We faced each other down. Will’s finger had wandered into his mouth again. Procrastinator. Ms. Hurstenwild was going to genuinely murder me.
I closed my locker and started walking backward. “Look, Will, if you don’t have anything to—”
At that moment, two things happened.
A little farther down the hall, a door opened, and a student stepped halfway out of the classroom. Only the back of the head was visible—the student had paused to speak to the teacher on the way out—but the close-trimmed Afro and black-and-white letterman jacket looked a lot like it belonged to Will’s friend Matt.
Lo and behold, I was right on the money with that one. With a small yelp, Will lunged forward, opened a nearby door, and shoved me into the room.
Before I could get my bearings, Will had joined me and slammed the door closed, plunging us into darkness. I tried to back away and stepped right into what felt like a mop bucket. Or at least, it was a mop bucket, I figured from the crunch of snapping plastic. I shot a hand out to steady myself and smacked straight into a shelf of some sort. A bunch of unidentified items clattered onto the concrete floor—and onto my feet. I swore in pain as a particularly heavy bottle all but shattered my toes. Motherfucker.
“Jesus Christ, Ollie, hold still,” Will’s voice hissed through the darkness.
“What are you doing? Is this an assault? Should I scream?”
“I didn’t want Matt to see us.”
“Ah. Getting rid of witnesses. So it is an assault?”
“Come on, Ollie, be serious.”
I kind of was, to be honest. “And why does it matter if Matt sees us?”
Even though I couldn’t see a thing, my third eye clearly made out some cuticle-chewing action. “Do you have to ask?”
And what the hell was that supposed to mean? “Uh, given that I did ask … yes?”
A long pause. Long pauses are never good. One day, I would write a thesis on the history of long pauses, and the hurt feelings that followed them 200 percent of the time. This was just like the time in tenth grade, when I shaved one side of my head and asked Ryan how it looked at school the next day. Except this long pause was lasting longer, and oh God, this was going to really stab, wasn’t it? Fuck long pauses. Motion to ban them from social interactions, please.
“Well … you know …”
Nope. But I was about to, wasn’t I?
“Like … most of the school has figured out you’re gay.”
“Oh. Interesting. I haven’t met most of the school, so don’t know how they managed that.”
“Yeah, but …”
I knew what he was getting at. It was fine. Whatever. It’s not like it was a state secret or anything. And hey, if people guessed, it saved me having to have a discussion about my sexual preferences with people who didn’t even know if I preferred ham or peanut butter on my sandwiches. For reference, the answer was, “both, simultaneously.”
“And so what?” I asked. “So what if they know I’m gay? Why, exactly, does that mean you can’t be seen with me? Am I contagious? Because I guess that’d explain a lot.” As far as explanations went, that’d win an award for creativity. Sorry, I stopped texting you because my precise strain of “gay” was only temporary. Kind of like salmonella.
Will’s sigh was particularly loud and scathing in the small space. Claustrophobia does that. “The guys are being dicks about it. It’s like a running joke. They keep trying to ‘set each other up’ with you at lunch.”
Well. I’d like to say that after years of being out and coming to terms with myself, and homophobia, and the rest of it all, that I’d be able to brush that one off. But it hurt. It always hurt a little, at least, to know people were talking about you in a less than flattering way. Being so new at the school, though, and people already having an opinion about me? And Will being involved in it? Had he even tried to defend me? Or had he laughed along with them?
“Uh-huh.” My tone was flat.
“I don’t join in,” he added quickly.
But do you stop them?
Suddenly, I laughed. It spilled like blood from a fresh wound. Out and out and out.
“What’s so funny?”
“We’re in a closet.”
“I told you, I didn’t want—”
“You dragged me into a closet to have this conversation. Did you do this on purpose, or what? Unbelievable.”
“I don’t …” Will started, then it must’ve clicked. “Really, Ollie? Super mature.”
“I’m immature? You’re too afraid to be seen talking to me. Are we done?” It was funny. All this time, I’d been through so many emotions. Hurt. Betrayal. Sadness. Acceptance. Maybe a bit—okay, maybe a lot—of longing. But I hadn’t been angry. At least, I hadn’t realized I was so angry. Here I was, however, bubbling right up and over. Pissed off as all hell.
“We haven’t even started. Can you give me a chance to explain?”
A chance? We’d been talking for at least five minutes now.
“… Ollie?”
“Yes, I’m listening, whatever. Go.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you, I swear. My parents caught me coming home that night and went nuts. They confiscated my phone, I wasn’t allowed to touch my laptop, nothing. For three weeks. It was ridiculous.”
Yeah, yeah, I knew all this. I considered pointing out that he’d told people he was with girls that night, but I couldn’t even be bothered going down that road with him. It’d only conflate things. “It’s cool. Really. I’m more concerned with how you acted at the party. What was that? The conversation with your friend must have been really riveting for you to forget I was there so quickly.”
My eyes had started adjusting to the darkness. There he was. Leaning against the door, one hand draped across his stomach, the finger of the other in his mouth. He was looking right at me, at least. Suddenly, I was self-conscious. How did I look today? Had I put enough effort in getting ready this morning? Had I checked my teeth before I left the house?
“You told the girls about me. I freaked out, okay?”
“I’m sorry. Really, I—”
“I know you are! I’m not mad. I know you didn’t do it on purpose. You had no idea. But that doesn’t mean it’s all fine, you know? I mean, what if they tell someone?”
“They haven’t yet.”
“Yet. If my parents found out … Ollie …”
I didn’t reply. Because what could I say to that? My whole face flushed with shame, the anger temporarily forgotten. It was all my fault he’d been put in this situation. Whether I meant to or not. Why hadn’t I kept my damn mouth shut? I hadn’t even known those girls and I’d spilled out my life story. Or at least my summer story. Which was more torrid than the rest of my life combined, to be fair.
Will hugged himself with both arms and stared at the ground. “I wasn’t good enough to get a basketball scholarship, so I’m relying on them to support me. I can’t fuck anything up this year, or I’m done.”
And a fuckup would include … right.
“I see.”
“I didn’t know what to do. I mean, Jesus, it’s not like I expected you to be here. It’s so ridiculous.”
That was another thing with Will. Everything was “ridiculous,” from minor anomalies to life-altering events. I had to fight a smile hearing that word again. Even if it did kind of apply in this situation.
“I was scared, okay? What I did over the summer … like, what we did, isn’t something I would’ve done with anyone from around here. I thought it was safe.”
Right. So he’d been counting on never having to see me again. Bam. Ouch.
“Then it’s like, oh, hey, Ollie is right fucking there, and now some people know, and for a second I thought that was it. Like well, here we go, now everyone’s about to find out everything.” He paused to let me speak. When I didn’t, he went on. “I had to see you, though. I haven’t thought about anything else since the party. I was just scared. I mean, you’re here.”
He
touched my arm. Even though it made me shiver, and my blood heat up by several degrees, and my stomach kick up, I yanked away. The anger was well and truly back, and it wasn’t having any of my body’s romance bullshit.
Will blinked at me, hurt. “I’m so glad to see you,” he tried.
“Yeah, I can tell,” I said, gesturing at the walls. So glad to see me he couldn’t even be seen speaking to me. So glad he’d taken two weeks to text me after getting his phone back. Clearly he was rapturous.
“I have to get to class,” I said, trying to push past him.
He blocked me. “Wait.”
“I have claustrophobia.”
“You do not.”
“As romantic as I find chatting around dustpans and rags, Will, I think I’m going to have to decline. Let me know if you ever want to talk somewhere with oxygen, but until then, good luck with college.”
“Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.” The lie was so blatant that Will scoffed at me. I didn’t care. “We’re late. Come on.”
“No.”
“Fine. Suit yourself.” I squeezed past him and opened the door. Sweet air and light.
Will hesitated. Like he expected me to go back in and join him for a bit longer. To do what? Have another somewhat heartbreaking conversation? Kiss him? In a goddamnit-I-can’t-believe-I’m-even-saying-this closet? No way.
When he didn’t follow, I gave him a sweet smile, and shut the door on him. Right in his face. I stared at the door, surprised at my own gall. I didn’t know I had that much sass dwelling under the surface. I felt a little guilty, but mostly I was impressed with myself.
With a tiny laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob— except it couldn’t be, because I’d promised not to cry anymore—I turned on my heel and hurried to class without turning back to see if Will had let himself out.
I’d won that round. The spiteful side of me was polishing a trophy with a smug grin.
So why was the rest of me so hollow?
9
“Who are these guys again?”
Will’s cheek was barely an inch from mine. We lay side by side on my bed, sharing headphones. It was one of those rare afternoons where I’d managed to score the house to myself. Our fingertips were spidering around each other’s, our hands resting on my thigh.
I bumped my phone to light it up for him. “Letlive. Good, right?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
“Surprising because you’re a music snob?”
Will smiled, and touched his temple to mine. “Shut up.” His tone was all warm and tender. The way a guy talks to someone he really likes. I knew that tone. It was the first time I’d heard him use it. A part of me died with happiness. Straight-up curled into a ball and died. “I guess whenever I hear the word ‘punk,’ I think, like, Blink-182 or Fall Out Boy.”
“Both solid bands. You’d better not be knocking them.”
“I am a bit.”
“We can agree to disagree.”
“They’re a bit more … simple than this.”
“I guess. They’re pop punk junk food.”
Will laughed. “I love that. That’s perfect. Pop punk junk food.”
Rejuvenated, I started flicking through my albums. “If you like them, you should check out these guys. They have this thing they do with harmonies that’s just argh, and the drummer, God, I could listen to a whole album of just his solos. Hold on, I’ll find them—what?”
Will was staring at me with a funny little smile. “Nothing. It’s cute how passionate you get about music. I feel like you could convince Bach all he was missing was some heavy bass guitar.”
“I really like music, I guess. So sue me.”
“Yeah, well, I really like you. So sue me.”
Tuesday, 4:02 PM
I’m sorry.
I didn’t speak to Will again after that morning in the closet. He did try to text me, once, later that day, but I forced myself to ignore it. I knew myself, and I wasn’t much of a “let’s stay friends” kind of person. If I didn’t cut Will off cold-turkey, I’d end up pining over him, all hopelessly devoted, and hurt, and unrequited. Well, like, more than I was currently.
I did spend quite a chunk of the week replaying my reaction in my head. Depending on my mood, I interpreted the memory differently. Sometimes I internally congratulated myself for having the strength to storm out and slam that door. All I’d needed was a Destiny’s Child song playing as an overture, and it would’ve been the greatest “screw you” since Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.
Then other times, I convinced myself Will still had feelings for me, and that I’d ruined a beautiful future— culminating in marriage and three adopted children—with a five-second tantrum. Those times were way less fun.
One night, in the middle of one of these fits of despair, I asked Mom if she had any huge regrets from when she was a teenager. She apparently thought the appropriate response to that question was to break out into an off-key rendition of “Let It Be” by the Beatles. Word for word. From beginning to end. A performance I was expected to watch in full. I made a mental note never to ask Mom for relationship advice again.
At school, I was settling into a rhythm. Juliette and I often escaped to the music room during lunch. With band practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the music room was fast becoming my favorite place in the school. Everything about it, from the cheesy inspirational posters lining the walls, to the collection of crappy-quality guitars and violins, to the microphones and amplifiers stored in the nook at the far end of the room, was familiar. Comforting. Music was music, whether in California or North Carolina.
Thursdays, I had Music Appreciation right before lunch. When the bell chimed, I packed up my stuff and wandered to my locker, all dreamy and happy. I was too busy dwelling in my own little world of melodies and advanced beats to notice anything different when I first made it into the cafeteria. But you can bet I sure as hell noticed when I got to the lunch table and found Will sitting in my seat.
Sitting in my damn seat like a smug, seat-stealing, little …
Oh, no, wait, the other guys were there, too. They’d dragged over extra seats and crammed around the perimeter of the table, shoulder to shoulder to fit everyone in. My first thought was that Will had made them come here so he could talk to me. My second thought was, holy shit, you are the poster child for narcissism, Oliver Di Fiore. Not everything revolves around you, get all the way up and over yourself. Juliette had said some of the basketball guys sat with us from time to time. Well, here was one of those times. No stress. Be cool.
Please, for the love of God, be cool.
Then, oh yeah, silly me, I remembered I hated these guys for making homophobic jokes with me as a punch line. So, basically, fuck every single one of them.
“Ollie-oop, I saved you a seat.” Juliette waved me down and gestured to the empty seat next to her. Just in case I thought she was referring to one of the taken seats, I guess.
As soon as Juliette said my name, Will’s head cocked to the side, and he glanced up in a not-very-subtle way. Without looking at him, I breezed past and Tetris’d my lunch tray into a tight gap between Juliette’s and Niamh’s.
Matt sat directly across from me, with Will on his left side. On Matt’s other side, Darnell, one of Will’s other friends, was leaning his elbows on the table to speak to Niamh. Darnell wasn’t a short guy by any means, but compared to his friends, he was practically a pixie. He had warm, medium-brown skin with a smattering of freckles over a wide nose, and tilted eyebrows that gave him a permanently concerned, kind sort of look. From the way he had zeroed in on Niamh, you could tell he’d forgotten anyone else was sitting at the table. “… You basically don’t eat a thing for almost two days,” he was saying. “Last year I raised two hundred bucks. It’s not that hard.”
Niamh tossed her hair and simpered in a very un-Niamh-like way. I was used to the Niamh that mostly looked pleasant, and a little vacant. This was Niamh on a mission. A mission inv
olving a hot guy. “It kind of sounds like that fasting diet you see all over Instagram. Doesn’t it mess with practice, though?”
“Nah,” the guy said.
“Yes,” Matt spoke over him. “He was useless the whole week after the famine last year.”
That earned him a hard glare from Niamh’s Prince Charming. The message was clear: you are actively cock-blocking me, and have precisely one second to stop that. “It’s for charity, man.”
“Yeah, well, if you could help the poor when we don’t have a game against Williamstown, that’d be sweet.”
Will stayed quiet, watching the exchange. He kept glancing up at me, like a pigeon that feels mostly safe, but also wants to check that it isn’t about to be ambushed. Is that what he thought? That I’d do something to out him in front of his friends? Although to be fair, he’d made it pretty clear that acting like I knew him at all would doom him forever. Because he might catch the gay, after all. He probably hadn’t even told the guys we’d ever met. Aaaand this was supposed to be my Prince Charming. I kind of felt like Niamh had gotten the better deal here.
Niamh swirled her mashed potatoes with a fork. She’d spent more time playing with her food than eating it. Did she not want to eat in front of the guys? Or had she lost interest? “I think it’s really selfless,” she said. “I might have to try it one year.”
“You could time it with a casting,” Lara suggested through a mouthful of bread.
Niamh frowned. Juliette and the guys seemed to miss it, but I knew too well what it was like to be on the receiving end of Lara’s jabs. Time it with a casting so Niamh could lose a bit of weight. That’s what she meant. Even if she said it innocently. This was the first time I’d noticed Lara directing her nastiness at someone other than me. She must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Or maybe she didn’t like the attention Matt was giving Niamh right now.
The conversation went on around me. I didn’t join in. It wasn’t super unusual for me to be quiet at lunch, and there was no way I felt comfortable enough to speak up with this audience. The weird thing was that Will didn’t speak, either. This was the first time I’d really seen him around the basketball guys up close, so I had no way of knowing if that was out of character for him or not at first. Then Matt asked him twice why he was so spaced out and I had my answer.
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