If I Stay

“I’m not,” Kim said. “But I will be if you ever lie to me again.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Or if you turn into one of those girlfriends, always ponying around after her boyfriend, and speaking in the first-person plural. ‘We love the winter. We think Velvet Underground is seminal.’”

“You know I wouldn’t rock-talk to you. First-person singular or plural. I promise.”

“Good,” Kim replied. “Because if you turn into one of those girls, I’ll shoot you.”

“If I turn into one of those girls, I’ll hand you the gun.”

Kim laughed for real at that, and the tension was broken. She popped a hunk of pie into her mouth. “How did your parents take it?”

“Dad went through the five phases of grieving—denial, anger, acceptance, whatever—in like one day. I think he’s more freaked out that he is old enough to have a daughter who has a boyfriend.” I paused, took a sip of my coffee, letting the word boyfriend rest out in the air. “And he claims he can’t believe that I’m dating a musician.”

“You’re a musician,” Kim reminded me.

“You know, a punk, pop musician.”

“Shooting Star is emo-core,” Kim corrected. Unlike me, she cared about the myriad pop musical distinctions: punk, indie, alternative, hard-core, emo-core.

“It’s mostly hot air, you know, part of his whole bow-tie-Dad thing. I think Dad likes Adam. He met him when he picked me up for the concert. Now he wants me to bring him over for dinner, but it’s only been a week. I’m not quite ready for a meet-the-folks moment yet.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that.” Kim shuddered at the thought of it. “What about your mom?”

“She offered to take me to Planned Parenthood to get the Pill and told me to make Adam get tested for various diseases. In the meantime, she ordered me to buy condoms now. She even gave me ten bucks to start my supply.”

“Have you?” Kim gasped.

“No, it’s only been a week,” I said. “We’re still in the same group on that one.”

“For now,” Kim said.

One other category that Kim and I devised was people who tried to be cool and people who did not. On this one, I thought that Adam, Kim, and I were in the same column, because even though Adam was cool, he didn’t try. It was effortless for him. So, I expected the three of us to become the best of friends. I expected Adam to love everyone I loved as much as I did.

And it did work out like that with my family. He practically became the third kid. But it never clicked with Kim. Adam treated her the way that I’d always imagined he would treat a girl like me. He was nice enough—polite, friendly, but distant. He didn’t attempt to enter her world or gain her confidence. I suspected he thought she wasn’t cool enough and it made me mad. After we’d been together about three months, we had a huge fight about it.

“I’m not dating Kim. I’m dating you,” he said, after I accused him of not being nice enough to her.

“So what? You have lots of female friends. Why not add her to the stable?”

Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just not there.”

“You’re such a snob!” I said, suddenly furious.

Adam eyed me with furrowed brows, like I was a math problem on the blackboard that he was trying to figure out. “How does that make me a snob? You can’t force friendship. We just don’t have a lot in common.”

“That’s what makes you a snob! You only like people like you,” I cried. I stormed out, expecting him to follow after me, begging forgiveness, and when he didn’t, my fury doubled. I rode my bike over to Kim’s house to vent. She listened to my diatribe, her expression purposefully blasé.

“That’s just ridiculous that he only likes people like him,” she scolded when I’d finished spewing. “He likes you, and you’re not like him.”

“That’s the problem,” I mumbled.

“Well, then deal with that. Don’t drag me into your drama,” she said. “Besides, I don’t really click with him, either.”

“You don’t?”

“No, Mia. Not everyone swoons for Adam.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that I want you guys to be friends.”

“Yeah, well, I want to live in New York City and have normal parents. As the man said, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’”

“But you’re two of the most important people in my life.”

Kim looked at my red and teary face and her expression softened into a gentle smile. “We know that, Mia. But we’re from different parts of your life, just like music and me are from different parts of your life. And that’s fine. You don’t have to choose one or the other, at least not as far as I’m concerned.”

“But I want those parts of my life to come together.”

Kim shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. Look, I accept Adam because you love him. And I assume he accepts me because you love me. If it makes you feel any better, your love binds us. And that’s enough. Me and him don’t have to love each other.”

“But I want you to,” I wailed.

“Mia,” Kim said, an edge of warning in her voice signaling the end of her patience. “You’re starting to act like one of those girls. Do you need to get me a gun?”