Two weeks into Emily's stay at our high school, she met Ian Doyle.
Ian Doyle – our school's infamous bad boy. He was at least twenty, but still in twelfth grade. Rumour had it that it was because he'd just gotten out of jail – no one was sure for what, as the rumours ranged from breaking and entering to killing a man with his bare hands. Everyone was too afraid of him to find out for sure.
"Ian Doyle..." she said vaguely as she slid into the seat next to me at lunch.
I pretended not to know what she was getting at. "No, I'm Derek Morgan..." I say slowly, as if she's a little dumb.
She scoffs and rolls her eyes, fully aware I'm playing stupid. It's my favourite way to bug her. "Not you," she says, punching me in the shoulder, almost making me spill my drink. "Doyle. The cute older Irish guy in senior year..." she explained unnecessarily.
I stopped listening after the word 'cute'.
In those two weeks, much to my chagrin, I found I had developed quite a troublesome crush on Emily. This was a first for me – I knew I liked girls, found them attractive, but I had never had feelings this strong about anyone before. I wasn't sure I liked it.
I wasn't sure that she liked me that way and I was okay with that. We were from two different worlds – her the well-travelled rich girl who spoke five languages and had had plenty of boyfriends, me the public school street rat who'd never even kissed a girl...we would never work, I'd accepted that. The idea that she might actually have a crush on him, though, I found almost unbearable.
I realize she must have asked me a question because she's staring at me curiously, one perfectly manicured brow high on her forehead.
"Oh, um," I stammer, "What did you say?"
She looks like she's not sure whether to be amused or annoyed by the fact that I haven't been listening. "Do you know him?" she repeats.
I didn't really. I'd heard of him – everyone had. He had kind of a reputation around school as being kind of an amoral middle man, if you wanted something illegal, he knew someone who could get it for you. Mostly, in the case of students at our school, that was drugs. But I wouldn't be surprised if his reaches extended into other things.
"Kinda. Why?" I replied with a pronounced frown.
She shrugged. "I met him the other day," she says with a smile I would qualify as dreamy. I don't like it.
"And?" I press. Not because I want to know, but because I need to. I need to know what exactly might be going on between the two of them.
"And he's cool. I like him," she says, waving away my concern. Her expression is less dreamy and more irritated now.
"Like him?" I repeat incredulously. I realize my voice has gotten loud and screechy and people around us are staring at me. I shrink down on myself and avoid their curious stares and whispers.
She crosses her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Something wrong with that?" I don't like the way her brow raises in challenge.
"Ian Doyle...well, he's not really a nice guy," I say slowly. I don't have any actual proof of this, only rumours, but I firmly believe that anyone with that much of a bad reputation has earned it somehow. "He's someone you don't want to mess with."
"No one is 'messing' with him," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. "I just want to hang out with him."
I realize there's nothing I can say that won't sound petty or jealous and I'm honestly not sure why I'm feeling this way when there's no real reason for it... So, I say nothing, even though I want nothing more than to stop her.
She doesn't bring up the subject again and we both go about our lives as if the conversation had never happened.
But three days later, I'm on my way to football practice after school when I spot them. He has her pressed up against a chain link fence and he's got his tongue down her throat. My first instinct is to pull him off of her and kick his ass...but, if Emily had wanted him away from her, I know she could kick his ass without any help from me.
She doesn't appear to be about to do that, unfortunately. If anything, she seems more into the kiss than he does. She's got one hand tangled in his hair, the other travelling down his lower back towards his ass. I kind of want to be sick.
I tell myself I'm not jealous, I'm just worried about her. I don't want her to rush into anything and get herself hurt. Ian's definitely the type to do that to her.
I don't know how, in three days' time, she's gone from not knowing him to making out with him. She said she'd had a lot of boyfriends in the past, but I chose to interpret that as her falling in love easily...not that she was easy. I hate myself a little as soon as I have that thought.
I want to look away, to run away, but I'm rooted to the spot, just watching while my stomach turns.
They kiss awhile longer, then he takes her hand and leads her over to his motorcycle, handing her a helmet. She laughs as she climbs on the bike behind him, arms locked tight around his waist, body pressed tightly against his back, and they speed away.
I stand there awhile longer, dazed and confused, before I remember myself and continue my slow reluctant trudge towards the youth centre.
When I see Emily the next day at school, she doesn't mention Ian Doyle and neither do I. But she's got this secretive little smile on her face that lights up her eyes in a way I've never seen.