RYAN
“Hey,” Ryan said, dripping all over the matted carpet in the hallway. “Where you going?”
Gabby didn’t say anything for a moment. She looked like she’d died while he was washing his back.
Ryan frowned. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Gabby. Hey. What happened?”
Gabby shrugged. “A giant loser, huh?” she asked.
“What?” Ryan stared at her blankly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Gabby sighed. She went back into his bedroom and swiped his phone up off the dresser, thrust it out in his direction so that he could see the screen. “It’s from after Celia’s party,” she said dully. “The first night we met.”
Ryan scanned the texts, his heart tripping with recognition even after all this time. He knew he should start apologizing immediately—he meant to start apologizing immediately—but when his eyes flicked back to Gabby’s what came out of his mouth was, “What are you doing looking through my texts?”
Gabby’s jaw dropped. “You told me to message that guy for you!”
“I know, but—”
Gabby huffed a breath out. “Look, I know I snooped, okay? And I’m sorry. But that’s not the point here, and you know it.”
Ryan did know. His heart was pounding crazily, adrenaline pumping; somewhere at the back of his head he wondered if this was what it felt like to have a panic attack. “Gabs,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “that was four years ago. It was before I had any idea what you were actually like.”
“What I was actually—” Gabby broke off then, took a deep breath before continuing. “You know,” she said, leaning back against the doorjamb, “it never mattered to me that you didn’t remember the night we met, not really. Because I remembered it. And I always thought that the details didn’t make a difference because, like . . . you were a stranger, and you were popular, and you were cool. And you still saw me, even if it was just for a little while.” She stood upright again, shook her head. “But it turns out you didn’t.”
Something about the way she said it caught in Ryan’s skin like a fishhook. “What do you mean, the details didn’t make a difference?” he asked. “What details?”
Gabby shook her head again. “Forget it. You’re missing the whole point.”
“No way,” Ryan said. “What?”
“Ryan—”
“Gabby.”
Gabby looked at him for a moment, eyes dark and hot. “Fine,” she announced, and it sounded like she was putting a curse on him. “You wanna know the details, Ryan? We made out the first night we met.”
Ryan blinked at her. He felt . . . concussed. “What?”
“They very first night we met,” Gabby repeated. “Up in my room. We kissed. And I had no idea that you were going to be too wasted to remember—”
“We kissed?”
“Yes, Ryan.” Gabby scowled at him. “I am sorry to inform you, you told this giant loser that you liked her mouth, and I was stupid enough to—”
“Gabby,” he interrupted; he wanted her to stop talking with that tone in her voice, like she hated him. “Really?”
“You think I’m making it up?”
“No, of course not, I just—” Ryan tried to stop gaping at her and couldn’t. It felt like their whole entire friendship was reshuffling itself in his head. He thought of how dubious she’d been that very first night he ever came to Monopoly. He thought of how she’d yelled at him the morning he woke up on her floor. “You didn’t tell me?”
“Why should I have?” she snapped. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me. And it looks like I was right.”
“Gabby, come on.” Ryan reached for her arm, suddenly acutely aware he was still only wearing his towel; it put him at a disadvantage, and Gabby scooted out of his reach. “I was unequivocally a dick at the beginning of freshman year, you know that. I don’t need to remember that party to know I probably acted like an asshole. I didn’t know you were you when I met you; I had no idea I was meeting my best friend. You’re different from everybody else in my life, do you get that?”
Gabby shrugged head. “I was, maybe.”
Ryan felt his eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”
“It means everything has been fucked up since we started dating; haven’t you noticed that? It means I was different from everybody else in your life until we had sex, and now I’m just your latest hookup who you’re going to get tired of in five minutes, and nobody will even blame you, because apparently I’m a giant loser.”
“What?” Ryan stared at her. “Now you’re just being insane.”
“Don’t call me that,” Gabby said immediately, and Ryan held his hands up in surrender.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right.”
But Gabby wasn’t listening. “This was a massive, massive mistake,” she was saying, the pitch of her voice rising; he knew better than to try and touch her now. “We never should have started dating. I never should have let you talk me into—”
“Talk you into?” Ryan felt like she’d punched him. “Is that what this was, us dating? Me pressuring you into something you didn’t even really want to begin with?”
“No!” Gabby shook her head. “That’s not—I don’t mean—”
“You said you wanted to do this, Gabby. And I’m the idiot who took you at your word.”
“I did want to do this!” Gabby insisted. “Of course I wanted to do this. But you don’t think it’s been a little bit of a disaster in practice, really? Can you honestly stand there and tell me that?”
Ryan didn’t know how to answer that. Obviously it hadn’t been perfect. But a disaster—that stung to hear her say, to be honest. That really fucking sucked.
“Well,” Ryan said, mimicking her tone exactly; he knew he sounded nasty, but he didn’t particularly care. “I can stand here and honestly tell you that you shouldn’t come to this party with me tonight, I think that much is pretty obvious. And from the way you’ve been talking it sounds like we should probably quit doing a shit ton of other stuff together, too.”
Gabby was wide-eyed and terrified looking, like the implications of this fight were suddenly becoming real to her. “Ryan—” she started, but he shook his head to stop her talking. He wanted her out of his house like he hadn’t wanted anything in quite some time.
“I’ll see you around, Gabby,” he told her, eyes on the hallway behind her.
“I—okay,” Gabby said after a moment. “I’ll see you around.”