Dear Amanda,
It’s so hard to hide things from you. I know
you sensed something was wrong …
“I saw your feelings get hurt,” said Amanda. We’d just gotten home from the movies with Ethan and Renee and Henry, and she was sitting on my bed, staring into the mirror across the room.
“What?” I asked.
“Just that I could see it in your face when me and Ethan were holding hands,” she said.
“Oh.” My heart pounded in my chest.
Amanda’s mom is a therapist, and everyone in her family is way tuned in to their own emotions, and others’ feelings too—it’s actually kind of annoying how hard it is to hide anything from my best friend.
Amanda took a deep breath.
I watched her squeeze her eyes shut in the mirror.
“I know it’s kind of awkward,” she said. Then she opened them. “But I think it’s normal that you’re jealous that I have a boyfriend who’s actually hanging out with us now.”
“Oh, I’m not,” I said, surprised. “I like Ethan …” I was about to add “a lot,” but I decided to leave it at that.
“Okay, okay.” She smiled at me, relieved. “I just had to say something, because it seems like you guys are friends, and then he and I are going out, so it’s like you have these two friends dating and it can be weird because we spend time alone, too, and … I don’t know, am I rambling?”
“No.” I kept my participation in this conversation very measured.
“It’s cool that you guys get along,” she said, and I saw her eyes widen a little in the mirror. “You seem to always be talking or having, like, private jokes.”
I wondered if she was fishing for something, if she could read me that well.
“We have a class together,” I said.
“I know,” she said, and then she threw her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Clem, I didn’t mean to say that you were jealous! It just seemed like something was bothering you tonight, is all.”
I nodded and hugged her back. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Maybe I am a little jealous because he takes away my time with you.”
That was an acceptable thing to be jealous about, so I went with it.
“Let’s have a sleepover next weekend,” said Amanda. “Just you and me.”
“Sounds good.” I pulled away from our hug and smiled brightly at her.
“Ack, sorry I made things awkward!” she said. Then she waved her hands in front of my face, which I guess looked kind of grim. “Okay, forget all that. Want me to make you a smile?”
And that was that. Amanda had noticed something wrong, and I had my warning—and I didn’t heed it. I had proof then that the weirdness wasn’t just in my head. I knew for sure that I needed to stop talking to Ethan so much.
But I didn’t. It was like I couldn’t help it.
Later that week, one snowy afternoon when I was stuck in the house, Ethan and I spent over three hours online, messaging different song lyrics to each other and trying to guess the song.
Clem: I am so homesick for someplace I will never be
Ethan: The Bravery, Time Won’t Let Me Go
Ethan: When the wind is in your hair you laugh like a little girl
Clem: Easy. Magnetic Fields, Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
Ethan: How very indie-aware of you
I laughed.
Clem: I was dreaming of the past … and my heart was beating fast
He replied in, like, 0.4 seconds.
Ethan: Jealous Guy, John Lennon
Clem: You are so freaking good at this
Ethan: Nothing John Lennon ever did is obscure
And this is something I liked about him too. We had this shared musical sensibility. Whenever he mentioned a song that I didn’t know, I instantly had to download it and listen, and I always ended up loving it. That’s just how we aligned. It felt special. Plus, he never once made an “Oh my darlin’ …” joke about my name, which was pretty much a first. You don’t have a name like Clementine without having that song sung at you at least three times a week.
Clem: I’m still impressed
Ethan: She’s so scared, so very frightened
Clem: Vague … more?
Ethan: Anything could happen … right here tonight
Ethan: That’s all you get (not a lyric)
Clem: Old song?
Ethan: Yup
Clem: Like oldie old or 90s old?
Ethan: More like 80s
Clem: Band?
Ethan: Cheating, but ok—INXS
Clem: No clue, don’t really know them.
Ethan: It’s called Beautiful Girl
My hands froze.
Ethan: I’ll put it on your mix
That’s when he told me he was making me a playlist of songs that reminded him of me. And the one I knew about was called—good Lord—“Beautiful Girl.” I downloaded it and fell in love within the first six notes.
All I could think about was how much I wanted that playlist. I had never felt so excited and tingly and buzzy about a guy.
I copied and pasted our back-and-forth messaging session into a doc, then put it in a folder that, for stealth’s sake, I called “Every Once in a While.” That’s the name of a country song that my mom always turned up the volume for in the car, and it makes me feel warm inside to hear it.
That’s when I started planning a mix for him too. The first song on it? “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift. I was in deep.