Page 51 of Parallel

I flip on my back and pull the covers up to my neck. “You’re making all this sound so terrible, but it’s easy to take one aspect of a relationship and make it seem defective. All couples argue and all couples want different things. I’m not going to fault him for having opinions of his own.”

He presses his eyes shut and when they open, I see an apology there. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just feel like you should have more than that.”

No, I think. I have exactly what I want. Even though I now remember something better. Even though I can feel in my chest what it was like to be in love with Nick, the kind of love that expands inside you until you’re so full it almost hurts. Because a sort of terror consumes me when I imagine having that now. I can’t begin to explain what it is, but as I lie here I know that it’s related, somehow, to Ryan. The mere thought of him makes dread seep into my bones.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I finally whisper, as I drift off to sleep.

“It was a long time ago,” he replies.

Except I wasn’t apologizing for his loss. I was apologizing because I think it might have been my fault.

The Homecoming Committee has done their best with the whole “Midnight in Paris” theme, but the truth is, a bunch of balloons and drawings of the Eiffel Tower aren’t enough to transform our gymnasium into anything other than…a gymnasium with balloons and handmade drawings.

“So, this is what I’ve been missing being homeschooled,” I say, taking it all in. Nick and I exchange a smile. “I feel like I don’t even need to go to Europe now.”

Nick laughs and brushes a lock of hair back from my face, his eyes flickering over my mouth with a longing I feel down to my core. “So I don’t need to worry about you taking off for London and leaving me behind anymore,” he says. “Mission accomplished.”

“You could always come with me,” I suggest. I don’t know why my heart beats so hard as I say the words. We’re talking about something that’s years and years from now. “You could do your residency there.”

He moves closer, close enough that his mouth is nearly on mine. “We could get an apartment together. But I should probably marry you before any of that.”

He has only the ghost of a smile on his face. I have one on mine as well. But our eyes are serious. We phrase these things as jokes, but we mean every word. “Yes, you should probably marry me.”

He releases a tiny huff of air, as if desire is displacing the oxygen in his chest. “God, I want to kiss you right now.”

All he has to do is use that low voice on me and I’m weak-kneed. I blow him a kiss and back away an inch. “This is my first homecoming. I’m not spending it being mauled in the back seat of your parents’ Volvo.”

He closes the distance between us again. “You love being mauled in the back seat of my parents’ Volvo.”

I do. I like it way, way too much. But it’s too early in the evening for me to be thinking about how badly I want him to do it again. “Come on,” I say, pulling him by the hand, forcing him to mingle and pour me a glass of punch, just because it’s so ridiculously old-fashioned. He’s a good sport about the whole thing, but after an hour he is itching to leave.

“We have to at least wait to see if you’re Homecoming King,” I chide.

He glances away. “I won’t be. I told them to throw out any votes for me.” His eyes remain on the floor between us. “I just… Things are tense enough without that.”

What he means is that they are tense with Ryan. Because of me.

“Let’s dance,” he says, trying to distract me—something he accomplishes with ease, because no one alive is more distracting than Nick, whether we’re standing in the middle of a crowded gym or alone in the treehouse, though my mother’s now forbidden that last bit.

He twines his fingers through mine and leads me onto the dance floor. Some sappy ballad is playing. “I don’t think we can swing dance to this one.”

Our eyes meet. He tried to teach me to swing dance once, in the treehouse. It was one of the rare times we found ourselves alone, without any adults around. Needless to say, the lesson devolved quickly into something else entirely.

“I’m not sure I got enough of a lesson to do it right,” I reply, wrapping my arms around his neck. Even in my heels, he towers over me. His face is boyish, but there’s nothing boyish about the rest of him. All his hours of training in the pool have left him with the ripped body of a grown man. I feel heat at the base of my spine, just picturing him climbing out of the water. I made a promise to my mother that I intend to keep, but it’s getting harder by the day for us both. Every time he kisses me, I want to climb him like scaffolding.

He leans toward my ear. “Remind me to give you another lesson sometime.”

I’m about to reply when he turns me, and I find myself looking directly at Ryan, who is watching us with that look on his face, the one he wears far too often of late. He’s here with Lisette Durand, a French exchange student almost every guy in the school wants to date, yet our eyes meet and his expression—already grim—turns into a scowl. Why can’t he just let this go?

“You okay?” Nick asks as I stiffen.

“Yeah,” I reply. “But I’m ready to leave whenever you are.”

“I’m ready now,” he says, pulling my hand. I’ve promised my mother we’ll wait until we’re out of high school to have sex, but when we are alone, it’s a struggle to remember that. And the look in his eyes right now says it’ll be extra hard to remember tonight.

We head toward the auditorium’s exit, but Ryan has beaten us there. He stands hand in hand with an irritated Lisette, blocking the door, legs spread like he’s ready for a fight.

“Where are you going?” he asks Nick, never glancing at me once, because I no longer exist to him. Not the way I used to.