Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart

those things to your satisfaction, so then what? I can’t trust you?”
    I wanted to tell him he could.
    I wanted to be the girl who had never flirted with Gideon, never thought he’d make a better boyfriend than Noel.
    But I wasn’t. I had done those things.
    “You’re so suspicious,” I said. “The only reason I even went anywhere with Gideon was because you didn’t call me back. You hadn’t called me in three days when he came over.”
    “So you did go out with him.”
    “He wanted to go wakeboarding. He pulled up at my dock. It wasn’t a plan.”
    “Nora said he came down specially.”
    “I don’t know anything about that. He made it sound like one of his friends had bailed on him or something and he needed a driver.”
    Noel shook his head. “I can’t believe you, Ruby.”
    “It wasn’t anything. He taught me to wakeboard and we ate cheese puffs.”
    “Then why wouldn’t you tell me about it?” Noel asked. “Why would you not tell me you learned to wakeboard if you didn’t feel guilty about it? It’s not like that’s a completely uneventful part of your day.” He had a point.
    Of course I had felt guilty.
    Of course that was why I hadn’t told him.
    Suddenly, I looked around me. I was standing in the center of Dittmar’s office, revealing my ugly, unfaithful heart to everyone there. Confirming every rotten thing anyone had ever said or thought about me.
    “Ruby!” It was Kim. “We’re trying to deal with our college applications. This is really important to everyone here but you. So will you please leave?” Dittmar scribbled something on a sheet of paper.
    “To the headmaster, both of you. Go, now. And don’t bring this personal agony back into my office. Ever.
    Again.”
    “I can’t tell you anything since you got back from New York,” I said to Noel as I snatched the piece of paper from Dittmar. “You don’t react. You don’t have anything to say. It’s like talking to a lobotomy patient.” He looked at me silently.
    “That came out wrong,” I said.
    “Yeah. I bet.”
    I grabbed my bag and left the office. As I headed down the spiral steps of the math building, I could hear Noel’s footsteps behind me.
    “It’s like you don’t care anymore, Noel,” I yelled up into the stairwell. “That’s what it feels like. And I’ve tried and tried to talk to you about it, but the not-caring means you don’t want to hear what I have to say about it, and then—”
    “Would I be mad about you going out with Gideon if I didn’t care?” called Noel. I kept running down the stairs.
    “I didn’t go out with him!” I called back. “Nothing happened.”
    A mathematical-looking freshman nearly collided with me as I rounded the landing. She squeaked and ran down the hall to her class.

    “Stop being jealous!” I went on, yelling up to Noel.
    And what I meant was:
    Believe in me.
    Don’t listen to what people say.
    Don’t read the writing on the walls.
    You, of all people.
    Believe in me.
    I kept stumbling down the stairs, but Noel ran cross-country and he caught me easily. He grabbed my upper arm. “Won’t you just listen?” he said, his voice taut.
    “Don’t grab me,” I said. “You don’t get to grab me like that.”
    He didn’t let go. “It is so unfair,” he said, “to accuse me of not caring and then harsh on me for being jealous.”
    Okay.
    I could see that.
    But you know what?
    Through this whole argument he hadn’t said he cared.
    He’d said, “Would I be mad about you going out with Gideon if I didn’t care?”
    But not that he actually cared .
    “Jealousy is not the kind of caring I want,” I said.
    “And stop grabbing me.”
    “How can I trust you when you’re going out with other people behind my back?”
    “Not other people. One other person.”
    “One is enough.”
    “You’re not really here,” I told him. “You’re not my real live boyfriend.”
    “I’m not your boyfriend?”
    “That’s not what I meant. I meant, you’re not