The Book - E Lockhart

“You don’t want me and Jackson to be in love the way we are, do you? So you have to try and ruin everything.”

“That’s not it.”

“I thought we were putting it behind us.”

“We are,” I said. “That’s why I’m telling you.”

“I don’t know, Ruby. It sounds to me like you want to split us up.”

“I saw them together, Kim.”

“Look. That girl could have been anyone. You don’t know what you saw.”

“I’m pretty certain.”

“You are? Because you’re messing around where it isn’t your business, and actually, I don’t even believe what you’re saying.”

“No, I–”

“There are all kinds of reasons you’d make something like that up.”

“I’m not making it up.”

“I think you are. God, who knew you could be so spiteful after such a long time?”

“Kim, I–”

“Forget it,” she said. “Let’s just not speak anymore.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Go, then. Before I say something even worse.”

“I’m not going,” I found myself saying. “I was here first. You go.”

“All right, I will.” Kim turned her back on me and ran into the woods. As soon as she was out of sight, I could hear her burst into tears.

I stood there, looking at the llamas, and my heart started hammering and my neck felt sweaty and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the entire universe to help me breathe. I gasped, and held on to the edge of the pen, and tried to take deep breaths like Doctor Z had taught me.

I told myself, You are not dying. You are just neurotic.

There is plenty of air.

Calm down. It was only an argument. The world isn’t coming to an end.

Calm down.

Calm down.

Breathe.

In the end, I made myself focus on the llamas. The way one of them was lying on the ground, with its legs tucked under itself. The way their legs were furry and fat-looking. The way they walked, slightly awkwardly. How their ears pricked up at any sound in the woods.

“Mr. Wallace, I need to use your cell phone.” I had found him in the kitchen, eating Oreos straight out of the bag with a guilty look on his face. He offered me one, and I took it.

“Is this an emergency?” he asked. “Because this is a retreat, you know, from the outside world.”

“I need to use it, and then I need to get a call back on it, later on,” I said. “Please.”

“How come?” He shoved a cookie in his mouth, whole.

“I just have someone I need to talk to.”

“Can’t it wait?” he asked. “We’re going home on Sunday morning.”

“No,” I answered. “It can’t wait.”

“Is there something I should know? I’m here to help.”

I took a deep breath. “I get panic attacks,” I said. “I haven’t had any in a while, but I just had one, a bad one, and I need to talk to my shrink.”

He took his cell out of his pocket and handed it over. “Give it back when you’re done,” he said. “I have unlimited minutes.”

“This is Doctor Lorraine Zaczkowski. You have reached my answering machine. At the tone, please leave a message with your name and telephone number. You have as long as you need. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Beep.

“Doctor Z, this is Ruby Oliver. I just really, really need to talk to someone who knows what’s going on. I’m on a school retreat, but here’s the number.”

Then I took the phone and went down to the dock where the boats come in. I curled up in a ball under my jacket, waiting for her to ring.

She called back at seven o’clock. It was dinnertime, and I could see the lights glowing from the lodge a hundred yards away.

“Hello, is this Ruby?”

“Yes.”

“Doctor Zaczkowski.”

It was so good to hear her voice that I started to cry into the telephone. But as I calmed down and laid it all out—about Kim and the llamas and the apology and the argument—I could feel my body unwind. I uncurled from my ball and stretched out on the dock.

“Do you know why you told Kim about Jackson stepping out?” Doctor Z asked. “It sounds like you’re saying that was the moment that changed the course of your interaction.”

“Yeah. We were almost getting along before that.”

Doctor Z was silent. I could hear her flick a lighter open, then inhale.

“I didn’t think she’d get mad,” I said. “I thought she’d be grateful for the information.”

“You were doing something kind?”

“She didn’t see it that way, but yes. I think I was.”

“Oh?”

“She thought I was trying to sabotage her and Jackson. Which I can see, I guess. Since I’ve done it before.”

“Back in September you had some complicated feelings about telling Kim that Jackson wrote you notes. Am I right in remembering?”

I thought back. “I wanted to tell because I wanted her to think Jackson still liked me.”

“Yes.”

“So like it wasn’t out of goodness or kindness at all. It was sour and mean.”

“Oh?”

“Because I’m neurotic bitter breakup lady and I was trying to make a power move.”

“But you didn’t end up telling her, did you?” asked Doctor Z.

“No.”

“So why did you tell her something similar now? Was it a power move this time?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “But I guess coming to Canoe Island at all was. I mean, not a manipulative, evil power move so much as me refusing to lose my friends and not go on the retreat when I wanted to go, just because she was going to be there, too.”

“You were standing up for yourself.”

“Yeah. But that’s not what I was doing when I told about Jackson.”

“No?”

“I wasn’t showing Kim that Jackson still liked me. I was showing that he didn’t. That he was with that zoo girl. That in fact, anything between him and me is well and truly over.”

I hadn’t said that out loud yet.

It sounded good.

“What Jackson was doing with that zoo girl was wrong,” I went on. “Plain and simple. And no matter what’s between Kim and me, it’s bad to have your boyfriend cheating on you.”

“You told her out of kindness.”

“Because we pledged to tell each other the truth. To tell each other ‘all relevant data.’ In The Boy Book, ” I answered. “And even if we don’t have a friendship anymore, and even if it’s not my business, I don’t think Kim deserves to be powerless and ignorant when her boyfriend’s stepping out.”

Doctor Z inhaled cigarette smoke, audibly, and then said the kind of thing she always says. “Is there any way you could tell her that?”

“Duh,” I answered. “I could just tell her.”

“Um-hm.”

“But she might try to kill me. You know that, don’t you? I’ll be axe-murdered by a venomous exchange-program escapee, and it will be all because of your bad advice.”

“Roo,” announced Doctor Z, “our hour is up. Do you want to make an appointment for next week?”

“Yes,” I answered after a pause. “I do.”

I went through the last day of Canoe Island in a daze. I couldn’t speak to Kim because (1) she was never alone, and (2) I was terrified. But I didn’t have any more panic things, and not much happened in general.

When the boat docked in Seattle on Sunday in the late afternoon, and my mom and dad were there jumping up and down in front of the Honda like absolute lunatics, I felt a flood of relief that Canoe Island was over. But I also felt like I had done something, and been somewhere, and proven myself in ways that I hadn’t before.

We gave Hutch a ride home because no one had come to pick him up. He said his parents were away on vacation. “Then come to our place for dinner!” cried my dad. “Wait, no, let’s go out to Chinese. Judy Fu’s Snappy Dragon? Whaddya say?”