My entire body explodes in heat, and I know it shows immediately on my face. I know what it’s like to kiss Elliot. I know how he sounds when he comes. I know how his hands become wild and roaming when he’s hard. I know how he learned to touch, and kiss and give pleasure, because he learned with me.

I know how good it was, even for the short time I had it.

“I don’t even need you to answer.” She leans back when our waitress comes by to take our orders.

When she’s left again, my phone vibrates in my bag and I pull it out, laughing. It’s a message from Elliot, whom I haven’t spoken to since the picnic.

Have you talked to Sean about New Years?

I’d love for you to come with me.

Think of it as a chance to do research for the wedding you don’t feel like planning.

I turn my phone around, showing it to Sabrina, and she laughs, shaking her head. “Intervention complete.”

then

saturday, january 14

eleven years ago

Elliot sprawled on the floor, pulling a new, furry pillow off the futon and tucking it beneath his head. It was nearly two p.m., and Dad and I had barely made it up here due to some terrifying dry rattling under the hood of the Volvo. While Dad and Mr. Nick had worked on Dad’s car, Elliot and I had devoured some cold leftover chicken on the front steps. Back in the warmth of the house, I was more likely to take a nap than read an entire chapter.

Elliot’s voice seemed deeper than it had even the weekend before: “Favorite word?”

I closed my eyes, thinking. “Excruciating.”

“Wow.” Elliot paused, and when I looked over at him, he was staring at me curiously. “That’s a zinger. Update?”

I kicked off my shoes and one of them barely missed the side of his head. We’d spent the past hour together, but something about being back in the closet, with the blue walls, and stars, and the warm bulk of Elliot’s body nearby, seemed to loosen everything inside me. Things had been hard in ninth and tenth grade, but eleventh? Definitely the worst.

“Girls suck. Girls gossip, and are petty, and suck,” I said.

Elliot marked his place in his book and closed it, placing it at his side. “Elaborate.”

“My friend Nikki?” I said. “She likes this guy Ravesh. But Ravesh asked me to spring formal and I said no because he’s just a friend, but Nikki is mad at me anyway, as if I could help that Ravesh asked me and not her. So she told our friend—”

“Breathe.”

I took a deep breath. “She told our friend Elyse that I told Ravesh’s friend Astrid that I wanted to go with Ravesh just so he would ask me, and then I turned him down. Elyse believed her and now neither Nikki nor Elyse are speaking to me.”