One or Two Things I Learned About Love (29 page)

Connor’s called and texted me 16 times today. He wants us to talk but I told him I need a few days chill time before I see him again. You don’t go on a diet and then walk straight into a bakery. Connor’s really really sorry. Really. Nomi says he should be. Connor says he knows what he did was really stupid (let’s not leave out illegal, too) but he only did it because he loves me so much. Does he? Is that what love means to Connor? Not the breaking and entering, the not trusting me to even cross the street without trying to betray him. If you follow that logic the next thing is to lock me up in a cage. Nomi’s wrong – electronic tagging wouldn’t be good enough. He’d know where I am, but he wouldn’t know what I’m doing. Or with who. It would make him go nuts.

Was feeling a little like you do after Christmas. All that build-up and excitement and running around and then you’re left with a pile of dead pine needles on the floor and a bag full of used wrapping paper. Couldn’t stop thinking about Connor. So I watched Louie’s DVD. It’s all clips of videos he made of the Mob over the last few years. The Christmas we all went to chop down our own trees. (And discovered that if the settling of America had depended on us, we’d still be living on ships in the harbour.) The Halloween party where everyone came as their favourite movie character and Scorsese came as the lion in
The Wizard of Oz
. (He ate his mane.) The time we went tubing. The time Ely’s pick-up set itself on fire. Nomi trying to carry her hundred-pound pumpkin. Grady asleep on the porch. Ely and me dressed as vegetables. All stuff like that. It definitely cheered me up.

I’m
actually happy to be back at school. I think because it’s so normal. I almost feel like I’ve been in some bizarre country all summer eating crickets and riding around on wildebeests, where I didn’t really get the rules. And now I’m back in the land of pizza and automobiles and I know what to expect. So even though it’s boring and about as exotic as cornflakes, it’s kind of a relief.

Connor still texting. He says I owe it to him to give him another chance. So he did something stupid. Everybody makes mistakes. And of course that’s totally true. People do stupid things all the time. I’m surrounded by people who are always doing stupid things. I do stupid things. But what Connor did wasn’t in the same league as setting fire to something when you barbecue. Or dressing up like a carrot. Or backing into the mailbox. Or even putting all your dinosaurs in the washing machine. What Connor did was wrong. The really weird thing is I don’t feel that mad at him any more. Not
that
mad. I kind of feel more tired than angry. I told him I’ll meet him on Friday after school.

It’s not just the breaking and entering that was wrong. How can you love somebody if you can’t trust him? How can he love you if he doesn’t trust
you
?

Nomi says “love” is obviously one of those words that means different things to different people. Like “fun”. Or “important”. Maybe boys shouldn’t come with a manual. Maybe they should come with a dictionary.

Ten texts, five emails and a message on my Facebook page saying
Please, please, please
from Connor. I’m not answering, but not because I’m not tempted. I keep imagining him saying
Please, please, please
and the look on his face when I say I forgive him. That smile. Like just seeing me makes him happy. Only then I see that other look on his face. The one when he’s mad at me for nothing. And it’s like just seeing him makes me unhappy.

Part
of me just wants to forget it all and go back to the way things were with Connor. Or at least the way I thought they were. But then I start thinking about the way things really were. Thinking’s like potato chips. The more you do of it, the more you want to do. When you open a bag of chips and you swear you’re only going to have a handful and instead you eat the whole thing. I can’t seem to stop. Thinking, not eating potato chips. So now even the things I thought were OK or pretty normal are starting to look not OK and nowhere near normal. Like the way Connor always checked to see if I was where I said I’d be. How he just popped up at pottery and yoga and Gran’s like that. People disappearing on me from Facebook. Connor having a pretty good working knowledge of my addresses and phone numbers. (He must’ve spent practically as much time on my phone and in my email account as I do.) And getting all warped if I saw my friends. I thought I understood about him being jiggy and everything but now I’m not sure I do. He’s the only person I know who acts like that. (Well, him and Barry Lincoln I guess.) I’m not saying there aren’t other people like that, just that I don’t know them. The Mob guys might get upset if you finished all the cookies, but not if you said hello to a kid in your art class. It’s embarrassing, Connor not wanting me to see my friends. Especially since I’m pretty sure they all knew. Comments have been made. And if they didn’t know before the break-in, they sure as sunset know now. I can’t decide which of us is the biggest dope. Connor or me. Do I really want to go back to that?

But it wasn’t all sulks and silence and me walking into things. What about all the good times we had? All the fun? We had a lot of fun. We had really good times. When I wasn’t bouncing up and down on the rusty trampoline of love, I was definitely dancing on its silver clouds. That’s my problem. I can’t forget all that. So one minute I feel like if I’d caught him coming in the Slevkas’ window I would’ve slammed it down on his fingers. The next minute all I can think of is when we fell in the lake. And our picnics at the secret beach. And how he carried me on his back when I hurt my ankle. And all the sweet or funny things he said and did. Maybe love doesn’t make you a better person. Maybe it does just make you nuts.

Connor
sent me a text every hour today.
I love you
. Every hour. I do believe he thinks he loves me, but like Nomi said, you don’t really know what he means by that. I don’t remember anybody ever defining love as a burning desire to hunt down the other person like you’re an FBI agent and they’re a terrorist. And in all the really romantic scenes I can think of, the guy never says to the girl that now they’re in love she can’t go shopping with her friends or walk down the street with her eyes open any more. He never puts his arms around her and says, “Darling, now that you’re mine you can’t hang out with anybody else ever again. No, not even to go bowling.” Also, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of love giving you migraines.

Goodnight text from Connor. He was watching for falling stars. He said remember all the times we sat out watching them together? And what about all our plans? He misses me and he can’t wait to see me tomorrow. I texted back
I miss you too
. But I forced myself not to look for any stars dropping out of the sky. I thought I loved him. Do I? If I do love him, does that mean I’m not allowed to like anybody else?

We
met in Shep’s Diner. At the back booth. Connor looked great. (Much better than the last time I saw him. Spray starch isn’t really a good look. Not even for someone as cute as he is.) My heart did a double cascade when I saw him. I was so happy that I forgot about being cool for a minute and ran up and kissed him. He kissed me back. I’d almost forgotten how good he smells. I felt like I could’ve stayed in that hug for ever. But we were blocking the aisle, so we had to sit down. Connor tried to pull me into the seat beside him, but I reminded him that we were supposed to be talking. Seriously. Not pretending nothing had happened. So he sat on one side and I sat on the other. He asked how I was and I asked how he was. How school was. All that kind of thing. Then we got down to business. He said again how sorry he is about what happened and how much he’s missed me and how he doesn’t know why he acted like such an idiot. He just can’t seem to help himself. He loves me so much. Sitting there with our feet kind of touching under the table and everything, it was just the way it used to be. I kept thinking that it wasn’t as if we hadn’t had fights before. And we’d always patched things up. Hadn’t we? Like people do. Only there was a difference this time. This time I didn’t feel guilty. Not even a tiny bit. This time I felt that I was completely in the right. I didn’t have any excuses for Connor left. Only Connor didn’t know that. He thought it really was the way it used to be. So after he’d said how sorry he was some more and we’d laughed about Mr Janofski in his pyjamas, I must’ve said I forgave him. Because then he said that none of this would’ve happened if I’d told him the truth about where I was going to be in the first place. He’d been rubbing his foot against mine. I pulled mine away. I said are you saying it was all my fault? Connor said what he was saying was that it wasn’t all his fault. I said I’m not the one who broke into somebody’s house, you know. He said but he wouldn’t have done that if I’d stayed at home like I said I was going to do. Instead of lying. What’s he supposed to do if I lie to him? I can’t really get mad at him for being upset about that. Only it looked like I could. I might have said I forgave him, but I could tell that I was still mad. More than
still
mad. Now I was mad for all the times that I didn’t get mad, too. All the times he wouldn’t talk to me or was angry over nothing and wouldn’t even tell me what it was. All the times he made me feel like I was a horrible person. It wasn’t just the Slevkas’ he broke into. He broke into my heart. I felt like somebody finally turned the lights on. So at last I could see that I wasn’t where I thought I was at all. I thought I was in some kind of paradise, but really I was in this tiny, dark cell. I didn’t yell or anything, though. Actually, I felt really calm. I said what difference does it make, Connor? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was hanging out with my friends. What’d you think I was going to do all weekend? Sit in my room? He said yes. That’s what I’d said, and that’s what he thought I was going to do. Like that was perfectly reasonable. I said but if you didn’t get all wound up every time I wanted to hang out with my friends I would’ve told you. He said exactly. I didn’t tell him because if I did he would’ve been upset and then I would’ve stayed home like I should have. I know that puppets aren’t real, so this could never happen, but I felt like I was a puppet who suddenly looked up and noticed the strings and this dude standing over her making them move. And I knew exactly what I had to do. I said, “You know what, Connor? I’ve finally figured out what the difference between a car and a relationship is. Besides the seats and the engine and everything.” I stood up. I think he thought I was going to come around and sit with him because he moved over a little. And he kind of smiled like he thought I was teasing him. “OK, I give up, Hildy. What’s the difference between a car and a relationship?” So I told him. Only a car has a passenger. He wanted to know what that meant. I said it meant that in a relationship both of you are responsible for driving. So even though he acted like a jerk and pushed me around, I didn’t stop him. But I was stopping him now. “We’re done,” I said. “I’m going home. And if you’re interested, I’m spending the night with my friends.” I took the phone he bought me out of my bag and put it on the table. Don’t call me ’cause I won’t call you.