after school, maura catches me at my locker.
maura: simon told me you’re officially g*y now. that you ‘met somebody’ in chicago.
I don’t owe you anything, maura. especially not an explanation.
maura: what are you doing, will? why did you tell him that?
because i did meet someone, maura.
maura: talk to me.
never. i am going to let the close of my locker speak for me. i am going to let the sound of my footsteps speak for me. i am going to let the way i don’t look back speak for me.
you see, maura, i don’t give a f**k.
that night, tiny and i exchange IMs for four hours. mom leaves me alone and even lets me stay up late.
someone with a fake profile leaves a comment on my myspace page calling me a fag. i don’t think it’s maura; someone else from school must’ve heard.
when i look in my mailbox at all the messages i’ve gathered there, i see isaac’s face has been replaced with a gray box with a red X through it.
‘profile no longer exists,’ it says.
so the mail from him remains, but he’s gone.
I see a few people looking at me weird in school the next day, and i wonder if it would be possible to reconstruct the path the gossip took from derek or simon to the towering snot-nosed jock glaring at me. of course, it’s possible that the towering snot-nosed jock always glared at me, and i’m just noticing it now. i try not to give a f**k.
maura’s laying low, but i assume it’s because she’s planning her next assault. i want to tell her it’s not worth it. maybe our friendship wasn’t meant to last longer than a year. maybe the things that drew us together - doom, gloom, sarcasm - weren’t meant to hold us together. the f**ked-up thing is, i miss isaac and i don’t miss her. even though i know she was isaac. none of those conversations count anymore. i am genuinely sorry that she went to such insane lengths to get me to tell her the truth - we would have been better off if we’d never been friends in the first place. i’m not going to try to punish her - i’m not going to tell everyone what she did, or bomb her locker, or yell at her in front of everyone else. i just want her to go away. that’s all. the end.
right before lunch, this kid gideon catches me by my locker. we haven’t really talked since seventh grade, when we were lab partners in earth science. then he went on the honors track and i didn’t. i’ve always liked him and we’ve always been on hi-in-the-halls terms. he dj’s a lot, mostly at parties i don’t go to.
gideon: hey, will.
me: hey.
I’m pretty sure he’s not here to bash me. the lcd sound-system shirt kinda gives that away.
gideon: so, yeah. i heard that you might be, you know . . .
me: ambidextrous? a philatelist? homosexual?
he smiles.
gideon: yeah. and, i don’t know, when i realized i was g*y, it really sucked that nobody was, like, ‘way to go.’ so i just wanted to come over and say . . .
me: way to go?
he blushes.
gideon: well, it sounds stupid like that. but that’s the gist of it. welcome to the club. it’s a very small club at this school.
me: i hope there aren’t dues?
he stares at his shoes.
gideon: um, no. it’s not really a club.
If tiny was at our school, i imagine it would be a club. and he would be the president.
I smile. gideon looks up and sees it.
gideon: maybe if you’d want to, i don’t know, get some coffee or something after school . . . ?
It takes me a second.
me: are you asking me out?
gideon: um, maybe?
right here in the halls. there are all these people around us. amazing.
me: here’s the thing. i’d love to hang out. but . . . i have a boyfriend.
these words are actually leaving my lips. uh-mazing.
gideon: oh.
I take out my phone and show him the inbox full of texts from tiny.
me: i swear, i’m not making it up just to get out of going on a date with you. his name’s tiny. he goes to school in evanston.
gideon: you’re so lucky.
this is not a word that’s usually thrown my way.
me: why don’t you sit with me and simon and derek at lunch?
gideon: are they g*y, too?
me: only if you’re a warlock.
I text tiny a minute later.
MADE NEW GAY FRIEND.
and he texts back
PROGRESS!!!
then
YOU SHOULD FORM A GSA!
to which i reply
ONE STEP AT A TIME, BIG BOY
and he replies
BIG BOY - I LUV THAT!
the texting goes on for the rest of the day and into the night. it’s pretty incredible, really, how frequently you can write someone when you’re keeping the character count low. it’s so stupid, because it feels like tiny’s sharing the day with me. like he’s there when i’m ignoring maura or talking to gideon or finding out that nobody’s going to axe-murder me in gym class because i’m sending out a homosexual vibe.
still, it’s not enough. because i felt that way sometimes with isaac. and i won’t let this relationship be all in my head.
so that night i call tiny on the phone and talk to him. i tell him i want him to come visit. and he doesn’t make excuses. he doesn’t say it’s not possible. instead, he says
tiny: how soon?
I will admit there’s a certain degree of giving a f**k that goes into not giving a f**k. by saying you don’t care if the world falls apart, in some small way you’re saying you want it to stay together, on your terms.
when i hang up with tiny, mom comes into my room.
mom: how’s it going?
me: fine.
and it’s true, for once.
Chapter thirteen
I awake to the sound of my alarm clock, blaring rhythmically, and it seems as loud as an air siren, shouting at me with such ferocity that it sort of hurts my feelings. I roll over in bed, and squint through the darkness: It’s 5:43 in the morning. My alarm doesn’t go off until 6:37.
And only then do I realize: That sound is not my alarm clock. It is a car horn, honking, sounding some kind of terrible siren song through the streets of Evanston, a howling warning of doom. Horns don’t honk this early, not with such insistence. It must be an emergency.
I race out of bed, pull on a pair of jeans, and bolt toward the front door. I’m relieved to see both Mom and Dad alive, racing to the entryway. I say, “Jesus, what’s going on?” and my mom just shrugs and my dad says, “Is it a car horn?” I make it to the door first and peer out the glass sidelight.