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NINE

ruby

That night I lie down to sleep on the couch in Lorenzo’s bedroom, a spot as familiar as my own bed.

He’s been out for a couple of hours by the time I pull the blanket over me.

I double-check that my alarm is set to his med schedule and then, because I can’t resist, take one last look at him.

He’s asleep in the soft glow of the night-light I plugged in to make giving him his medication in the middle of the night a little less disruptive.

I close my eyes and, like I switched on the TV, a vision of his bare back flashes in my head, the detailed memory of helping him out of his shirt tonight as he got ready for sleep.

For all our closeness, I rarely get to touch the parts of his body that are usually covered in clothing, and helping him move slowly and carefully out of his shirt, watching his tattoos gradually reveal themselves across the smooth, muscled swaths of his back and chest, was excruciating.

His skin was so warm under my fingertips.

It’s barely twelve hours since his ...

confession? Proposal? Whatever it was, it seems so long ago.

I want to forget about it, like I suspect he has.

He was out of it, vulnerable and needy, and in that state it’s all too easy to mistake gratitude for love.

But how do I make myself forget? How do I keep going like normal when the words I’ve waited my whole life to hear are the most devastating words I’ve ever heard?

If “love” can have a hundred different meanings, I’ve loved Lorenzo since the day we met.

We were third graders, though Lorenzo looked more like a kindergartner, while I was the tallest kid in class.

It was February but Lorenzo’s first day at our school after moving from a different town.

I didn’t like the looks of him: quiet, shifty-eyed, following our kind, young teacher around like a lost puppy.

But even more, I didn’t like the pack of bossy boys I found cornering him on the playground, just out of sight of the recess monitor.

Nobody liked me then, but everybody feared me because, as a child with no sense of self-preservation, I was liable to do anything, to hell with the consequences. Besides, my teacher that year loved me, a phenomenon I haven’t experienced since.

Most of the boys scattered when I came pounding up the blacktop and screeching at them to get away from the new kid, but Danny Melville, who forever smelled like oatmeal, must have been feeling bold, because he sneered at me and gave Lorenzo a deliberate push.

Watching Lorenzo and his skinny limbs blow right over stirred something fierce in me.

I knew how it felt to be helpless. I felt it every day when I got home from school, and even if no one else saw it, I felt it in the classroom.

But third graders are a lot easier to fool than your own parents.

“Get the hell away from him!” I shouted, borrowing a phrase I’d heard on one of my grandfather’s TV shows.

I’d been mulling that one over, waiting for the right time to try it out and uncertain if I’d even be able to pull it off.

And it sounded so good out of my mouth. But though Danny’s eyes went wide, he just turned and squared his shoulders at me.

I hadn’t expected that kind of audacity.

I had no plan B. So I charged him headfirst. He went clattering to the ground, his eyes welled up, and then he was off, tattling.

Lorenzo, still on the asphalt, looked up at me with round eyes full not of fear or distaste, like I was used to, but of wonder.

Gratitude. Like I was the only person in the world who could save him.

In Lorenzo’s eyes, I was powerful. Instantly, I adored him.

It took five blissful years before that love turned to something more dangerous and another three before I actually recognized it for what it was.

I didn’t just love Lorenzo; I was in love with him.

For years, the adults in our lives had exchanged knowing looks about our friendship, warned us it was only a matter of time before everything changed.

We thought that was disgusting in elementary school, embarrassing in middle school, and then, finally, painfully accurate—at least for me—in high school.

We were in his car the day I realized it.

He’d just gotten his license that afternoon and had planned to pick up a couple of friends to ride around with, but a mile down the road he decided it was better if it was just the two of us.

The windows were open, blowing his glossy hair, and he’d looked over at me with a smile that was pure contentment.

The back of my neck had prickled, and it hit me, quiet and fierce, that I was in love.

Harboring a secret love for Lorenzo Rossi hardly made me original at our school.

Lorenzo was like a teen girl’s fantasy drawn out of thin air: beautiful but didn’t seem to know it, kind but a little distant, bad boy enough to be dangerous but too sweet to really tear you apart.

But none of those girls loved him for the reasons I did.

Lorenzo made it okay to be me. When my boldness stopped being cute and cheeky and started making my life messy, he never made me feel like there was something wrong with me.

Other friends either found my self-destructive nature hilarious or a liability they didn’t want to be associated with.

Lorenzo didn’t try to convince me I was any of the above.

I wasn’t proud that I was always spinning my wheels and never getting anywhere or that my enthusiasm meant I tried everything and excelled at nothing, but I didn’t feel like a failure when he looked at me.

At home and at school, everything I did was disappointing.

In between, which was always spent with him, I had someone who liked me the way I was. I was always safe with Lorenzo.

But I saw the girls he dated, and they were nothing like me.

They were goal-oriented achievers, sure of what they wanted and destined to get it, just like Lorenzo himself.

Even at the height of his wild-child phase, he still managed to have his shit together: He sailed through classes with nothing less than a B, excelled at football and wrestling, had a million friends, and the bright, high-achieving girls he dated reflected that.

Meanwhile, I was busy barely passing my classes and carefully selecting the boys most likely to be expelled, imprisoned, or get me pregnant and peace out.

I’m just not the girl who lands someone like Lorenzo.

Even our friendship went against nature.

He might have loved my flawed self, but clearly he wanted a partner who was striving for the same things he was.

I knew better than to believe I could ever ask for his heart.

So I buried those feelings deep, dated other guys, and clung to him as my best friend. I have no right to anything more.

I’ve just closed my eyes when my phone buzzes at my side.

Brad: You still up for plans on Friday? Just let me know what time.

Brad. I haven’t thought about him in ... days? Last week he asked me out on a date for Friday, which was exciting and also weird. I didn’t even know guys did that anymore. I was supposed to let him know what time I’d be done with work. Of course, that was when I had a job.

I wait for the rush of excitement to hit me again, but all I get is a dull feeling of anticipation.

I know I like this guy. I just have to remember why.

I glance at Lorenzo, feeling a flicker of annoyance at him.

He unleashes years’ worth of emotional angst inside me and now he dreams peacefully. Such a guy.

I text Brad back:

Ruby: Can’t wait. I’m free after 7.

I don’t care if I seem overeager. The prospect of me and Lorenzo together, however briefly I believed in it, has exhausted me, and I need to put it behind me. I don’t want to open that door and find a flicker of hope still burning.

Lorenzo will never be mine.