“Well, add that to the list of shit I thought I’d never see,” Saul says.
A door slams shut behind us, and we both pull apart at the same time.
I glance around to find an array of responses staring back at us. Tyler: blank. Hattie: smug. Adam and Reggie: delighted confusion. And Saul: total surprise.
“Ruth,” I breathe.
Freddie tells me with his eyes to go find her, and I nod.
I don’t have to go far. She’s sitting there on the steps a few feet from Saul’s front door.
She eyes me over her shoulder. “Just needed some air.”
“Can I join you?” I ask.
She shrugs.
But I take it; knowing her it’s the closest thing to an invitation I’ll get. “Saul and Reggie seem good together,” I say. “Really happy.”
She cuts to the chase. “So you and Freddie?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She exhales. “I guess that turned out to be more than a one-time hypothetical thing.”
I pull my knees to my chest. “You think I’m making a mistake.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
I laugh. “Well, that’s encouraging.”
She shakes her head. “Friendship turned romance is like the breeding ground of mistakes. But not because he’s a boy. I don’t think so at least. I mean, it’s not like he magically turned you straight or something.”
I practically snort. “Yeah. No shot of that happening.”
Ruth groans. “I feel so stupid.”
She blinks and a tear rolls down her cheek. After wiping it away, she rips the headband Saul finally forced upon her off her head.
I get it. I understand why Ruthie is upset. Saul just left home. I’m . . . making out with a boy. It’s a lot of unforeseen change all at once.
“I don’t even like you.” She laughs. “In any other town we would have never been friends.”
“But this isn’t any other town.”
“You don’t have your shit together. You don’t care about your future. You have the most ridiculous hair.” She pauses. “But you make me feel normal.”
I reach for her hand, but she only lets me hold it for a second before pulling back.
“First Saul, and now you.” She pauses for a moment. “I know that doesn’t really make any sense. I know that liking guys in addition to girls only changes what you decide to call yourself. You’re allowed to have the realization that sexuality is fluid or whatever. But in this weird way I feel like I’m losing you. And Saul, too. I’m losing both of you at once,” she says. “And if you and I don’t have this thing in common anymore, why are we even friends? Ya know?”
“Ruthie, nothing between us is changing. You know that. Our lives are . . . evolving, sure, but whatever it is that exists between us will always be there. Maybe liking girls was the common thread that drew us together, but it’s not all that’s kept us together and you know it. And I still like girls. A lot. Kissing Freddie doesn’t suddenly erase that part of me.”
She sighs. “I know.”
We sit quietly, but the world around us is anything but silent. Music and shouts of “Happy New Year” echo from the apartments above and below.
“It makes me sad,” she says. “To see you kiss him.” And then she quickly adds, “I’m not jealous.”
“I know,” I tell her.
“It’s never been like that between us. But I feel like part of you is dying. And it’s the part I most recognize.” She shakes her head, like she’s trying to shake some thought in place and make it stick. “Feelings are gross. Did you know that? They’re the actual worst.”
I smile. Feelings are gross. If I’m being honest with myself, there’s a small part of me that is sad every time I kiss Freddie, because I feel like little by little the person I thought I was is disappearing. Almost like I’ve lost what makes me special. But there has to be more. I’m made up of tiny pieces; scattered, they’re nothing more than sharp edges. But all those pieces combined are what make me Ramona.
“I wish I had answers,” I tell her. “I wish I could tell you I’m gay or straight or bi or a homoromantic demisexual.” I laugh. I can’t help myself. “Do you know how much easier that would feel? But I don’t know what all this means. Maybe I won’t for a while or maybe I’ll know next week.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” she admits, “how you can not know.” She shrugs. “But I guess I don’t have to get it, do I? I just gotta be here for you.” She turns to me. “And I am. Just so you know.”
I smile warmly and nudge her in the ribs with my elbow. “We’ll always have Vermont, though, right?”
She nods. “We’ll always have Vermont.”
We talk for a while longer about what it’s like at home without Saul and how her parents have responded to Reggie. I don’t know if we’re okay, but I feel like maybe we’re redefining what okay means for us.
We all stay the night at Saul and Reggie’s. Hattie and Tyler take the guest room. (It still blows my mind that Saul even has a guest room and how adult that makes him.) Ruth takes the couch and Adam spreads out on an air mattress in the kitchen, leaving Freddie and me with an unzipped sleeping bag as our blanket on the floor. But I don’t mind it. Reggie lays a few thick blankets and throw pillows beneath us, forming some sort of pallet.
It’s not long before Ruth is lightly snoring a few feet away. Adam took a little too much advantage of the no-parents situation and drank himself to sleep an hour ago. Fireworks still shoot off all along the beach as Freddie and I whisper back and forth in the dark. We each lie on our sides, turned toward each other.
“Does Ruth hate me?” he asks.
I smile. “No more than she hates everyone else.”
“That’s good, I guess?”
“That’s good,” I tell him.
He traces my hairline with his index finger as I take his other hand and kiss each one of his knuckles.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks.
“You mean what am I doing today?”
“What are you doing today?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Everything.”
“I want to do that with you. Nothing and everything.”
I nod. “I want that, too.” We stay like that for a while, studying each other with the tips of our fingers, like we’re reading braille. He drags his fingers along my side, pulling my shirt up as he does, and every inch of my skin begs for him as he connects the dots all over my upper body. It’s such an innocent touch that feels much more wicked than it looks.
“Can I ask you something?” His voice is gravelly. “Something personal?”
I press my face to his neck. “Of course.”
“So you’re not a virgin, right?” he asks.
“Right.”
With Freddie, it’s not a matter of if we will have sex. It’s a matter of when. It terrifies me and it excites me and it’s not because he’s a guy and I’m a girl. It’s because he’s Freddie and I’m Ramona. The way my body reacts to his . . . it’s something I have no shame in saying I want.
Freddie wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me back to him. I press my hand against his chest, and he runs a finger over the evil-eye bracelet. “I’ve only been with Viv,” he says. “But you know that.”
“Do you . . . are you ready to be with someone else?” I ask.
“Are you?” he asks.
“I think I’ve found the right person.”
His fingers begin to roam again, and it’s not long before my skirt is rucked up around my waist and his hand is discovering places it’s never been.
Later, we talk for a little longer about tiny things, like how we both want to see the Olympic Games in person one day, and mysteries, like how there are tons of undiscovered species in the ocean. The gaps between his responses grow further and further apart as he sinks into the first sleep of the New Year.
In the window, behind him, the sky glows with the smoky haze of fireworks.