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Just a Boy

Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee

I’m the last one to make it to lunch at our picnic table outside. It’s sunny but crisply cold, and I zip my jacket to my chin before I take the spot beside Paloma.

“Where were you during Advisory?” she asks as I pull my lunch from my bag.

“I went to Ms. Robbins’s room for Art Club.”

“Oh,” she says. And then: “Why?”

“I don’t know… It sounded fun.”

Her expression says Spare me the bullshit. “Isaiah’s in Art Club.”

“Isaiah Santoro?” Sophia asks.

Paloma smiles. “The one and only.”

Meagan arcs an eyebrow. “Are you guys—?”

“No!” I yelp. Then, more calmly, “We’re nothing.”

“They’re friendly,” Paloma amends.

Meagan and Soph swap a skeptical glance.

“Seriously,” I say. “He’s just a boy.”

“And a clubmate,” Paloma says.

“And a basketballer,” Soph says.

“And a hottie ,” Meagan adds, waggling her eyebrows. Sophia acts aghast, and Megs laughs. “What? I’m a lesbian. I’m not blind.”

“You guys are the worst,” I tell them, but what I mean is that they’re the outright best. They’re making me laugh even though I want to crawl under the table and spiral. It’s all wrong, the way my heart stands at attention when Isaiah’s around. My cheeks shouldn’t bloom pink when our eyes meet. Those butterflies that flitted around in my stomach earlier? I thought they were dead and buried—they’re supposed to be dead and buried.

And yet…

My expression must scream of internal conflict because Paloma circles an arm around me. “It’s okay if, one day, he becomes more than just a boy.”

Soph nods. “I once read that falling for a new person after the death of someone you love means the first relationship was truly special. Otherwise, why would your heart risk trying again?”

“Maybe,” I say. “But this…it just seems too soon.”

Is it? I ask Beck.

He doesn’t respond.

“Lia,” Meagan says. “No one expects you to grieve forever.”

That might be true, but Beck and I were so interwoven, it often feels like he’s still living and breathing—like he’s at CVU, or like a PCS forced him and his family to a state far from mine. When the sadness is so intense it threatens to bore a hole through my chest, I let myself imagine we’ll be reunited during spring break, or when summer comes. Sometimes I pretend he’s a phone call away. Sometimes my heart talks to him.

Is that grieving?

Meagan tosses a blueberry. It pings my shoulder. “What’s going on in your head?”

I sigh. “I just—I wish there were rules about this stuff. Hard rules. Universally accepted rules. Like, let’s say I do want Isaiah to be more than just a boy. How am I supposed to tell him about Beck? How am I supposed to introduce him to my parents? How could I possibly tell Beck’s mom and dad that I’ve moved on?”

“Tackle that as it comes,” Paloma says.

Soph nods. “First decide if you’re ready.”

“And then,” Meagan says, “decide if Isaiah’s the one.”

Paloma grins. “I think he is. You two have been making all the heart eyes at each other during Ceramics.”

“Hey—I make heart eyes at no one.”

“All I’m saying,” she goes on, “is that there are plenty of people who’d be all over that boy if he so much as glanced their way. Except I’ve never seen him show anyone anything more than polite regard. Until you came along.”

“He shows me polite regard,” I argue weakly.

“No,” Paloma says, smirking. “He looks at you the way a starving man looks at a double bacon burger with cheese.”

Meagan, Sophia, and I dissolve into giggles.

A Diversion

One dreary Thursday, in Art Club, a boy draws a picture of a girl.

The girl is a knot of anxiety.

The intimacy of his focus, of his attention…

Holy shit.

She needs a distraction, somewhere to funnel her nervous energy.

She takes her journal from her bag,

props it on her knees

—so he can’t see what she’s writing—

and pretends to be Very Busy.

He draws, humming a melancholy refrain.

He’s in-tune, and she’s unsurprised.

Her fingers tremor,

her script like chicken scratch compared with its usually neat flourish.

He draws, his gaze a flame’s caress on her forehead, her cheek, her throat.

When will he finish?

The problem isn’t that she’s miserable—it’s that she’s not.

The melody of his tune quickens.

Has he found happiness in sketching her face?

His gaze snags hers. He smiles.

Her heart pirouettes.

She’s confused. She’s flustered. She’s afraid.

Not of him—of her feelings.

Contradictory but fierce, new but undeniable.

He draws and she writes and he hums and she goes to pieces.

Their teacher cruises the room, offering compliments and critique.

She pauses to watch him work.

The girl stops writing to study the teacher as she studies the boy.

There’s a dazzle in her artist’s eye.

“You’re lucky,” she tells the girl,

which is wild because the girl hasn’t felt lucky in a long time.

The teacher moves on.

The boy holds out his drawing.

“It’s yours,” he tells her, then points. “I remembered your scar.”

He watches her, hopeful.

She takes the portrait.

The overall effect is abstract, yet his choices seem intentional.

Her resolve, once infinite, is beginning to deplete.

Is this right?

Is this okay?

Is this her fate?

She wishes she could be sure.

Gazing at his drawing, at her face, she says, “It’s beautiful.”