The Boys - E Lockhart

That was how my morning had been, leading up to fourth-period Chem.

Then Noel ditched class. I turned my cabbage juice a variety of shades of bluish purple, made the best notes I could and left without speaking another word to anyone.

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The Thousand Reasons Not to Kiss Noel

1. Nora likes him. She told me so. True, she hasn't done anything about it except giggle when he's around and touch his shoulder too much. But she is my best friend, the only one of my old crowd who came back after the debacles of sophomore year--and she liked him first.

2. Nearly the entire population of Tate Prep thinks I am a megaslut, even though I've kissed a total of six guys in sixteen years and have never even reached the nether regions. Given my shattered reputation, I should swear off guys for a while. Like forever.

3. I am still mentally unstable thanks to said sophomore-year debacles and have to see Doctor Z to keep some semblance of sanity. I am obviously in no shape to have an actual boyfriend.

4. I have two whole friends, Meghan and Nora. If I went for Noel, and Nora hated me for it, Meghan would probably hate me too. I cannot afford to be friendless. I have been there before, thank you very much, and have no intentions of returning to complete leprosy. 2

--entry in The Girl Book, my sort-of, only-sometimes-updated journal, written December of junior year.

Okay, so those are only four reasons, not a thousand. But they might as well have been a thousand, as they still resulted in me not kissing Noel and Noel not kissing me.

***

2 Leprosy: It's a metaphor. Leprosy is a horrible bacterial disease that disfigures your face and rots your hands and feet. They used to send all the lepers into isolation hospitals or make them wear bells so people would hear them coming and stay clear.

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I knew I shouldn't write him back when he didn't show up for Chem. Pretend you have some complete muffin for a lab partner, I told myself. If Noel were a muffin, you wouldn't write him a note just because he missed Chem. 3

Don't write him.

You don't have to write him.

It's better not to write him.

You owe it to Nora not to write him.

Here's what I wrote:

Captain of the Pen,

Cabbages red

Became cabbage juice blue

Became substances vile

And of many a hue.

I juiced and I poured;

I measured stuff too.

But naught came out right,

For 'twas done without you.

--Captain of the Beaker

***

3 Muffin: Not exactly an insult. A muffin is pleasant. It's just nothing to get cranked about. You never think, Oh, I'm going to drive out of my way so I can get that unbelievably scrumptious muffin they have at the bakery. No, you think, Unbelievably scrumptious brownie. Unbelievably scrumptious white chocolate cookie. You wouldn't go out of your way for something as ordinary as a muffin, that's what I'm explaining here.

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Maybe Nora's feelings for Noel had just been a passing attraction and she hadn't really meant it.

Maybe she got over him during winter break while her family was on Grand Cayman.

Maybe Nora would fall madly in love with that guy on the basketball team who kissed her in December, or maybe she had already started seeing some hot college boyfriend she met through her brother, Gideon.

If so, it was okay to write this note.

I folded it into an origami balloon, blew it up and shoved it deep into Noel's cubby.

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2.

I Give Instructions for Ruining Your Life

How to Ruin Your Life in Nine Easy Steps:

You too can ruin your life. It isn't hard. Are you ready? Here's how.

1. Lose your first-ever boyfriend (Jackson) to your then-best friend (Kim).

2. In the process, lose your best friend. Suffer a broken heart.

3. Kiss your ex-boyfriend (Jackson).

4. Get caught kissing him. Congratulations! Now you've lost all your friends, because you're obviously a wench who runs around making out with other people's boyfriends.

5. Suffer panic attacks.

6. See a shrink.

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7. Write a list of all the boys you ever crushed on, going back to nursery school. Because your shrink tells you to. It's for your mental health.

8. Accidentally leave a copy of said boyfriend list where people who hate you can find it.

9. Do nothing. The people who hate you find the list. Misunderstand it. And xerox it.

Voila! You are not only a leper, but also a famous slut. Life successfully ruined.

--entry in The Girl Book, written December of junior year. the panic things have gotten better since I started going to see Doctor Z, my shrink. And the leprosy has abated some since Nora started being friends with me again. But my reputation still sucks.

I showed Doctor Z what I wrote a couple of days before school started in January. She was asking me to think about why things happened to me. Whether any part of the debacle of my life was under my control. She read "How to Ruin Your Life" carefully, then asked: "What might you do to cause the situation to be different this year?"

"Nothing," I told her.

"Nothing?" That's not the kind of answer she likes to hear.

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"I can't do anything but try to stay out of trouble."

"Then how will you stay out of trouble, Ruby?" she asked me. "There must be something you can articulate."

I thought for a moment. "I can keep away from boys," I answered.

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3.

I Exist in the State of Noboyfriend

The state of Noboyfriend is not a state like New Jersey is a state. It's a state like catatonia is a state. Or depression. Or ennui. 1

A person in the state of Noboyfriend is in stasis. Nothing is happening on the boy front. So little happened last month, and so little is expected to happen next month--or ever--that she is immobile in terms of romance. She is also afflicted with mild depression and ennui due to a lack of affection, excitement and horizontal action.

She knows, of course, that Gloria Steinem, her favorite feminist from American History and Politics last year, would tell her that "a

***

1 Ennui: Another one of my new words. It means "listlessness, boredom." As in, "I would save the world, but I suffer from ennui, which forces me to lie on the couch and eat spearmint jelly candies instead."

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woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle," and she firmly believes this is true.

But maybe, depending on who she is, she wants a boyfriend anyway. Maybe the fish wants a bicycle.

The state of Noboyfriend is hard to leave, once you're well and firmly in. The longer you are there, the more entrenched you are. Doctors and shrinks won't be of any help. There are no pills for the state of Noboyfriend, no psychoanalytic diagnoses, no miracle cures.

--written by me, with help from Meghan and Nora, on a latte-stained B&O Espresso napkin, before winter break, junior year.

thankfully, I didn't have to brave the refectory alone at fifth period that first day. Meghan was already sitting at our usual lunch table. She was wearing Birkenstocks with red woolly socks, white carpenter pants and a gray hooded sweatshirt. Despite this tragic outfit, she was easily the sexiest girl in the room.