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Capricious

Sixteen Years Old, Virginia

Beck graduated high school on a sun-soaked Saturday afternoon at the EagleBank Arena at George Mason University. My parents and I went to the ceremony with the Byrnes, and when Beck marched across the stage to claim his diploma, he looked so grown up, so accomplished. He beamed when he heard our cheers. I grinned and waved and cursed summer’s end, when he’d leave for CVU.

Afterward, while we waited for Beck outside, Mom, Bernie, the twins, and I snapped selfies. Dad and Connor looked on, glad, probably, that we hadn’t yet roped them into posing. When the graduates appeared, there were more pictures: Beck with Raj, Stephen, and Wyatt. Beck with his parents, and with his sisters, and with me. Bernie insisted on snagging a passing stranger to get one of our whole group.

I’d never been so ardently happy, and so utterly woebegone.

Love is confusing.

Hearts are capricious.

Growing up is a pain in the ass.

As we were on our way to the parking lot, headed to dinner, Beck’s name rang out. There was Taryn, prancing toward us in her robe and wedge sandals.

Beck pulled me to a stop as Bernie, shepherding the twins along, called, “We’ll meet you at Bellisimo!”

I would’ve been cool hitching a ride with my parents or the Byrnes rather than watching Beck engage with Taryn, but he squeezed my hand and murmured, “Just for a minute.”

A minute was long enough for Taryn to snare Beck in a hug. Long enough for her to tell him that she’d loved being his track and field teammate, and that she was sure he’d do amazing things. Long enough for her to compliment my dress, a blue fit and flare with a halter neckline. For a whole minute, she was genial.

And then she said to Beck, “I hope we’ll get to hang out this fall. CVU and the University of Richmond are only an hour apart.”

I scowled. I’d had no idea that Taryn would be in Richmond. That she’d be physically closer to my boyfriend than I would be.

“It’ll be nice to see a familiar face every so often,” she said before she kissed his cheek, then skipped off to find her friends or her family or the hole in which she’d crawled out of.

On the way to Bellisimo, Beck asked if I was okay.

“I’m great ,” I said.

He chose to play along.

All through dinner, I faked pleasantness.

Internally, I lost my shit.

After dinner our families went home. Beck and I went to the graduation party that’d been the talk of school for the last month. It was hosted on the outskirts of Fairfax County at the home of one of Beck’s classmate’s uncles, who lived on acreage and had promised to confiscate keys and let graduates pitch tents in his cleared fields before tapping kegs. I’d told my parents I’d be spending the night with Macy, which was true: Macy would be at the party.

Beck and I managed to get our tent staked without saying more than ten words to each other, though all around us, vehicles rumbled and mallets struck stakes and graduates hollered and whooped. When we crawled inside to unroll our sleeping bags, he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me close.

“You’re pissed,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“I know you are.” His lips brushed my neck, his words tickling my skin. “You’re shit at hiding your feelings.”

True to form, I failed to swallow an amorous sigh as he threaded his fingers into my hair, tipping my head to expose my throat. His breath was warm.

Weakly I said, “I am not.”

He swirled a kiss below my ear before saying, “Are you mad because, for the next two years, you’re stuck at RHS without me?”

“That’ll suck,” I admitted, trying not to shiver as his mouth mapped my neck. “Doesn’t make me mad, though.”

“Then maybe you’re grouchy because you chose a shitty salad for dinner, and you wish you’d ordered a steak, like me.”

I smiled despite myself. “My salad was fine.”

His lips grazed my jaw. His voice was low and sure. “Okay… Then you’re angry because Taryn wants to visit me next fall.”

“ No. ”

He kissed my lying mouth, then pulled back to look into my eyes. “Lia, I’d be pissed if I was standing in your shoes. I’d be jealous and irritable and really fucking sad.”

I softened, leaning into him.

He said, “You don’t have to be any of those things, though. You know that, right?”

I nodded. Beck was loyal and Beck was honest. He loved me, not Taryn, and he’d never given me reason to think otherwise. Still, in a few minutes’ time I’d turned into an insufferable drama queen. I had nothing to worry about—I knew that. So why were we holed up in a tent when we could be partying with our friends?

“Let’s go have some fun,” I told him.

***

Fun, that night, involved loud music, hundreds of people, and free-flowing booze.

“I might have sex with Beck later,” I divulged to Macy, loose and languid.

She hooted, then took a swig from her cup. It was filled with Boone’s Farm Fuzzy Navel, one of several flavors acquired for us by Wyatt’s older sister, a senior at Marymount—much better than the keg beer most were drinking. “In a tent?”

“Yeah. So romantic, right?”

“I mean, maybe if you guys were on a mountaintop or at the beach or something— alone .” She looked around the field, which was strewn with Solo cups and lit by what I now recognize was an ominously full moon. Bass beats blared as various speakers competed. There were people everywhere. I had no idea where Beck and the boys had gotten off to, but I didn’t much care. I was having fun with Macy.

“This is a nice setting,” I insisted, my words running one into the next.

“Bullshit.”

“But, Mace, it’s graduation.”

“Yeah, Beck’s. Not yours.”

I sipped my Fuzzy Navel. It tasted like nectar, sweet and syrupy; I loved it. “I want tonight to be special for him.”

Macy arched a judgy eyebrow. “I want your first time to be special for you.”

“It will be, because Beck .”

She laughed and clanked her cup against mine. “It will be anytime , because Beck. You do you, but I’d save first-time sex for a bed. And really,” she said, waving a hand to indicate hordes of partiers far as the eye could see, “do you want a field full of people to hear you? Or worse—interrupt?”

“Oh, we’d be quiet,” I said.

She snorted. “Sure you would. Except you’re literally shouting now.”

Swallowing another gulp of my drink, I considered her concerns because she was Macy, and she had my best interests at heart. Then I pulled her close, so I could speak more softly— not that I’d been yelling. “You really think I should wait?”

“If you’re asking for my opinion, if you’re not one hundred percent sure, hold off. You’ve got all summer.”

“And then forever,” I said, raising my glass like Cheers!

We went in search of the boys and found them not far from where we’d been talking. Raj and Stephen were shotgunning beers while Wyatt, Beck, and a group of girls from their graduating class cheered them on. Taryn was there. She’d swapped her dress for shorts and a tank and was holding a Solo cup, as were her friends. Macy and I pulled to a stop at the fringes of their circle, where we could mainline our Boone’s Farm without intruding on the boys’ fun.

Macy then proceeded to describe, in dirty detail, the first time she and Wyatt had sex. Had I not been three-quarters of the way through a bottle of malt liquor, I would’ve blushed all the way to my toes. As it was, I giggled, took a few mental notes, then glanced over at Beck. He was waving off a turn to shotgun. He’d been nursing the same bottle of Bud Light since he’d wandered off with the guys. I knew because earlier, I’d watched him peel back the label. I was pretty sure he was taking it easy so he could look after me, and that made me want to blow off Macy’s advice about waiting.

As he kicked empties into a pile, I took a step in his direction. But before I could break into the circle, Taryn leapt toward him and threw her arms around his neck. He staggered, surprised, a geyser of beer erupting from his bottle as he caught her. He lowered her to the ground, and when she was back on her feet, his arms fell to his sides.

Hers did not.

She hung on him like a cutoff-wearing sloth, saying something into his ear. He laughed. She did, too, tipping her chin back. She was on her toes again, the way she’d been that afternoon when she’d pressed a kiss to his cheek. She was closer than I would’ve stood to another girl’s boyfriend, hip to hip, cheek to cheek. I was torn between wanting to retreat, or pour what was left of my drink over her impossibly shiny hair.

“Ugh,” Macy said, tracking my gaze. “The placeholder.”

They’d become engaged in what appeared to be an actual conversation. She was still touching him. He still wasn’t moving away. In fact, he leaned in to hear what she was saying, his eyes bright with interest. He’d looked at me that way thousands of times. It never occurred to me that he might wear the same captivated expression while conversing with other girls.

I thought I might throw up.

Instead I squared my shoulders and pounded what was left of my drink. “Will you come back to the tents with me?” I asked Macy.

“You know I will,” she said churlishly.

She had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to girl-on-girl shadiness.

I spun on my heels. Tears pooled in my eyes as my name broke the din of the party.

Beck was behind me, nudging Macy out of the way so he could grab my hand.

“Hey,” he said, breathless. “Where are you going?”

“What do you care?” Embarrassingly, my voice broke. I pulled my hand from his and said, “You’re having tons of fun without me.”

He glanced at where Taryn was standing, watching us. When he turned back to me, his expression was one of regret. “We were just talking.”

“Yeah. I saw.”

“Hey,” he said, “don’t be like this.”

I huffed. “How would you feel if you saw me hanging all over some dude?”

He looked at Macy. “How much has she had to drink?”

She shrugged. “Enough.”

“I’d be pissed sober,” I snapped.

Tottering a little, I fled, a malady gurgling in my stomach.

Macy followed.

Beck did not.