I still had the gift he’d given me, if only because I couldn’t figure out a way to return it that wasn’t totally awkward. So it sat, wrapped and bow intact, on my dresser, until I finally stuffed it into a drawer. You would think it would bother me, not knowing what was inside, but it didn’t, really. Maybe I’d just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing.
As for Nate himself, from what I could tell, he was always working. Like most seniors in spring semester—i.e., those who hadn’t transferred from other schools with not-so -great grades they desperately needed to keep up in order to have any chance at college acceptance—he had a pretty light schedule, as well as a lot of leeway for activities. While most people spent this time lolling on the green between classes or taking long coffee runs to Jump Java, whenever I saw Nate, either in the neighborhood or at school, he seemed to be in constant motion, often loaded down with boxes, his phone pressed to his ear as he moved to and from his car. I figured Rest Assured had to be picking up, business-wise, although his work seemed even more ironic to me than ever. All that helping, saving, taking care. As if these were the only two options, when you had that kind of home life: either caring about yourself and no one else, like I had, or only about the rest of the world, as he did now.
I’d been thinking about this lately every time I passed the HELP table, where Heather Wainwright was set up as usual, accepting donations or petition signatures. Ever since Thanksgiving, I’d sort of held it against her that she’d broken up with Nate, thinking she’d abandoned him, but now, for obvious reasons, I was seeing things differently. So much so that more than once, I’d found myself pausing and taking a moment to look over whatever cause she was lobbying for. Usually, she was busy talking to other people and just smiled at me, telling me to let her know if I had any questions. One day, though, as I perused some literature about saving the coastline, it was just the two of us.
“It’s a good cause,” she said as I flipped past some pages illustrating various stages of sand erosion. “We can’t just take our beaches for granted.”
“Right,” I said. “I guess not.”
She sat back, twirling a pen in her hand. Finally, after a moment, she said, “So . . . how’s Nate doing?”
I shut the brochure. “I wouldn’t really know,” I said. “We’re kind of on the outs these days.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just . . . it got hard. You know?”
I wasn’t expecting her to respond to this, really. But then she put her pen down. “His dad,” she said, clarifying. I nodded, and she smiled sadly, shaking her head. “Well, I hate to tell you, but if you think keeping your distance makes it easier not to worry . . . it doesn’t. Not really.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the brochure again. “I’m kind of getting that.”
“For me, the worst was just watching him change, you know?” She sighed, brushing her hair back from her face. “Like with quitting swim team. That was his entire world. But in the end, he gave it up, because of this.”
“He gave you up, too,” I said. “Right?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I guess so.”
Across the green, there was a sudden burst of laughter, and we both looked in its direction. As it ended, she said, “Look, for what it’s worth, I think I could have tried harder. To stick by him, or force the issue. I kind of wish I had.”
“You do?”
“I think he would have done it for me,” she said. “And that’s been the hardest part of all of this, really. That maybe I failed him, or myself, somehow. You know?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“So,” a dark-haired girl with a ponytail said to Heather, sliding into the empty seat beside her. “I just spent, like, a half hour working on Mr. Thackray, and he’s finally agreed to let us plug our fund-raiser again this afternoon during announcements. I’m thinking we should write some new copy, though, to really make an impact, like . . .”
I started to move down the table, our conversation clearly over. “Take care, Ruby,” Heather called after me.
“You, too,” I told her. As she turned back to the girl, who was still talking, I reached into my pocket, pulling out the few dollars’ change from my lunch and stuffing it into the SAVE OUR BEACHES! jar. It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things. But it made me feel somewhat better, nonetheless.
Also slightly encouraging was the fact that while I hadn’t been of help to Nate, I didn’t have to look far to find someone who had benefited from my actions. Not now that Gervais was front and center, at my picnic table, every weekday from 12:05 to 1:15.
“Again,” he said to me, pointing at the book with his pencil, “remember the power rule. It’s the key to everything you’re trying to do here.”
I sighed, trying to clear my head. The truth was, Gervais was a good tutor. Already, I understood tons more than I had before he’d begun working with me, stuff even my early-morning help sessions couldn’t make sense of. But there were still distractions. Initially, it had been me worrying about how he’d interact with Olivia, whether he’d act so goopy or lovesick she’d immediately suspect something, and rightfully blame me. As it turned out, though, this wasn’t an issue at all. If anything, I was a third wheel now.