Guyaholic (2 page)

My heart jumped. “You know?”

“You go to my school. We’re both seniors.” Sam paused before adding, “And you fell onto me at the hockey game yesterday.”

“Oh, my God!” I clapped my palm over my mouth. After I was hit by the puck, I didn’t open my eyes until that hot paramedic hoisted my stretcher into the ambulance.

“
You’re
the guy with the lap?” I asked.

Sam nodded.

“Do you find it bizarre that you’ve had intimate contact with my brain matter?”

“No big deal.” Sam shrugged. “I was happy to help.”

“So I was right . . . you like bandages and stuff.”

“Don’t forget the greasy hair.”

When Sam smiled again, I felt a churning in my stomach, like I was watching characters kiss at the end of a movie. Even though you know they’ll probably break up five minutes later, in that moment everything is bliss.

“Oh,” Sam said. “I brought you something.”

“Please tell me you’re not giving me the bloody sweatshirt.”

“What?”

Before I could explain about Amos and the hockey puck, he reached into the checkered bag and handed me a loaf of bread with dollops of green squished across the top. It was encased in Saran Wrap, but I could distinctly smell basil and garlic.

“It’s pesto focaccia,” Sam said. “Homemade.”

“I love bread,” I said.

“I love to bake,” Sam said.

I tipped my head curiously. He smiled. I opened the door wider and gestured him inside.

I graduate from high school on a rainy Monday in late June. The ceremony is being held at the college rink, site of my notorious collision with the puck, except the ice is gone and the walls are decorated with
CON
GRAD
ULATIONS!
signs, courtesy of the Spirit Club.

I know I should be ecstatic, given the fact that before I moved to Brockport I’d attended seventeen different schools in nearly as many states and was such a slacker I had little chance of receiving a diploma, much less a cash award for my theater contributions, which I’m going to be getting as soon as the principal stops blabbering about how we’re all carrying torches into the future and gets on with the ceremony.

But I’m so anxious, I’m not relishing in any of the accomplishment stuff. Basically, I’m obsessing about whether my mom will arrive in time to see me walk across the stage. My insides are clenched. I can barely breathe. And I’m on the verge of chewing off my nails, even though I got a manicure yesterday before heading to the mall to spend the remainder of my cash on a black dress and strappy sandals.

I haven’t seen my mom since January of my junior year, when she sent me to live with my grandparents. In the ensuing eighteen months, she’s promised to visit three different times, twice for opening nights of plays and once for my birthday. But something has always come up and she’s canceled at the last minute, leaving me miserable, depressed, and continually surprised, as if somehow I thought that this time things would be different.

And yet this time, things
are
different. Aimee and I have been talking on the phone a lot recently, less parent to child and more person to person. She’s even said some stuff about how since she was only nineteen when she had me and barely knew my father, she’s obviously screwed up a lot, and while she can’t change the past, she’s hoping to make it up to me in the future. In fact, the other night on the phone, Aimee said, “I want to know what your life is like these days. My time in Brockport will be all about you.”

I even told Sam that Aimee is coming, and that’s big for me because I generally don’t talk about my mom with anyone other than blood relatives.

Yes, crazy but true, Sam Almond is still in the picture. After he appeared at my front door with the focaccia, we started hanging out. And then we started hooking up. And then, once we hit that two-week mark, when I usually decide a guy is too clingy or a sloppy kisser or has an unforgivably pointy nose, Sam and I continued hooking up.

It’s been over three months, and I still don’t know what to call us. We exist in this blurry zone that’s more than friends with benefits and less than going out. It’s a definite source of tension because Sam wants us to be boyfriend and girlfriend, complete with prom and promises and pictures in each other’s lockers. The problem is he doesn’t understand what it was like to grow up with a mother who acquired a different “serious” guy every few months. He has no idea what it was like to wake up on a random Sunday morning and encounter a man pouring coffee in our kitchen, scratching his crotch, and then reaching out his hand to introduce himself as “your mom’s new boyfriend.” Naturally, whenever I hear the B-word, I want to get in my car, hit the gas, and never glance in the rearview mirror.

But I haven’t ditched so far. I’m not sure why, except Sam’s eyes do me in. Not to mention that he’s really into cycling, so he has legs that could launch a thousand orgasms. And he’s really nice and mellow, so nice and mellow in fact that mostly I feel undeserving of him. Which is another reason to flee. But then there are those homemade baked goods he’s always tucking in my locker. And did I mention Sam is seriously smart? He’s going to Berkeley in the fall and majoring in history and minoring in political science. And did I mention his abs? It’s good Sam wears a shirt in public because if he didn’t, I’d probably get arrested for public displays of fondling.

“In conclusion,” the principal says, “I want every person in the graduating class to carry a torch out into the world and start a fire.”

A few of the seniors chuckle. Someone throws a beach ball in the air.

The principal clears his throat. “Not arson, of course. Metaphorical fires. I want you all to go out into the world and start metaphorical fires.”

Another beach ball pops into the air.

“Without further ado —” The principal mops his forehead with a handkerchief. “Will the A’s and B’s please line up to receive your diplomas?”

I shift in my seat. I can see Sam heading toward the center aisle. His hair is exploding from the perimeter of his cap like unkempt shrubbery. As he turns and waves at me, my stomach does a happy little somersault.

But then I scan the bleachers and feel awful all over again. My grandparents are sitting midway up, the empty spot they’ve saved for Aimee gaping like a lost tooth. My grandpa has his phone pressed hard against his ear. I begin gnawing at my French tips.

This is
not
the way it was supposed to be. Aimee was supposed to arrive yesterday afternoon on a four-twenty flight. I’d just gotten home from the mall and was eating leftover buffalo wings before leaving to pick her up at the airport when my phone rang. As I glanced at the incoming number, I got a sinking feeling inside.

“Hey,” Aimee said. “Something’s come up.”

She went on to explain how she was still in San Antonio because the Cowboy had been in the emergency room all day and they thought it was appendicitis, but now they’re saying it’s a kidney stone, and she missed her flight and didn’t have a chance to call until just now.

“I’m flying standby first thing tomorrow morning,” Aimee added. “There’s a layover in Houston, but I should land in Rochester by twelve forty-five. I’ll rent a car at the airport and come straight to graduation.”

“Rebecca Aiello . . .” the principal is saying. “Nicholas Allcott . . . Sam Almond.”

When I hear Sam’s name, I clap loudly and shout, “Wooo-hooo!”

Sam must have heard me because as soon as he’s shaken hands with the superintendent, he finds me in the audience, smiles, and raises his diploma in the air.

When I don’t think too hard about things, it’s good between Sam and me.

Great, actually.

In so many ways, he brings out the best in me.

We’d only been hooking up a few weeks when I received five straight college rejections. Honestly, I wasn’t shocked. My transcripts had improved in Brockport, but on the days I’d shown up at my four previous high schools, I was generally smoking weed, skipping class, or chasing some guy. If anyone lectured me about academics, I’d tell them exactly where they could put their number-two pencil.

But then after my royal flush of rejection letters, Boston University wait-listed me. That evening Sam helped me compose a response, thanking them for reconsidering me and explaining how I was born to a teenage mom and had moved all over the country. Sam encouraged me to tell them that since arriving in Brockport, I’d starred in two musicals and one summer production at the college, and if I was accepted, I was going to be all over the Stage Troupe, which is this student-run theater group at BU. It was weird writing this stuff, but Sam insisted I send out the letter. Three weeks later I got a call from an admissions officer inviting me into their freshman class.

As the S’s and T’s receive their diplomas, I glance into the bleachers again. Still no Aimee. At this point I’ve chewed off all my nails. I wish I had my phone because I’d send her a quick text message, but there are no pockets in my gown and I couldn’t exactly carry it in my hand during the procession.

“Do you know what time it is?” I whisper to the guy on my left.

He pushes up his sleeve. “Two fifteen.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Aimee should be here by now. Even if her plane landed late, she’d still have had time to make the thirty-minute drive into Brockport.

The principal instructs the U’s, V’s, and W’s to line up. I adjust my cap and take one more look into the stands. Aimee’s seat is still empty. As I step onto the stage, receive my diploma, and shake the superintendent’s hand, I’m doing everything I can to swallow back the tears.

On the way back to my seat, I pass Sam’s row. I can feel him smiling at me, but I make a serious effort to stare straight ahead.

When I think too hard about things, it’s difficult between Sam and me.

Awful, actually.

In so many ways, he brings out the worst in me.

We’ll be having a perfectly fine evening, like he’ll meet me at the end of my Pizza Hut shift and we’ll be munching bread sticks in the parking lot and then, out of nowhere, he’ll bring up the whole relationship thing. I’ll tell him if he’s looking for a girlfriend, he’s come to the wrong place. He’ll say that it’s just about letting myself love. And when he uses
that
word, I’ll storm away and he’ll call my phone and I won’t answer and he’ll call again and I won’t answer and, finally, around midnight I’ll text him to apologize and we’ll return to hanging out and having fun and carefully avoiding certain conversations.

Aimee doesn’t arrive in time to see me receive the Barker Weill Drama Award, and she doesn’t arrive in time for the cap tossing, and as we’re all marching out, I finally have to accept the fact that she hasn’t arrived in time for any part of the ceremony.

As all the graduates are reuniting with their families, I can’t find my grandparents, which is unfortunate because in that brief second that I’m standing by myself, I’m assaulted by Sam’s mom’s camera.

“Great picture!” she squeals. “I’ll definitely put this one in Sam’s senior-year scrapbook.”

There’s something about Sam’s mom that annoys the hell out of me. Partially, it’s her soccer-mom bob and closet full of machine-washables, as if she’s never accepted the fact that she no longer has toddlers smearing applesauce on her clothing. Also, she knows all of Sam’s and his sister’s friends and always tries to keep tabs on who is hooking up with whom, and why someone broke up and what the big fight was about.

“Where’s your mother?” Sam’s mom asks me. “I’m dying to meet her.”

Damn it, Sam.
I told him Aimee was coming, but I didn’t expect him to blab it to the entire world. Just then Sam and his dad show up. I say hi to Sam’s dad and shoot a look at Sam.

“What?” he asks.

Sam’s mom is watching us, so I shrug dismissively.

“Is your mom around?” Sam asks.

I’m still glaring at him when my grandparents emerge from the crowd. I can tell by the smiles plastered on their faces that they’re working overtime at plastering. They hug me tight and gush about the Barker Weill Drama Award and how I strode so confidently across the stage.

Once I wriggle free, my grandpa clears his throat. “We just stepped outside to call Aimee. . . .”

“V’s mother?” Sam’s mom asks. “Where is she?”

“Something came up with her boyfriend,” my grandma says. “He went back to the hospital in the middle of the night. It sounds like the kidney stone was causing a lot of pain and —”

“A kidney stone!” Sam’s mom gasps. “How awful. That’s supposed to be the worst.”

“Aimee’s still in San Antonio?” I whisper to my grandma.

“I’m so sorry,” she says quietly.

For this horribly long moment, everyone stares at me. My cheeks are searing and my throat is tight, and even though I’m surrounded by the celebratory buzzing of graduates, the only thing I can hear is a voice in my head saying,
I can’t believe you thought that this time things would be different.