Ring by Spring

8 - Ellie

"Is Max taking you out again?" Clover said as I fussed with my hair, then swiped her brand-new glitter eyeliner off the dresser. "That's the second time this week...and I totally didn't say you could borrow that." She didn't grab it out of my hands, though, so I knew she hadn't meant it.

"Why aren't you happy for me?"

"I am," she said, distressed I'd thought otherwise. "I just don't want him to be leading you on. Either he needs to make it Facebook-official or dump you."

"Clover! So the only way it's meaningful is if we put a label on it?"

"Bertie!" Clover stomped her foot at my brother, who stood in the doorway. "Tell her!"

"Some guys use ambiguous relationships to their own advantage with no thought to the woman involved," my brother said, never one to sweeten hard facts. I hadn't figured Max to be using me. The thought of it made my mouth taste bitter and my head hurt.

"That's not what he's doing, though," Bertie assured me. "Stop scaring her, Clover. How much experience do you have with that, anyway? I thought Roger was your first serious boyfriend?" He gave my roommate a pointed look.

"I've been around enough to know most guys are snips and snails and puppy dog tails, not sugar and spice or peaches and cream like idealistic parents and youth leaders want us to believe. This isn't my first rodeo, honey."

Clover's proximity to me had familiarized Bertie with her airy, sassy, sweetness to the point that hearing her this way -angry and serious - not only puzzled but also unsettled him.

"I know that, too," he said, abashed for the brusque line of questioning which preceded her out-of-character outburst.

"You do?" As Clover's doe eyes scoured him for answers, Bertie seemed to undergo a thawing, of sorts. His strong, defensive, posture relaxed to the point that I thought he might sit down on our floor, upholstered in the medium-blue carpeting present in all on-campus living spaces, and unspool the tragedy, little by little. To my knowledge, Dr. Sanchez had been the last one to hear it in full. Maybe Bertie told Erickson, since they'd chosen each other as accountability partners, but I doubted even that possibility, logical as it seemed. Then he shook the idea off, like a dog returning to the safety of the inside from a rainstorm, confused repulsion - What was I doing?- flashing across his face.

"Bertie?" Clover filled the space between them. She touched his arm and looked up into his face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sweetie," he said, so tender I could cry, and then, more abrupt, "Another day."

I thought she might protest - maybe break into song, if she noticed Bertie's unintentional reference to RENT. Did she think he meant it? And what if he did? But why her? Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, which glowed a faint pink as soon as she removed her lips from his face.

"Goodbye, ladies," Bertie said, backing out of our doorway.

"What did I do wrong?" Clover asked me while I watched him leave.

"You have a boyfriend," I said. She wrinkled her button nose in confusion, then laughed.

"He knows it wasn't that kind of kiss, Ellie...right? Bertie's dated before?"

"A time or two," I said. "But he's sensitive. Didn't I tell you how he snapped at 'Dite Beaumont?" I guessed I hadn't from the way she shook her head, so I told the story.

"That's understandable," Clover said, afterwards. "She's legal, but Jesse still wouldn't be happy with her dating a guy who's practically 25. He knows just the kind of trouble older men can get you into. I should pray for him."