Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It(14)
I was so sure I could work up the courage by May.
When that weekend rolled around, I got myself dressed, did my makeup, and made it all the way to the front door of my house before my palms started to sweat. I made it one more step before my throat started to close.
You can do it, I thought. One foot in front of the other.
But it was that final step that had me sprinting to the toilet, heaving up the contents of my lunch. From the bathroom floor, I sent him a text explaining that I had food poisoning.
Maybe it really is food poisoning, I hoped as I grabbed the edges of the toilet bowl. I thought back to the chicken salad sandwich I’d had at the airport the day before and convinced myself that this must be true.
Food poisoning is normal. Maybe I’m normal.
But after I texted him to bail, the nausea stopped, and in that moment, I knew that nothing had changed: This wasn’t food poisoning. There was still something completely and utterly wrong with me.
Ugh, I’m SO sorry, food poisoning is the worst, he said, and I agreed, even though I didn’t think it was the worst. This, what was happening to me, was the worst.
I’m around if you need anything, he sent, along with an invitation to a game of Words With Friends.
The night of our almost-date is when our long-distance gaming leveled up. GamePigeon, sending each other our Wordle scores and our crossword times, more Words With Friends: We played until I fell asleep with my phone in my hand. And we’ve been playing ever since.
* * *
—
The Scrabble picture at the bottom of his feed brings me back to the present. My nonalcoholic buzz is still coursing through my veins, but instead of feeling a pang of sadness and regret, the way I often do when I look at photos of Matthew, I feel hopeful.
I hear the list shouting up to me from the bottom of the steps: Go on a date with Matthew.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I open my texts and send him a quick message: Phoebe:
Hey:)
I’ll be back on Long Island next week if you’re around and want to do something?
I screenshot my message to send to the group chat before I have the chance to process what I’ve done. Before the panic has the chance to set in.
Phoebe:
I am GOING on a date next week. Mark my words, I am doing it.
Nora:
OH MY GOD YES LOOK AT YOU GO!!!
Alex: OMG
Meg:
Ojh my gof i loveee him gnna crhyyyy Nora:
You have to actually go this time. No backing out.
Phoebe:
No backing out.
Jonathan:
No backing out.
Phoebe:
I just agreed to that. No backing out.
Alex:
Permission to say one more thing, if I may?
No backing out.
Meg:
Ni backing ijut
Alex has changed the name of this chat to “no backing out.”
5
Tuesday
(Twenty-Nine Days Left)
My alarm wakes me up at five-thirty. Immediately, before giving my eyes the chance to fully open, I check my texts. Matthew hasn’t responded, which is unusual for him, but I can’t help but let out a sigh of relief.
He must not be interested.
The realization is bittersweet, but now that I’ve sobered up from my adrenaline high, I realize that I may have gotten ahead of myself. The anxious pit in my stomach reminds me that going on a date with Matthew might still be too much to handle. I pull my covers back with a resigned sigh, determined not to bring my anxiety with me into the brand-new school year.
In keeping with my first-day-of-school tradition, I pick a T-shirt featuring a beloved children’s book character to wear. Today’s choice features a mouse swimming in a tub full of milk from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I pair it with a black athletic skort and Converse and gather my hair into a tight bun before heading downstairs to make a cup of coffee.
On the way out of my room, I notice that the door to Jonathan’s bedroom is open.
That’s weird. His alarm doesn’t go off until eight; there’s no reason for him to be awake this early.
An eerie feeling starts taking shape in my gut.
I peek inside to find a fully made bed that hasn’t been slept in, and my chest immediately tightens at the thought of him sleeping somewhere else. I take my phone out of my pocket to track his location, which I turned on for him one night in college when he was drunk and I wanted to make sure he got back to his room in one piece. I’m almost positive he has no idea that it’s been on ever since. I click on Jonathan Cooper and track him to a house on Sweetzer Avenue, which is only a few streets over, but I don’t know anyone who lives there. As I head to my car, I mentally make a note to text the others to ask if they saw him go home with Cheekbones.
The heat from the morning sun beats down on me through the open window of my Jetta, and I suck on an ice cube from my coffee in an attempt to cool myself down. My side-view mirror rests in the passenger seat next to me. I knocked it clean off while trying to park the other day, so now the only way to check my blind spot is by sticking my head out the window like a dog.
By the time I pull up to Brentwood Friends Academy, twenty-five minutes later, my hair is a mess and all the ice cubes from my coffee are gone. The only other car in the lot is Teacher Rob’s beat-up Prius, his every possession visible through its windows. It’s a running conspiracy theory that he lives in the teachers’ lounge in the Stone Building.