I climb back into bed as soon as I get home from practice the next morning. I didn’t sleep very well last night.
Coach wasn’t lying, either. We came in even more sluggish than the day before, our turkey hangovers making it seem like we were wearing ankle weights. It’s like we were two steps slower on every drill. Coach refused to let up, determined to run it out of us, as though it’s possible to sweat gravy.
Devin Heiner actually puked into one of the water fountains during a break, which I think aptly sums up the entire experience. Branson was especially off, which had my brain going haywire, since I never saw what time his car was finally gone last night. I wanted to enjoy watching him struggle, but it left me overanalyzing why he might be struggling this morning, which took my brain places I didn’t want it to go. I couldn’t even look him in the face.
Painful.
And that was before the suicides at the end of practice.
I sleep until late in the afternoon. When I make my way downstairs, the whole house feels gloomy, the only light coming from the den downstairs. Sometime over the night, the snow gave way to rain, dashing Murray’s dreams of a white Black Friday. No snowmen. No scooping fresh snow off the ground and eating it.
Mom and Murray are in the den, Mom sorting through Christmas decorations, Murray on the floor in front of the TV watching some nature documentary Mom’s queued up for him. He’s wearing a Santa hat and has a few of his favorite tree ornaments around him, but he’s mesmerized by the footage of the giant squid on the screen. Despite having seen this video about a bajillion times already.
“Hey, look who’s awake,” Mom says.
“Putting the tree up today?” I ask, pulling an ornament from the box on the couch. It’s some kind of dog made out of Model Magic, colored brown with scribbly marker. I made it before I was even in kindergarten. Tabby’s got one in here somewhere, too. A turtle with purple toenails. I set mine back in the box.
“Probably not till this weekend,” Mom says. “I wanted to get everything out of the basement, give your father a chance to come to terms with the fact that he’ll be hanging lights this weekend.”
Dad would be perfectly happy slapping a wreath on the door and making sure the tree is near a front window, but Mom’s not having it. The Wainwright house will have Christmas lights, and it is his job to put them up. End of story.
“You can heat up some leftovers, if you’re hungry,” Mom says. “It’s kind of a lazy day. I’m not planning on making dinner or anything.”
“Sounds good.”
I head to the kitchen. After the misery of practice this morning, I’m not sure if I can do any more stuffing and gravy. Which means I stop at two bowls.
I’m back in near coma state on the living room couch when there’s a knock at the front door. It’s Tabby, clutching an armful of empty Tupperware, shifting from foot to foot in the rain.
“You didn’t have to bring those back in the rain. We’re not that desperate for Tupperware,” I say, taking the stack of containers from her and setting them on the counter in the kitchen. She’s still standing inside the door when I come back, looking around like she’s never been here before.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She presses the string from her hoodie to her lips, a tic I haven’t seen her do in years. “I need to show you something. Can we go up to your room?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“What’s going on?” I ask after closing my door behind me. She doesn’t respond, just goes straight to my desk chair and pulls out her phone. She opens Instagram and starts scrolling. I sit at the foot of my bed next to her and see her pull up Liam’s profile.
I’m still not totally following. Did he trash her on Instagram? That doesn’t seem likely.
Tabby sits back so I can lean in and read. It starts with a photo of the three of them—Branson, Tabby, and Lily—taken from the driver’s seat of his car. His face is cheek-to-cheek with Tabby’s, leaning in from the backseat, with Lily’s wide smile filling out the other side of the frame. It’s hard to breathe, looking at how fucking happy they all are. Especially compared to how miserable real-time Tabby looks right now next to me.
Then, the comments.
emma_b: really, Liam? a freshman?
bri_easton: freshman? is she skanky?
chaseblevins: skanktastic!!!
tylerp: I’d do her—GINGERZ RULE!!!
It goes on from there. It seems like maybe the same four or five assholes doing most of the posting, but some of the nastier comments get ugly.
Tabby’s eyes are wide and red-rimmed, her mouth paralyzed in a perfect upside-down U, trembling at the corners—what she and I used to call Muppet mouth when Murray did it because of how much he resembled Beaker from the Muppets. But there’s nothing funny about this.
I reach past her to my laptop and turn on music, buying a moment to think.
What do I do with this? My first thought is to bash Branson, to call him out for not saying anything, for not shutting these assholes down. To spill what happened in the locker room, and bash him for not making more of a fight there, either. Because I would have.
But at the same time, I know it’s easy for me to say that, to claim how honorably I’d act if it were me, because it’s not me. And no one would give a shit if it were me. I can fantasize about going ballistic on an overgrown prick like Lighty, because I’ll never really have to do it.
Which leads my brain to other incredibly unhelpful, selfish, and ultimately unappealing suggestions for Tabby.
See, if you were with me, you wouldn’t have these problems! Because no one would care! Isn’t that great? What do you say?
“Matt?” Tabby croaks, waiting for me to say something. Waiting for her best friend to pull his head out of his ass and be a friend.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I finally say. I force myself to look her in the eyes. “This will all blow over quick.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” she says, her mouth trembling and the red splotches growing around her cheeks and eyes. “I don’t even know those people!”
“Listen,” I say, and it feels crazy—this is the first time I’ve ever been on this side of the conversation with Tabby, me having to explain how things work to her. I am guaranteed to fuck this up. “Liam’s a senior, and—”
“But I didn’t do anything!” she says again, pleading.
“Tabby, I know. But he’s the senior. There’s gotta be like a hundred girls who flirt with him every day. And like another two hundred who don’t but secretly wish they could.
“And beyond that,” I continue when Tabby doesn’t cut in—she actually seems to be listening to this drivel—“there’s gotta be at least a couple of ex-girlfriends floating around. And here you are, this little innocent freshman girl,” I say, reaching over and patting her on top of her head, which brings a tiny smile, “and he’s paying attention to you. You don’t think there’s at least a few girls,” I say, gesturing toward her phone, “out of three whole grades above us who might be jealous and catty enough to post dumb shit on Instagram? It’ll blow over.”
Tabby pulls her feet up onto my desk chair, hugging her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. That same strand of light hair falls loose from her hair tie and hangs down over her knee. I so badly want to reach over and brush it behind her ear. She’s smiling again and the blotches are starting to fade. And since I’m clearly such a fucking genius, I continue.
“I mean, he’s athletic, he’s good-looking, he’s actually nice to people, even underclassmen….He’s perfect. I think I hate you now, too.”
Tabby laughs, finally, a short burst. She rubs her eyes, then her whole face with her hands. She takes a deep breath and looks up at me again, her eyes still red and glassy.
“We aren’t even going out yet or anything,” she says.
Yet catches me like a thorn. “It’s pretty obvious he likes you. He’s around you all the time now.”
“Not all the time,” she says. She tries to sound defensive, but it’s clear she’s holding back a smile—the corners of her mouth twitch, and now she’s not looking me in the eye.
“Really, Tabby? The hallways, the rides to and from school,” and before I can hold it in, “showing up at your house at night?”
“What?”
Shit.
That one slipped through the filter. I hope it didn’t sound as accusatory as it felt.
“What the hell? Are you stalking my house?”
“No! I mean, I just saw his car last night after you left.”
“What’s that have to do with these people?” she asks, shaking her phone at me, as though I’m the one attacking her.
“What? Nothing. I was just saying he must really like you.”
“We weren’t doing anything, Matt.”
“I know, but—”
“But what?”
“Tabby, I know—”
“He came over to drop off whoopie pies,” she says, almost snarling at me now.
How the hell did I get here? How do I get back to where I had her laughing? Where she was looking to me for help?
“He had Thanksgiving at his grandma’s house. Pumpkin whoopie pies are her specialty. He wanted to give some to me and my dad. We hung out and talked until my dad got home. Is that all okay with you?”
Her eyes burn holes through mine.
“Tabby. Hold up. Why are you getting pissed at me? I didn’t do anything! You know I don’t think any of that stuff.” When she keeps glaring, I say, “You know that, right? I would never think that about you.”
I feel like I’m groveling now. And like I’m losing it. Part of me is desperate for her to understand, to get how I feel about her, how I’ve felt for a long time. And the other part is just getting pissed: How the hell have I gotten thrown in with these assholes trashing her online? After she came crying to me about them? Is it because I mentioned seeing Branson’s car last night? Because, oh yeah, you live across the street—if I walk by a window, I can see your house. That’s not an accusation. That’s fucking geographical proximity.
Neither of us speaks. The song that pops on—a version of “The Wheels on the Bus” that I downloaded for Murray one day—makes this moment even more absurd, doubled by the fact that neither of us acknowledges it. But it’s at least filling the heavy silence between us. I keep hoping she’ll notice it, and we can both laugh and break this tension.
Tabby doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she finally says, turning away. It’s hard to tell if she really is sorry, or if she’s sick of the moment—sick of me—and moving on, which only intensifies the conflict between desperation and anger. “I do know that. I’m sorry,” she says again, without looking at me. “I think—” She stops, starts over. “You know, I’ve never had anyone say stuff about me before.” She pulls up her phone, scrolling as she continues. “I’ve never talked to these people before. I don’t even know who some of them are. How am I supposed to deal with it?”
“I know,” I say, leaning back against my wall, the tension finally starting to drain out of me. “It’ll blow over, Tabby. They’re just jealous, and it’s just Instagram.”
“You’re right,” she says, and she sits up straighter, slaps her hands down on my desk, decidedly ready to move on. She takes a deep breath, forces a smile, and looks around my room. “So what’s new with you?” It’s meant to be friendly, but it sounds more like a great-aunt asking about a little kid’s day, artificially sweet and with insincere interest. But I’m glad to be at the end of this roller coaster, at least. “Nice song, by the way,” she adds as the last all through the town fades out. She picks up the eighth-grade yearbook sitting next to my laptop and glances down at the open notebook underneath, and—
Oh.
Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
Oh, shit. No.
I was in a really bad place last night—
“ ‘Do List’?”
Tabby turns in her chair to face me but doesn’t look up. She scans the sheet filled with my writing, brow furrowed, while I try to sink into the wall and disappear. She doesn’t ask what it is, just reads aloud:
“ ‘Girls I would do if there were no consequences—social, emotional, or physical: freshman class.’ ”
Fuck me and my thoroughness with ranking parameters. Tabby looks up, face frozen, equal parts horrified and confused. I’m paralyzed. She keeps going:
“ ‘Number one: Hannah Marchetta. Number two: Megan Landis. Number three: Abby Brendemann.’ ”
She keeps scanning. Then flips the page.
“One hundred and seventeen?”
“It was just something stupid I was— It’s just a joke,” I say, knowing how stupid that sounds.
But what else do I say? That after a near-perfect day yesterday, it all fell to shit when I saw Branson’s car? That it felt like it wiped out everything good—that every moment I loved really wasn’t that special? That it was more a convenient habit? Do I explain that it made me want to be shallow and destructive and as far from emotionally sensitive as I could get?
I was awake for hours last night putting those rankings together. Paging through the yearbook and judging each face, blatantly disregarding that each was a real person—a person I knew—with her own story. Her own thoughts and feelings.
I wanted to play the senior, scoping out the fresh meat.
And it felt good.
At the time.
“Are you kidding me with this?” She meets my eyes. “Who are you?”
“No, Tabby, it’s just—” And I stop, squeezing my eyes closed, shaking my head. This isn’t supposed to be happening. I’m about to actually try to explain how, really, no one would know and no one would be hurt. That the rankings factor out those elements of reality. That the list is for rhetorical purposes—you know, rhetorically doing someone.
You see, I almost try to get her to see the science behind the rankings. As though that will clear up this whole silly misunderstanding. Luckily—if we can still use that term—I can hear how awful and moronic it sounds in my head before it comes out of my mouth.
“It’s just stupid,” I finally say. “Just a stupid joke.”
“You’re better than that,” she says, tossing the notebook back on my desk in disgust. “And if you share your joke with anyone, Matthew, I will kill you.”
The shame is unbearable, and I can’t move from my spot on my bed, pressed into the wall, my eyes glued to the tiny hole in my covers I pick at with my fingers. For the moment, I’m thankful she didn’t look at the list long enough to notice, because I have no idea how she would have taken it.
“So where am I on this list?” she asks a moment later, grabbing the notebook again. Guess I am going to find out how she takes this.
“Uh.”
There are two columns of names, front and back. I watch her eyes scan through each one.
“Wait, I’m not even on the list?”
Of course Tabby’s not on the list. Even at my worst, my darkest, most destructive moments, I wouldn’t put Tabby on the list—wouldn’t subject her to my ugliness. Tabby’s not rhetorical.
“Do you want to be on the list?” I say, cocking an eyebrow, a desperate attempt to make light of the situation.
“Oh really, Matt? Could I?” Obviously not funny. Opposite of funny. “Would you be so gracious as to expand your do list to one hundred and eighteen, so I can make the cut?”
“Tabby, just—”
“Let me know when you’ve done the first hundred on the list, Matt. So I can spread my legs and wait my turn.”
“Stop! Tabby, just stop. You don’t understand.”
I’m on my feet now. It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever heard come out of Tabby’s mouth. And it’s directed at me. I can’t look at her. I pace the room, running my hands over my head.
“You exist outside the rankings,” I mumble.
“Yeah, I got that, Matt. Outside of the top one hundred and seventeen. Thank you.”
“No.” I don’t know how to get this out so that it makes sense, so that she sees that this awful, terrible thing is really a good thing. “You’re not part of the rankings. You’re…you’re too good for my stupid, asshole list. There’s, like, you,” I say, holding out my left hand, “then there’s, like, everybody else,” indicating with a wave of my right. “Tabby, I—”
I almost say it. Two more tiny words. Seven tiny letters. I don’t know if she knows it.
“It’s like Nerds.”
Tabby stares at me. I can’t read her expression, so I keep going.
“You know how every year after Halloween, how we have all our shitload of candy, and we put them in our piles? We make our hierarchy, our candy rankings. And, you know, chocolate bars are clearly at the top of the rankings, and then SweeTARTS, and Tootsie Rolls, and all the way down to raisins—”
“If you call me a raisin, I’m going to punch you in the nuts.”
“No, you’re not a raisin. Hang on a minute. So we have our rankings, but off to the side, every year, are the Nerds. The Nerds are so good, so amazing, they’re not even part of the rankings. They exist totally outside of the hierarchy.
“You’re the Nerds.”
That’s it. That’s as close as I can get to saying it without saying it. That’s the moment in the movie where everything becomes clear and Tabby falls into my arms, and later, when we are a blissfully happy couple lying in each other’s arms, we look back at this moment as the moment. Our moment. You’re the Nerds.
Instead, Tabby raises her eyebrows and smirks, hands on her hips. “Okay, that’s the sweetest, weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” she says, emphasizing weird. “But a do list, Matt? We just eat the candy. We don’t defile and degrade it.”
I am simultaneously crushed and swooning. Did she really not get it? Not care? Think we’re like brother and sister Nerds? And she’s always, always trying to make me a better human being. I want to reach out and put my hand behind her neck and pull her in, press my lips against that smirk.
She rolls her eyes and turns back to her phone.
“Oh my God.” She breaks into a huge smile, her face almost touching the screen, as she reads. Like the last twenty minutes didn’t happen.
I step closer and look at the screen over her shoulder.
Branson’s finally responded.
liambranson: if you knew her, you’d understand. get over yourself.
And in his bio, he’s added today’s date. The official start.
“Oh my God,” Tabby says again through her hand. Her eyes are glued to the screen. So much for yet.
Lily’s comment pops up right below her brother’s: YAY! Tabby!
Dozens of new comments follow, all positive, even though Branson’s bold declaration has been up for less than five minutes. Tabby’s beside herself.
“Over Instagram? Really?” I mutter, mostly to myself. She whirls around in the chair and shoves me away.
“I don’t see you asking anyone out, Matt. Here,” she says, grabbing the notebook again. “You’ve got a hundred and seventeen girls you’d be willing to do. Why don’t you actually talk to one of them?” And she tosses the notebook to me.
And I’m done.
I catch the notebook, turn, and fire it across the room as hard as I can. It crashes into my bedroom door, leaving a divot.
Tabby’s shocked, her eyes huge, looking past me to my door. She slowly turns back to her phone, trying to continue like normal.
“Did you see what Lily—?”
“Fuck, Tabby,” I say, sitting on the edge of my bed, resting my face in my hands. “Don’t you have any girlfriends to talk to about this or something?”
She’s quiet for a moment.
“Yeah, Matt. I’m sorry. You’re probably right.”
She walks out of my room, closing the door behind her.
When I pull up the picture again on my phone later that night, Liam and Lily’s legion of friends have rallied behind him, showering him and Tabby with encouragements and trashing the original haters. Even Trevor Lighty left a Do it B! in his feed.
I guess Tabby’s problem’s been solved.
So to recap:
Matt Wainwright tries to help the girl he loves, ends up a misogynistic pervert who compares girls to Halloween candy and undoubtedly loses the girl forever, even as a friend.
Liam Branson thumbs a nine-word comment into his phone, the girl swoons over him, and everyone else in the free world swoons over their new coupledom.
At what point do I get to start laughing?