30
MORGAN
That date.
I don’t even know.
That date will go down in history as one of the best dates in the history of all dates ever, even if I do wish she took my whole it’s okay to not do pageants thing more seriously.
But then Monday comes, and we’re in school, back to occasional secret stolen kisses in darkened doorways, and no matter how much I try to shove it down, it starts to feel like the absolute best and worst all rolled into one. Because we’re not even two weeks in and Ruby’s all I think about. She seems just as obsessed with me . . . but already I’m dying to hold her hand in the hallways and not just her car. I want to call her my girlfriend. I want people to know.
I make it a whole other week before I muster up the nerve to ask her if she’s in the same place. We’re both walking toward the track after school, her pretending like she’s there to watch lacrosse with her friends, me to actually work out. Lydia and Allie have gotten used to her just being around, but I say it low so no one can hear anyway: “What are we doing? What are we?” And the way she freezes up is not exactly reassuring.
“Do we need a label?”
I look her right in the eyes and say probably the most honest thing I’ve ever said to anyone ever. “We don’t need a label, but I’d really like one.”
She frowns. “I like you. You know that, right?”
I shrug.
“We like each other, right?” she asks, this time confusion lacing through her voice.
“Yeah, but—”
She takes my hand and leads me behind the bleachers, away from anybody’s prying eyes. “What’s going on? I thought we were good.”
“We were,” I say. “We are. I just . . .” I shake my head. Maybe I’m being selfish. Maybe I’m being unreasonable for wanting more. Should sneaking around school and having sleepovers after Dylan goes to bed be enough?
Ruby leans forward, kissing the words away, and then rests her forehead against mine. “As long as we’re good, let’s not worry about the rest, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, slipping under her arm and darting off to track.
And I wish I meant it.
Ruby stays for practice and even gives me a ride to the center after. We both valiantly try to pretend I never said anything. Ruby’s probably hoping to avoid the conversation altogether, and I’m wishing I never started it in the first place.
I should be happy with what I have. At least that’s what I tell myself over and over and over again. We both smile when we kiss goodbye, but it feels empty somehow.
My brother picks me up on his way home after my shift and tells me there’s something waiting for me at home. When I try to pry, he just smiles and says, “It’s a surprise.” I hope it’s Ruby, but I know she has to teach a couple classes tonight and then has another practice session with her coach. I’m sure she’ll be fried by the time she gets done.
Whatever I thought it could be, I did not expect the surprise to be my parents standing in the kitchen, four days early for their next visit. They’re unpacking bags of takeout food like this is business as usual, but the suitcases in the living room suggest this isn’t just one of our usual dinners.
“Surprise!” my mom shouts, rushing over to pull me into a hug. She squeezes me tight, and when the scent of her perfume drifts into my nose, it hits me how much I’ve really missed her. She smells like safety and home and Mom, and even daily FaceTimes just aren’t enough.
We both wipe at our eyes with watery laughs as she leans back to look at me. “Oh, I needed that,” she says.
My dad lets out a cheery “Hey, sport” as he sets some plates on the table, politely ignoring that fact that I’m a blubbering mess. I’ve been so focused on everything going on with Ruby and the center and the lawsuit that I forgot what it was like to just be a family for a minute.
The sound of nails on the hardwood floor alerts me to someone else’s presence, and I turn just in time to see my dog, Dusty, barreling out of the bathroom, water dripping off his face. He probably just drank half the toilet bowl, but I’m so happy to see him I don’t even care. He tackles me with his giant retriever paws, and we both go sprawling backward onto the couch.
“Down, boy,” Mom says. Dad grabs Dusty’s collar, trying and failing to pull him off me as his sniffs and snorts all over my neck and face, his tail wagging a mile a minute.
“No, he’s fine. He’s a good boy.” I laugh, scratching my fingers through his fur and making his back leg thump wildly as I push us both up. And, okay, my arms and legs are a little scratched up, but it’s worth it for such an epic dog hug from Dusty, the very best boy.
“He misses you,” Dad says.
“We all do,” Mom adds.
“Take her, then.” Dylan snorts. “She leaves her damn hair everywhere, finishes the milk without saying anything, and thinks every peanut butter cup in the house belongs to her.”
I stick out my tongue at his grumbling, and my dad pretends to be annoyed.
“Damn kids, always fighting,” he says, which earns him a whap on the back of his head from my mom.
“What’s with the suitcases?” I ask once Dusty ditches me for a Kong toy my brother has helpfully filled with peanut butter.
“Do we need an excuse to visit our kids for a few days?” Mom asks, and I look stricken because that wasn’t what I was implying.
“No, that actually sounds incredible. Netflix dropped like three new rom-coms just since I’ve been here, so we have major TV time to catch up on.” I pull out the chair across from her and start shoveling food onto my plate. “You just didn’t mention it on the group text.”
“Must have been on the other group text.” She winks.
“What other group text?” I ask, sounding utterly scandalized.
“The one that’s just us and your brother,” Dad says. “Where he warns us he dyed your hair pink and we make secret plans to come visit for a week, no doubt thwarting tonight’s attempt to sneak your girlfriend in—which you think Dylan doesn’t know about, but he does, and so do we.”
“Oh my god, Dyl!” I shout.
He just shrugs and grabs a plate. “I’ve never raised a kid! I don’t know if you’re allowed to have secret girlfriend sleepovers! What was I supposed to do? Guess?”
“You’re weren’t supposed to ask Mom and Dad!”
“Well, I couldn’t ask you!”
I groan. “How long have you known?”
“It’s an eight-hundred-square-foot apartment, Morgan, and you’re about as subtle as an elephant when you open the front door in the middle of the night.”
“What the—”
“Kids,” Dad says in his stern no more fighting voice.
“Now eat,” Mom says, picking up her fork. We both shut up and do as we’re told, but I make it a point to elbow Dylan twice as I reach for a napkin.
“Are you here to ground me or something?” I ask once everyone has had a chance to dig in.
“No,” Dad says. “Not really any point to that, since you’ll be leaving for college soon anyway. But we do want to meet this girl, and we’ll all be having a serious talk about boundaries and appropriate behavior when you’re living in someone else’s house.”
“You don’t want Ruby to come over?” I ask Dylan. “I thought you liked her.”
“No, she’s fine,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t care if you come here to bang or whatever, but I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to wake up to the front door slamming when she sneaks out at five every morning. That’s all.”
My dad chokes on some of his rice, and my mom pats his back. “Arms above your head, honey,” she says, and then turns toward me. “I may have put it a little more eloquently than Dylan did, but yes, your father and I recognize that you’re almost eighteen, and we trust you to make good decisions. If you want your girlfriend to spend the night, you need to ask Dylan first and be respectful about it. And your father and I both hope you’re practicing safe sex. If you have any questions . . .”
And, oh my god. Oh my god. Please let me disappear into this pile of beef lo mein. Please, god. Please. It’s all I ask. “Just to be clear, we’re not,” I mumble.
“You’re not practicing safe sex?” Mom says. “Just because you’re both women—”
And, oh my god. Oh my god. Make it stop.
“No, I mean we’re not . . .” I say slightly louder. “We’re not . . . We don’t do that when she sleeps over. We just hang out.” Three sets of eyebrows raise in unison. “Fine, okay, we make out! Is that what you want me to say? But we haven’t gone further than that. Her mom works nights, and her mom’s live-in boyfriend is a creep, and that’s why she sleeps here all the time. We’re not, like, constantly . . . you know?” I stab my fork into my food, my cheeks going bright red as the rest of the table erupts into laughter.
“Wow, TMI,” my brother says.
“Shut up, Dylan!” He howls when I kick him under the table.
“Look, if Ruby needs a place to crash, I don’t care if she comes over,” he says. “But I want to know she’s here so I’m not walking around in my ratty-ass boxers when there’s a random girl lurking around the apartment, okay?”
I snort. “I’d personally like it if you never walked around in your boxers.”
“And I’d like it if I didn’t know what it sounded like when my little sister—”
“Okay!” Dad pipes up. “Moving on before I have to shove these chopsticks into my ears so I don’t have to hear whatever the end of that sentence is.”
Mom and Dad exchange a look. He gives her a little nod, and she sighs. “There are other reasons we’re here, Morgan,” she says.
“Besides traumatizing me for life?”
“Yes,” she says, and her somber look wipes the smile right off my face.
“Okay? What’s up?” I glance at my brother, but he’s staring down at his plate. He doesn’t even look up when I nudge his ankle.
“Well, for one, the reason we have suitcases is because we’re staying straight through for your meet this weekend,” she says.
“My meet?” I ask, and she smiles.
“Yes, your first one with the new team.”
“Oh my god! The waiver went through?” I nearly knock over my glass in a rush to hug her. “I can really compete?”
“Yes,” my mom says, both of our eyes tearing up.
“I can’t believe it. We did it! St. Mary’s caved!”
“Beth,” my dad says, reaching over and squeezing my mom’s hand. “Tell her the rest.”
I shift my gaze between them, the mood of the table growing serious again as I sit back down.
“And also . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Your father and I have decided to drop the case against St. Mary’s.”
“What? Why?”
“Our lawyers are telling us it would be exceedingly difficult to win at this point. It’s a private school, a religious school—they could take it all the way to the Supreme Court. And with the way this country is right now . . .” She trails off.
“It’s costing us a lot of money to keep this going, sport,” Dad says. “We picked up some steam for a little while after the news interviews, but people have moved on, and the sponsors we had before can’t commit with everything stacked against us like this. It’s money better spent on your future.”
“And St. Mary’s has a lot of very influential donors supporting them. We didn’t really have a choice,” Mom adds. “But the good news is that, in exchange for us dropping the lawsuit, they dropped their petition to have you banned for unsportsmanlike conduct and retracted their claim with the athletic board that you were involved in any sort of recruiting scheme. They’re even sending a favorable report to your new coach, and she can send that on to the colleges so we can put this all behind us. I know you’re disappointed, honey, but we accomplished the most important thing for you—”
“What about the kids that come after me?” I ask, and they look down. “What about the queer kids at that school right now? You know they’re there. You even know who some of them are! How could you just give up?”
Dad takes a deep breath, like he’s deciding how much to say.
“What?” I ask. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“We did think about the other kids,” Dad says. “We even reached out to their parents to try to turn it into a class-action lawsuit when things started to get too expensive, but they didn’t want to. The sad truth of it is that everyone just wants to keep their heads down until graduation. No one else wanted to put their necks on the line. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the outcome we were hoping for, but—”
“I’m not hungry anymore.” I shove my plate away and storm off down the hall.
I slam my bedroom door and throw myself on the bed, shoving a pillow over my head and hoping the fluff will at least muffle my scream.
My door clicks open, and I drag the pillow down, ready to shout at my parents to get out. Except it’s Dylan, and he’s got Dusty with him.
“Hey,” he says, shutting the door behind him as my dog jumps up onto my bed. “I’m sorry. I know how much this sucks.”
I hug Dusty tight, burying my face in his fur. “No, you really don’t.”
Dylan drags his hand through his hair and then sits beside me on the bed. “Maybe you’re right. I’ve had it comparatively easy—straight white guy and all.” He sighs. “But I have to tell you something, and you have to swear not to tell Mom and Dad that I told you.”
“What?” I ask, concern dulling the edges of my anger a little.
“I know they made it seem like this was a choice they made, but it really wasn’t.”
“But they—”
“They almost lost the house because of it. They remortgaged it to get more money out for the lawyer fees and stuff. Dad’s practice too. I actually covered the house payment last month when it was really bad. I know it’s ridiculously unfair that they had to do that, and that you had to go through it at all—but you got out of the situation relatively unscathed, while they were still sinking fast.”
I shake my head. “But isn’t there any other way? Anything at all?”
“They even tried to get the ACLU involved. Trust me, they’ve explored every avenue here.”
I sigh. “Great, so even the ACLU wouldn’t touch this?”
“Who knows?” Dylan runs his hands through his hair. “I doubt they’re even aware of it yet. Apparently, it can take forever for applications to be reviewed because they get so many every day. Mom and Dad couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Morgan, you have to let them off the hook. The guilt is killing them, but they were going to lose everything if they kept fighting. And you could have too. If you lose that scholarship, with the state of their finances right now . . .”
I swallow hard. I don’t know what to do with this information. I always thought of my parents as invincible. The idea that they sank so much into this that they had to borrow money from my brother makes me feel a little sick.
“I guess . . .” I say, gently petting Dusty. “I guess I could keep pushing for change in other ways. I already talked to Izzie about wanting to do more. That way it’s not really over. It’s just sort of paused while I find a new angle.”
“Yeah.” He smiles, relieved. “That sounds like a great idea. And in the meantime, can we just be glad you have a safe new school and a girlfriend who seems way too cool for you?”
“Hey!”
He smiles. “But seriously, can that be enough, just for now?”
“I just feel like such a sellout.”
“You’re not.”
“Dylan—” My phone buzzes, cutting off the moment, and Dusty hops off my bed and scratches at the door.
“Is that Ruby?” he asks, getting up and opening the door for Dusty.
“Yeah.”
“Invite her over,” he says. “And please talk to Mom and Dad.”
“I will,” I say, not sure which I’m agreeing to. Maybe both.
Ruby suddenly and mysteriously cannot make it over to my house the entire week that my parents are there. She begs off, blaming homework and late-night pageant coaching sessions, and I try not to let it bother me.
She does show up to my meet on Friday night, though. My first official home meet at the new school, one where I’m finally not a volunteer but an actual participant.
She snags me underneath the bleachers and gives me a perfectly amazing good-luck kiss before my race. If my parents wonder why my lips are suddenly the same shade of pink as the lipstick on the girl sitting in the row behind them, they don’t ask. If they wonder why she shouts the loudest when I win the 800 and when we win the 4x4, they don’t ask that either.
Ruby texts me afterward, sentimental and proud, from the quiet safety of her car in the parking lot. She tells me she loved seeing me race, and that I’m the “best secret” she’s ever had. And I convince myself that being her “best secret” feels good, that the ache in my chest doesn’t mean anything. That we’re fine, great, even. That we’re just resting up for the next battle.