"What's wrong?" Clay said to Taryn, in the car. He didn't start the engine.
"You know," she said, feeling the pressure rise inside her, "I don't know what I've been thinking. I broke up with Jeremy because he wanted to go out with other girls. Somehow he made me think it was wrong to want just one on one. So I try to play along with the way guys want it. What Jeremy said. Now Jeremy dates one girl. Toby wants to date one girl. You're OK with dating more than one, I date two guys, and that's fine with you. I saw you making googly eyes at Skye, she's a million years older than you but I guess that doesn't matter. And Toby wants to just date one girl at a time. Which was what I wanted in the first place! This is all so stupid. I'm not seeing you any more."
She opened the door.
"Wait," he grabbed at her arm. "Taryn, I only did that when I realized you did it."
"But you had no problem with doing it," Taryn said. "You thought it was just fine. Not jealous at all - is that really the way you are? All you feel? Never mind. Go on and hang out with Skye and whoever else you're hanging out with."
She got out of the car then.
He sighed, shut the door and drove off.
Later, Clay told his older brother Matt about the whole thing.
"I'm amazed," Matt said. "How did you get into such a mess?"
"I don't know," Clay admitted. "But I feel like Taryn was part of making this a mess, too. Suddenly she changes her mind again."
"She realized she doesn't want so much going on," Matt said. "Sometimes, simplicity is best in life."
"I thought things were confusing for her, with her parents' divorce going on," Clay said. "So I gave her a lot of space. Maybe I shouldn't have said I was dating other girls, but it didn't seem right not to when she could date other guys. She'd think I was weak."
"She's very young," Matt said.
"She's eighteen. She graduates from Mercy High next week."
"Eighteen, but still in high school," Matt said. "Don't you remember high school?"
"Not as well as you might," Clay said. Matt was a high school teacher, so he had better reminders of the level of maturity common at that age.
"Allow me to remind you," Matt said. "Immaturity runs rampant. And as you pointed out, there's the parents' divorce."
"I'm not sure what to do," Clay said. "I wouldn't say she's immature, exactly. She handled the whole drunk driving charge thing on her own. She's even doing her community service, without her mother even knowing. She's taking care of business like an adult, with that."
"It comes and go," Matt said. "It comes and goes.
Clay didn't press his brother further for what he meant by that. He supposed it was that maturity in 18 year olds comes and goes. But Matt had a certain cynicism about high school students that seemed a little extreme to Clay, even if Matt was the high school teacher and could always claim to be the one who would know best.
Matt didn't know every high school student in the universe.