Top Ten by Katie Cotugno
Ryan felt his blood pressure rise remembering it, purposefully pushed it out of his mind; if he thought about it too much he got really angry, and he didn’t like being angry all the time. He’d trusted her. She’d screwed him. There wasn’t really anything to say about it other than that.
Instead of dwelling on it, Ryan made himself comfortable at the table, helping himself to some quesadilla and challenging Sam’s boyfriend, Ben, to a game of tabletop football with a packet of artificial sweetener. He liked Chelsea’s friends, in general; certain people would probably think they were immature, but they were chill and funny and easy to fit in with. Most importantly of all, they’d slipped neatly into the hole left by hockey this year. Not every conversation had to be a deep philosophical unburdening.
“Erin Christopher is having a party tonight,” Chelsea reported when she returned a little while later, swiping the last bit of mozzarella stick off the platter and smiling at him. “You in?”
Ryan hesitated. He’d kind of been hoping they could go back to her house and hang out a little; truth be told, lately he was feeling a little partied out. Every once in a while he missed just hanging out and talking one-on-one with somebody, the way he used to with—with—
“A party sounds great,” he said quickly, and took a giant sip of his Coke.
They signaled the waitress and got themselves organized, spent twenty minutes dividing up the check. “So hey,” Chelsea said as they headed out into the parking lot, damp pavement shimmering under the lampposts, that too-bright LED glow. “You were starting to say something earlier.”
Ryan blinked at her, surprised. “I was?”
“Yeah,” Chelsea said, unlocking her car door. “About the doctor?”
“Oh.” Ryan hesitated, not exactly sure what to tell her. It was kind of crummy of him—after all, he’d literally just been thinking that he wished they could have an actual conversation without anyone else around—but now that the chance was presenting itself he felt dumb and weirdly shy. “I guess I’m just worried, you know?” he said finally, settling himself in her passenger seat. “About what’s going to happen when I get cleared to play again.”
“Like, if you’ll be able to keep up with everybody else?” Chelsea asked.
“I—no, actually.” Ryan made a face at her. “But thanks for putting that in my brain. I guess more like, with concussion stuff, or whatever?” He thought again about mentioning the headaches, then decided against it. “I don’t know. I’m being stupid.”
Chelsea shrugged. “You’re not,” she said, putting the car in reverse, bracing her arm on the back of his seat in a move that made him feel oddly like she was the boy and he was the girl. “But I do think you’re freaking out over nothing.”
“You do?” Ryan blinked. Nobody had ever accused him of that before. It occurred to him that he didn’t actually like it very much. “I am?”
“I do and you are,” Chelsea said, all confidence. It was one of the things Ryan liked most about her, normally. “But you’re Ryan McCullough, you know? You’ve got this.” She tapped the brakes as they pulled out onto the boulevard, leaned over to peck him on the mouth. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Ryan smiled, leaned his head back in the passenger seat. “Yeah,” he said, when he realized she was waiting for an answer, telling himself there was no reason to feel lonely all of a sudden. “You’re probably right.”
GABBY
Gabby was sitting in her favorite library carrel by the window when Shay came through the door in dark jeans and a tank top with straps just thick enough to pass dress code, her hair in a long dark braid over her shoulder. Seniors were allowed to leave campus during their lunch periods, so a lot of times she ran out and brought something back for Gabby and her to share: sandwiches or bagels or once, memorably, soup from the diner, which leaked all over the inside of her purse and left her car smelling like chicken noodle for the better part of six months.
“Hey,” Gabby said now, hurriedly closing her laptop. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Shay to know about the UCLA program, exactly—more like she didn’t want anyone to know about it. She didn’t want to open it up to debate. There was no way she could go; Gabby knew that already. Still, for some reason she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since Mr. Chan had mentioned it the other day, clutching it like a talisman in her sweaty, anxious palm.
Shay wasn’t interested in snooping over her shoulder, though. “I got in off the waitlist,” she announced, dropping her bag on the desktop. Her eyes were wide and shining. “I finally got the email.”
“To Columbia?” Gabby scraped her chair back with a clatter. “You did?” She let out a delighted cackle and jumped out of her seat, ignoring the nasty look from the librarian and throwing her arms around Shay’s neck. “I mean, of course you did, of course you were always going to get in. Shay! You’re a champion.”
“I am kind of a champion,” Shay agreed, preening goofily, but Gabby could tell from the fall of her shoulders how relieved she was. Gabby was relieved, too, letting out a breath she’d been holding more or less since she and Shay had started dating a year ago: Columbia was literally the best possible scenario, only two hours away from Colson on the train. Sure, Shay had always talked like they’d stay together even once she left for school, but Gabby wasn’t an idiot. She knew it would be way harder to make it work if Shay was at one of the conservatory programs she’d auditioned for in Chicago or even Boston. New York City, though, felt strangely manageable. New York City felt safe.
“We should celebrate,” Gabby said.
“So weird,” Shay said with a grin. “I was thinking the same thing.”
She picked up Gabby’s backpack and led her back into the stacks, the dusty old nonfiction section where nobody ever went unless they wanted to talk on their cell phones or fool around. “Top ten places for a clandestine makeout?” Gabby joked.
“Huh?” asked Shay, and Gabby shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. Shay made a face.
“Nobody’s looking,” she promised, curling her hand around Gabby’s waist and pulling her closer.
“I know.” Gabby felt herself blush. Despite the fact that their very first encounter had involved a semi-public makeout, it had taken Gabby a little time to be okay with Shay being affectionate with her when they were at school or out in town, kissing her hello in the mornings or nuzzling her neck in the coffee line. Colson was a pretty progressive place to grow up, as suburbs went, but as somebody whose entire life’s work was basically to be looked at as little as humanly possible, Gabby still couldn’t always shake the feeling of being on display.
Shay, though. Shay never seemed to mind. Gabby had never met someone who seemed so preternaturally comfortable in her own skin before. She’d had three different girlfriends before Gabby; she’d played the classical cello since she was four. She’d read more books than Gabby could ever keep track of and knew exactly how smart she was, loved nothing more than to debate and spar and argue—occasionally whether Gabby wanted to or not. Sometimes being around her could be the tiniest bit exhausting, that constant pressure for Gabby to always be the smartest, sharpest, most articulate version of herself. Every once in a while it made her miss Ryan, whose house motto was basically “go along to get along”—and who liked a dopey YouTube video more than anyone Gabby had ever met.
Not that she spent her time thinking about Ryan these days. Their friendship had gone the way of the dinosaurs that night outside the ice center almost five months ago, after which they’d extricated themselves from each other’s lives with a totality so breathtakingly neat it made Gabby wonder if they’d ever been friends at all. To look at them now, you’d think they’d never even met. But that was high school, Gabby reminded herself. This kind of stuff happened; friends came and went. And if occasionally it made her want to scream like her heart had been ripped right out of her stupid chest, well, it was nobody’s business but her own.
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Gabby smirked. “Oh, they are, huh?” Lanie was Shay’s older sister, who lived in Hoboken with her IT-guy husband and two little kids; according to Shay, she used to be really cool but was now the kind of person who sniffed her baby’s butt in restaurants. “You going with?”
“I mean, I would, but I don’t want to.” Shay grinned. “Can you tell your mom and dad you’re staying at Michelle’s?”
The intention in Shay’s voice was unmistakable, but even if it hadn’t been, the careful way her thumb was stroking along the sensitive skin on the inside of Gabby’s wrist would have been enough to give her away. Gabby felt a slow smile spread across her face, pure anticipation; for once in her life, she didn’t feel nervous at all.
“Yeah,” she said. “I definitely can.”
GABBY
Saturday night, by the combined miracle of lying and luck, Gabby found herself alone with Shay in an empty house, watching Shay whisk together carbonara with terrifying efficiency while Gabby fidgeted and tried not to swallow her own tongue.
“I think you should do it,” Shay said, oblivious. She meant the summer program. Gabby had made the mistake of mentioning it—just as a throwaway, isn’t that a cool funny thing I will never really do—and now Shay wouldn’t let it go. “Really, Gabby-Girl, I think it would be good for you.”
“Good for me?” Gabby asked, making a face. “I don’t even want to go, remember? Also, you sound like my guidance counselor.”
Shay grinned. “Mood killer?”
“No,” Gabby said immediately, then looked down at the cheese grater so Shay wouldn’t see her blush. “Seriously though, this is overkill,” she heard herself repeat for the third time, gesturing around them at the food and the dimmed lights and two juice glasses full of siphoned wine. “You don’t have to, like, romance me.”
“I definitely have to romance you,” Shay said, shoving a mass of hair out of her face and frowning at the pasta. She was wearing more makeup than usual too, a slick of deep, purply lipstick that matched the wine. Gabby shivered and grated more cheese.
“Wait,” Shay said, pointing the whisk at Gabby. “Hang on. Do you mean I don’t have to romance you in a ‘Shay, I’m embarrassed’ way, or a ‘Shay, I want to skip dinner’ way?” She looked startled, as if the second meaning had never occurred to her. She’d refused to stand still for even a second since Gabby got here, flitting around the kitchen like a very tall, very nervous bird. She was wearing her heels and a strappy black top Gabby had never seen before.
Gabby laughed, and suddenly it was easy. “Shay, I want to skip dinner.”
Shay blew out a long breath and reached over to chug her wine. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She led Gabby upstairs by the hand, the whole house silent and breathless and waiting. When Gabby had first come over she’d thought it looked like something out of a Wes Anderson movie, all dark wood trim and hidden cupboards and glass doorknobs; if you craned your neck you could see the Hudson River from the window in the third-floor bath. There were knickknacks on every available surface, antique vases and a giant kaleidoscope and a marble bust of some Victorian countess holding court on the built-ins beside the TV. The clutter would have made Gabby’s mom insane, but Gabby herself kind of loved it.
Of course, that could have been because Shay lived here.
Her room was up on the third floor like a treehouse, fluffy white duvet cover and an ancient papasan chair loaded with pillows, her cello leaning up against one corner in its case. “You know you don’t have to, right?” she asked when they reached her bedroom door. Her eyes were mascara-wide.
Gabby laughed. “What, you think you’re pressuring me?” They’d been together a year now, but for whatever reason Shay had decided that since she was a senior and had slept with girls before it meant she was the one in pursuit here, wheedling Gabby to take her bra off at the end of prom night. Standing here in front of Shay and her fancy heels, Gabby kind of thought she had that backward. “Lie down,” she said, and for just a minute she wondered if this was what it was like to be Ryan, talking girls out of their clothes.
The two of them landed in a heap on the mattress, both giggling as Shay wriggled out of her dark, skinny jeans. The first time Gabby had pulled Shay’s shirt off, she’d been expecting to find grown-up underwear beneath, satin or lace or all-black, but instead Shay’s bra had been neon pink and printed with peace signs. It made Gabby feel deeply, frighteningly fond of her. “Nice bottoms,” she said now, helping Shay off with them—baby blue with tiny pugs.
“Thanks,” Shay murmured. “Keeping the romance alive.” Her lipstick was smudged all down her chin but somehow it only made her look better. Gabby’s heart was kicking in a door deep inside her chest.
“Is this okay?” she asked after a few minutes, resting her cheek against Shay’s inner thigh. “I mean, am I doing it right?”
Shay reached down and traced the line of Gabby’s jaw gently. “Yeah, Gabby,” she promised, her voice pleasingly breathless. “You’re doing it right.”
Afterward they hid out under the covers and watched Netflix, sharing a carton of ice cream Shay had scavenged from downstairs. “I kind of love you,” Shay said quietly, lacing their fingers together. Her nail polish was chipping, a floss-thin ring around her thumb.
Gabby propped herself up on one elbow. “Kind of?”
“Not kind of,” Shay amended. “I—yeah. Not kind of.”
“That’s convenient, then,” Gabby mumbled, burying her face in Shay’s warm, lavender-smelling neck and closing her eyes, wanting to stay here forever. “Because I love you back.”
RYAN
In a cavernous function room at a Knights of Columbus hall on the other side of Colson, Ryan was attempting to finagle himself a second slice of birthday cake from a cater waiter when Chelsea put her carefully manicured hands on his shoulders. “Come on,” she said cheerfully, then sang along with the song the DJ was blaring: “‘I will teach you the Electric Slide.’”
Ryan laughed, tilting his head back to look at her. “You will, huh?”
“I will!” Chelsea crowed, pulling him toward the middle of the scrum on the dance floor. The DJ swirled purple lights around the crowded parquet, illuminating a sea of girls in tight dresses and dudes in badly-knotted ties. A Happy Sweet Sixteen, Talia banner was strung up along one wall. “It’s electric.”
“Boogie-woogie-woogie,” Ryan answered dutifully, but he was smiling. He knew the Electric Slide, actually—he and his mom used to do it in their socks in the living room when his dad was out, the two of them eating popcorn for dinner and watching Finding Nemo on DVD—but he let Chelsea show him anyhow. He liked that she wanted to: it was maybe the thing he liked most about her, how she was confident enough to let herself look silly in front of other people in the name of a good time.
Well, Ryan thought, gazing at the lacy blue dress she was wearing, her strappy sandals. There were some other things he liked more than that, possibly.
“Ryan,” Chelsea said, and Ryan realized he hadn’t been listening.
“Sorry,” he amended. “What did you just say?”
Chelsea rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling. “I saaaaaaaid, do you want to get out of here and take a walk with me?”
The DJ had switched over to a Taylor Swift dance remix; the air smelled like body spray and a little bit like sweat. Chelsea was wearing her glasses along with her dress and heels, which gave her a sexy librarian look he was really digging. “Yeah,” Ryan told her. “I definitely do.”
Chelsea took his hand and led him out past the bathrooms, down a dim, carpeted corridor and through a plate-glass door. The night air was chilly and wet-smelling. Out in the overgrown garden was a gazebo of indeterminate structural integrity that Ryan assumed was
“Why?” Chelsea frowned, shivering a little in the breeze. “I think it’s kind of romantic.”
“Yeah, no, it is,” Ryan corrected himself, shrugging out of his too-small sport coat and handing it over to her. “You’re right.” Secretly, though, he was wondering what Gabby might say about it—Top ten methods by which one might get brutally murdered at Knights of Columbus hall in Yorktown or top ten reasons traumatized patrons have asked for their deposits back. He wanted her to see it. He wished she was—
“Hey.” Chelsea climbed the short flight of steps up into the gazebo, leaned against the white wooden railing. Ryan backed her up against a post. “How you doing over there?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and considering him.
“I’m good,” Ryan told her, then pulled her close by the lapels of her borrowed jacket and ducked his head down for a kiss.
GABBY
The fire alarm went off right at the end of seventh period, just as Gabby filled in the last bubble on her Scantron sheet; right away the whole room erupted into assorted sighs and murmurs, the squeak of rubber-tipped chair legs on the linoleum floor.
Gabby frowned. She hated fire drills the same way she hated assemblies, the noise and crowds and the slow-moving press of bodies, everybody trying to occupy the same space at once. “All right, people,” Mr. Caplan said, herding them out the door and into the rapidly filling hallway. “Orderly fashion, et cetera.”