“Oh,” I said. I took another step away, extricating myself from his arm. “Um, hi there.”

Gideon had stood up and was frowning down at Benji—no small feat, since Benji was pretty tall himself. “Emily, you know this guy?”

“Oh yeah, she does,” Benji said, with a wink at me—maybe it was a Collins family trait—clearly not reading the room very well and taking another step toward me. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, fine,” I said, a little too brightly.

“Em,” Gideon said, and I could hear the hurt in his voice, though he was clearly trying to cover it up. “Are you two—”

“What am I thinking?” I babbled, mostly so Gideon wouldn’t ask his question and I wouldn’t have to answer it. “This is Gideon,” I said, making the introductions. “And that’s Benji.”

“Ben,” Benji said, his smile fading.

“Right, of course,” I said quickly. “Well, this was fun, but I should probably—”

“So what have you been up to?” Benji asked, smiling at me again. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Well, no,” I said, wondering what he was getting at, since the only place I’d ever seen him before had been in Frank’s pantry.

“So you guys . . . ,” Gideon said, looking from me to Benji, his expression hard.

“No,” I said quickly, just as Benji replied, “Well, this one time . . .”

“Emily,” Gideon said, now just looking confused.

“There you are.” I turned and saw Frank, a bottle of water in his hand, walking up to me.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at him, happy to see him even though I’d just seen him that morning. Now that he was in front of me, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about not coming here.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked, looking slightly confused as he glanced from Gideon, to Benji, to me.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, realizing this might be my opportunity to make an exit and leave unscathed. “We should go, right? To celebrate your birthday? Now?” I widened my eyes at him, hoping that he would get the hint.

He seemed to, because he gave me a smile that was clearly concealing a laugh and said, “Yes. My birthday.  Absolutely.”

“Bye,” I said to Gideon as Benji wandered away toward the keg guy. Gideon was now looking from Frank to me, his expression crestfallen. “I’ll see you around?” I asked him. But Gideon had never made things like this easier when he didn’t have to, and he didn’t say anything, just steadily looked back at me for a long moment.

“Okay,” Frank said brightly after a moment, morphing into the student body president, capable of organizing large groups of people and doing it smoothly. “Have a great night. Emily, if you want to follow me, we’re set up over this way . . .” He steered me toward the far picnic table, where there was what looked like a supermarket cake, Collins talking to a girl entirely out of his league, and Doug standing awkwardly next to some of Frank’s school friends.

I could sense the question that Frank wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to answer it, and just looked straight ahead, not meeting his eye as we walked toward the party.

MAY

Two months earlier

“You have to let me see it,” Gideon said, trying to twist around to see his arm and the Sharpie tattoo I was currently working on.

“No,” I said, turning his head away. “Not until I’m finished. You know how bad I am at this.”

He reached over and brushed one of his big hands over my hair, smoothing a piece of it behind my ear. “You’re not bad at it,” he said.

“Ha,” I said. “It’ll be worse if you don’t hold still.”

“Holding,” Gideon said, shooting me one of his small, rare smiles. In the two months that the four of us had been hanging out, Sharpie tattoos had become a thing we did. While we started the evenings together, Sloane and Sam would inevitably break off on their own, and then it would be me and Gideon and a Sharpie, passing the time. It had started that first night we’d gone to the Orchard, and had just become a tradition, though it had taken me a while to build up the courage to draw one on him. I had less than no artistic talent, and Gideon was a natural and gifted artist, though he denied this and insisted it was just something stupid he did for fun. I’d started to really look forward to mine, even though I knew as it was being drawn on that it was temporary. The tattoos faded over time and with every shower until there was just a faint suggestion of whatever it was that had been adorning my hand or arm or ankle.

Sloane clearly thought that Gideon would be the perfect solution to my problems with Sam. This way, we could all hang out, but she could spend time with Sam as well. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like Gideon. He was a really nice guy, a good kisser, and had a sly sense of humor that only came out once you got to know him. But I was still left with the lingering, nagging thought that I hadn’t chosen him, he’d been presented to me. And I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if we’d just met, without the expectations of both our best friends pushing us together.

But it was nice with him now, in Sam’s TV room, sitting next to each other on the couch. The movie we’d all been watching was on pause, the TV having long switched over to the screensaver of generic pictures—a butterfly on a leaf, an African vista, a lighthouse. We’d all been watching together when Sam had gotten a text. Sloane had seen it and said something to him I couldn’t hear. Sam had stormed into the kitchen in a huff, and Sloane had followed. That had been over twenty minutes ago, and when it had become clear they weren’t reappearing any time soon, Gideon had paused the movie and procured the Sharpie, raising an eyebrow at me. It was my turn, and since you couldn’t erase marker, I had planned out this design and was working very carefully on it. It was a series of ocean waves that wrapped around the front of his arm. I could draw waves, they were pretty easy, just a continual scrolling pattern. And then atop one of the waves, I’d drawn a bear on a surfboard. I knew it didn’t make much sense, but cartoony bears were one of the few things I could draw well, so I just hoped Gideon wouldn’t question it too much. I put the final details on the bear’s ears and leaned back a little, looking at my handiwork. I realized I was actually pretty happy with this one. Gideon was still turning his head away, and impulsively I scrawled Emily xoxo on his arm, then sat back and capped the marker. “Done,” I said.