“You think I did this on purpose?” Needless to say, the breakup was not a cordial one. “You stopped really abruptly!”
“It’s a four-way stop! Why were you going so fast?”
Obviously, I don’t mention Delilah. It’s possible the accident was mostly my fault.
Spencer wasn’t my first relationship, but he was my longest. I had a couple one-week boyfriends freshman and sophomore year, the kind of relationships that end over text because you’re too awkward to make eye contact at school. At the end of junior year, I dated Luke Barrows, a tennis player who could make anyone laugh and liked partying a little too much. I thought I loved him, but I think what I really loved was how I felt around him: fun and wild and beautiful, a girl who liked five-paragraph essays and also fooling around in the back seat of a car. By the time school started in the fall, we’d broken up. He wanted to focus on tennis, and I was glad to have the extra time to spend on my college apps. We still say hi when we see each other in the halls.
Spencer, though—Spencer was complicated. I wanted him to be my perfect high school boyfriend, the guy I’d one day reminisce about with my friends over cocktails with scandalous names. I dreamed of that boyfriend all through middle school, assuming I’d get to high school and he’d be sitting behind me in English, tapping my shoulder and shyly asking to borrow a pen.
I was running out of time to find that boyfriend, and I thought if we spent enough time together, Spencer and I could get to that point. But he acted withdrawn, and it made me clingy. If I liked who I was with Luke, I hated who I was with Spencer. I hated feeling so insecure. The obvious solution was break up with him, but I hung on, hoping things would change.
Spencer pulls his insurance card out of his wallet. “We’re supposed to swap info, right?”
I vaguely remember that from driver’s ed. “Right. Yeah.”
It wasn’t always terrible with Spencer. The first time we had sex, he held me for so long afterward, convinced me I was a precious, special thing. “Maybe we can still be friends,” he said when he broke up with me. A coward’s breakup. He wanted to get rid of me, but he didn’t want me to be mad at him. He did it at school, right before a student council meeting. Said he didn’t want to start college with a girlfriend. “Spencer and I just broke up,” I told McNair before we called the meeting to order. “So if you could not be vile to me for the next forty minutes, I would appreciate it.”
I’m not sure what I expected—that he’d congratulate Spencer? Tell me I deserved it? But his features softened into an expression I hadn’t ever seen and couldn’t name. “Okay,” he said. “I—I’m sorry.”
The apology sounded so foreign in his voice, but we started the meeting before I could linger on it.
“I really did hope we could stay friends,” Spencer says after we take photos of each other’s insurance cards.
“We are on Facebook.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not what I meant.”
“What does that even mean, though?” I lean against my car, wondering if now I’ll finally get closure. “Are we going to text each other our college class schedules? See a movie together when we’re home on break?”
A pause. “Probably not,” he admits.
So that’s a no on closure.
“We should get to school,” Spencer says when I’m silent a beat too long. “We’re already late, but they probably won’t care on the last day.”
Late. I don’t even want to think about the McMessages waiting for me on my phone.
I give a little wave of my insurance card before tucking it back into my wallet. “I guess your people will call my people. Or whatever.”
He speeds off before I can start my engine. My parents don’t need to know about this yet, not while they’re on deadline. Still shaky—from the impact or the conversation, I’m not sure—I try to relax my shoulders. There really is a lot of tension there.
If I were in a romance novel, I’d have gotten into a fender bender with the cute guy who owns a bar and also works part-time in construction, the kind of guy who’s good with his hands. Most of the heroes in romance novels are good with their hands.
I convinced myself if I just waited long enough with Spencer, he would turn into that guy and what we had would turn into love. While I love romance, I’ve never believed in the concept of soul mates, which has always seemed a little like men’s rights activism: not a real thing. Love isn’t immediate or automatic; it takes effort and time and patience.
The truth of it was that I’d probably never have the kind of luck with love the women who live in fictional seaside towns do. But sometimes I get this strange feeling, an ache not for something I miss, but for something I’ve never known.
* * *
It starts raining again as I approach Westview High School because Seattle. Homeroom’s already started, and I’ll admit, my vanity is stronger than my need to be on time. I’m already late. A few more minutes won’t matter.
When I reach the bathroom and get a clear view of myself in the mirror, I nearly gasp. The stain fully covers one and a half boobs. I run some soap and water on my dress, scrubbing at it with all the strength I can muster, but after five minutes, the stain is still very brown and all I’ve accomplished is groping myself in the first-floor bathroom.
It’s not my perfect last-day outfit anymore, but it’s all I have. I blot at the dampness with a paper towel so it looks a little less like I’m lactating and adjust my sweater so it hides the stain as best as possible. I mess with my bangs, finger-combing them to the right and then to the left. I can never decide whether to grow them out or keep them short. Right now they skim my eyebrows, just long enough for me to fidget with. Maybe I’ll trim them for college, try a Bettie Page kind of look.
I’m almost done fidgeting when something catches my eye behind me in the mirror: a red poster with block letters.
HOWL