Cricket and Nora basically took the attitude that everything would settle down once I got over the shock. Nora made me some cupcakes and put her arm around me a lot. She framed a photo she had taken of her and me at a lacrosse game. Cricket talked loudly about other subjects and cut cartoons out of the New Yorker and put them in my mail cubby. They were happy for Kim, and sorry for me, and they figured I’d be too shattered to deal for a week or two—and then we’d all go back to normal.
But I couldn’t even look at Kim, I felt so betrayed. I avoided her even though it meant changing my seat in almost all my classes. More and more every hour, I stopped feeling the sadness I was supposedly going to get over—and started feeling angry. Even though she had been “nice” about the whole thing, and told me herself on the phone, and never kissed him until he had dumped me—I just didn’t think she had been nice at all, really. I thought she was a conniving, lying, man-stealing bitch, and I hoped she would fall in a volcano and die a horrible lava death.7
But I kept my mouth shut and tried to retain what little dignity I had left.
The Friday afternoon before the dance, I came out of lacrosse practice and there was no one to drive me home. Jackson had picked me up every week before, and I was in such a tangle of misery I hadn’t even thought to ask anyone in the locker room for a ride. I was the last one to leave, and I went outside and realized I was the only one still there.
I called home from the pay phone. My dad said he’d come pick me up, but it’s a forty-minute drive at rush hour, so I sat down on my backpack and tried to do my French homework as the sky grew darker. I wrote about four sentences before I started to cry.
I just sat there, tears going down my cheeks, not even covering my face.
Then Jackson’s Dodge pulled up in front of the gym. I felt like an idiot, crying there all by myself—although I have to admit, a tiny part of me thought maybe he’d be deeply moved by how shattered I was and realize I was the girl for him after all. I looked down at my French notebook and tried to get my breathing still. Jackson stopped the car, got out and leaned against the hood.
“Hey, Roo, I was hoping to catch you,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you have a ride? I can take you home, if you want.”
“My dad’s coming. He’s running late.”
“How you doing?”
“Pretty good,” I lied.
“Can we talk?” He sat down next to me, leaning his back against the red brick of the gymnasium.
“Sure. What about?”
“I’m worried about you. I haven’t seen you around all week.”8
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not what Nora says.”
“Let me speak for myself, okay?”
“And Kim is shattered you won’t talk to her.”
“Poor baby.” My voice was bitter.
“Roo, don’t get mean. I’m checking to make sure you’re okay. I really care about you.”
“Right.”
“You do know that, don’t you? I hope you’re okay with all of this.”
“And if I’m not okay, what are you gonna do about it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. We were pretty close. It’s hard on me to see you like this.”
“Poor you.”
“Listen, we can still go to the Spring Fling, if you want. I’d like that, actually. Can we go to the dance?”
“You aren’t going with Kim?”
“She has to go out of town with her family. She left this afternoon.”
“Won’t she be mad?”
“No. She thinks it might cheer you up. She’s completely sorry she upset you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“We’d go as friends,” Jackson added.
“I understood that, thank you.”
“Aw, don’t be sarcastic with me. Let me take you out. You can wear your dress. For old times’ sake.”9
Well, it went on like this for a while longer. The short of it is that I said yes, never even thinking about Angelo, or Kim, or what anyone would say—only thinking about how Jackson still had some feelings for me, would love me again in my silver dress, and how we would stand in the moonlight, looking over the railing at the light playing across the dark water.
1 “But wait!” you careful readers are saying. Weren’t you talking about Angelo way back on your first visit to Doctor Z? What does he have to do with anything?2 Doctor Z adds the following: “Maybe he liked you and wanted to go to the dance with you, but felt too shy to ask?”
I swear to God I never thought of that.3 Stephen King wrote this freaked-out book called Carrie about a loser girl who gets asked to the prom by the most popular guy in school, only to find out it’s a massive prank when they dump a bucket of pig’s blood all over her. It was also a movie.4 Why didn’t you ask him?” said Doctor Z.
“Ag.” I moaned. “I always know what you’re going to say.”
“Then we’re making progress,” she said.5 It was on Wednesday that I found out about Kim and Jackson, so at this point I was in the dark.6 I thought maybe heartbreak would make me lose my appetite, like it always does to heroines of books, and then I could waste away tragically to nothing and Jackson would see me and I’d be pale and haunted-looking, and he’d realize that he never should have hurt me like that. But no. It turned out my stomach has no idea what’s going on in my heart and I could eat just like normal, if only there was normal food in my house to eat.7 The above paragraph is the product of nearly four months of twice-weekly therapy. Expressing feelings! Yay! Even when saying what you feel makes you sound vindictive and grudge-holding and cranky!8 You know what? At the time, I thought he was being sensitive—but now, it pisses me off. Where does Jackson get off acting all sympathetic and trying to comfort me when he’s the entire reason I’m unhappy? What is that about? It actually seems kind of sick. Here’s the entry I would have made in The Boy Book if only I still had friends to write it with: Breaking Up with Someone: A Few Tips for Boys.
1. If you shatter someone by dumping her, and you’re not going to get back together with her ever, don’t go following her around to act all concerned about her welfare. Unless you’re divorcing and leaving her with three kids. Just leave her alone unless she wants to talk to you. You can’t comfort her. You are the bad guy. Just accept it and try not to be such a jerk with your next girlfriend.
2. Don’t go wearing the jeans she thinks you look hot in until you’re well sure she’s over you.
3. Don’t tell her she looks pretty.
4. Don’t lead her into temptation.9 Just what he said about tennis with Heidi! Plus, our “old times” were only six days ago at this point! But I notice these things only in hindsight. At the time, I was oblivious.
11. Shiv (but it was just one kiss.)
You could call Shiv Neel my first official boyfriend. He was definitely my first voluntary kiss—and the word “girlfriend” was certainly mentioned by him, in reference to me. But he was my boyfriend for less than twenty-four hours, so although it was common knowledge all over school that we were going out, I’m not sure he counts. Anyway, if he was my boyfriend, it’s pretty pitiful—because just like Jackson, he dumped me and I had no idea it was coming.