Rules for Being a Girl

“I mean it. I’ve had it. I’m going to march in there and stick my boot so far up that man’s ass that he’ll be able to open up his mouth and read the L.L.Bean logo in the mirror. Then I’m calling a lawyer.”

“Dyana,” my dad says from his perch at the kitchen table, sounding faintly weary. I cringe at the sight of the bags under his eyes. “Go easy, will you?”

“You go easy!” my mother snaps, yanking open the fridge and brandishing a Styrofoam package of ground turkey like a weapon. “This is ridiculous. And frankly I don’t think there’s anything wrong with showing our daughter it’s okay to get worked up over injustices.” She drops the turkey in the pan with a wet thud. “Which this is.”

“Nobody’s saying it isn’t an injustice,” my dad puts in, getting up to check the potatoes in the oven. “I’m just saying that I don’t see how violence is going to help—”

“It’s metaphorical violence, Dan.” My mom makes a face as she jabs at the turkey with a wooden spoon. “Mostly.”

“Guys,” I protest weakly. “Please. I can handle this.”

My dad scrubs a hand over his face. “Can you transfer out of the class?” he asks me. “I feel like that should be the first step, right?”

I bite the end off a baby carrot and think about that for a minute, surprised by how simple he makes it sound. And it would be simple, really: there’s a non-AP senior English class that meets at the same time, two rooms over. They’re reading The Art of Fielding. It would probably be fine.

I take a deep breath. “No,” I tell them, calm as I can manage.

My mom raises one thick brow. “Why not?”

I shrug, popping the rest of the carrot into my mouth and crunching hard. “Because then he wins.”

My parents are both quiet then, the two of them exchanging a look across the kitchen. I think it might be worry. I think it might be pride. My mom sets the wooden spoon down on the counter, then comes over and slides an arm around my waist.

“Go get your sister,” she says, squeezing once before letting me go. “It’s almost time to eat.”

I’m finishing up some homework later that night when Gracie gallops down the hallway, grabbing hold of the doorjamb and swinging her gangly body into my room. Her nails are painted a bright, sparkly blue. “There’s a boy here for you,” she reports.

“What?” I had my earbuds jammed into my ears in an attempt to block out the rest of the world entirely. I didn’t even hear the doorbell ring. “Seriously?”

“Yep,” Gracie says, popping the P delightedly. “And he’s hot.”

“Oh god.” I check my hair in the mirror—end-of-the-day greasy, but there’s nothing to be done about it now—then slick on some ChapStick and head downstairs.

Gray is standing near the front door, his hands shoved into the pockets of his oversize sweatpants as he chats gamely to my parents about We Should All Be Feminists, which we’re going to be discussing at book club on Thursday. My mom looks completely enamored. My dad looks completely confused.

“So,” I say brightly. “You’ve met Gray.”

My mom raises her eyebrows. “We have,” she tells me, in a voice that unmistakably communicates the fact that up until this moment I’ve entirely failed to mention him. I didn’t think he was for real, I want to explain to her, although seeing him standing here like a friendly giant in my parents’ tiny foyer, it occurs to me again how wrong I was.

My mom looks like she’d be more than happy to settle in and spend the rest of the evening with Gray watching Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, but thankfully, my dad lays a hand on her arm.

“We were just about to head upstairs,” he says. “There’s ice cream in the freezer, if you kids are interested.”

“Sorry,” Gray says, making a face once it’s just the two of us in the foyer. “Is this okay? I didn’t mean to get you in trouble or anything like that.”

“Oh no, you’re fine.” I shake my head. “They’re not those kind of parents.” They are, however, the kind of parents who are probably lurking around the corner hoping to accidentally-on-purpose overhear us, so I grab my coat off the overflowing rack, zipping it over my leggings and Bridgewater hoodie and leading Gray out onto the porch.

“So what’s up?” I say, tucking my hands into my pockets and shivering a little; January in Massachusetts is brutal, single-digit temperatures and the kind of shrieking wind that chaps your face and stings the insides of your ears. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, totally.” Gray shrugs. “I just wanted to check on you, I guess. I mean, not that you can’t take care of yourself or anything, but I wanted to make sure you were hanging in there after . . .” He trails off, a little awkwardly. “You know. After.”

I raise my eyebrows and smile. “You could have done that over text,” I point out.

Gray nods. “I could have,” he agrees. “I didn’t want to.”

“Oh no?” I’m grinning for real now, I can’t help it. I’ve never met anyone like him before. “Why not?”

Gray’s fingertips brush the hem of my coat, just lightly. “You know why not.”