Reconstructing Amelia (24 page)

Liv was gathering her things—a pad of paper, her phone.

“Did Amelia ever talk to you about a boy named Dylan?” Kate asked. It seemed like a safe question, one that she should be allowed—as a mother—to ask. “It seems like maybe he and Amelia were seeing each other.”

Liv froze, looking from Kate to Lew and back to Kate again. She looked uncomfortable.

“I did hear that Amelia was dating Dylan. Not from her, so I don’t know for sure that it was true or if dating is even the right word for it. Involved might be a better way of putting it,” Liv said quietly. “But Dylan Crosby is not a boy, Ms. Baron. She’s a girl.”

Amelia

OCTOBER 19, 9:52 PM

DYLAN

what’s up?

AMELIA

not much; what’s up with you?

DYLAN

bad mood

AMELIA

why?

DYLAN

idk

AMELIA

lets do something fun 2morrow

DYLAN

fun sounds good; you got ideas?

AMELIA

doing anything w/you would qualify

DYLAN

:) c/u 2morrow

AMELIA

ok c/u xo

OCTOBER 19, 9:59 PM

SYLVIA

she’s one of the Maggies

AMELIA

who is?

SYLVIA

the girl Ian’s fucking

AMELIA

no way

SYLVIA

yeah, one of those Maggie bitches is all over him

AMELIA

who?

SYLVIA

don’t know; but I am going 2 find out.

OCTOBER 19, 10:05 PM

CHLOE

party, my place, Friday night 9

OCTOBER 19, 10:12 PM

AMELIA

when can I c u??? If you keep avoiding me, I’m going to start thinking you’re a serial killer or something

BEN

Gee, thx

AMELIA

I’m joking, sort of. But come on, when r u coming?

BEN

maybe Thursday, I’m working on it.

AMELIA

yeah! Now I don’t need to start blocking your calls ;)

OCTOBER 19, 10:25 PM

COACH BING

correction: bus leaves for sat game at 7:30 am; NOT 8:30 am; do not B late

OCTOBER 19, 10:32 PM

DYLAN

Sometimes I hate this place. Want 2 run away?

AMELIA

I’m in; when do we leave?

facebook

OCTOBER 20

Amelia Baron

“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Amelia

OCTOBER 20

“ ‘A piece of knowledge is never false or true—but only more or less biologically and evolutionary useful. All dogmatic creeds are approximations: these approximations form a humus from which better approximations grow,’ ” Sylvia read from her philosophy textbook with dramatic flourish. “In case you were wondering who said that—”

“I wasn’t,” I said without looking up.

It was our free period, and we were in Grace Hall’s brand-new state-of-the-art library, complete with walls of glass, high-tech computer equipment, and old-school touches—antique light fixtures, stained glass, and rough-hewn, refurbished desks. It had been renamed the Rose Library, after the Rose family (Carter, Bennett, and Cole included), who had financed the renovations. My eyes were on my biology lab work, but I was having a hard time concentrating, even without Sylvia talking.

I was supposed to meet Dylan after school. She’d said she had something to tell me. After her text the night before about running away together, I was pretty sure it was going to be something good. Maybe even that she was ready for us to see each other out in the open.

“Ernst Mach, that’s who said that,” Sylvia went on because, as usual, she didn’t care if I wanted to listen or not. “And you want to know what I say? I say, Fuck you, Ernst. I don’t even think that’s English. And what kind of name is Ernst anyway? It’s, like, missing a vowel or something.”

“Why did you take Intro to Philosophy in the first place?” I looked up at her. I was annoyed. Sometimes the stuff Sylvia did was so stupid, and she never owned any of it. “Everyone knows that’s one of the hardest classes in the whole school. No one told you to sign up for it.”

“I like to be challenged as much as the next guy,” Sylvia said sheepishly. “You’re not the only intellectually curious person around here, you know.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Oh wait, now I remember. Brian Porter’s in that class, isn’t he?”

Sylvia shifted in her chair. Brian was the boy she’d been chasing around last spring during registration. Her pre-Ian crush. She’d caught Brian eventually, but he’d wriggled away by midsummer, right on schedule.

“The worst part is that he dropped out, like, the second day,” she admitted finally. She shook her head.

“You could have dropped out, too, you know.”

“And have Brian
know
I was only in the class because of him? Come on, I still have a
little
pride.”

“I hope for your sake that Ian doesn’t sign up for Comparative Literature or something next semester,” I said. “That one’s supposed to be the real killer.”

“Whatever, I don’t care
what
Ian does anymore.” Sylvia was trying to sound tough, but her face got all quivery as she looked out over the crowded library. “You seriously don’t read my texts, do you? Hello, I think he’s cheating on me.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.” I said. I hated that we were talking about Ian. Ever since he’d basically admitted to me that he
was
cheating, I’d been trying to avoid discussing their relationship. But if they didn’t break up soon, I was going to have to tell Sylvia. And I really, really did not want to do that. “Whatever, then, he’s a total idiot.”

“See, even you’re not saying I’m crazy anymore. You think something’s up with him, too.” Sylvia looked sad as she went back to scanning the library, probably for Ian. “Whatever, boys suck.”

I needed to change the subject away from Ian before Sylvia went off the deep end. And I had been wanting to tell her about Dylan, especially now that Ian knew. The perfect time was never going to come.

“I’m with somebody,” I blurted out while Sylvia was still looking around. “I mean, I think. Anyway, you were right when you thought so before.”

“Holy shit, I knew it!” Sylvia swatted at me playfully. “For how long? Who is it? You have to tell me
everything
. OMG, I am so excited!”

Sylvia still managed to really surprise me sometimes. I didn’t think I’d be able to get her focused on me instead of Ian, not even for a second.

“I guess it’s been, like, two weeks or something.”

“Two weeks!” Sylvia yelled. The librarian shushed us loudly from the circulation desk. Sylvia flapped an annoyed hand in her direction. “I thought you were going to say a day or two. Two weeks and you didn’t tell me? Oh wait, please, please, please tell me you are
not
dating creepy Ben.”

“I’m not dating Ben,” I said. “And he’s also not creepy.”

“Not gay, very creepy,” Sylvia said. “But that’s fine, we can agree to disagree on that. I don’t want to talk about stupid Ben right now anyway. I want to talk about this hottie who finally got Amelia Baron laid.
Who
is it? Carter, George McDonnell—I swear those boys have been
dying
to get up your skirt for
years
.”

I took a deep breath and stared at Sylvia. This was it. I was about to tell my best friend I was dating a girl.

“I probably should have told you this earlier,” I started. It was going to be okay. Sylvia would be cool with it. I knew that she would be. She had to be. “Not that it matters, like, between us or whatever, but—”

“Holy crap,” Sylvia said suddenly, ducking her head down. She leaned for a second to peek around me, then ducked back again. “Is that Ian over there? With a
girl
?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, turning around. Sure enough, there was Ian on the other side of the library, near the reference section and the big wooden globe. He was with a girl, but she bent down behind something before I could make out who she was.

“Isn’t that Susan Dolan?” Sylvia hissed. “OMG, she is such a ho.”

I’d seen her for only a second, but she could have been Susan Dolan. And if Ian was flirting out in the open with her, it wasn’t good. Susan slept around, a lot. Selfishly, I was relieved it wasn’t Zadie. At least Susan Dolan wasn’t a Maggie. The secret I shared with Ian had nothing to do with his being with her.

“I’m gay, Sylvia,” I said, pressing on despite the surprise Ian drama.

Because it was true, and it was time to start coming clean, about everything. And all of a sudden, it felt like now or never.

Sylvia was still totally focused on trying to peek around me subtly. It was like she hadn’t even heard what I’d said. Then, suddenly, her eyes snapped over to me.

“Wait,
what
did you just say?”

“I think, maybe, I’m gay.”

“No, you’re not,” Sylvia said dismissively, going back to her surveillance. “Gay is not, like, a maybe thing.”

I’d imagined Sylvia surprised, or sad, or even a little freaked-out. But I’d never thought she wouldn’t believe me.

“I don’t mean maybe,” I said. “I mean, I
know
. I know I’m gay.”

Sylvia huffed all dramatically. “Okay, you do know gay people have sex, right? Being gay isn’t like a backdoor way to be abstinent because— Oh my God.” Sylvia ducked down again. “Is that his
hand
on her
butt
? I can’t look. You do it. You do it. Turn around and check.”

I was trying not to get pissed off. Ian out in public with another girl—especially a girl like Susan Dolan—was big. But after the bomb I’d just dropped? I mean, a few minutes focused on me and my personal drama would have been nice. Then again, I did feel bad for Sylvia, too. Getting blown off like that, in front of everybody—it sucked.

I tossed my pencil to the ground, giving me an excuse to turn and look in Ian’s direction. I didn’t see him at first as I groped around the floor trying to pick it up. But then he finally stood up from where he’d been crouched behind a bookshelf. A second later, Susan Dolan popped up next to him. I hung there for a second watching them smile at each other as they bumped shoulders playfully. Oh, it was bad.
Really
bad.

“Looking for this?” someone asked.

Next to my hand were a man’s trendy brown lace-ups. When I leaned back, there was Mr. Woodhouse, holding my pencil up in the air.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, reaching out to take it.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Sylvia said, shooing Woodhouse away with her hand. “But we’re kind of trying to, you know,
study
here.

Sylvia didn’t like Woodhouse because he kept threatening her with academic probation. Woodhouse was kind of a hard-ass about academics that way. Mostly kids either hated him or wanted to sleep with him. There wasn’t a lot of in-between. Woodhouse looked back at Sylvia for a second like he was trying hard not to hate her back. It kind of made me like him more.

“Can you stop by my office after school today, Amelia?” he asked, turning to me. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

“What? Why?” I sounded way too nervous. These days, I had such a guilty conscience. “I mean, because I have field hockey after school.”

“I already spoke to Ms. Bing,” Woodhouse said. “It won’t take long.” Then he turned to Sylvia. “And Ms. Golde, I’m glad to see you’re studying. I got a call today from your Spanish teacher. Wherever your focus has been the past few weeks, it’s time to turn it back to your schoolwork. You can’t afford to be on academic probation again.”

Sylvia was ignoring him, doodling in her notebook.

“Sure thing,
head
master,” she said finally, still not looking up.

“Terrific, Ms. Golde,” he said, looking bummed-out. “Just terrific. Anyway, Amelia, I’ll see you later.”

As Woodhouse walked away, Sylvia waved at him like she was trying to physically remove him from her line of sight. Then she started looking around the library in every possible direction. But Ian and Susan Dolan were already gone.

“Great, thanks, Mr. Fucking Woodhouse.”

I got a text from Dylan in the middle of AP biology. Y
OUR HOUSE, FREE PERIOD
?

We wouldn’t have long, twenty minutes after travel time, which made the whole thing kind of risky. But kind of exciting, too.

I jetted out of school as soon as biology ended. When I turned the last corner, I could see Dylan sitting on my stoop. Her face was resting on a hand, her head turned the other way, as if she were trying to shield it from the wind. And it was kind of cold out, even with the bright fall sun that was making her hair look like it was on fire.

I was a few houses away when Dylan finally turned in my direction. Her face lit up as she grinned. Seeing her look at me that way, I knew she felt the same way about me as I did about her. I was finally sure of it. I was sure of something else, too. I wasn’t just into Dylan. I didn’t just have a crush on her. I was in love with her. Completely and totally, like, head over heels.

In a way, it was kind of a relief. Because there was no turning back now, not anymore. There was no more being careful. And after being so weird and flighty for so long, it finally felt like something had changed for Dylan, too. I could see it in the way she was looking at me. I smiled back at her, my footsteps coming faster now.

“Come inside,” I said, grabbing her hand and racing up the steps. All I wanted to do was kiss her right there, on the street. But two teenage girls making out on the sidewalk in the middle of the school day was a thing people would notice. Maybe even something they’d see fit to mention to my mom. “I have something to tell you.”

We were still inside the vestibule, the door barely closed, when Dylan started kissing me, her hands moving to peel off layers of my clothes. In the rush of hands and skin and mouths, it felt like the words I’d been about to say, all the important ones, had already been said. Dylan knew how I felt. And I knew how she felt, too.

Afterward, we lay together naked on my living room couch, our legs pretzled together.

“I love that your mother is never home,” Dylan said, curling against me and resting her head on my chest. She traced a finger down the length of my arm. “It must be great just being left alone.”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But I like hanging out with my mom. It would be nice if she could be here a
little
more.”

I remembered how angry I’d been the weekend before when I’d woken her up super-early to yell at her about whoever my dad was. I’d just gotten another one of those texts about my dad the night before, and all of sudden I’d been super pissed off about it, so mad that I hadn’t cared anymore if it hurt my mom’s feelings. I’d even dug up all her old journals from the basement with this plan that I was going to read all of them to find out what had happened for myself.

I’d started reading some of them, too—a few pages here, a few pages there—but I hadn’t gotten that far. I read a couple of entries from when my mom first found out she was pregnant and from right after I was born. It didn’t say who my dad was. Mostly, reading it just made me feel bad for her. My mom had been so alone and scared back then. I wasn’t mad at her feeling that not-so-good way about me as a baby either, but that didn’t mean I wanted to read a whole lot about it. Plus, it felt wrong. My mom didn’t go around reading my private stuff, at least as far as I knew.

And what if my mom had been protecting me from my dad for a reason? She loved me. She would do that. She would let me be really mad at her if that’s what it took to keep me safe. And my mom was all I had—all I’d ever had—and I loved her. I didn’t want to find out anything that would change that. I could live my whole life with a hole where my dad was supposed to go, as long as my mom would be there to fill it.

“My mom is
always
around,” Dylan said. “It’s a drag.”

I’d met Dylan’s mom once, but otherwise I didn’t know much about her except that she was an actress who’d once thought she’d be the next Marilyn Monroe—and she was definitely glamorous, like Dylan—but had had to settle for a bunch of guest spots on all the different
Law & Order
s. She was intense with Dylan, too, pushing her to be an actress even though Dylan hated it, wanting her to wear her hair this way or that, always telling her to lose weight even though she was already crazy skinny. Like Dylan was a dress-up doll instead of an actual person. Dylan didn’t seem to mind, but a lot of what she told me about her mom gave me the creeps. It also made me glad I had my mom—even if I didn’t always have her around as much as I would have liked.