The Boy I Love by Nina de Gramont

patient. James studied this injury of mine so carefully. He wished for me to be well and used his expertise to help that along. His hands felt chapped, probably because he had to wash them all the time. I tried to conjure up in my head all this history between us, the way we sort of came from the same place. But because of all the particulars, I couldn’t bear to think about it for more than a minute.
    James said, “That was a big sigh, Wren. Everything okay?”
    â€œYes, sir,” I said. I hadn’t even realized that I’d sighed at all. “Sorry about that.”
    â€œYou don’t have to be sorry.”
    â€œI just wish life didn’t have to be so complicated all the time.”
    James smiled, but it was a sad smile. “I wish it too, Wren,” he said. “I wish it too.”
    *   *   *
    In place of my big bandage James gave me a package of fingerless gloves made out of gauze. I could change them myself as often as I wanted, and I could go riding again. Best of all for my mother, I could even shovel manure again. My fingertips were healed well enough that I didn’t need anything covering them. Yay! I felt a lot more normal. Plus, it made it easier for me to hang on to the broom I had to dance around with during the “Necessity” song.
    In the play, Caroline Jones played this girl named Susan who couldn’t speak—she only danced. Watching her up there on stage, she was so graceful and perfect. One day she sat in the back row with Tyler and me and asked if she could see my burn. Even though I wasn’t supposed to, I pulled off my glove. It looked a lot better than it used to—all the little blisters had flattened out by now—but even so she drew in her breath.
    â€œI am never drinking another drop of alcohol,” she said. “Never in my life. At least not until college.”
    Tyler snorted like he didn’t believe her. I laughed. “It’s not so bad,” I said.
    â€œIt’s the worst thing I ever did,” Caroline admitted.
    I racked my brain, trying to think of the worst thing that I had ever done. The first thing I came up with was dating Tim, even though we obviously weren’t dating. It was just that I felt so bad about Allie and me not talking, and I made up my mind then and there to clear the air with her. I knew that if my mother hadn’t been so wrapped up with the farm, that’s what she would have told me to do. For the last couple of weeks, the two people I talked to the most—Allie and my mom—had been pretty much off-limits.
    Because of that, the new main person I talked to was Tim. Just like Allie, everybody in the play seemed to think we were together. Caroline Jones even made a point of telling me she had no hard feelings about it, and that we made a cute couple. For some reason I found this very flattering, so much that I didn’t correct her. I should have, but I didn’t. That afternoon at Tim’s pool, I told him about what Caroline said, and he liked it as much as I did.
    â€œI always felt bad dating Caroline when I could never feel the same way she did,” he said. We sat up to our necks in the shallow end, me with my burned hand resting on the pool deck. Nobody else was there, being as it was almost dinnertime. “But with you, you know everything, so it works out perfectly.”
    I could see what he meant. We never had to tell a lie, or even pretend; we just had to do what came pretty naturally, which was hang out together. So for Tim, it did workout perfectly. For me, not so much. I liked the idea of what people thought, that Tim was my boyfriend, a whole lot better than the truth. At the same time I felt bad that Tim had to walk around hiding the truth. So I said, “Maybe it doesn’t always have to be such a big secret. People might surprise you. I don’t think anyone would really care one way or the other.”
    â€œNo,” Tim