E. Lockhart - Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Werent Complicated, I Wouldnt be Ruby Oliver

by e. lockhart

RUBY OLIVER NOVELS
The Boyfriend List
The Boy Book
The Treasure Map of Boys
Real Live Boyfriends

Fly on the Wall
Dramarama
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
How to Be Bad(with Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by E. Lockhart

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lockhart, E.
Real live boyfriends : yes, boyfriends, plural. if my life werent complicated I wouldnt be Ruby Oliver / E. Lockhart. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Now a senior at her Seattle prep school, Ruby continues her angst-filled days coping with the dilemmas of boyfriends, college applications, her parents squabbling, and realizing that her deranged persona may no longer apply.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89758-0

[1. Self-perceptionFiction. 2. Dating (Social customs)Fiction.
3. Interpersonal relationsFiction. 4. High schoolsFiction.
5. SchoolsFiction. 6. Seattle (Wash.)Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L79757Re 2010

[Fic]dc22
2009041988

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For Daniel

a definition:

A real live boyfriend does not contribute to your angst.

You do not wonder if he will call.

You do not wonder whether he will kiss you.

And he does not look at his phone while you are talking, to see if anyone has texted him.

Of course he calls. Hes your boyfriend!

Of course there will be kissing. Hes your boyfriend!

And of course he listens. Hes your real live boyfriend!

You can sit down next to him at lunch whenever you want. Theres no need for mental gyrations such as: Will he want me there when hes hanging with his friends? Or will he half ignore me in order to seem golden in front of them?

Of course you can sit with him. Hes your boyfriend!

You can assume youll see him on the weekend. You can call him just to chat. You can expect hell be nice to your friends.

Contrary to some rumors, however, you dont have to be in love. You dont have to engage in any horizontal action beyond what youre in the mood for. You dont even need to stay together after high school. But you have to like him and he has to like youand everyone has to know youre together.

Hes your real live boyfriend!

f rom seventh grade to ninth, I had a real live boyfriend named Tommy Hazard.

Tommy was perfect. He had clear skin, he was never obnoxious in class, and he was excellent at sports. He had beautiful strong shoulders and a secret mysterious smile. Tall but not too tall. Great teeth. Smoldering eyes.

In fact, he was superhot and could have any girl he wanted. And the best thing washe went weak whenever he saw me.

He was also imaginary.

I told my best friend, Kim, all about him. He changed according to my mood. Sometimes he was a surfer boy in board shorts and a bead choker, tossing the water out of his hair as he smiled down at me. Sometimes he was a skate punk. Other times a mod guy in a narrow tie who took beautiful black-and-white photographs.

Then I started going out with Jackson Clarke, sophomore year, and Tommy Hazard disappearedI guess because I finally had a real live boyfriend with a real live heart pumping in his chest.

Onlythen it turned out he didnt.

Have a heart.

And he didnt want to be my real live boyfriend anymore

He wanted to be Kims.

Flash to end of junior year.

When I wrote the above definition of a real live boyfriend, it was fourteen months since Kim and Jackson got together and shattered my heart, plunging me into an abyss of bad mental health. I wrote it sitting in the B&O Espresso, where Meghan and I were supposed to be studying for finals. We were hopped up on dobosh torte and coffee drinks, and I couldnt think any more about chemistry formulas.

I flipped to a new page in my notebook and wrote something else, just to give myself a break.

Meghan crinkled her sexy little freckled nose when she read it. What do you mean, real live boyfriend?