Rules for Being a Girl

I snort, helping myself to a peanut. “You’re kind of a nerd, huh? Is that, like, your big secret?”

Gray shrugs. “One of them,” he admits, his eyes steady on mine. The back of his hand brushes mine. I can convince myself it’s an accident until it happens again a few minutes later—the skate of his knuckles over my fingers, his pinky nearly hooking with mine. I bite my lip.

“Gray . . .”

He raises his eyebrows. “Marin,” he says, exactly mimicking my tone.

I blow a breath out, debating. It’s not that I’m not interested, obviously. If I’m being honest, I’ve been interested since the day of our first book club meeting, when he fixed the zipper on my backpack in the parking lot outside of school. Or before that, even. It’s not like I never noticed him, always surrounded by admiring onlookers—it’s just, I promised myself I’d never be one of them.

“You know what everybody says about girls when they hook up with you, right?” I ask him finally.

I’m expecting him to play dumb, but right away Gray nods. “I do know, actually,” he says. “And it’s fucked-up. I don’t know why it’s anybody’s business. We’re all just having a good time.”

That surprises me, although probably it shouldn’t. I’m guilty of it myself, aren’t I? How many times did Chloe and I sit around on my front porch complaining about girls with the audacity to kiss boys we had crushes on, or how skanky some sophomore looked at the Valentine’s Day dance? I have to admit, for all of Gray’s alleged conquests, I’ve never heard a peep about him being anything less than gentlemanly to anyone. And I’ve certainly never heard him running his mouth.

“Anyway,” he says now, cracking a peanut shell and offering me a cheeky smile. “Who says I’m trying to hook up with you to begin with?”

“I—” Suddenly I’m back at Bex’s apartment: sure I misread the situation, confused his intentions. “I’m not saying—”

The panic must register on my face, because Gray nudges me gently in the shoulder. “I mean, no, I’m definitely trying to hook up with you,” he admits. Then he shrugs. “But—and listen, I know this is going to sound like a line, and it’s not—I’m not only trying to hook up with you, okay?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Oh no?”

“No,” Gray says. “I meant what I said to you. I think it’s cool, what you’re doing here. You kind of blow me away a little bit.”

I consider that for a moment. I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling like such an outsider, it’s hard to imagine Gray could think that what I’m doing is something cool. “Well,” I say finally, “I will keep that in mind.”

“You do that,” Gray says, eyes warm and steady on me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to watch this volleyball game.”

I snort. “Oh, sorry, am I distracting you?”

“Yes, actually,” he says, but he’s grinning.

I can’t help but grin back.

It’s weird, watching the girls’ volleyball team defend their title—after all, I know it’s just a game. But something about it makes me feel hopeful, and when Elisa makes the winning point at the very end of the final set, the rest of us le

ap to our feet like lunatics, hooting as the ref blows his whistle and the team floods onto the court. Lydia and Dave are slapping each other five in all different configurations. Ms. Klein is screaming like a drunk football fan.

“Oh my god!” I fling my arms around Gray’s neck before I totally know I’m going to do it, nearly knocking him clear off his feet, and when he ducks his head to kiss me, it feels like the most surprising win of all.

Eighteen

Bex hands our response papers back the following morning. I’m so prepared for an A that for a second I think that’s what I’m seeing before I realize there’s actually a bright red D at the top.

Wait, what?

I flip the paper over as fast as humanly possible, glancing around to make sure nobody saw it as my whole body burns with shame and disbelief. I’ve never gotten a D in my life, let alone on something that involved writing. Let alone on something for Bex. It just . . . doesn’t happen.

Except that apparently now it does.

We’ve got a vocab lesson this morning, but I barely hear anything anyone says the entire period over the horrified roar echoing inside my head. By the time class ends I’ve crafted an argument in my own defense worthy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself, but when I finally make it up to the front of the empty classroom all that comes out is a sputter.

“What happened?” I manage, holding the wrinkled paper out of in front of me, carefully typed pages drooping like so many white flags.

“I’m sorry, Marin,” Bex says, looking disappointed. “But this essay just wasn’t up to your usual standards.”

“Wha—” I shake my head. “Why not?”