By the time we made it to the school lobby, I’d shrunk two inches, clutching my backpack loops like a shield, hoping they could deflect the dirty looks flying from every direction.
It was bad enough to make me ask Hannah the unthinkable. “Do you think you could get your girlfriend to order a ceasefire?”
“I doubt she’d be much help.”
Before I could figure out whether to be offended, I heard a wordless shout ring out from the crowd—and as I turned to investigate, a Starbucks cup hit me in the forehead.
According to my classmates, this was the funniest thing that had ever happened in all of human existence.
“At least it was empty,” I muttered. A trickle dripped from my bangs. “Mostly.”
Hannah handed me the napkin from her lunch bag, then veered off for homeroom.
“I’m around if you need me,” she called behind her.
“Do you have more napkins? For later?” She didn’t respond.
QB was waiting by the lockers. As always.
“Hey, Daisy.”
I braced myself. If anyone stood to be livid about homecoming, it would be QB. He’d been voted into the court two years running. It was Christmas, the Oscars, and Super Bowl Sunday all in one. And I’d ruined it.
“You look nice today.”
I have to admit—I melted. By his pained squint, I could tell he’d heard the news as clearly as everyone else. He didn’t care. Which made QB Saunders the only one not tormenting me at school. It was a topsy-turvy upside-downy world.
“You doing anything tomorrow?” He’d asked me this every day since Monday and I’d found a plethora of creative ways to avoid answering.
Don’t say it, Daisy, my brain cautioned. You’ve got a thing, remember?
His smile was wavering, unsure. He looked so vulnerable. But strong too. Like a bodyguard. I could sure use a bodyguard today . . .
“You wanna—”
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”
You’re supposed to be asexual, dammit! What is the matter with you? Just because all of a sudden he’s “Chris Saunders: Nice Guy Extraordinaire” doesn’t mean a tiger can completely change his—
QB winked. “See you at the game.”
I jolted alert. Of course. Friday night, when the Pirates held their weekly exercise in losing gracefully. I’d just agreed to be QB’s girl in the stands, dotingly groaning after every interception.
“Actually,” I called weakly after him. “I might have a thing?”
He was too far away to hear me and too surrounded by football buddies for me to scamper up and continue the conversation without humiliating both of us. So there it was. I had a pseudo-date with QB Friday night.
Why did I feel like I actually did have a “thing” on Friday?
Oh right. Adam. College reporter. Moonlight Coffee Shop. I’d have to squeeze them both in. I giggled.
Shut up, said my brain.
“Hey Blueberry,” said a senior girl down the hall. “Cancel this.”
This time, I managed to duck.
The Alliance was waiting for a plan. And apparently I was meant to supply it.
“Don’t get me wrong, Daisy,” Sean said. “This is an incredible idea. I can picture it already.” He lifted one hand, gazing off at an imaginary horizon. “Club lights. A great mix of EDM and deep cuts, minimal Top Forty to get the plebs on board. Way better floats and costumes—”
“Plus,” Jack cut in drily, “it could, you know, start a conversation about how we treat gay students at this school.”
Sean pointed at him, thunderstruck. “Yes! That too! But it’s a big undertaking, right? Are we sure we can pull this off?”
Hell to the no. Before I could say it, Raina rolled forward, tapping her legal pad with a ballpoint pen.
“In terms of pure logistics, the answer is ‘maybe.’ If we’re on private land, using private dollars, they’ll have a hard time stopping us. So the first question is: How do we get that land?”
“And those dollars,” Sophie added, her voice dropping as if “dollars” were a curse word. “My mom said she’d help us fund-raise, but I don’t think she’s raised more than five hundred for her community farm project—and that’s, like, her baby. We’d need a lot more than that.”
Everyone turned to me.
“Bake sale?” I suggested. “Or wrapping paper? We could sell . . .” Everyone’s faces had fallen. “For the holidays? No?”
Jack raised his hand. “I have a completely unrelated question.”
“Yes!” I said, pointing at him. “Go ahead.”
He ignored me, looking down the table at Sophie. “Are we still doing Touchy-Feely Time during meetings? Or is that something we’ve sidelined?”
“No! Oh my goodness, not at all. I have the candle with me . . .” Sophie rummaged frantically in her bag. “We’ve just been so busy with planning, I didn’t want to—”
“Oh my Lord’a mercy, the candle!” Sean laughed, making air quotes, as Sophie produced a tiny tea light with a flickering electric bulb. “Y’all, I have missed this.”
Sophie and Raina were staring questions at each other. Raina shrugged.
“Yeah, fine, whatever, it’s not like we’re getting anywhere planning-wise.”
“Touchy-Feely Time!” Jack crowed, spinning his chair. “I have feels and I am not afraid to touch them.”
Just as I was slowly raising my hand to ask, Whaaa . . . ? Sophie dimmed the lights. Everyone but Kyle seemed to understand what was going on. He looked to me in helpless appeal, but I faked the same serene expression as Sophie. I’d been voted in less than forty-eight hours ago. I was going to blend from here on out.
“Who would feel comfortable going first?” Sophie asked, her voice low and soothing. “Sean?”
When nobody objected, Sean cupped the fake candle.
“First of all,” he began. “I said this last week, but it’s good to be back here. It was a tough summer with Diego back in Spain . . .”
Group therapy!
At first, the realization came as a relief. At least I could identify the format. But as Sean went on, I started to tingle with embarrassment, wondering whether he’d forgotten I was in the room—the new girl. The outsider.
“His family doesn’t know,” he said. “It’s worse for him in a lot of ways and I wonder whether he regrets it sometimes, the person he was when he was here . . .”
He must have been talking about Diego Jimenez, an exchange student I vaguely remembered from last year. I’d had no idea they were together.
“But then he gets so jealous too,” Sean was saying, rubbing his jaw. “It’s that hot Latin temper, I guess.” He grinned wolfishly. “We used to sneak into Luxe Lounge downtown and now every time I talk to D, he asks whether I’ve gone back. Like he thinks I’m out every weekend picking up college guys. He doesn’t believe me, but I’m not! I would never. He’s the only one I want.” He raised his chin, eyes starry, and I wondered if he was about to break into song. “I mean, it’s this crazy thing. I met my soul mate in high school.”
I mentally snorted. Immediately felt like an asshole.
The truth was, Sean looked different than I remembered him from back in my stalker days. He’d always had this unremittingly positive glow about him, the kind that transcended tans and teeth whiteners. But right now, that glow was wavering. He looked everything at once—swept away, sad, giddy, terrified, blissful. He was in love. Who the hell was I to knock it? I knew nothing about it.
Not to mention the fact that my own parents were high school sweethearts. Not that they interacted all that much these days. But still.
Sean rolled his shoulders like he was wringing the sadness out of them, tapped the candle twice on the table, and passed it to Jack.
Despite his eagerness to talk just a few minutes ago, Jack’s ha
nds shook as he pulled the faux-flame closer.
“Same old same old for me,” he started casually. “I actually did hook up with a college kid I met at Luxe Lounge, back in June.” He nodded at Sean. “But he was gone by July. Thank God.”
His laughter seemed to deflate him. I found myself holding my breath. This was the first time I’d ever seen Jack Jackson without his swagger in effect.
“My parents are still dragging me to church,” he said, and as he shifted in his chair, I could make out a tiny silver chain around his throat, glittering in the candle’s glow. “I had to do another prayer session with Reverend Tom. Two hours this time. Probably would have been longer, but finally I just pretended to cry and told him that he’d purged me of my sinful ways so he’d let me out.”
He was smiling wryly, making his words all the more jarring. Of all the people in this room, Jack Jackson was the last I’d have expected to come from a conservative family. He was so open. So confident.
“I wish I hadn’t pretended now,” he said. “Because I have to sit there in church every week and act like I’m listening to the sermons, like they’re really purging my soul.” Jack waved his hands like he was at a tent revival. “And when we leave the service, Reverend Tom always shakes my hand extra-long with this look in his eye. Like . . . pride. Like I was his big win against Satan. And it’s bullshit. But I can’t say anything, can I? And it’s almost worse that I’m bi. Because I could just wait until marriage, find a nice Christian girl, live the way they want me to. But I’d still be lying. I’d still be different.”
There was a moment when it seemed like he’d go on. That he’d stand, strengthened by our presence, press his hand to his heart and resolve to be honest at home and at church. But instead, his head sank as he passed the candle back to Sophie.
She closed her eyes before her turn, and I went from holding my breath to feeling it harden into cement in my chest.
“Everything’s good at home,” she said. “I’m grateful for that. And for my friends.” She smiled like it hurt. “It’s just hard to stay calm when people at school say things about me. Call me . . .”
She pressed her lips together, unwilling to voice words that should never have been voiced in the first place. But I could see her mentally reciting them, her eyes unblinking, bracing herself against them. My own stomach clenched at the memory of how it had felt for me—not just the first taunt of the day but the sixth, twelfth, twenty-fifth. Bullying worked in increments: annoying, then stinging, then cutting, then scraping bone, then plain-old scar tissue—numb, but ever-present.
But what I’d faced was “Crazy Daisy.” “Psycho.” “Smurfette.” Nothing. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know what Sophie was hearing day after day—the smallest, pettiest part of me wishing she would just pass the candle. Instead, she turned to me and then to Kyle, the two newbies, straining for brightness as she filled us in.
“I went out a couple of times with a junior last year. It was a mistake. He was a jerk. I didn’t let it go too far, thank goodness. But I did tell him that I was bisexual. And since then . . .” She played with the elastic band on her braid. “It’s just been really hard. People—guys—seem to think they can say whatever they want to me. And I haven’t figured out how to handle it.”
“Punch them in the face,” I blurted. “Or hot coffee to the crotch.”
“We don’t interrupt during this part,” Sean said gently, sinking me deeper into my swivel chair. He winked. “But I totally agree.”
“I’m not really . . . comfortable with anger?” Sophie gazed at the ceiling. “My mom says I need to work on it.” Her eyes drifted down to me. “She’s a psychologist.”
“Right,” I said, touchy-feely time making a ton more sense in context.
The candle traveled across the table to Kyle.
“Um, I’m Kyle. I’m a freshman?” He blushed furiously and itched his nose. “And you already know that? Okay, um.”
We all smiled encouragingly.
He tapped his hands on the desk and drew a breath.
“I came out to my mom and dad a few months ago. And my sister, Lily. She was there too. Um, and they weren’t surprised? They said they’d always known and they loved me or whatever? And it was . . . pretty cool. So.”
“That’s awesome,” Sean said. Everyone nodded except Jack. He was staring down at the table, forehead knotted. I wanted to grab his hand, but wasn’t sure I had the right.
“They suggested I join the group, so . . . here I am.” Kyle shot the candle to me like an air hockey puck.
My turn. Um.
“I’m actually doing kind of okay, apart from the fact that the whole school hates me. Except you guys!” Everyone smiled back except Raina. “So . . . yeah.”
I inched the candle away.
“Can I make a request?” Jack asked. “Feel free to say no to touching-slash-feeling, but this is at least the second time you’ve referenced punching someone in the face. I for one would love to hear more about that.”
I did feel like I owed the group my dues, a secret to drop in the pot, even if mine was in a less valuable currency.
“Okay. Well. Back in eighth grade, Hann—”
I stopped. It wasn’t cool to talk about her behind her back. But there was no way to tell this story—or, really, any of my stories—without her. So . . .
“My friend was dating this guy, Max. They’d been together for like a month, but they hardly saw each other. He was fine, fairly hot, fairly nice, she was sort of meh about him.”
Oh right, I realized. Because she’s gay.
“Anyway, she begged me to try going out with his best friend, so I did. For one date. We all went to Max’s house and rented a movie and . . .” I groaned, curling up in the chair. “I really should have known when Max turned off the lights and suggested his friend sit next to me. Max started kissing Hannah instead of watching the movie and then his friend just . . . jumped me. We had spoken like two words to each other. I mean, hand up my shirt, mouth open, coming at me. I basically, like, kissed his teeth while fending off his fingers, and I was like, ‘Whoa, buddy, slow it the hell down,’ and instead of being remotely gentlemanly, he got all mad and said, ‘You should be grateful.’ And as I’m pondering that, he comes back at me! For another attempt! So basically, yeah. I punched him in the face. I mean, what else are you gonna do? Broke his nose. He bled all over Max’s sofa, it was awesome. Max and Hannah got into a big fight about it and broke up, but I think she was just looking for an excuse anyway. And then Max moved to Texas two months later. Which I don’t think was related.”
I gazed at the candle, smiling from the memory—then, abruptly, remembered that there was a room of people listening, their eyes fixed on me with a mix of amusement and horror.
“And . . . that was my first and only kiss, The End.”
“Cool story.” Jack shot me a wink.
“Thank you,” I replied, blood racing through my body in an embarrassed gush. I’d actually just told that story. Out loud. To near strangers.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Sophie said quietly, and everybody nodded.
“Oh, I . . .” I wrapped my arms around myself. It was funny. I’d always thought of it more as something that had happened to him, bloody nose and all that, rather than something that had happened to me—something that could have been a lot worse. But the moment I looked up into everybody’s sympathetic eyes, my own started to prickle. “Yeah, thanks. Anyway.”
Since Raina was the only one left, I passed her the candle. She took it with a nod, thought for a second, then said, “Nothing today.”
Now I was the one scowling.
Raina clicked out the candle and put a fresh legal pad in its place.
“Okay. We’ve got . . .” She glanced at her watch with a frown. “One minute to decide on next steps vis-à-vis homecoming. Daisy? Suggestions?”
/>
Earnestness had crept into her tone. Not a good sign.
“I . . . think we should all brainstorm?” I clasped my hands on the desk. “And then come back to the table . . . and put our heads together . . . and spitball some ideas . . . and figure something out.” I was watching the clock over the door, hoping for a reprieve in three, two, one—
The bell rang.
Raina stood to go. “You heard her. Everybody come back next week with ideas.”
I was taking a heady breath of hallway air when Raina stopped me with a ninja grip to the elbow.
“That includes you, Daisy. We cannot be the club who got homecoming canceled.” Her face was inches from mine, rigid with panic. “We have to be better than that. Or all of this was for nothing.”
I didn’t disagree. I just didn’t have any bright ideas.
I didn’t have any bright ideas, in fact, until I was in bed staring at the glow stars on my ceiling fan, Sophie’s dulcet voice ricocheting through my nerve-addled brain.
“Community farm project . . . that’s her baby . . .”
The community farm was my mom’s baby too. Which, if you thought about it, made me its sister.
I sat up, clutching my comforter, translating my mom’s blahblahblahs into actual, pertinent words.
“I think this next meeting will do it,” she’d told me at dinner, while I was debating whether my sneakers were too embarrassing to wear to school again. “All we need is a signature and the land is ours.”
The land.
The flat, vacant plot of land across the street from my school. Big enough for a football field, several stages, a dance tent . . .
Big enough for the biggest, gayest homecoming Palmetto had ever seen.
12
Friday at five, Adam was waiting for me in a corner booth at the otherwise empty Moonlight Coffee Shop, clacking away on his crippled laptop. The duct tape was gone, but now it had a binder clip stuck to the corner.
As I slid into the booth, Adam raised one finger and kept typing with the others.
“Sorry,” he murmured, his keystrokes so forceful that the booth began to shake. He looked incongruously passionate, like a concert pianist playing a concerto only he could hear.
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