Boy by Blake Nelson

Chapter 4

That's probably another thing I should mention: I was one of the popular kids at Evergreen. This was partly because Claude Leon, my best friend and tennis partner, was the most popular person in my class and had been since fourth grade. And also, it was just how things worked out. I was good at sports. I dressed a certain way. I lived in a certain neighborhood. So those were the people I naturally hung out with.

Once the shock of her brother's suicide wore off, my friends forgot about Antoinette. She was far away from us socially, being new and unknown and not being friends with anyone we were friends with. I never did tell anyone about going to her house the day of the suicide.

When things returned to normal, our group went back to our usual business of goofing around, having fun, and thinking up new ways to hook up with each other. In terms of romance, I had lagged behind my other friends. Plenty of girls liked me, or would have liked me if I liked them, but I was shy about these things. I hadn't figured out how to close the deal and get an actual girlfriend.

Claude, who had been with super-hot Petra Roberts most of freshman year, had recently paired up with Hanna Sloan, who was the other great beauty of our grade. Maybe that was what held me back: watching my best friend work his way through all the most desirable girls in our school.

Now, though, as we were getting further into sophomore year, people began plotting to get me a girlfriend. "It's a waste of a cute guy to have Gavin not be with someone," Hanna told people.

After a lot of discussions, it was decided Grace Anderson was the girl I should be with. Grace was per- fect for me, they said, never mind that we'd known each other since kindergarten and had barely spoken. That didn't matter. Grace was getting more into boys now, and she was very cute, and also certain parts of her had "grown" recently. Most important: she and Hanna were practically best friends. And since Claude and I were best friends, it made for a logical match.

It was Claude who first brought it up. "Hey, Gavin," he said, one day in the cafeteria. "What do you think of Grace?"

"Grace Anderson?" I said. "She's okay."

"Just okay?" said Claude. "Dude, she's hot."

Some of our other guy friends were sitting with us. They agreed. There was much murmuring about the hotness of Grace.

"I'm not sure she's my type," I said.

"What's your type?" said someone else.

That was the thing. I was a sophomore. I didn't really have a type. Not that I knew of.

"You should go out with her," said Claude. "With Grace?"

"Yeah," he said. "She likes you."

"How do you know?"

"Hanna told me."

I shrugged.

"You should like her," repeated Claude. "She's cute.She's nice. She's got a hot body. What else do you want?" The other guys agreed. I looked around at them. They were all nodding. They had talked about it. The girls had talked about it.

So that was that: Grace and I would be together. I was tall and blond and good at tennis. Grace was cute and was friends with Hanna. Riding my bike home, I resolved to make it happen. I would ask Grace out on a date. And then I would ask her to be my girlfriend.

But that night, in my room, I found myself thinking about Antoinette. She wasn't nearly as good-looking as Grace. And it wasn't like I really knew her. But she'd stuck in my head. It had been a month since her brother died. And several weeks since our conversation in the breezeway. But I'd never stopped thinking about her.