E. Lockhart - The Boyfriend List

He was a grade ahead of us, so I had never thought much about him until then. We didn’t have classes together. His face was square and freckled, his hair dark brown and inclined to curl if he didn’t keep it short. His eyes crinkled up when he laughed. He was tall and had a raspy voice. And he was obviously an asshole. My cubby smelled like frog for three days. I wondered if he had done it on a dare.

I felt sad for the frog and buried it under a bush outside the main building. In fact, the whole episode kind of shattered me, and I couldn’t figure out why. I looked at Jackson in the hallways, trying to gauge whether he hated me, or liked me, or was even thinking about me. But he never looked my way.

Summer came, and fall again—but Jackson wasn’t in school. We heard his dad had business in Tokyo, and had moved the whole family there for a year. Jackson would go to school in Japan. I didn’t think about it much—until he came back, first day of sophomore year.

I love the start of the school year. I think about what clothes to wear. I use a nice black pen in my fresh, new narrow-ruled notebooks. I crack the spines on my books. Everyone looks different, and everyone’s the same. Jackson was like four inches taller than he had been (which was already pretty tall), and he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said something in Japanese. I saw him laughing with a bunch of other juniors in the hallway as I walked in the door, and suddenly—I knew I liked him. The sun came through the window and lit up his hair. He had a bandage around his wrist like he had sprained it. His backpack was at his feet, looking new and stiff.

I think I had liked him all year, while he was away.

In movies, there are always misunderstandings before the hero and heroine get together. He seems like he hates her, she thinks she hates him, he maybe courts her a little, they connect for a moment, then she misunderstands something and hates him again for most of the movie, despite various appealing things he does to try to win her. Or it’s the other way around, he seems like he hates her because he misunderstands something she did.

And then it turns out they were wrong. They love each other madly. And that’s the end. 6

Well, I know I watch too many movies. I should be working with my dad in the garden or helping the needy or getting a little fresh air. But I fully expected that if romance ever did come my way, it would only be after a long stretch of hints and confusions and tiny gestures and retreats; or even after a stretch of full-out dislike, which would suddenly morph into true love when all parties least expected it. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t expecting violins and sunsets and roses, at least not in any great numbers. I just figured on a little drama.

But no. When it came to me and Jackson, everything was easy right from the beginning. So easy, it almost didn’t seem like romance.

It was the middle that was difficult.

And the end was even worse.

Another thing that happens in the movies: They all have these dramatic crises where everything looks bleak and you think the couple will never, ever get back together. But then they realize they can’t live without each other, and in the end they live happily ever after. 7

It’s all a lie. When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he’s done something awful—he probably has.

You’re not going to love him again.

He’s not going to apologize, or come back to you.

He probably doesn’t even ever think about you at all, because he’s too busy thinking about someone else.

Face it. There’s not going to be a happy ending … at least not with this hero. So don’t go mooning around thinking that your breakup is only the crisis before the big romantic scene, because I’m here to tell you that it’s not. When you are dumped, you are dumped, and the guy isn’t going to change his mind and realize that suddenly he loves you instead of that girl he’s flirting with in the refectory, now that he’s free. 8

Jackson smiled at me that morning, first day of school.

The day after that, he said, “Hi.”

“Hi back,” I said.

The day after that, he said, “Hey, Ruby, what’s up?” and I said, “Not much.”

But the day after that, and this was before Kim had even noticed Finn and his stud-muffinly qualities, I got a note in my mail cubby. I used to get notes all the time, from Kim and Nora and Cricket, but this one was folded up into quarters, with a funny drawing of a frog on it. I knew who it was from, somehow, without even opening it.

Inside, it read: “The frog was for Awful Ariel Oliveri (AAO). Not for you. Sorry.” And then: “P.S. I just got my license. Need a ride home?-Jackson.”

My dad came to pick me up after school. He waited in front of the main building for forty-five minutes. I was long gone.

We went to Dick’s, this drive-in burger place that I’d always heard juniors and seniors talking about, but that I had never been to, since at that point none of my friends was old enough to have a driver’s license. I’m a vegetarian, so I got fries and a milk shake. Jackson got a burger and a root beer float. We sat on the hood of his big old boat of a car, a Dodge Dart Swinger that had once belonged to his uncle.

He told me a little about Japan. He spoke some Japanese for me when I questioned his ability.

I did my riff on my family.

He said he wanted to row crew this spring, but he was worried, since he hadn’t been in a boat since before he went away. He talked about the food in Japan, and said he ate raw fish. I said that French fries were better with Dijon mustard.

He said he was a ketchup man all the way.

I said, If you tried the mustard, you’d become a convert.

He said, I have tried mustard.

I said, Was it Dijon?

He said, No. Just regular.

I said, Then you haven’t tried it.

Oh, he said, have you tried mayonnaise?

I said, Mayonnaise is gross.

He leaned in close, and said, Really, you don’t like it?

Ick, I said.

And he kissed me, and whispered, “I love mayonnaise.”

He kissed me again—

—and I didn’t feel like a loser

—and I didn’t worry that I couldn’t kiss right

—and my glasses didn’t get in the way

—and I didn’t wonder if he’d tell his friends

—and I didn’t wonder if it was a joke.

This is Jackson Clarke, I thought, who put the frog in my cubby. This is Jackson Clarke, who used to have braces. This is Jackson Clarke, who’s been to Japan. This is Jackson Clarke, whose tongue tastes like root beer. This is Jackson Clarke, who used to seem ordinary. This is Jackson Clarke.

I kissed him back.

He drove me home.

And there actually was a sunset.

1 I am an idiot, I know.2 Doctor Z says, maybe I wanted it to be discovered and put my feet up subconsciously on purpose. I say, if I did that, I must have been some kind of eleven-year-old masochist (someone who enjoys pain) because I had never been so embarrassed in my life; it was so embarrassing it actually hurt. And if I was a masochist at eleven, then imagine how messed up I am by now. Just commit me to the asylum and be done with it.

Doctor Z says, Maybe there were larger reasons you wanted people to know. Maybe it was a way of being honest about your feelings?

I say, Maybe not. Maybe I’m just an idiot.

And she sighs and says, Okay, Ruby, I can see you don’t want to talk about this right now. We can come back to it when you’re ready.3 Okay. Now I know that every single ninth-grade boy in America wants to be a musician. They play air guitar in their bedrooms and pretend they’re rock stars. But I didn’t know that, then.4 If I had half a brain, this episode would have cured me of putting any of my thoughts about boys into writing. It is way too dangerous. But I obviously didn’t learn my lesson then, and haven’t learned it now. I keep doing it, even after what happened with the Boyfriend List. Look at what you’re reading now! Pure evidence of my idiocy.5 Mr. Wallace is fourteen years older than me. At least. But I don’t need to ask Doctor Z to know that liking him is certifiably insane.6 Movies where the couples hate each other half the time: Ten Things I Hate About You. One Fine Day. When Harry Met Sally. You’ve Got Mail. Intolerable Cruelty. The African Queen. Addicted to Love. Bringing Up Baby. The Goodbye Girl. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. As Good As It Gets. French Kiss. Groundhog Day. A Life Less Ordinary. 7 Movies where after breaking up, it turns out the man actually loves the woman madly and can’t exist without her: Pretty Woman. An Officer and a Gentleman. Bridget Jones’s Diary. The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Reality Bites. Jerry Maguire. Persuasion. High Fidelity. Say Anything. Plus, Notting Hill, Grease, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Runaway Bride— only the woman comes back to the man.8 Doctor Z says it’s a good anxiety release to express your anger. So in the interest of preventing further panic attacks, I’m venting. Not too bad, huh?