Sydonie, Noel’s younger half sister. “Why are you out here?” she wanted to know.