The Book - E Lockhart

Hutch looked at me sideways. “I don’t want to barge in on your family outing,” he said. “That’s cool.”

“You should come,” I said, making my voice sound warm even though I was actually a little unsure because he’s a leper and he sometimes weirds me out—and because for so long, just in principle, I have been essentially anti–John Hutchinson. “They make these excellent fried wontons,” I added.

“Oh,” Hutch mumbled, in that foggy way of his. “If there are wontons involved, count me in. You didn’t say wontons before.”

“Wontons, wontons, wontons!” yelled my dad.

And I yelled it after him. “Wontons, wontons, wontons!”

So Hutch came to dinner with us.

And it was okay.

If this were a movie of my life, I would go on for a couple of weeks in a state of dejection, after which Noel would appear on my doorstep one day begging forgiveness for being so cranky and hopefully bringing some quality gift. We would kiss somewhere cinematic, like outside in a snowstorm ( Bridget Jones ) or on an ice rink ( Serendipity ) or on a fire escape ( Pretty Woman ). And that would be the end.

But as I have learned, to my disappointment, life is never like the movies. And as I have also learned, thanks to what is now nine months of therapy (with one month-long hiatus): if you don’t want to be in an argument with someone, it is probably best to try to solve the problem, rather than lying around hoping the other person will do it for you. Like Doctor Z says, “We can’t know or say what other people will do. You have to think what you want to do to get the situation where you want it to be.”

Noel wasn’t in school Monday. After swim practice, I got Varsha to drop me in the U District, where I bought a CD of goofy frat-rock songs. Then I caught the bus to Noel’s house, which took an hour. And I rang his bell.

“Ruby!” cried Mrs. DuBoise, wiping her hands on her apron. She was completely covered in tomato sauce and had a blotch of flour on her cheek. “I am attempting to make pizza. Have you ever made pizza? I have this stone that’s supposed to make our regular oven like a pizza oven.”

“Cool.”

“Noel!” she yelled. “Your friend Ruby is here!”

There was no response. “He’s probably gelling his hair,” she said, winking. “Noel!” she yelled again.

“What?”

“Ruby is here! Can she come up?”

“I guess so,” he yelled down.

“I take no responsibility for his manners.” Mrs. DuBoise smiled. “It’s like trying to train a tyrannosaur.”

“That’s okay.”

“Are you staying for dinner?” she asked. “I can’t vouch for the quality of my pizza, because it’s an experiment. But I’m making chicken, too, because Pierre and Mignon will not eat anything that involves tomatoes, even if you bribe them with chocolate.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I have to talk to Noel first. We had an argument.”

Mrs. DuBoise widened her eyes. “Oooooh. That explains a lot,” she said. “All right, then. Up the stairs, second door on the left.”

I started up the stairs, then stopped. “Um, Mrs. DuBoise.”

“Call me Michelle.”

“Is the person okay? The person who was sick in your family, I mean. Who Noel came home for.”

She looked confused, and then answered, “Yes, yes. He’s fine. Thanks for asking, Ruby.”

Noel’s room was messy. Clothes and books and CD cases were all over the floor. Noel was sitting at his desk, feet up. It looked like he’d been reading a music magazine.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

“I came to say I’m sorry,” I told him. “For prying into your business.”

“I was an asshole,” he said.

“No, you weren’t. I was being nosy. I do that sometimes. Get into people’s business when they don’t want.”

“Maybe.”

“I completely do. But I have good intentions.”

“Roo.” Noel took his feet off the desk. “I want to tell you something.”

“What?”

“The person who was sick in my family—that’s what they told you, right? That someone in my family was sick?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it was me.”

“What?”

“I’ve been blowing off my asthma meds and smoking and generally not dealing with this fucking annoying situation with my lungs, because it just…” He shrugged. “Anyway. For a couple of years now I’ve been ignoring it. Wishing it would disappear. And there must have been a ton of pollen or dust or something up on Canoe Island, or maybe I was stressed about something, I don’t know, and given that I didn’t even bring my anti-inflammatories and smoked like a hundred cigarettes out on the dock, I was having what they call bronchoconstriction. Asthma attacks.”

“Oh.”

“I couldn’t breathe half the time and I kept having to use the puffer way more than I’m supposed to. I was hiding out in the bathroom to do it. It was completely depressing and lame. Finally, I told Wallace and Glass what was going on, but I asked them not to say anything. Not even to you.”

“How come?”

“I—I’ve been so fucking pissed about having this disease. I didn’t want to be dealing. It was just embarrassing and stupid, and—” He looked down at his hands. “I didn’t handle it well.”

“Oh,” I answered. “I wouldn’t have told anybody.”

“I know.” Noel sighed. “The point is, I’m supposed to tell people. And I’m supposed to take care of it. It’s safer if people know. And still I don’t tell. I’m like a madman.”

I nodded.

“Glass finally called my parents and they made me come home and see the doctor.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m not smoking anymore. They gave me a nicotine patch. And I got a new kind of puffer, so that should help. And I’m taking the stupid pills.”

“That’s good.”

“They made me promise I’d start telling people, too. So they can help me out if there’s a problem.”

“Are you still gonna do cross-country?”

“Yeah. I just have to be not such an angry youth about it. Not taking my meds, et cetera.”

I held out the CD, which was in a plastic bag. “I brought you this.”

Noel pulled it out and smiled. “Roo! This is excellent.” He looked at me, still standing near the door of his room. “Sit down, okay? I promise not to be an angry youth or do any more asthma bitching.”

I sat on the floor.

Because the bed just seemed too bedlike.

Noel got down and sat next to me. He pulled the wrapper off the CD and put the disc in his player. “My Sharona” banged through the speakers.

“Ruby?” asked Noel, putting his hand on my knee.

“Yeah?”

“Um.”

“What?”

“Can I kiss you?”

I wanted him to.

I so wanted him to.

It was like Angelo and Jackson and every other boy I’d ever kissed had flown out of my mind, leaving only Noel.

But I shook my head. “No.”

“Oh,” he said, pulling his hand off my knee and looking down. “Sorry. I kind of thought things were going that way.”

“I thought they were, too,” I said. “They were.”

“But they’re not?”

“No.”

“Is it ’cause you have a boyfriend?”

“What? What boyfriend?”

“I heard it from Jackson.”

“When did you hang out with Jackson?”

“We’re on cross-country together.” Noel shrugged. “I heard him tell Kyle in the locker room.”

“And he said–”

“That you had a boyfriend. Some Garfield guy named Angelo.”

I didn’t want to confess my lie. It was too psycho. “Oh, Angelo. That was just a little nothing thing,” I explained. “It’s over now.”

“Oh.” Noel brushed my lips with his index finger. “So maybe I can kiss you?” He leaned forward. “Because I’ve been wanting to for a really long time.”