Every You, Every Me by David Levithan Read Free Book Online

We were supposed to be studying. I can’t remember what. And I thought, Okay, here we are. It was what? October or November of tenth grade? Before Jack. Before
    Jack and I let ourselves in the back door. I went to turn on the light, but Jack told me not to.
    “Wait till we get to her room,” he said. “Less chance of someone seeing it.”
    “Let’s just go to my room,” you said. We didn’t bother turning on any of the lights. You led me by my hand.
    It was starting to sink in now: We were in your house. It smelled like your house, a little bit like pillows and a little bit like pine. There were the same magnets on the refrigerator, the same paintings on the walls. Do you miss them? It made me realize it hadn’t been all that long ago, when things had changed. And just because people changed, it didn’t mean houses automatically changed, too.
    Jack had fallen quiet, but he was looking around as much as I was.
    “It’s weird,” I said.
    He nodded.
    Jack and I had never been in your house without you. We’d never waited here for you to show up, never hung around while you ran off to do something. I’m sure there were times when we’d been watching a movie and you’d left us alone on your lime-green couch to go get something. But I couldn’t remember any of those times now. I couldn’t remember ordinary moments, only the ones that had made an impression. Ordinary moments were the ones that fell away first.
    You opened the door. You lit some candles. You left the lights off.
    Your door was closed, and I had this stupid moment when I wondered if we should knock.
    “Make yourself comfortable,” you said, so I went to the bed. Kicked off my shoes. Made myself comfortable there.
    Neither of us wanted to be the one to open the door. We just stood there until Jack finally grabbed the knob and turned.
    It was still your room, but it was different. Anything. Something. Someone besides you had cleaned it. Everything was in place, which wasn’t like you at all. Anything. Something. It was as if the whole room had been folded neatly. One more betrayal.
    Anything.
    Something.
    Nothing.
    Suddenly I was light-headed, like I hadn’t eaten in weeks. I sat down on the bed. I made myself comfortable. Feeling it under me made me want to cry.
    You crawled in next to me. We were supposed to be studying. And there, in the flicker of the candlelight, I guess we were. I studied you. You studied me. You smiled. I was too lost to smile.
    “Hey, Evan,” Jack said, “don’t lose it. Let’s just get what we came for and leave.”
    I couldn’t believe this was easy for him. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t shaken, too. I didn’t know why, but this got to me just as much as being in your dead room. Before I could think about it, I was yelling at him, “What do you know, Jack? What do you know about anything? ”
    The tears were coming, but I was too angry to cry. They just fell out of my eyes.
    “That’s not fair, Evan,” Jack said, standing in front of the bed.
    “I’m so sorry it’s not fair. ”
    He sighed. “Evan, you should talk to someone about this. Really, you need to talk to someone.”
    “How about you, jerk?” I said. “Why can’t I talk to you about it?”
    The first time the three of us went to the movies together, he waited until you went to get popcorn, and then he said, “You don’t mind, do you?” And I’d been so moved that he’d asked, that he wanted my permission.
    “Do you really think this is the time and place? We’re in her room, Ev.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s a little weird? Doesn’t that disturb you?”
    He looked at me like I was out of my mind . “ Of course it does. Jesus, who do you think I am?”
    “You never talk about it,” I said. “Ever.”
    “What is there to talk about, Evan? It’s done. She’s gone. It happened. We did the right thing. Is that what you want to hear? Well, we did. We did the right thing.”
    I hated that I needed him so