My Secret Boyfriend (7 page)

Laurie looked at her friend from her cubby-hole in the library. “Sit down,” Laurie directed, looking puzzled. “And tell me what you’re talking about.”

For a second, Jordan’s courage left her. It had taken all morning to get up enough nerve to even approach Laurie. But the miserable expression on Ryan’s face when she’d passed him in the hall before lunch had told her that nothing had changed for him. The kids were still ignoring him. Jordan knew that she
had
to tell someone.

Jordan plunked down with a heavy sigh. “It isn’t fair to have everybody mad at him.”

“Is if fair the way he’s dumping you for Jennifer?” Laurie asked.

“There’s so much you don’t understand . . .” Jordan’s eyes filled with tears.

“Hey, it’s all right. You’ll have other boyfriends.” Laurie closed her book and patted Jordan gently on the arm.

“I’m not crying about losing Ryan. Oh, Laurie. Things are such a mess. How did everything get so messed up?”

“You’ve lost me,” Laurie said. “What’s such a mess? What are you talking about?”

“Ryan’s not my boyfriend. He never was.”

“Is this true-confession time?” Laurie made a stab at humor, and Jordan managed a wan smile. “I mean, do I have to take notes for the school paper?”

“It would probably be easier,” Jordan told her. “A front-page story certainly would set the record straight.”

“Why don’t you start at the very beginning and tell me the whole thing,” Laurie urged.

“You’ll hate me. You’ll think I’m stupid and vain.”

“I doubt it. I think math class is stupid and I think Jennifer is vain. Can you top those?”

Jordan took a deep breath, rested her chin in her palm, and started, “It all started last summer when I came home from vacation. The whole trip was nothing but a bore!” Jordan continued with her story, slowly at first, and then with more confidence. She left nothing out. She told how she’d tried to make Jennifer jealous over an imaginary boyfriend, of stealing Ryan’s photograph, of her panic when she discovered he was moving in with her, of all her missed opportunities to set the record straight. She even told Laurie that she thought Ryan was a good friend, and that she didn’t feel romantic about him at all. “Maybe it’s because we were babies together,” she said, wrapping up her story. “I mean we practically used the same teething ring. He’s more like a cousin to me. I like him, but not in the same way you like Wade.”

For a long moment Laurie didn’t speak. She just sat there wide-eyed. When she did speak, she shook her head first, as if to clear it. “This sounds like a soap opera.”

“Well, it isn’t. It’s real life.
My
life.”

“And Ryan doesn’t know?”

“He doesn’t even have a clue.”

“Maybe you should give up journalism and take up acting.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jordan chewed on her bottom lip. “What am I going to do, Laurie?”

“Well, first off, you don’t have to worry about me saying a word about this to anyone. Not even to Wade,” Laurie told her.

“Thank you. I really would like as few people as possible to know about this. At least for the time being.”

“But I honestly don’t know how to make everybody back off from ignoring Ryan. Maybe if I put out the word that you no longer care about him . . .”

“No,” Jordan interrupted. “No more lies. If I say I don’t care about him anymore, it’ll just sound like I’m jealous. The truth is, he was never my boyfriend.”

Laurie squared her shoulders and looked Jordan right in the eye. “Then there’s only one way to set the record straight.”

Jordan let out a shuddering breath. “I know. I have to tell Ryan.”

“I don’t see any way around it, Jordan,” Laurie said.

“Me, either. And believe me, I’ve tried to get around it for months.”

“Maybe he’ll laugh it off. He must like you as a friend.”

“Yeah. He thinks I’m a great friend,” Jordan said sullenly. “That’s the worst part. First his father. Now me.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just some personal stuff he’s told me.” Jordan stood up. “Well, thanks for understanding, Laurie.”

“No problem,” Laurie said with a quick, open smile. “That’s what friends are for.”

Jordan left the library drained, but knowing she’d done the right thing. At least it was a start.

Now Jordan had a new problem—how was she going to tell Ryan? She just couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him. There had to be another way.

When she came home from school, she waited in her room until she heard him come in from basketball practice. She watched him through a crack in her door as he wearily climbed the stairs and went into his room. Her heart raced as she quickly crossed to her desk drawer, fumbled through stacks of papers and keepsakes, and took out her diary. Clutching it tightly, she marched next door and knocked.

When Ryan said, “Come in,” she entered. The room was darkened, the shades still drawn against the slanting sunlight. Ryan lay on the bottom bunk, tossing a baseball upward to where it thumped methodically on the slats of the overhead bunk. Jamey was at Little League practice. Ryan glanced at her. “If you’ve come to cheer me up, don’t waste your time. It was another lousy day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he sighed. “Look, Jordan, I don’t mean to dump on you. It’s not your fault the kids don’t like me.”

She took a deep breath. “You’re wrong. It is my fault.”

He stopped tossing the baseball and gave her a surprised look. Then he sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “What do you mean?” Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it might jump out of her chest. Her hands shook, but she tossed the diary at him. He caught it, asking, “What’s this?”

“It’s my diary. I want you to read it.”

“Aw, come on, Jordan—don’t you think I have enough to read without going through your diary?” Ryan flipped it back to her. “I don’t read girls’ diaries.”

She tossed it onto the bed. “Read this one. It’ll explain a lot of things for you.” She backed toward the door. “When you’re finished, you’ll find me in the park.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. She scarcely made it down the stairs and outside.

Jordan began to jog. Blindly, she ran up familiar streets and past neighborhood houses. She jogged until her lungs hurt and her muscles ached.

At the park, she ran out of steam. A men’s league was playing baseball in the ballpark.

Children climbed on the jungle gyms at the playground. Jordan sat on a bench and traced patterns in the dirt with the toe of her running shoe. And she waited.

The sun sank lower. The ball game ended. New groups of children replaced the ones who had been playing earlier. She told herself, “He isn’t coming.” What seemed like hours later, she caught sight of him in the distance. He was walking slowly. The closer he got, the more uneasy she felt. When he arrived, she couldn’t meet his eyes. She was so ashamed.

“I put your diary in your room,” he said. His voice was tight.

“I’m so sorry, Ryan,” Jordan said.

“I’ll just bet you are!” he said harshly.

“Ryan, . . . Please believe me. I never meant for it to go so far. Even now, I don’t know how it did. I—I didn’t mean to make up so many lies. But after the first one, I had to come up with another. And then another. And then it just kept building and I couldn’t stop it.”

“You could have stopped it any time you wanted!” His face had gone red. “All you had to do was tell me the truth as soon as I got here. We’d have had a good laugh and the whole mess would have never happened.”

“Be serious,” she almost shouted. “I didn’t know you. Or anything about you. How could I have told you? Would you have laughed?” She paused and he said nothing. “I didn’t think so at the time, either.”

“Then why did you tell me now?”

“Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the kids at school from taking my side . . . from trying to help me keep you as my boyfriend.”

“I guess you just ran out of lies.”

His accusation stung. “That’s not fair. I’m telling you now. Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” Ryan shook his head. “You pretended to be my friend. You acted like you cared about me, then you dumped all over me.” His face turned gray. “You’re no better than my father.”

She wanted to hurl herself at him and scream, “Stop it! I am your friend!” But she couldn’t move. It was as if she were glued to the ground. “No, I’m not . . .” By now, tears were running down her cheeks.

Either he didn’t see them or he didn’t care. “Well, don’t worry about me, Jordan Starling. I can get along perfectly fine without you and without your friends.” He turned and started off.

“Ryan! Wait, Ryan, please . . . I’m sorry.” But Ryan didn’t look back. Jordan was left standing all alone in the dust.

“Beth has an announcement to make,” Mrs. Starling said over a home-cooked dish of bubbling hot lasagna.

Jordan glanced up and looked at Ryan. He sat hunched sullenly over his plate. The she looked at Mrs. Elliot, who flashed a bright, happy smile. “I’ve put a deposit on an apartment and sent for my furniture from Virginia,” she announced.

Jamey gasped and let his fork clatter to the table. “You’re moving?”

“As soon as possible,” Mrs. Elliot confirmed. “Don’t you think I’ve sponged off you all long enough?” Her tone was teasing.

Jamey’s attention turned immediately to Ryan. “But you’re staying until school’s out, right? Just like you told me.”

“No. I’m moving, too.” Ryan didn’t even look up when he said the words. A surprised hush fell over the table and Jordan felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

Mrs. Elliot gasped with surprise and asked, “But I thought you wanted to finish out the school year at Martin. What changed your mind?”

Tears pooled in Jordan’s eyes. She knew why he wanted to leave.

“But you can’t move!” Jamey protested loudly. “You said you were staying—”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind,” Ryan snapped. “I want to go with my mother.” He scraped his chair backward abruptly. “In fact, I’m going upstairs to start packing right now. The sooner we move, the better.”

“B—But . . . ,” Jamey wailed, scurrying after Ryan. “You promised! You said you’d stay. Don’t go, Ryan. If you stay, I’ll let you keep my snake.”

Uncomfortable silence settled in the kitchen.

“What in the world got into him?” Mrs. Elliot asked.

“Jordan,” Mrs. Starling asked, “Do you know what’s happening?”

Jordan stared ahead of her and just shook her head.

“I can’t understand it,” Mrs. Elliot began. “All he talked about was completing the basketball season. What changed his mind?”

Mrs. Starling shrugged. “Who knows? Look, my husband will be back in a few days. Maybe he can get Ryan to open up.”

Panic squeezed Jordan’s heart. More than anything she didn’t want her parents knowing the awful truth about her and how she’d hurt Ryan. What would they think of her? How would they ever forgive her?

“I don’t know. . . ,” Mrs. Elliot said with a shake of her head. “Ryan’s not too receptive about anything right now. I think he’s very confused and hurt.”

“Maybe all Ryan needs is time,” Jordan heard her mother say. “Maybe he simply couldn’t face the idea of your leaving him behind.”

Mrs. Elliot furrowed her brow. “I just don’t understand it.”

Unable to sit still any longer, Jordan left both mothers and retreated to her room. She lay across her bed and cried a fresh river of tears.

Ryan didn’t return to school and Jordan explained that he’d decided to move the next weekend and was helping his mother set up their new apartment—which was the truth. Jennifer grumbled, “Well, he could at least call and tell me good-bye.”

Laurie said nothing. Jordan realized what a good friend Laurie was. She knew the truth, but she kept it to herself.

When Mr. Starling arrived home in the middle of the week, he tried to talk to Ryan, but the boy refused to say anything more than he wanted to leave when his mother did. Jamey moped and complained, but he had no luck changing Ryan’s mind either.

On Saturday morning, amid the hustle and bustle of loading Mrs. Elliot’s car, Jordan refused to leave her room. She listened to the sounds of lifting and moving drift through the house. She heard Ryan and her father making trips up and down the stairs with boxes and suitcases and hangers of clothing. Jordan’s stomach knotted when her mother finally rapped on her door.

“Come in,” her voice said.
Go away!
Her mind yelled.

Mrs. Starling eased into the room. “They’re about to leave.”

“So?”

“So I think you should stop hiding in your room and come down and say good-bye.”

“I’m not hiding,” Jordan said stubbornly. “I’ve got homework.”

Mrs. Starling lowered herself onto the bed, and Jordan felt her mother’s eyes on the back of her head. “Can we talk?” her mother asked.

Jordan’s mouth went dry. Slowly she swiveled in her desk chair and looked at her mother. “What about?”

Mrs. Starling pursed her mouth in deep concentration. “You know, Jordan, I don’t like to pry into my kids’ lives. I believe in letting you and Jamey work out your own problems. But I would always want you to come to me if you came up against something you couldn’t handle.”

“I would, Mom.”

“It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to figure out that something’s going on between you and Ryan.”

Jordan licked her lips nervously. “I—I don’t know what you mean . . .”

“You know why he’s decided to move with his mother and not complete the school year at Martin, don’t you?”

Jordan knew she couldn’t lie. But the truth was stuck in her throat. If she told her mother, she knew she’d start crying and never be able to stop. “I—I . . .”

Mrs. Starling held up her hand. “I didn’t come in here to pump you. In the long run, it’s probably best that Ryan go with his mother now, anyway. They need each other right now. I won’t ask you a lot of prying questions, honey. But I do want to let you know I’m here for you if you ever want to talk about it.”

A lump swelled in Jordan’s throat. “Thanks.”

Her mother sat for a few moments, then rose and headed to the door. “But remember, Beth is still my best friend and we intend to see a lot of each other. In fact, your father has rented a cabin on the lake for the week of spring break and Beth and Ryan will be joining us for the vacation.”

“That’s great,” Jordan said without much enthusiasm.

“Jordan, I know I’ve made a big fuss over you and Ryan being playmates and babies together. Maybe too much of a fuss. The two of you were really adorable together. But I can tell by looking at you now that you’re not a kid any more.”

“Yeah. I’ll probably need a new bathing suit for the lake,” she said with a self-conscious tug on the bottom of her shirt. What was her mother getting at anyway?

Mrs. Starling reached for the doorknob, paused, and asked in cautious spurts, “This thing with you and Ryan . . . it has nothing to do with your liking him . . . I mean, as a boyfriend, does it?”

Jordan felt color creep up her neck. “No,” she said. “I—I like him. But not in that way.”

Her mother smiled. “Good. Boyfriends come and go, Jordan. But friends are forever.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jordan said.

“Now come downstairs and say good-bye,” Mrs. Starling urged. Jordan couldn’t say no.

On the porch, Jordan hung back, tucked slightly behind her parents and Jamey. Everyone waved as Mrs. Elliot’s car backed out of the driveway. Ryan sat stiffly in the front seat. Mrs. Elliot honked as the car disappeared around the corner. Ryan never looked back.

Mr. Starling slipped his arm around his wife’s shoulders saying, “She’s only going across town, honey. Besides, spring break will be here before you know it.”

“I know,” Mrs. Starling sniffed. “But I will miss her.”

As Mrs. Starling turned to go inside, she stopped at the door to stare down at her prized stone jar of brilliant red geraniums. The jar had stood by the porch railing for as long as Jordan could remember, holding whatever flowers were blooming in season. The jar had been carefully turned toward the brick wall of the house so that the jagged crack that ran its length was hidden as much as possible. “What happened?” Mrs. Starling cried in dismay.

Jamey tried to hide behind Jordan. “I accidentally hit it with my bat when I missed a ball Ryan pitched to me.”

“Oh, Jamey. . . ,” Mrs. Starling said. But Jordan barely heard her mother and her brother. She stood gazing at the ugly crack. It exactly matched the one running through her heart.