Love and Other Words

Macy is with her best friend Sabrina again. She tells Sabrina that Elliot broke up with his girlfriend for her. Sabrina is surprised that Macy isn’t happier about seeing him. Macy says that Sabrina just doesn’t like Sean, but Sabrina says that isn’t true. She notes Sean is the only person Macy has gone on more than three dates with, and for that she admires him. She also thinks that Macy should reconnect with Elliot because he is her soulmate.

Macy also reveals that she hasn’t told Elliot what happened to her dad. Sabrina is surprised and asks if Macy would be okay if the situation were reversed. Macy speculates that Elliot doesn’t use social media, so she wouldn’t be able to find him again even if she wanted to. Sabrina says, “You’ll think of something” (32).

The chapter is an email Macy wrote to Elliot. She thanks him for Bridge to Terabithia and says reading it makes her realize that Elliot is the person who understands her the best. She read it again in the car with her dad and started crying; then she told her dad about it, and he started crying. She thanks him again for the book and says thank you for “letting me talk about it, I guess” (33).

Elliot responds that he cried after reading the book too. He hopes Duncan isn’t angry at him for giving her a book that made her cry. He says he likes her for being cool, regardless of having a mom or not. They discuss Ivanhoe. Elliot reveals he and his friend, the one who used to live in Macy’s house, used to role-play Ivanhoe. They tease each other about their reading proclivities. Macy likes Nicholas Sparks. Macy brings up that her friend was kicked out of school for making out with a guy. Duncan asked if she had kissed any boys, and she says that she thinks all the boys at her school are losers.

Macy calls Liz Petropoulos. She asks her for Elliot’s phone number. She texts him that she wants to meet later. He accepts.

Macy asks her dad if they can go to the house for her birthday. Her dad asks if she wants to bring other friends, and she says no. Her dad reminds her that she’s too young to date, and she tells him not to be gross.

At the house, her dad wants to teach her how to plant a tree. When Macy knocks on the Petropoulos’ door, Andreas, Elliot’s older brother, answers. He yells up to Elliot that “your girlfriend is here” (39). Elliot comes down and the boys wrestle a bit. Macy asks him to show her his house, and he does so briefly, then takes her to his room which has the periodic table taped to the door. He explains Andreas put it on there, not him. When Macy enters, she says, “Anxiety and thrill hit me in a blast: I was entering a boy’s bedroom” (39).

Macy sees a picture of Elliot with a group of other boys and girls. She feels jealous of his friends, especially Emma whom Elliot admits he has kissed, though he says it meant nothing to him. She realizes she doesn’t know much about his life. She says they seem nice. Then he announces that his mom is pregnant. He asks if they can go to her place because her mom is queasy, and his brothers are “dicks.” They go to her house.

He notes that her birthday is coming up and asks if she wants to be with her girlfriends. She says she’s with him, and he’s her friend. She lets him know that she stopped spending so much time with her friends when her mom got sick. They seemed to grow up without her, but she no longer wanted to go to sleepovers. Her dad enrolled her in a grief group for teens. All the girls had the same haircut. Her dad learned how to manage Macy’s hair. These are things she hasn’t told anyone. She says, “Did I ever tell you that I have my mom’s hair?” Elliot responds, “I think you have the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen” (41).

Elliot meets Macy for dinner. She notes he has gotten a haircut, and it makes him look “skater hot.” He says she looks beautiful and pulls out the chair for her. She tells herself they are just friends, and she’s just there to make up for the morning. She apologizes for the way she treated him.

They both admit they are nervous. She realizes there is an ocean of information between them. There is so much they don’t know about one another. She asks about Rachel. He says he hopes they will be able to be friends eventually. He says he understands that she is engaged. He knows she can only be friends with him, but it won’t be easy.

He knew Rachel in graduate school, and they “defaulted” into a relationship. She tells him that she met Sean in May. She says that she wonders “whether our individual heartaches are silently duking this out from inside our bodies” (43). She tells Elliot about Sean. He’s an artist and a benefactor of the hospital. Elliot knows him. Macy says I always told myself the first man I felt right about I would marry. Elliot asks, “technically wouldn’t that person be me?” (44). Then the waiter approaches.

She feels that the two of them are in sync again because he knows what she likes to eat. He tells her about what his family members are doing. They talk and can’t get enough of the details of one another’s lives, but they don’t talk about their love lives or about what happened 11 years ago.

The first summer at the weekend house, Macy got her period. Duncan finds the list that Macy’s mother left. She wrote a letter to Macy about how bad her cramps had been. She tells her to love her body and take care of it and not let anyone abuse it.

Elliot enters the room. More and more, she feels upset that they don’t know anything about one another’s lives. They share stories of their friends, but they don’t spend time together in their day-to-day lives. Elliot is 15 now. He grabs her by the face and asks her to tell him what’s wrong. She hesitates and finally tells him, “I started my period” (47). Then she tells him about reading the letter from her mom. She realizes talking to Elliot about it isn’t that bad. He holds her and asks if there’s anything he can do, and she says, “not unless you can bring my mom back” (47).

He asks if she wants him to bring her a hot water bottle. She says no. He says, “because it would make it feel like I’m your boyfriend?” (47). She thinks he is more than that. He is her “Everyfriend.” He says, “I guess we’re too young for that.” She responds, “Yeah” (47).

Macy is thinking about Elliot when she wakes up. Sean tries to have sex with her. She stops him so she can tell him about her dinner with Elliot the night before. She explains he was her first love, and that they had a fight one night, and then she didn’t speak to him for 11 years.

He asks if she still loves him. He says it’s okay if she does. He admits he might feel the same way if Ashley, his ex-wife, walked back into his life. “I’d struggle with all of that. Anger, and hurt, and yeah—the love that I still have for her. I never got to fall out of love. I just had to move on when she walked out” (49). Macy realizes this is how she feels about Elliot too. She says, “I can barely trust a single feeling I have” (49).

Macy’s parents hadn’t paid much attention to Thanksgiving. Now, with just two people, Macy and her father decide to get only turkey breasts. But Elliot’s family invites them over for the holiday. On Thanksgiving Day, Macy is excited. She and her father were not lacking material possessions, but they didn’t have the chaos and bustle, the overstuffed plates, and the love of a large family. For Elliot’s family, she says, “the wealth here was what was inside” (51). When the family members say what they are thankful for, Elliot says he’s grateful for Macy. Macy says she is grateful they bought the house next door, that she met Elliot who likes her even though she is quiet, and that they didn’t have to make dinner alone.

Macy is grateful for the prospect of a day off. She invites friends, including Elliot, to enjoy it with her.

Macy is aware that others in her grade are starting to date, but she is not. She complains to Elliot that boys want “girls with boobs and who wear slutty clothes, and flirt” (54), not bookish girls like her. Elliot says he doesn’t want those things, and “for what it’s worth, Andreas thinks you’re cute” (54). Elliot told Andreas that if he touched Macy, he’d kick his ass. Then they wrestled with each other until they broke their mom’s vase.

They go back to reading, with Macy’s head on Elliot’s stomach. Duncan shows up. They assure him they are doing “nothing.” When he leaves, Elliot notes how big Duncan’s hands are. Macy tells Elliot she’s found her dad’s dirty magazines. They start talking about masturbation. Macy asks if he does “that” and what Elliot thinks about. Elliot tells her a list of things, including dragons.