Prep: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld

boyfriend?”
    “But you pay again if you want, I won’t stop you.” He had a rumbling laugh.
    “Thanks.” I pulled the door handle.
    “What college is this?” the driver said.
    “It’s a high school. It’s called Ault.”
    “All this for a high school?” He gave an impressed whistle.
    “I know,” I said. “We’re lucky.”
             
    When I entered the room, Sin-Jun and Dede looked up from their desks. “Lee is back, “ Sin-Jun said, and Dede said, “We thought you’d died.”
    “I missed the bus from the mall,” I said. “I had to take a taxi.”
    “Okay, so?” Dede said. “Did you go through with it?”
    “Oh,” I said. “No, I did.” I pulled back my hair and angled my ears toward them, first my right and then my left. They approached me, and I wished that I had chosen more interesting earrings; there really wasn’t much to see.
    “Ahh,” Sin-Jun said. “Very exquisite.”
    “The left one looks red,” Dede said. “But I’m sure if you use hydrogen peroxide, it’ll be fine.”
    “What does hydrogen peroxide do?”
    “Didn’t they explain this to you when they did the piercing?”
    “A man did it,” I said. “He was kind of mean.”
    “You’re supposed to clean them every night so they don’t get infected. You do it at the same time that you turn the earrings.”
    “You turn the earrings?”
    “God, Lee, they didn’t tell you anything. Hold on.” Dede walked to her bed, squatted, pulled out a clear plastic box from under it, and returned to Sin-Jun and me with a brown bottle and several cotton balls.
    I turned to Sin-Jun. “How was Boston?”
    “Boston is good, but it rains all day.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “At the mall, too.”
    “Here,” Dede said. “Sit down.”
    I sat on her desk chair. Sin-Jun sat on Dede’s desk and propped her bare feet on the seat of my chair. Dede stood beside me and tucked a lock of hair behind my left ear. Our positions reminded me of the piercing itself, and I thought of telling them how I had fainted. But I wasn’t sure yet if it was a funny story or just a weird story, and besides, if I mentioned fainting, I’d have to mention Cross.
    Dede unscrewed the cap of the hydrogen peroxide, pressed a cotton ball to the opening, and tipped the bottle upside down. She set the bottle on the desk and held the cotton ball against my earlobe. Very gently, she rubbed it around the earring.
    I couldn’t tell them about Cross, I thought. I couldn’t tell them because Dede liked him and because she wouldn’t believe or understand it, and I couldn’t tell them because I myself was unsure what there was to believe or understand. It wasn’t like he’d kissed me, or made any declarations. What could I claim? For years and years, I felt this way, not just about Cross but about other guys—if they didn’t kiss you, it didn’t mean anything. Their interest in you had been so negligible as, perhaps, to have all been in your head.
    I thought of how it had felt to sit so close to Cross in the taxi, the weight of his arm across my shoulders, the warmth of his body beneath his clothes. I thought how that was what I wanted, that if I could just have that—just Cross next to me, not flowers, not poems, not the approval of other students, not rich parents or good grades or a prettier face—I would be happy. That was the thing that if it were happening to me, I wouldn’t feel distracted or wish to be somewhere else; all by itself, it would be enough. As I thought this, I also thought that I wouldn’t get it—surely, I wouldn’t—and I felt my eyes fill. When I blinked, tears ran down my face.
    “Oh, Lee,” Dede said. “Oh, honey.” Sin-Jun leaned forward and patted my shoulder, and Dede said, “I’ll be done in two seconds.” She took the damp cotton ball away from my ear, and I realized that they thought I was crying because it hurt.

3. Assassin
    FRESHMAN SPRING
    I met Conchita Maxwell in the spring, on the first day of lacrosse