When You Were Mine (5 page)

Olivia swats me on the shoulder, but it’s playful, and even Charlie has to smile. Olivia is saving herself for marriage or until she can legally drink or something. Her mom got kind of religious after she married Olivia’s stepdad. They all go to church on Sundays. We’ve never talked about why, exactly, she’s waiting, but my guess is she has a better handle on all of it than I do. The moral part, anyway. So far as I know, she’s only just made out. I would bet money that’s all she has done with Ben, too.

Olivia starts adjusting her tank top in the glass window. I slump into a seat and open my sparkling water. I haven’t even touched my bagel yet. Every time I try, my stomach launches a counterattack. Turns out, I’m completely terrified about seeing Rob. It’s totally messing with my morning. My hands are tingling and my fingers feel numb. It reminds me of the way I used to feel when I was in
The Nutcracker
as a kid. Complete and total stage fright.

I see Len leave the PL and Lauren following out behind. He says something over his shoulder, and Lauren laughs. Probably making fun of us.

“Shall we?” Charlie comes over, chewing a piece of blueberry bagel, so I know she and Olivia have made up.

“Mhm.” I stuff my bagel into my book bag and stand.

“Let’s roll,” Olivia says behind us, which makes Charlie
immediately snap to attention. She tosses her red hair over her shoulder and slides her book bag on.

“Do you think we should try to get Len to join SAC?” Olivia asks. Charlie shoots her a look like,
Don’t even think about it,
and turns on her heel, the two of us following behind.

“I’m kidding,” Olivia says. She mouths “Jesus” to me and rolls her eyes, miming her best Charlie impression. We walk out of the PL, across the breezeway, and down to assembly. The only thing I can think is that the second we walk through the doors, Rob will be there. And then, how completely and totally unprepared I am to see him.

If you’re a senior, like we are, then you sit in chairs on
the right-hand side of the auditorium during assembly, instead of up in the bleachers. Like by making it to senior year you have earned your right to
sit in a chair
. The whole thing becomes unbelievably political, with senior seats ending up like concert tickets. The chairs by the right far side and in the front are the most valuable and are reserved for popular people. The ones in the back and on the left are for everyone else.

Then there are the Trenches, which are on the other side of the bleachers, where people stand if they’re late. The Trenches are mostly for kids like Corey Masner, John Susquich, and Charlie’s ex, Matt Lester, who always smoke before class and just can’t be bothered. It says something about you if you stand in the
Trenches—that you’re not really a part of things, either because you can’t be or because you choose not to be. And in high school, honestly, they might as well be the same thing.

I look for Rob and finally spot him. He’s in the back row of senior seats, but on the right—solidly popular territory, his chair tilted backward—talking to Jake. The sight of him makes my heart and stomach do something very funny at the exact same time. He looks even cuter somehow. His brown hair is longer, a little bit shaggy, and although he’s sitting down, I can tell he grew this summer. And he’s tan. Probably from, you know, all the making out with other hot lifeguards on the boat dock. The image of Rob and some bikini chick locked in an embrace flashes on my frontal lobe, and I shake my head, trying to dislodge the picture.

“Loverboy looks good,” Charlie says. “Who knew he was so . . . manly?”

I turn to tell her to keep it down, but in that moment he looks up. Our eyes lock, and neither of us moves, not even a facial muscle. But then he smiles and cocks his head, motioning to an empty seat next to him.

“Where are you going?” Charlie hisses as I make a move to head toward him. “We’re doing front row this year, remember?”

“I’m gonna go sit with Rob.”

Charlie looks hurt, but I know she isn’t really. She just has this theory that we look “visually powerful” when we’re seated
together. She came up with that last year. I remember because afterward Olivia said, “That’s totally true. It’s the theory of collective hotness. One pretty girl alone is okay-looking, but, like, five pretty girls together, even if one of them is not that pretty, look way hotter.”

I swear she looked right at me when she said “one of them.”

“I’ll sit with you tomorrow,” I tell Charlie. “Don’t worry.”

Charlie makes a fuss of sighing, but she winks at me as I walk away.

Charlie and Olivia file into the front, and I hopscotch over book bags and backpacks. I almost trip on Megan Crayden’s bag strap, but I right myself just in time.

Then, finally, I reach Rob. Jake gives me a nod and blows a kiss forward. I see Charlie catch it two rows up. 7:42—things with Charlie and Jake remain on.

“Hey,” Rob says. He rights his chair, then takes my bag off my shoulder and puts it down on the ground. Then he looks at me, and for a second I think he’s going to reach over and take my face in his hands again, he’s looking at me that hard. But instead he just smiles and leans in for a hug. “I missed you, Rosie.”

As soon as we touch, I realize how much I’ve missed him. He smells like green apples and soap, the best combination, and his arms are strong and tight around me. I could stay this way forever, I think just as he releases me.

I sit down next to him, and Jake turns back around. “Yo, dude,” he says to me. “How was your summer?”

“I saw you this weekend.”

“Awesome, right?” He snaps his fingers in front of Rob’s face. “We gotta hit up the waves this weekend. They’re supposed to be off the hook.”

“Sure,” Rob says, not taking his eyes off me.

He smiles with just the edges of his mouth, like we’re the only two people in on some secret.
Are
we the only two people in on a secret? I guess if it was that he likes me, Charlie would be in on it too, so no. Plus, he doesn’t like me. We’re friends. Friends. I run the word through my head like it’s on a conveyor belt. Just
friends
.

Everyone is wrapped up in their own first-day rituals. People are talking and hugging and squealing. Advisers are passing out schedules to kids who forgot the ones that were mailed out, and hesitant freshmen sit in the bleachers, looking white-faced and terrified.

“I can’t believe we’re seniors,” I say to Rob. It sounds so lame—isn’t that what everyone says on the first day of senior year?—but it’s true.

“I feel like it was just us there,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the freshmen. Three girls in the front row are clutching their Trapper Keepers to their chests like life
preservers. “Then look what happened.” He laughs and points to Charlie and Olivia. Charlie is talking animatedly to no one in particular, and Olivia keeps pursing and releasing her lips, like she’s practicing kissing, midair. Ben is next to them, and he has one arm over the back of Olivia’s chair, but he’s turned away from her, talking to Patrick DeWitt, who Olivia went to freshman banquet with. All of the chairs in front of us feel like tiny markers on a spiderweb, and I’m amazed at how connected we all are, how point A leads to point B and then all the way to Z, each of us spinning out into infinity but still tied together through birthday parties and drunken dances. Kisses and classes. For a very brief second it feels like we’re all a part of something.

I shake my head, and Rob puts a hand on my shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “Just thinking.”

“How are they, anyway?” Rob gestures with his head toward Charlie and Olivia.

“You really want to know?”

He gives me that cute corner smile again. “It’s a toss-up.”

I take a deep breath. “Well, Charlie and Jake are back on. Today.” Rob nods sternly like he’s taking this very seriously. “Olivia and Ben have started hooking up.”

“And what about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Any summer romances?” My stomach drops. I was right. He is asking so he can tell me all about his hot lifeguard. She’s probably Olivia’s look-alike from LA or New York or somewhere where being pretty is no big deal.

I shrug. “I was busy.”

“Is that a no?”

I look down at my tank top and fiddle with the edge of it, not sure what to say. What exactly is he asking me, here?

He clears his throat. “I didn’t see anyone either. If that helps any.”

Instantly I look up, and I know we’re thinking the same thing. It’s like how in movies there’s this music clip when the truth is being revealed so you just
know
, without anyone saying anything. Like someone in the corner of this auditorium is playing our theme song. Which, by the way, is “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra. Rob really loves old music.

“Anyway,” I say, looking away, “new year.” I’m convinced my heart is visibly beating out of my chest.

“Absolutely,” he says. But he’s smiling. A different smile. A funny little smile like he’s going to laugh. Like he’s telling himself a joke and the punch line is coming.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asks.

“Dunno. Homework?”

“Want to go to dinner?”

“Yeah, sure. Come over.”

“No, I mean go
out
to dinner.”

I know what Charlie would say here. Charlie would toss her hair over one shoulder and singsong, “Are you asking me out, Mr. Monteg?” But I don’t have the nerve. Or the talent for such games. Instead I say, “Umm, sure.” Rob opens his mouth to say something, but Mr. Johnson, our principal, comes onto the stage, and everyone stops talking.

“Good morning!” Mr. Johnson says in this fake boomy voice he uses for every single assembly. I know it’s fake because when you go in to meet with him for office hours or to tell him we’re out of sparkling waters in the PL (which, because of Charlie, we always are), he’s actually superquiet. Also, he looks a little like a rodent. Half-bald, pointy nose, and tiny beady eyes that look perpetually frightened. But who am I to judge? If I was a principal, I’d probably look the same way most of the time.

“Good morning!” a few sophomore girls yell back. Mr. Johnson looks delighted, and does it again. This time a few more people join in on the return call but obviously not enough to warrant a third time, because he just holds his hands up like,
Silence
.

“It’s a new year,” he begins, “and over the course of the
summer I have been thinking about changes I can make here at San Bellaro so that we can continue to grow in the directions that we want to. I have thought about the way we structure our days here, how we fill our time . . .”

And then, just as I’m about to completely zone out, something spectacular happens. Rob’s knee brushes mine and he doesn’t move it. He just leaves it there, against mine, so that
our knees are touching
. My face has already turned the color of a tomato, so I keep my eyes fixed on Mr. Johnson, but I can feel Rob glance at me.

Then Rob’s hand moves across the back of my chair.
Our knees are touching and Rob’s hand is on the back of my chair.

I try to remember what my mom’s yoga DVD is always saying about hyperventilating. That it can be prevented by deep breathing. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

“I see you as a forest,” Mr. Johnson is saying. “We are all trees, and we compose a large wooded area. Without us, there would be no life.”

Jake yawns next to us. Then he crosses his arms and closes his eyes. In two seconds he’s breathing loudly, his mouth open.

Rob’s knee has been next to mine for a full minute, I think. So long that my leg is starting to sweat. I wiggle in my chair, careful to keep my knee steady. I don’t want Rob to think I’m purposefully ending our contact. The whole thing reminds me
of the staring contests we used to have in middle school, seeing who could go the longest without blinking. Except I don’t want to win this one. I want to lose. I want Rob to keep his knee there forever. But just then Jake snores next to us, and Rob jabs him, breaking us apart.

Jake sits up, startled, and wipes some drool from his mouth. It’s a good thing Charlie isn’t back here right now. 7:59—they’d definitely be off.

Mr. Johnson finishes, and the students start clapping, although it’s mostly freshmen and a few very eager juniors who are quickly silenced by their friends. And Len, of course. He claps a few times, steadily, from the corner. Charlie and Olivia and a few other girls turn to look at him, but he doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. Then the auditorium erupts into a sonic boom of sound as everyone gathers their backpacks and heads off to first period.

Charlie is waving her arms at me and pointing to her watch. Rob has gotten lost in the shuffle, and he gives me a quick, apologetic wave, following Jake out the side entrance.

“He’s so cute,” Charlie says when I reach her. “We should totally double date.”

I’m still sort of reeling from such close contact with Rob, and I don’t tell Charlie about our date tonight. I want to keep it my secret for just a little bit longer. Ben is tickling Olivia
next to us, and she’s laughing, her tank top riding up. It’s actually kind of cute, if you squint a little. Charlie looks over at them and then declares, loudly, “I’m already over this,” before tugging me, arm first, out through the double doors.