The Truth About Bad Boys

The Truth About Prep School Girls

Memphis’s POV



“Hold on. You mean to say he asked you out over twenty-four hours ago, and you’re just telling us now?”

I roll my eyes at Bridget’s overdramatic reaction as I reach for a handful of popcorn from our shared bowl. We don’t usually do movie nights during the week, but my brother Todd was being particularly problematic—I’ll get into that later—and my parents pretty much shooed me out of the house. Bridget’s parents are never home, so it was an easy fix.

Tally’s here, too, of course. We pretty much do everything in threes.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” I tell them. “He just very casually asked if he could take me out sometime.”

“But he was so cute!” squeals Tally. “If Ezra had asked me out, I’d have jumped at the chance. What did you say?”

I won’t admit it to Tally, but I’m glad her interviewee, Ezra, didn’t ask her out. There was something creepy about him—something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “I told him to send me his article, and then we’d talk.”

Bridget actually cackles at that one. “You’re a queen, Mem. I love that.”

“Well,” says Tally, “I hope he writes a good article, and that you say yes. I know how you are about prep school boys, but there are always exceptions.”

She’s right—there are always exceptions. And it does seem remotely feasible that Gray is one of them. But even if I could stomach his being a prep school boy, I’m not sure I could ever stomach being a part of his life—his friends; his school; his world. Seacoast might not be quite as tainted to me as Lancaster, but it’s certainly cut from the same cloth.

“What about your guy?” I ask Bridget. “Kai, was it?”

She nods. “He was sweet. Not my type, but sweet. More Tally’s type, actually, come to think of it.”

Tally, of course, immediately turns pink. If you thought I blushed a lot, just wait. “He was cute, too,” she admits. “But I want to give this Ezra thing a beat. Maybe, when we exchange articles, he’ll ask me out then.”

I try to ignore the mama-bear instinct that kicks in at that notion. The truth is, I’ll always want to protect Tally. I wanted to protect her when we were ten years old and her father died, and I still want to protect her now that we’re seventeen and eighteen and I’m worried about a boy breaking her heart. It’ll never stop.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably never be any good at it.

- - - - -

The week goes by uneventfully. I try working on my article about Gray here and there, but have a hard time finding the right words. I want to compliment him without outright flattering him; I want to give him credit for not being what I expected without giving him too much credit.

So I wait.

Thursday afternoon, I stay after school longer than usual to spectate one of Tally’s volleyball games. By the time I roll up to my driveway in my Prius, it’s nearly seven thirty, which means my little brother Todd has already had dinner. With any luck, he’s starting to wind down for the night.

I want to be clear about something here: I love Todd. I do. It’s not that I don’t want to be around him, or that I wish he wasn’t the way he was. In some ways, I think his autism helps me appreciate the good moments that I do have with him that much more. Unfortunately, it also means more bad moments.

Like when I get home from school that day.

He’s mid-tantrum when I show up—screaming something about the green beans being all wrong. There’s a broken plate on the ground, food everywhere, and my mom is crying.

“Hey!” I say in my fake-calm voice to Todd as I close the door behind me and run over to him. I stoop to his level—he’s fourteen, but small for his age, and currently on the floor, sobbing—and look him right in the eyes. He hates when strangers do it, but he likes when I do it. “It’s okay, buddy. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

“They’re all wrong,” he says, shaking his head. He isn’t looking me in the eye, which is never a good sign. “They color. The size. They make my mouth hurt. And my eyes.”

I glance at my mom, who’s still crying, and then my dad, who looks exhausted. “Well, forget the green beans, then,” I tell Todd. “They’re gross, anyway.”

I manage to get a small laugh out of him at that, but he’s clearly still upset. “But I’m still hungry.”

“Then we’ll eat something else. What do you—”

“No!” he shouts suddenly, leaping to his feet and shoving me backwards in the process. I cut my hand on a piece of the broken plate, but it isn’t deep. “It’s too late for dinner!”

So close…

I part my lips to answer him, but my mom steps in to intervene before I get the chance.

“Just go to your room, Memphis,” she says as she wipes her tears. “We’ll be fine.”

I know she means well; she meant well the other night when she sent me to Bridget’s, too. She’s trying to spare me from constantly having to coddle him, worry about him, and, in situations like tonight, even bleed for him.

But sometimes I just wish she’d let me help.

- - - - -

The next evening, I get an email from Gray. Subject: THE TRUTH ABOUT PREP SCHOOL GIRLS.

This ought to be good.

Hey, pretty girl, the intro reads. Just a rough draft. Happy to make any edits you like if it means I get to see you again.

Well, credit where credit’s due—he’s certainly a charmer.

Now it’s time to read the damn thing.

- - - - -

The Truth About Prep School Girls

By Gray Gehrig

I won’t lie to you—prior to this assignment, I had made some assumptions about prep school girls.

I know, I know—not cool, Gray. Get to know someone before you judge them. Walk a mile in their shoes. And other mottos from Disney movies that I can’t think of at this moment.

To be fair, they weren’t completely unfounded assumptions. I mean, I’ve dated a few of these girls. They were all pretty similar: spoiled, rich, love Taylor Swift, hate the outdoors. Sure, they each had a few redeeming qualities, but not enough to outweigh the fact that, overall, they kind of sucked.

I hadn’t ever been out with an Alexandria girl before, but that’s because Alexandria girls, to my understanding, do not fraternize with Seacoast boys. We aren’t good enough, AKA rich enough, for them. It’s Lancaster boys they want—or so I thought.

Well, I stand corrected on all of the above, my friends. And I have Memphis Edgerton to thank for that.

Memphis doesn’t like Taylor Swift. (Actually, I didn’t directly ask her that question, so it’s possible that she does. But I doubt it.) She doesn’t hate the outdoors. (Again, didn’t directly ask her about that, but she seemed right at home in the Seacoast courtyard.) And she’s absolutely not spoiled or rich.

(Okay, I don’t think she’s rich. Well, you can’t outright ask someone that, can you? She’s from Brooklyn; that’s evidence enough, isn’t it?)

But it’s not any of those little things. It’s not even the dope Clash tee she was wearing, the fact that she’s a drummer, her pretty, red hair, or the fact that she’s the only teenager I’ve met who’s committed crimes that rival my own.

More than any of that, it’s the fact that she was honest with me—that, when I gave her a hard truth that I was hesitant to share with her, she returned it with an even harder truth that she was even more hesitant to share with me.

A truth that reminds me there’s always more to learn about someone—even the girls we think we have figured out.

I guess that’s the truth about prep school girls—you can’t make any assumptions about them.

Or maybe that’s just people in general.