Don't Kiss Him Good-Bye (22 page)

Tommy didn’t call Monday. Or Tuesday. I saw him in the hallway, and he waved and grinned. I knew I could ask Penny to find out from him what he’d wanted, but it seemed desperate and needy, and I didn’t want to do it. If he had wanted to call me, he would have.

Wednesday night I was a little late getting into the coffeehouse, and I slipped in next to Supriya midway through worship. I hated missing worship. Joe caught my eye from the stage and nodded in my direction. I smiled. I knew he’d keep me in mind for worship someday. I just had to wait. My favorite discipline. Kidding!

I sang, and as I did, I imagined how it would be. One of the worship team members would become really sick—whoever that dude was up there who was playing guitar. No, no, that’s not right. He would move! Or even better, he’d go on a long mission trip. Which would leave an opening for me. Joe would ask me to fill in with very little notice, and I would. I’d become a part of the team, and they’d invite me to join permanently, even when that other guy came back from, uh, Moldova or Lisbon or wherever he’d gone on a mission. And then Tommy would see me up on the stage and have great pangs of regret—

“Savvy!” Supriya tugged my arm. “Everyone else is sitting down.”

I snapped out of it and looked around. I was the only one standing. I slid into my seat, making eye contact with no one on the way down.

Louanne had followed my advice. Shouldn’t I follow my own? Who had my values?

Jenny. My newly assigned youth group leader.

I listened to Jenny chat about the lesson with us girls, and then when the groups broke up, I asked her if I could speak with her in private. “Of course, Savvy.” We headed over to a couch in a corner of the room.

“So here’s my problem,” I began explaining to her. “There’s this guy I’m going to the May Day Ball with. But I’m really confused.”

She didn’t interrupt me but just waited patiently while I kept talking. I took a deep breath and went on.

“Anyway, when I first met him, I kind of felt sorry for him. He was new, he said, like I was. And I could help him, and he seemed very negative and I thought it would be good if I could share my faith with him.”

Jenny nodded knowingly. I had the feeling she’d been there before, and it gave me courage to keep talking.

“So all my friends were going to the ball, and I didn’t have a date yet, and my best friend wanted to invite my mom to something that she could only go to if I had a ball gown. So when this boy asked me . . . I said yes.”

“I see,” Jenny said. “But now you’re sorry you did?”

“I am. Because the more I got to know him, the more sarcastic he got and he was cutting me down in little ways I couldn’t exactly pin down. And he started wanting to be more than friends, even though I told him I didn’t.”

“Does he treat you with respect?” Jenny asked. “Is he truly interested in you, or only in what you can do for him? Is he honest?”

I thought about that. He didn’t really dis me, but whenever I was with him, I always ended up feeling worse about myself because of his little wounds. Kind of like . . . paper cuts. Which reminded me that he hadn’t been really honest about Natalie either. “I don’t think so,” I said. “But I do know that I don’t like how I feel most of the time when I’ve been with him. And I don’t like who I’ve become lately.”

Jenny opened her Bible to One Corinthians. “Remember when we studied this in our Corinthians series?” She pointed to a section. I read it on the page:

“Yeah, I remember that now,” I said. I’d breezed right by it at the time, never thinking that anything like that could ever happen to me.

“Do you think that could be true in your case?” Jenny asked.

“Maybe. But what about all the money my parents already spent?”

“You could return your dress,” Jenny suggested. “And the shoes and stuff, right?”

I nodded. “But they’ve already paid for the limo. And, well, didn’t I give my word to him that I’d go?”

“You did,” Jenny said. “But nobody agrees to be poorly treated. He also doesn’t seem like he’s taking you seriously when you said you wanted to remain friends.”

I thought of his trying to hold my hand, his leaning even closer to, well . . . I wasn’t sure. “You’re right. I should probably have never gotten involved with him. So what should I do?”

“I can’t answer that for you. But I can pray with you.” We bowed our heads, and she prayed for me. I really didn’t remember anything she said in the prayer because the whole time that one phrase from a teacher I’d had in middle school kept running through my head:

“The time to do the right thing is as soon as you become aware that it needs to be done.”

Chapter 48

I was going to text him. I know, I know, cheap, low blow, cowardly. But I didn’t actually do it. First, I had no idea if he had his phone back or not. I considered texting him on Ian’s phone, but that seemed even worse. Instead, I thought I’d skip lunch on Thursday and meet him in the library.

Thursday morning I delivered the papers, as usual. I didn’t take time to read my own and everyone else’s columns; I would do that after school this time. I’d told Penny what I was going to do, and we made plans to hang out in the courtyard after school so I could fill her in on how it went.

I stepped into the library, half hoping Rhys wouldn’t be there and I’d be off the hook.

He was there. I came up behind him at the computer. He sensed me and turned around and flashed that wide, white smile. “Hey, there’s my girl,” he said. “You’ve been so busy, I haven’t seen you around much. I’m getting my phone back today, though!”

“Rhys, uh, could we go to the back of the library and talk for a minute?” My hands trembled, and I tried to take deep breaths without hyperventilating and passing out right there on the floor.

“Sure.” He followed me to the back, to a nearly deserted section of the library among the musty biographies. As I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, I could still tell what I saw in him. He was cute, and he had a kind of . . . presence. People noticed when he walked by. But somehow the magnet that had once drawn me to him had completely turned around and was now repelling me a little instead. He plopped down on a bench and I put a few inches between us. He scooted over to erase the distance.

“There isn’t an easy way to say this,” I said, “but I can’t go to the May Day Ball with you.”

He faced me, shocked. “Your parents have told you that you can’t?”

“No. I just realized . . . well, we’re very different people. And there are a lot of times I feel like you cut me down. You say things that are nice on one level, but there’s always a little dig.”

Rhys shook his head. “I thought you were big enough to take a little teasing, Savannah. I didn’t think you were so oversensitive. I thought you were different.”

His words confirmed to me that I was right to do what I was doing. I felt free. I felt affirmed. “I
am
different, Rhys—very different from the girl I’ve become over the past month or so. And I want the old me back.”

“I’ve already paid for the limo,” he said. “I can’t give you your money back.”

“That’s fine. I’m really sorry about all this,” I said, softening just a little when I saw the confusion on his face.

“Yeah, you
are
sorry,” he said. I went to stand, but he put his hand over mine, keeping me on the bench for the moment. “You at least owe me a little token for our time together,” he said. He leaned in close, and I could smell the rosemary mint of his shampoo and feel that charm he turned on to almost everyone around him. “How about a kiss good-bye?” His arm held me firmly—a little too firmly.

I wrested myself away from him and remembered what my mother had told me about firsts—first dances, first boyfriends, first kisses. I wasn’t wasting any of those on Rhys. “I am kissing you off,” I said. “But I’ll never kiss you good-bye.” With that, I took my messenger bag and began to make my way out of the library as fast as I could. The title of a Taylor Swift song ran through my head.
“Should’ve Said No.”

Before I was out of earshot, I heard him call after me, “She was right about you all along, you know.”

I didn’t turn around, but I did wonder. Who was
she?