It comes out sounding harsher than I mean it to be.

I go on, “I’m not saying you’re any less important. You know I’m not. Right now, you are the person I love the most in the entire world.”

“Really?” A sounds skeptical.

“What do you mean, really?”

“Yesterday you said you didn’t love me.”

“I was talking about the metalhead. Not you.”

The waitress brings our grilled cheeses and our French fries.

“I love you, too, you know,” A says once she leaves us alone.

“I know.”

“We’re going to get through this. Every relationship has a hard part at the beginning. This is our hard part. It’s not like a puzzle piece where there’s an instant fit. With relationships, you have to shape the pieces on each end before they go perfectly together.”

—

Relationship. I want to know if that’s what this really is. But A is not the right person to ask.

Instead, I point out that A’s piece changes shape every day.

“Only physically,” he argues.

“I know.” I eat one of the fries. I’m tired of talking, but don’t know how to get out of it without making A feel bad. “Really, I do. I guess I need to work on my piece more. There’s too much going on. And you being here—that adds to the too much.”

“I’ll go,” he says. “After lunch.”

“It’s not that I want you to,” I try to assure him. “I just think I need you to.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” I make myself smile. I need to change the tone. “Now tell me about this date you’re going on tonight. If I don’t get to be with you, I want to know who does.”

Then I sit back and listen as he tells me about this girl named Dawn who this boy-born-a-girl, Vic, loves like oxygen and needs like nothing else in the world. It’s a love story, pure and simple, and I find myself glad that someone in the universe gets to have one.

Even though I’m only meeting Vic this once and I’ve never set eyes on Dawn, I think about them after A leaves. I imagine the shit they must have to steer through to be together. It’s the first thing today that feels perfectly timed. I have it bad, sure. But people can put up with a lot to get to the place they need to be.

I need to remember that.

—

After school, Rebecca, Ben, and Preston take me for ice cream. They want to know more about my Myste

ry Man—that’s what they call him, and I don’t know that they’re far off.

I don’t tell them much. They respect that. But it’s also clear that their curiosity is going to continue, and I’m going to have to either invent some further lies or break up with Mystery Man pretty quick.

I am sure to make it home on time for dinner. Over chicken and potatoes, I tell my parents that Justin and I are over. To my extreme mortification, I start to cry. Even though I know it’s the right thing, and even though I know it’s my fault, saying it at the dinner table makes it more real than it’s ever been before. I don’t tell my parents about any Mystery Man. So the full story is that Justin and I are no longer together.

I know they’ve never liked him. I know they’re not going to tell me to try harder, to make it work. I am grateful for that. My father says, “There, there.” My mother says she’s sure it’s for the best. Then they just sit there and watch me cry. They wait for me to put myself back together. They change the subject, and ask me how Rebecca is doing.

I calm myself down as I tell them about an invented weekend—basically, I take the night with Rebecca and spread it out over two days. Lots of movies. Lots of talk. Lots of memories.

Justin isn’t mentioned again.

Tags: David Levithan Every Day
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