Page 18 of Eleanor & Grey
If he were a book character, he’d be the hero.
After he showed me his last highlighted quote, he closed the book and gave me a slight shrug. “So what are you?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s your tribe?”
“Oh.” I traced the sidewalk with the toe of my shoe. “I’m a sage.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Yeah, most people think it’s the worst tribe.”
“The sage seemed silently strong and loyal. There’s nothing wrong with loyal and patient people. I think there should be more of that.”
I smiled.
He smiled back and said, “More of that, Ellie.” He tapped his fingers against the spine of his novel. “So now that we have something in common, does that mean we can hang out?”
“Well, I did make that promise, and as a sage, I have to keep my word.”
“All right. So what are you doing next Tuesday?”
“Um, nothing?”
“OK, awesome. You want to meet me at my place? I’ll plan something for us to do.”
I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “All right.”Note to self: Knees can sweat too.“Well, I have to get to Molly.”
“All right. I’ll see you Tuesday!”
He headed off, and for a few seconds, I wondered if I was stuck in a dream. I was too afraid to pinch myself, though, because I worried I’d wake up. If this were a dream, I wanted to live in it a little bit longer.
* * *
“I like a boy,” I blurted out Sunday afternoon as Mom and I sat in our hidden location at Laurie Lake. We’d been goingthere as long as I could remember, even sometimes all bundled up in our winter gear to be near the water. If Mom loved one thing, it was the water. She said it was because the water healed her. Her dream was to someday place her feet in the ocean and stand with her arms wide open, but since we were in Illinois and there was no ocean to be found nearby, that dream had to wait a little bit longer.
For the time being, small lakes and ponds worked fine for us. We always made it our mission to go sit by our hidden pond and watch the dragonflies pass around us. Laurie Lake was normally packed with people during the summer, but one day during our exploring, she and I found a smaller body of water hidden between the trees, and we’d always go there to sit and chat.
After feeling a bit off, she was finally well enough to get out of the house, and I was happy to get back to our regularly scheduled mama-daughter dates. She still looked tired, but not sick-tired. It seemed like the kind of tired people got when they overslept.
Still, in the back of my mind, I worried. Couldn’t help it. That worry would probably always linger.
Mom tilted her head toward me, and her blue eyes lit up with joy at my words. There were two things we never really talked about with each other: sports and boys. I’d never had any interest in either one, but that afternoon, I knew I had to tell her, because she was my person. I told my mother everything. We were a regular Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.
“Oh my gosh, who? How? From where?!”
“His name is Greyson East. We talked at the party you and Dad forced me to go to a few weeks ago.”
She tossed her hands in the air with excitement. “I knew I was being a good parent forcing you to go to a party with drugs and alcohol!”
I snickered. “Something like that.”
“So tell me everything. What is he into? What does he look like? If he were to be an animal, which animal would he be?” She placed her chin in her hands and stared at me with eyes wide and filled with wonder.
I told her everything—everything I knew, at least.
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you’ve been wearing my makeup lately?”
