“Sophie … I’m … I’m so sorry …
I didn’t mean for you to—”
“For me to what?” she says.
“Find out that you were cheating on me?”
“But, you don’t understand. I was—”
“You were kissing her, Robin. I saw you.”
“Yeah, but I was kissing her good-bye, Sophie.
I was telling her it was over.”
“Over?” she says, her chin trembling.
“Over, as in, like … a relationship?
How long has this been going on, Robin?”
“Only since yesterday. I swear.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“But it’s true, Sophie.
I ended it with her because of you.
Because I love you.”
I reach out to wrap my arms around her,
but she pushes me away—hard.
“Keep your hands off me!”
Then she bursts into tears
and runs away from me.
“Sophie!” I shout. “Let me explain!”
But she just keeps right on running.
I Stand Here Watching Her Go
Thinking
if only Tessa and I had gotten here
a few minutes earlier …
if only
Sophie had gotten here
a few minutes later …
if only
outlaws
still ruled …
I Try Everything
I try
calling her cell—
no answer.
I try
calling her house—
no answer.
I try
ringing her doorbell—
no answer.
I even try
tossing pebbles
at her bedroom window—
but she just
switches off
her light.
After Midnight
All I want to do
is escape into sleep.
But every time I close my eyes,
I see Sophie’s face,
see the look
that was on it
just before she turned
and ran from me today …
and my heart
feels like a stone,
sinking
down
and
down
and
down
through
cold
black
water.
Dad Cracks Open the Door and Looks in on Me
“Robin?” he whispers. “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you might be.”
He comes in and sits down on the edge of my bed.
“You seemed pretty bummed when I
picked you up in the Square tonight…” he says,
Aw, for chrissake.
He’s not gonna try to get me
to unburden my soul, is he?
But then he says, “I’m feeling kind of blue myself.”
Huh? That’s a switch.
“How come?” I say.
“Well, tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day,
and I sort of dropped the ball.
You don’t happen to have any red paper, do you?
And maybe some glitter or something?
I want to make your mom a valentine.
Girls go gaga over that stuff.”
Give me a break—“Girls go gaga over that stuff?”
What kind of loser says things like that?
“Girls go gaga …?” Gaga …?
Hey … wait a minute …
Maybe my dad’s actually onto something for once—
maybe girls do go gaga over that stuff…
February Fourteenth
The moon’s just the ghost of a smile,
floating on the sky’s pink face,
when I finally finish
making everything for Sophie.
But for some strange reason,
I’m not even tired.
I zoom down the hall
to drag Dad out of bed early,
so he can take me to the store
on the way to school.
And for some strange reason,
he doesn’t even complain.
I don’t tell him my plan,
but when I hop back into the car
and he sees what I’ve bought,
he high-fives me and wishes me luck.
Like, for some strange reason,
he knows just how much
I’ll be needing it.
All Morning Long
I’m sprinting
across campus,
racing against the clock,
to get to each one
of Sophie’s classes
before she does.
I rush in the door,
ask her teacher where she sits,
hurry to her desk,
and leave
my offerings
on her altar:
a homemade valentine
and a single
rose.
And Every Time
As soon as I’ve
made my delivery,
I get out of there
as fast as I can.
Because I can’t bear to stick around
to watch what happens
when Sophie walks in
and finds what I’ve left for her.
What if she’s tearing up my valentines
without even opening them?
What if she’s tossing my roses
into the trash?
What if
nothing I’m doing
is making one bit
of difference?
At Lunchtime
I hurry over to Schultz’s room,
so I can catch him
before he heads off to the teachers’ lounge.
When I tell him what I want to do,
he smiles at me and says,
“I like a man who thinks big.”
Then he reaches into his desk drawer
for his own personal set
of primo French pastels
and says, “Why don’t you use these, kiddo?”
So I thank him and set to work on the chalkboard,
drawing an enormous picture of a pig for Sophie.
And inside the heart-shaped speech cloud
over his head I write:
VALENTINE,
I’M SUCH A SWINE.
SWILL YOU BE MINE?
I think
she’ll know
who it’s from.
When I Tell Schultz I Need to Skip Class
He’s cool with it.
So I leave a rose on Sophie’s desk
and skulk down the hall to hide out in the library.
Then, when art’s over, I go back
to leaving a rose and a valentine for Sophie
in each one of her classes,
always making sure
to be long gone
before she shows up.
And always making sure to avoid
catching even a single glimpse
of her face.
Because I’m afraid
of what I’ll see there.
And afraid of what
I won’t.
4 p.m.
I’ve been standing here
by the goalpost,
waiting,
just standing here in the knee-knocking cold,
with my eyes trained
on the back door of the building,
picturing Sophie rushing through it,
picturing her running across the field to me
and throwing herself into my arms.
I’ve been standing here
watching that door
for forty-five minutes now,
while the chill crept into my bones,
and the truth crept into
my heart:
if Sophie
was gonna come to me,
she’d have come to me
by now.
It’s Starting to Snow
And the flakes are floating down all around me,
like big frozen tears …
I’ll freeze to death
if I stay where I am.
But I can’t handle the thought
of going home.
Because I can’t handle the thought
of walking into my room—
of walking into my room,
looking up at my wall,
and seeing Sophie’s portrait
looking back at me.
So I Can’t Go Home
But I can’t stay here.
Where can I go?
Where?
Suddenly,
the answer hits me:
the Museum of Fine Arts.
If I can just get myself over there
to see Le Bal à Bougival
one more time,
if I can just sit down on that wooden bench
and look up at the dancing couple,
like I always used to with Sophie,
I’ll somehow feel closer to her,
somehow feel like we’re still
connected.
Which I know
is totally corny.
But I don’t even care.
It’s Not Till I’m Actually at the Museum
Not till I’m sprinting up the marble stairway,
toward the impressionist gallery
and Le Bal à Bougival,
that I’m finally able
to admit to myself
the real reason I’ve come:
I’m hoping Sophie will be here—
hoping she’ll be sitting right there
in front of the painting,
sitting there
waiting for me
on that wooden bench …
My feet reach the top of the stairs
and carry me down the hall,
faster and faster, closer and closer …
but when I get to the gallery
and hurry through the door,
Sophie’s not on the bench—
and the painting’s not on the wall!
I Take a Step Back
Reeling from the shock of it—
from the sight of that big blank wall.
The wall where the painting’s supposed to be.
Where the painting’s always been.
Then I notice a little plaque.
It says that Le Bal à Bougival is on loan
to a Japanese museum
and won’t be back for a year.
I flop down onto the wooden bench,
and, for a long time,
I just sit here,
staring up at that empty space,
while the emptiness inside me
swells and swells,
till it feels like my chest
will burst …
The painting’s gone.
Sophie’s gone.
My one chance for happiness—
gone.
But Then I Hear Footsteps
Footsteps that make me glance
toward the door—
just as Sophie walks through it!
When she sees
that the painting’s not here,
her eyes fill with tears.
And a second later,
when she shifts her gaze,
she suddenly notices
me.
Her Cheeks Flame Up
Her eyes get wide.
She looks unsteady,
like her knees are weak.
Did she know I’d be here?
Is that why she came …?
But the look on her face
says she didn’t know.
The look on her face
says she wants to hide.
The look on her face
says she’s trying to decide
whether to stay
or run away.
I Want to Rush to Her Side
But I’m scared she’ll bolt.
I hear myself saying, “Don’t worry, Sophie.
It’s only on loan … It’ll be back …
It’s coming back …”
The sound of my voice
seems to help her make up her mind.
Because she starts walking right toward me.
She sits down next to me on the bench,
reaches into her backpack,
and pulls out a sketchbook and a pencil.
Then she opens the book to a blank sheet
and starts crisscrossing it
with straight lines,
making what look like
the empty frames
of a page out of a comic book.
And when all the squares are drawn,
she passes it over
to me.
I Take the Sketchbook from Sophie’s Hands
And stare at the first empty frame.
Then I suck in a quick breath
and begin to draw.
It’s a picture of Sophie and me
sitting on the wooden bench
in front of the bare museum wall.
And in the thought cloud
floating above my head, I write:
SOMETIMES. I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING.
I turn to look
at Sophie’s face
and see that she’s smiling.
It’s a strange kind of smile, sort of crooked,
like she doesn’t want to be smiling,
only she just can’t help it.
to cover her hand
with mine—
she doesn’t pull away.
SONYA SONES
is the author of Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy; One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies; and What My Mother Doesn’t Know, the first book about Sophie and Robin. Among the honors Sonya’s novels have received are the Christopher Award, the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry, and the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award, as well as several state awards voted on by teens. Sonya lives near the beach in California, but she grew up not far from where Sophie and Robin live. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.sonyasones.com.
I DON’T GET IT
I used to think it was so cute
the way Dylan’s sneakers always
squeaked when he walked.
I liked teasing him about them.
Called them his squeakers.
Loved being able to hear
him coming a mile away.
When I’d hear that squeak of his
heading in my direction,
my heart would dance right up
into my throat.
I used to feel like I was floating
a few inches above the ground
whenever he was squeaking along
next to me.
But now when I hear those
noisy Nikes of his,
I feel like
I want to scream.
I want to stomp on his toes.
I want to trip him up and run away.
I just don’t get it.
HE CALLS HIMSELF CHAZ
I like the ring of it—
chatting with Chaz.
I met him on the Internet last week
and we just seemed to click right away.
We’ve been getting together
every night since then at ten o’clock
for these long private talks.
Just the two of us
floating through cyberspace.
There’s something so neat
about not even knowing
what he looks like.
Something even neater
about not even caring.
And knowing
that he doesn’t care
what I look like either.
It’s a soul thin
g,
with us.
A cybersoul thing.
I made up that word.
Chaz really likes it.
MY MORAL DILEMMA
I ask Rachel and Grace
if they think it’s the same thing
as cheating on Dylan
when I chat with Chaz.
Grace says that depends
on who I like talking to more,
the cyberstud (as she calls him)
or Dylan.
Grace says she can’t imagine
wanting to talk to another guy
more than her new boyfriend Henry.
On the Net or otherwise.
She says it’s a bad sign if
I don’t feel that way about Dylan.
But Rachel says one person
can’t completely fulfill
anybody’s needs a hundred percent
and it’s not as if
I’m actually dating Chaz,
so she doesn’t see anything wrong with it.
I love that girl.
CYBER SOUL MATE
It’s almost ten o’clock.
I can hardly wait
to see his voice
HIS WORDS POP ONTO MY SCREEN:
“So tell me about your day.
I want to know everything that happened
from the minute you woke up this morning
to right now.”
I don’t think anyone’s
ever
been this interested in me before.
Not even me.
As I place my fingers
to the keys
and begin,
my heart does the happy chatroom dance.
MORE OR LESS
If Dylan and I had met
by chatting on the Net
in a room in cyberspace
instead of face to face
and I hadn’t seen his lips
or the way he moves his hips
when he does that sexy dance
and I hadn’t had a chance
to look into his eyes
or be dazzled by their size
and all that I had seen
were his letters on my screen,
then I might as well confess:
I think I would have liked him
less.
DOUBLE DATE
All Grace has to do is smile at him
and Henry forgets what he’s saying
right in the middle of his sentence.