Page 63 of Guy's Girl
“Your turn,” she says.
As Adrian thinks, Finch paddles through his line of sight, hunched over in a bright red kayak. He’s gunning full tilt for the back of Tristan’s paddleboard. Tristan spins around, but it’s too late—the kayak makes contact, sending Tristan whirling as he howls, “Dick!” and falls into the water with a great splash.
I’m sick of it. Of never being the one they choose.
I would choose you.
“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else,” he says.
Ginny looks down into the water. It’s clear enough that he knows she can see all the way to the bottom, to the sand and muck and rocks and reeds. She watches them for a long time.
Then, as if making a decision, she looks up and says, “I used to be anorexic.”
“You—what?”
“Yeah.” She chews her bottom lip. “All throughout college. And the year I lived in Minnesota. It’s not that I... It’s not that I wouldn’t eat at all. I would. But I ate small portions and cut certain foods out entirely, like bread and other starches. That’s how I got away with it. You have to eatsomething, or people start asking questions.”
Adrian stays quiet, sensing that she has more to say.
“I knew I needed help, but I couldn’t tell anyone. It’s such a... agirlthing, anorexia. I know men suffer from it, too, but... I just didn’t think the boys would understand. Or my brothers. I thought it would separate me further from them. Istilldo.”
Adrian leans forward, trying to catch her eye. “You know that isn’t true, right?”
Ginny traces small circles on the board’s rubber surface. Then, she asks, “Do you ever feel unlovable?”
“I... what?” He blinks. “Is that howyoufeel?”
Her eyes flick back to his. “I asked you first.”
“Ginny, you’re—”
“Don’t.” She shakes her wet hair. “Don’t tell me I’m lovable. I won’t believe it.” She swallows. “Especially not from you.”
You’re not just lovable; you’re fucking sunshine.That’s what he was going to say.
He could ask why he, in particular, isn’t allowed to say she’s lovable, but he already knows the answer. The answer is in long sighs tangled up in his sheets, in warm bodies pressed togetherlong afterward. The answer is in the wilting of Ginny’s eyes when he said he couldn’t give her what she wanted.
“Just forget I asked anything.” She starts to shut down, to turn away. Her hands press to either side of the board and lift her pelvis to spin around.
“Wait,” Adrian says.
Ginny pauses.
“I do.” He rubs a hand on one of his knees. “Know what it’s like to feel unlovable, I mean.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t... I’ve never been in love. I don’t think I’m evencapableof falling in love. And if I can’t... if I can’t give that to someone else, I don’t think I deserve to receive it.” Adrian has never spoken these words out loud. They’ve pinballed around the inside of his head for years, but he’s never let them out. He’s neverwantedto.
Not until now.
With anyone else, he’d worry about the effect of his words. He’d expect the hearer to recoil, to call him a heartless robot. Not Ginny. She just settles back onto the board and tilts her head. “Why do you think that?”
“What? That I’m incapable of falling in love?”
She nods.
“Because it’s true.”
