How They Met, and Other Stories(10)
Author: David Levithan

But then she’d tell me not to be so attached.

The more this happened, the deeper I fell in love with her.

The more she made me want it, the more I wanted it.

“Open your eyes,” Teddy told me, one of the few times I talked to him.

But that wasn’t the problem.

My eyes were wide open.

Seeing her.

All the conversations in our relationship started to be about our relationship.

I was always the one who brought it up.

“What am I to you?” I would ask.

“Oh Lord,” she’d groan. “Not again.”

“Are we girlfriends? Lovers? Nothing at all? What?”

“I’m Ashley and you’re Miss Lucy. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, it’s not enough!” I’d protest, not even sure what I was defending.

“I don’t need this, Miss Lucy. Really.”

Miss Lucy had a steamboat

The steamboat had a bell

Miss Lucy went to heaven

and the steamboat went to

“What are you mumbling?”

“Nothing.”

“C’mon.”

“I love you.”

“No.”

“I do.”

Hello, operator

Please give me number nine

And if you disconnect me

I’ll chop off your

The kissing was supposed to be the escape. The kissing was supposed to be the moment when nothing in the world mattered but us. The kissing was supposed to take me away from all the problems. All the thoughts. All the doubts.

But now when I kissed her, I was always measuring how much of her was there. And I was wondering how much of me was left.

Behind the ’frigerator

There was a piece of glass

Miss Lucy sat upon it

And it went right up her

It was, I thought, a simple equation:

You find the right person.

You do the right things.

And from that, everything goes right.

Like you have a contract with the universe, and these are the terms.

I had no doubt Ashley was the right person.

I had to hope I was doing the right things.

But everything wasn’t going right.

Some things were.

But not everything.

Ask me no more questions

And I’ll tell you no more lies

The boys are in the bathroom

Zipping up their

Miss Lucy disappears from her own story.

Flies are in the belfry

Bees are in the park

And boys and girls are kissing

In the D-A-R-K

I felt I was disappearing from my own story.

D-A-R-K

I had no control over my own story.

D-A-R-K

It was hers.

DARK DARK DARK

I had to take my SATs a third time.

Ashley knew this. I’d told her.

Before I went in, I texted her: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TONIGHT? It was a Saturday, and I thought we’d made plans. After a few months of going out, this was pretty routine.

Of course, I forgot to turn off my phone. So ten minutes into the SATs, my bag starts to chirp, and it will not shut up. Now, I knew I wasn’t supposed to take out my phone during the SATs, and I swear to this day that my intention was just to silence it until I was done penciling in those stupid bubbles. But as I went to hit the off button, I happened to look at the message on the screen:

WE HAVE TO TALK.

The test proctor was immediately yelling at me, asking what the hell did I think I was doing, as if I’d been about to call some math expert for help. I threw the phone back in my bag, but I couldn’t get rid of the message as easily. It was like every problem on the SATs became my problem.

5. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TONIGHT?: WE HAVE TO TALK : : ASHLEY, I CARE ABOUT YOU:

a) LUCY, I CARE ABOUT YOU, TOO

b) LUCY, WE’RE SO COMPLETELY OVER, IT’S NOT FUNNY

c) LUCY, YOU’RE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

d) STEAMBOAT, I CARE ABOUT YOU, TOO

6. Which of the following phrases does not belong with the others?

a) WE HAVE TO SEE MORE OF EACH OTHER

b) WE HAVE TO TALK

c) WE HAVE TO REMEMBER TO PICK UP A MOVIE

d) WE HAVE TO BE TOGETHER ALWAYS

12. If the diameter of a cone is doubled, its volume:

a) will quadruple

b) will not be enough to save your relationship with Ashley

c) will halve

d) will stay the same

Of course, all the right answers were (b).

I might as well have used that number-two pencil to fill in the hollow dots that my eyes, my ears, my mouth, and my heart had become. Not only had I not seen it coming, but I had seen its opposite coming instead.

Doofus, I said to myself. Idiot.

I started crying in the middle of my third try at the SATs and I couldn’t stop. I had to leave, and there was no way to explain to the proctor how a single sentence had stumped me more than any test question ever would.

All I really needed was the confirmation. And all I needed for the confirmation was a simple two-letter word spoken in her voice. I called her as soon as I got to the parking lot. I knew she’d see my number on her phone, so when she answered, she’d be answering me. So the way she said that first word—hi—made the landslide complete. Her hi wasn’t high at all—no, this hi was lowwwwwwww. The kind of hi that says I’ve already scattered the ashes of our relationship somewhere over the land of yesterday. All in two letters.

I began to cry again, and she told me she’d known I was going to be this way. I cried some more. She mentioned something about me still being her best friend in town. Not her best friend, mind you—her best friend in town. I wiped some snot with my sleeve. She asked me wasn’t I supposed to be in the SATs right now? I just lost it and took that phone and threw it right at my car. Which is how I managed to lose a girlfriend, break a phone, and crack a windshield all at the same time.

And then I drove over to her house.

I didn’t make it past the front door.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, stepping onto the porch and pulling the door shut behind her. “And what the hell happened to your car?”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” I said, the tears already coming.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she said, completely bored with the whole thing.

“Really? What can it be like? Tell me. I’d really like to know.”

“You see, this is why it was never going to work.”

“Because I’m upset that you’re dumping me? That’s why it was never going to work?”

“You were always too into it.”

“But you said we were a pair! You were into it, too.”

“Yeah, but not like you. And I wasn’t always telling the truth.”