I’m in a haze for the rest of the phone call—I think I say I love you, but I’m not sure.
Once I hang up, I see that Gavin is still on his phone, so I click straight to Instagram.
Eli posted a picture last night of a big group of people. I spot Kat right away with her gorgeous hair. Eli’s arm is around her. Eli’s arm is around her? What the hell? They are standing against a railing with blue water in the background. There are ten of them in the picture, all smiling and glamorous. Eli wrote, Amazing night in Monte Carlo. And then he even hashtagged it! #strikingitrich #noregrets #monaco. I don’t know what to do with this.
No regrets? No regrets?!
I can’t help it. I laugh.
He is having the best summer ever. With Instagram Sydney! And Kat!
He has no regrets? Not even about leaving me for an entire summer?
What else isn’t he regretting? Is he hooking up with Kat? Or Sydney? Or someone else?
Am I angry? I don’t even know.
The door opens and Gavin steps inside. He’s off the phone.
I jump off the couch.
“Omigod,” I say. “You are not going to believe this.”
“What?” he asks, not looking me in the eye.
“You are really not going to believe this. Let’s go outside.”
We step outside the office and close the door.
He forces a smile. “Is it that Kat is in Monte Carlo with your boyfriend right now?”
“Omigod, yes! I mean . . . what are the freakin’ chances?”
“How did that happen?” he asks.
“It seems like Eli met some Americans in Switzerland, and one of them is some girl named Sydney—”
“Kat’s best friend. She goes to our school.”
“Right. So Sydney went to the South of France with Eli and his cousin and they must have invited Kat . . . I don’t know. Small world?”
“You could say that.” He looks a bit shell-shocked.
I feel a bit shell-shocked.
“Should we . . . walk back?” I ask.
“Okay,” he says.
He puts his sunglasses back on. We walk in silence for a few minutes.
“Maybe they’ll fall in love,” I say.
He turns to me. “Who?”
“Eli and Kat!” I laugh.
If he cheats on me, then I don’t have to feel bad about any of this. Then I was justified. Am justified. If he’s cheating on me, then I’m doing nothing wrong,
“That is not going to happen,” Gavin snaps, and I see his neck muscles tense.
“Okay, so they probably won’t fall in love,” I say quickly. “But they could hook up. It’s not impossible. They’re all together, in a glamorous place, a million miles away from us. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment.”
Very easy.
I should know. So should Gavin.
He shakes his head.
“I’m kind of joking,” I say, “but wouldn’t that make everything easier? If they hook up, then we’re all even. We get to not feel guilty about this. Don’t you want to not feel guilty about this?”
“I don’t feel that guilty,” he says.
“You don’t?”
He stops and turns to me, but I can’t see his eyes. “I don’t. I don’t know why. I know I should. But I don’t.”
I’m not sure what he means. That he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with cheating? That he doesn’t care if Kat finds out? That he doesn’t care if he loses her? That he really cares about me?
I don’t ask him to explain. I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
“Laundry’s back!” I call out later that night. “Let’s go, everyone, let’s go! And then put your stuff away and get into bed!” I’m on OD tonight and Gavin is coming over any minute. Lis and Talia are both on their day off and Janelle is . . . I don’t know. But she put on a tube top and took off for the night.
Once a week we leave all our laundry on the porch in our individual laundry bags, and a van comes back with all of our clothes mixed together. It’s our job to sort them.
I empty all the clothes onto Prague’s bed, very carefully. The clothes come back folded, but you have to find the name tags to see who the piece of clothing belongs to.
I call out the kids’ names, and they run up to get their stuff.
“Yes!” Lily says. “Clean undies! Finally!”
I agree. I am running low on all my cute ones. All I have left are my period ones, and I don’t want Gavin seeing those.
“Who’s Emma Carleton?” I ask. “Oh! Slugger! I forgot you had a real name.” I throw her a pair of sweatpants.
“Emma F.!” I call out, and toss her a yellow T-shirt.
“Um . . .” She holds it up against her body. It is half her size.
“Did you grow or did it shrink?” I ask.
“I think it shrank,” she says. “By, like, a lot.”
“It’s not the world’s best laundromat,” I say.
“Oh! I know!” Em says. She takes out her stuffed lion and dresses her in the now itty-bitty shirt. “Pajamas for Ms. Lion!”
When we’re done, I usher them into bed and then change into a clean thong and my cutest leggings and tank top. Not that they’ll stay on for long.
The girls are asleep. Gavin is in my bed. All our clothes are off with the exception of my clean thong and his boxers.
He somehow elbows the shelf I share with Janelle and it crashes to the ground. All of our stuff is on the floor. Tissues. Tampons. Janelle’s purple hairbrush. A box of condoms.
“Oooooh, condoms,” Gavin says, picking up the box.
“They’re not mine,” I say quickly. I push the shelf back up and start rearranging the stuff that fell off.
“I figured,” he says. “Since we haven’t had sex. Janelle’s, I guess?”
“I assume so,” I say.
“The box is opened,” he says, giving it a little shake.
“I’m guessing she’s used some of them, then.”
“Good for her,” he says. He pauses. “Do you think she’d mind if we used one?”
“We are not using her condoms,” I say. “That’s our rule. Our only rule. No sex. Sex is too far.”
He returns the box of condoms behind the tissue box, and climbs back into bed beside me. He puts his head on my pillow and looks into my eyes. “That’s not our only rule.”
“It’s not?” I ask.
“No,” he says. He kisses me lightly on the lips and then pulls back, our eyes locked. “No falling in love. That would really be going too far.”
There are butterflies in my stomach. “No falling in love,” I repeat softly. “Got it.” I want to add, And no tensing your damn neck if I mention the possibility of Kat falling in love either.
There’s a knock on the doorframe.
“Crap,” I whisper. They were all asleep twenty minutes ago. “One sec! Hide,” I tell Gavin. I pull my T-shirt over my head and step out of the counselors’ room.
It’s Fancy.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. Please let her not have gotten a peek of the mostly naked guy in my bed.
“I don’t . . . I think . . .” She vomits all over the floor. And me. And the door sheet. Then she starts to cry.