Page 61 of Exchanged

“We have a sex life now?”

He swallows, wipes a dribble of sauce from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “I guess I didn’t mean we, like the two of us together. I meant, like, our separate sex lives.”

Of course he did. Because it would be weird to make a reference to our nonexistent romantic relationship.

That would be something I would do.

He sees the expression on my face and nudges me with his shoulder. “Keep it in your pants, Rossi,” he jokes, trying to ease the awkwardness I’ve created, like a Zamboni smoothing the ice after a hockey match. “Sharing your bed on Christmas Eve doesn’t count toward your record.”

“I don’t have a record,” I say, and instantly regret it. Because if Garrett expresses surprise at this fact, I’ve become even sexually lamer than he already thought I was. If he isn’t surprised, then I’m exactly as sexually lame as he thought I was. But there’s a fiery side of me—one that seems to come out only around Garrett—that adds, “It’s not like I have a ton of options in Irontown. This one guy I liked almost kissed me twice but then told me he likes me as a brother, so that didn’t go anywhere.”

Garrett freezes, caught off guard, but then something sharpens in his eyes, as if he likes the challenge, as if part of him wants to be taunted by me. The look shoots lava through my center.

“Your Highness,” a voice interrupts from behind me, breaking our eye contact. It’s Katrina, staring at the medal around Garrett’s neck. She glances at me. “Which makes you his royal escort, I guess?”

More like his virginal jester.

The three of us spend the night wandering among groups of people, enjoying the festive mood everyone’s in. Winter is long here, and there aren’t many times the whole town gets together, so we all make the most of it.

Close to midnight, my fingers and toes are frozen, and I’m ready to call it a night when someone starts shouting the countdown.

We join in, Garrett and Katrina and I. Their faces are bright, lit by the streetlamps and the promise of a new year. We get to zero and everyone cheers, and I hug Katrina like we do every year. Then Garrett and I look at each other and realize we need to do something, but we aren’t sure what that something is. He pulls me into a side hug like the kind I give my younger cousins.

A hug fit for a virgin.

He pulls away from me, and it’s the new year. The year I will graduate. The year I will move out of my house. The year I might go off to a city I’ve never been to and share a dorm room with someone I’ve never met and start a life away from all of this.

How exciting, I tell myself.

SEVENTEEN

We settle into the dreary routine of January. School starts up again, and I return to spending hours each day working on my composition portfolio and practicing my audition piece. Burton-Clark will allow me to do a video interview and audition because of my “rural situation”; they will take place on the last Thursday of the month. I have the date circled on the calendar above my desk, a reminder of all the work I still need to do.

One night, I find myself at the kitchen island with Aunt Liz, chopping vegetables for venison stew. Her hair is pulled into its usual messy bun, and her sleeves are rolled up to keep them out of the deer meat she’s cutting.

“When are you planning on telling your dad about that audition you’ve got?” she asks.

A carrot slips from my hand and tumbles across the floor. “How did you know?” I haven’t told anyone about the audition.

“I didn’t. But if you’re applying to a conservatory, I assumed you’d have one.”

She played me.

“I dunno,” I say. “I guess I wasn’t planning on telling him.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And then when you get accepted … what? He’ll just think they picked your name out of a hat?”

I shrug. “Sure. Whatever. It’s not like he wants to know.”

She places her knife on her cutting board and gives me a get-real look.

“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to leave this town.”

“No one’s asking you to. But I’m tired of watching the two of you grunt at each other over the dinner table because you’re both too stubborn to be the first one to talk about this.”

“Why should I be the one who—”

“Oh my god, Enzo,” she says, cutting me off. “You care about your dad too much to let your relationship fall apart over this. I know you know this, but sometimes we have to be a bigger person than our parents. They’re just people—sometimes imperfect, irrational, and oblivious. Just because your dad’s in the wrong doesn’t mean you can’t make it right.” She jerks her head aggressively toward the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the front hall. “So get your butt out there and tell him about your audition.”