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has the eggs cooking in the skillet, he pours us each a cup of coffee. I watch as he briefly shuts his eyes and murmurs a blessing.
    He sips his coffee and asks, “Why didn’t you share a cabin with us last night? Were you afraid that I snore too loud?”
    I bite back a laugh. “Nah. I just don’t think my parents would like it if they knew I was sharing a room with boys. And what if the regional conference finds out? They’d be mad.”
    Matt slaps his palm with the spatula. “Eh. They’d never know. But I know what you mean. My mom would kill me.”
    “Really?”
    “Oh yeah. She’s the youth minister at Bell Buckle Chapel and spends most of her time teaching sex ed and trying to keep teenagers out of each other’s beds. Especially her own kids. My brother Jeremiah’s practically a man whore.”
    I stop moving. “A man whore?”
    He chuckles. “He’s got a new girlfriend every day.” He points at me with the spatula. “I’m not exaggerating. One time, this girl Laura came to lunch at our house and by dinner she’d been replaced by someone named Mary.”
    I laugh, rolling biscuit dough into a ball. “And what about you? Are you a man whore?” I stutter, trying not to seem interested in his answer.
    “I wish,” he says with a sigh. When he sees the look on my face, he quickly says, “Just kidding. I’m a one-girl kind of guy.”
    “So it’s just Andrea?” I ask, baiting him.
    He pauses and picks up his coffee cup from the picnic table. He sips. “Naw. I’m single right now. You?”
    “I’m single all the time.” I blush.
    “So…you have a moratorium on dating?”
    “No,” I say slowly. “I just haven’t dated anyone.”
    “Ever?”
    I hesitate. “Ever. Unless you count our date to the Thursday Night Dance that time.” He’s so easy to talk to, I can’t help but tell the truth, no matter how embarrassing it is.
    He takes a swig of coffee. “Are you picky?”
    I don’t know how to answer that. This is probably the longest conversation I’ve ever had with a boy. Well, besides Jacob, and he belonged to Emily. I still can’t believe she broke up with him.
    I sip some coffee.
    “I’m picky too,” he says before I can respond.
    I change the subject. “Now what do we do?”
    “Throw some bacon in that skillet, woman.”
    “‘Woman’?” I burst out laughing.
    He adjusts his bandana, smiling at me, and my stomach leaps into my throat, and I feel this longing deep inside—a longing to have a friend.

sketch #336
    what happened on may 5
    After making breakfast with Matt, I sharpen my pencil so I can sketch, to keep my mind off my pathetic dating history. But my plan doesn’t work.
    One day in May, I pulled open the front door and Jacob marched in, brushed past me, and headed for my living room. No hello, no hi, no nothing. I dug my fingernails into my palms and took a deep breath. I trudged into the living room and sat down beside him on the couch. His face was buried in his palms. Emily had broken up with him a week before, right after the abortion.
    I had never seen him that upset. Come to think of it, I’d never seen him upset at all. Jacob always had been a carefree kind of guy. I sketch his hair: black curls pulled back into a low ponytail. I draw the sticker-covered skateboard he always carries around, as he smiles and talks to everybody. Like Emily, he’s insanely musically talented. Sometimes he wears a kilt and plays silly music on the bagpipes. Once he played “Happy Birthday” for me and I couldn’t stop smiling. Lots of girls wanted him, but he’d been with Emily since they were fourteen years old.
    I draw the blank TV screen that Jacob had stared at that day. Draw tears leaking from his eyes.
    For a moment I wondered if he knew about the abortion, about what I had helped Emily do to his baby, when he spoke. “What did I do wrong? Why did she break up with me? Please—” His voice broke.
    I continued to dig my thumbnail into my palm. “She hasn’t told