I started to laugh. It struck me as humorous that something Ace didn’t want his dog to do was something he desperately wanted me to do.
“Where were we?” Ace asked.
The whole thing was absurd.
Since I couldn’t remember the “real” first time I’d lost my virginity, this would have become my de facto first time. I wanted a better story than I did it with this boy who I wasn’t very into and who had mysterious Gatorade breath; in his room decorated with sports equipment; at least he was nice enough to provide condoms and get his ancient, horny dog to leave us alone. Put it that way, and I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d let it get so far in the first place.
“Ace, I’m not going to have sex with you,” I said. I reached over my shoulder and zipped my dress back up without any problems.
“Is it the howls? I can put the dog in the yard,” Ace said. “Just hold on a second. I can get him to stop. Bad Jonesy! Bad dog.”
I told him that it wasn’t about the dog.
“Well, what is it then?” He walked over to his bedroom window. His back was toward me, and I couldn’t see his face.
“I…I just don’t know,” I said. “The truth is, I don’t even know you. I don’t even know what we have in common.”
“There’s lots of stuff,” Ace said.
“Tell me, then. I’d really like to know.”
“Tennis. School.” Ace sighed. He wouldn’t turn back around. “I love you, Naomi.”
“Why?”
He shrugged violently. “Jesus, I don’t know. Why does anyone like anyone? Because you’re super-hot?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I’m asking you. I mean I’m telling you. I don’t know. You’re confusing me.” Ace turned around and looked at me helplessly, hopelessly. “Because you’re good at school, but can also hold a drink. Because we used to talk about stuff. I don’t know. I just did.”
“Did or do?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did in the past, or do in the present?”
“Do! I meant do. Isn’t that what I said?” He collapsed onto his bed, so that he was staring up at his ceiling. The box spring squeaked in agony, which started Jonesy barking again. I opened Ace’s door, and Jonesy ran in. Luckily, Jonesy wasn’t in the mood for sex anymore either. He wanted cuddling and intimacy. He jumped onto the bed and lay down next to Ace.
“But honestly, you’ve been acting so weird lately,” Ace said quietly.
Maybe because I can’t remember anything? I thought bitterly.
“Like yelling at Alex in the car, what was that about? And now you’re in this play? And your hair!”
It was the first he’d mentioned it since the day I’d cut it. I had no idea he was still thinking about it. “What about my hair?” I asked. Not because I cared, but because I was sort of curious.
“I loved it long.”
It was the second time he’d used the word love all night, but it was the only time I believed him.
“I’m not used to it this way,” he continued. “I honestly don’t even know what to think.”
“Say what you mean, Ace.”
“I hate your stupid hair,” he said, his voice rusty with truth, bitterness, feeling. Everything else he’d said the whole time we’d been together had sounded merely confused or frustrated, but this was different. This was unmistakable. This was passion! It was what was missing from every other element of my relationship with Ace. It was what I’d heard when Alice spoke about the play, or Will about yearbook, or Dad about Rosa Rivera. It was what I’d heard when James had said he’d wanted to kiss me in the hospital.
For the record, I didn’t know boys could care so much about hair. Maybe this was asking too much, but I wanted someone who felt as strongly about the rest of me. Poor Ace. The boy had been in love with a haircut.
I knew what I had to do.
“I think we should take some time off. From each other, I mean,” I said. Then I tried to make a joke. “Give my hair some time to grow.”
Ace didn’t laugh. “Are you saying you want to break up?” he asked. Did I detect a hint of relief in his voice?
“Yes.”
“But that’s not what I want!” Ace protested a little too adamantly. “I want you to get your memory back and for everything to be like it was.”
“Well, maybe that will happen. But in all likelihood, it won’t. And you’ll be in college next year anyway, so this was bound to happen sooner or later,” I reasoned.
“Is it Will?” Ace asked.
This annoyed me. It only confirmed how much Ace didn’t know me. If anyone, it was James, and it wasn’t even James. It was no one. Or, more to the point, no one except Ace. “Will’s my friend, which is more than I can say for you.”
Ace closed his eyes. “This wasn’t the way I saw tonight going.”
I asked him if he could drive me home. When we got to my house, he walked me to the door. I kissed him on the cheek.
“I know this is probably dumb, but I feel like I’m never going to see you again,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ace. I’ll see you at school,” I replied, but of course I knew exactly what he had meant.
“What I said about your hair…” he began.
“It’s okay. You were being honest.”
By the following Tuesday, everyone at school seemed to know about our breakup. The story got back to me that Ace had dumped me because I was a “prude” in bed since the accident and “not entirely there,” both of which had some basis in truth while not conveying the essential nature of what had happened. I didn’t know if Ace spread these rumors or if they were just the idle speculation of my peers. People like Brianna, who’d had it in for me even more since I’d tried to stand up for her in the car. She could really let loose now that Ace was no longer required to defend my honor.
I would have understood if it had been Ace—maybe he was saving face, or maybe that was how he actually saw things? In any case, I did not go out of my way to set the record straight. People could think what they wanted to. Screw them.
6
I STILL HADN’T TOLD WILL ABOUT THE PLAY. Maybe it was because I felt like I was betraying him; maybe it was plain cowardice. I was late to yearbook about half the time and I let him think I was either with tutors or at the doctor. If my chronic tardiness annoyed him, Will was too much of a friend to let on.
He probably wouldn’t have found out about it at all, if Bailey Plotkin hadn’t shown up to photograph rehearsals. Bailey was the arts photographer for The Phoenix, the same position I’d held my freshman year, according to that year’s masthead. If I’d been paying any attention to yearbook matters, I might have guessed someone from the staff would eventually come.
Bailey was a mellow person in general, and he didn’t appear particularly surprised to see me. “I didn’t know you were in the play, Naomi. Cool,” was pretty much all he said about the matter. Still, I knew I had to tell Will, and preferably before he saw the pictures.
I went to the yearbook office as soon as rehearsal was over, and Will barely glanced up at me when I came into the room. He asked me if I’d had time to look over the cover mock-ups. I hadn’t, so I went to do that. The cover Will liked was all white with just the words The Phoenix in raised black text, all caps, right justified, halfway down the page. It was extremely plain and not the sort of thing you usually see on a high school yearbook. He had mentioned that it was a reference to an album or a book, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it yet.