Been Here All Along

by Sandy Hall

  “And that means you should know everything right away?”

  “No, but I should know stuff like this before other people.”

  I cross my arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Like, when did you tell Gideon?”

  “I don’t know. A long time ago. But Gideon’s been my best friend since before kindergarten. Of course I would have told him.”

  “So you’ve known the whole time we’ve been going out?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you never wanted to tell me before?” she asks, throwing up her hands in exasperation. She pulls away from me and walks off the dance floor. I catch up to her right by the refreshment table.

  “I did, it just makes me really nervous,” I explain, hoping she’ll get it. “Does it change something for you? Do you not like me anymore or something?”

  “No. I still like you. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I don’t understand why you wanted to tell me now. Why not sooner?”

  She stares up at me, and I get the terrible feeling like she might cry. She chews on the inside of her lip, like she’s just barely holding back her tears.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by not telling you sooner,” I say. It’s the best I can do in that moment, because the whole situation boggles my mind.

  “I know you said in the car that it was because you felt closer lately, but haven’t we always been close? I’m your girlfriend.”

  “Yes, you are. I guess I don’t know what to say to you to make this better.”

  “I just, I need a couple minutes,” she says, sniffling. She spins on her heel and speed-walks away. I’m left standing there by the refreshment table with my mouth hanging open.

  And there’s only one broken pink leaf cookie left.

  Isn’t that just the way life is sometimes?

  Gideon

  I sit up in the balcony completely stunned, watching the whole thing go down between Kyle and Ruby. I’ve never seen them so much as frown at each other before, but this is something different. This is an actual fight. Even from far away, I can tell that something is really wrong.

  I don’t know what Kyle’s face looked like, because he had his back to me the whole time, but Ruby’s was like a slide show of different kinds of emotions. Sad, angry, frustrated, very sad—it kept getting worse and worse.

  You hear the phrase all the time, that someone raised their hackles, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it to actually identify the action. As Kyle stood there, his whole back, shoulders, and neck tensed up. It should have been hard to watch. But I couldn’t look away.

  I’m hanging out with my friends Maddie and Sawyer, the ultimate power couple of class politics, but they’re totally unaware of the drama unfolding below. I’m glad neither of them notices that I completely checked out of the conversation several minutes ago.

  I should stop watching. Their fight is none of my business. I know it, but I can’t stop staring. I must sit there with my mouth hanging open for a good five minutes. I feel something welling up in my chest. It’s something like hope, but I don’t know why. And it makes me want to laugh for some reason, to the point where I have to put my hand over my mouth.

  “You okay?” Sawyer asks, nudging my arm.

  “Yeah, what’s up? You’re awfully quiet,” Maddie says.

  A couple of Kyle’s basketball friends are hanging out behind us. I had situated my little group that way in hope that Kyle would notice and come hang out up here. But now that Ruby stormed away and he’s making his way toward the balcony, I don’t think I can talk to him without either laughing in his face or asking way too many questions about what happened with Ruby.

  I make a quick excuse and exit the bleachers as fast as possible.

  I make a beeline for the boys’ locker room. No one’s in there, thank God. The last thing I need is to be harassed by a bunch of jocks while my emotions are going haywire.

  “Why did I feel like laughing?” I ask the empty room. Row upon row of green lockers stare back at me like soldiers standing in formation. I’m definitely losing my mind, because it feels like they’re judging me. “Why did watching Kyle and Ruby fight make me want to laugh?

  “Do I like Ruby?” I ask the lockers, as I walk toward the sinks. “Do I have feelings for her?” I stand there in the empty locker room and think about Ruby. Her hair is nice. Long, dark, and shiny, all those things shampoo commercials tell you are important. I think about kissing Ruby.

  “No. I don’t like Ruby,” I say.

  I wash my face and try to make sense of what I’m feeling. I slump onto a bench and lean my head against the wall, closing my eyes and covering my face with my hands.

  “What is wrong with me?” Again I find myself talking out loud to no one.

  I rub my eyes and turn my head to the left. There on the window of the coach’s office is a posed photo of this year’s basketball team.

  Kyle stands in the center of the back row. He’s the only guy smiling. All the others have on these stoic, tough-guy jock faces. I can’t help but smile back. I think about brushing his hair back off his forehead, which is not something I would ever do in real life, but I think about doing it all the time. Kyle pays better attention when his hair isn’t in his way.

  The Gideon in my head does something completely unexpected then. He runs his hand down Kyle’s cheek and moves it around to the back of his neck, before pulling him closer and pressing their lips together.

  The Gideon sitting in the locker room suddenly can’t breathe.

  All the air is gone from my lungs. Is this what a panic attack feels like?

  I take a few deep breaths and try to calm down. I’ve heard that if you can talk, you can breathe, so I say out loud, “Why would I be thinking about kissing Kyle?”

  Paranoia sets in immediately that while I was panicking, someone came in and might have heard me, so I take a quick circle around the locker room and make sure I really am alone.

  I sink back down onto the bench when I’m positive that no one is in here with me. I’ve worked hard to never deal with these kinds of feelings. I decided a long time ago that I’d figure out dating and girls in college. I don’t have time for that stuff if I want to get into a good school.

  This is not part of the plan.

  But maybe I didn’t have time for girls because I don’t like girls.

  I think I might pass out. I’m sweating, my hands are shaking, my eyes are blurry. Maybe I’m getting sick. Or maybe I like Kyle and have repressed it so hard for so long that acknowledging it now has forced me to the brink of sanity.

  Am I gay or do I just like Kyle? ’Cause if I just like Kyle, then maybe I’m bi? Or pan or one of those other spectrum-y things? Could I possibly just be Kyle-sexual? Is that a thing?

  I take a deep breath and count to ten. That’s supposed to be soothing, right?

  Then I start trying to think of an SAT vocabulary word for each letter of the alphabet. I love vocabulary words.

  After about ten minutes, I stand up and face my reflection in the mirror. I hold myself tall, squaring my shoulders, and look myself in the eye. I take a deep breath, pulling air all the way into my lungs and taking a long time to blow it out again.

  I feel better, less panicked, but I have some things to think about.

  Kyle

  I’m still stunned as I head up the stairs to the balcony, taking them two at a time to distance myself from what happened with Ruby out in the middle of the gym. If anyone saw it, then that means everyone will be talking about it soon enough. I really hope no one could hear the specifics. I’m not sure if I’m ready for everyone in school to know I’m bi.

  I see Sawyer and Maddie first and walk over to them, figuring Gideon must be somewhere nearby.

  “Have you guys seen Gideon?” I ask, leaning against the railing. I notice Buster and McKinley and a couple of other guys from the team are a row up the bleachers. I lean over to them and we slap hands. I’ll go sit there as soon as I figure
out where Gid is.

  “He ran off a minute ago,” Sawyer says, looking in the direction of the stairs I just came up.

  “He looked kind of, I don’t know, sick to his stomach,” Maddie says, making a face.

  “Is he coming back?” I ask. “I was supposed to drive him home later.”

  Maddie shrugs. “He didn’t say. He just booked it out of here.”

  I nod and then hop up the bleachers to sit with the guys on the team, half waiting for Gideon to come back and half wishing I was still talking to Sawyer and Maddie. Because even though I think of them as Gideon’s friends, they feel more like my people than a lot of these guys do. Except for Buster. Buster is totally my bro. He just gets me. I think because I was there when he got his nickname busting his hand while trying to karate chop a cinder block.

  I lean my elbows back on the row behind me, close my eyes, and zone out for a while, imagining Ruby’s friends, and my friends, and Gideon’s friends doing something together.

  But even just thinking about her makes me feel terrible. I feel shitty for making her feel like I don’t trust her, but I don’t like the fact that because I took my time coming out to her, she’s turned it around to mean something completely different. It’s a whole confusing circular issue, and I don’t know how to fix it.

  Gideon sits down next to me just as I’m thinking that maybe I should go home.

  “Hey,” I say, sitting up and turning toward him.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Are you sick or something?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  He doesn’t look fine, not at all. He looks kind of sweaty and confused.

  “Just don’t throw up on me,” I say.

  “I’m not gonna throw up on you,” he says.

  “You threw up on me that time in third grade.”

  “I threw up near you, not on you.”

  “Same difference. There was a splash zone,” I say. “But seriously, if you feel sick, we should get out of here. I don’t mind leaving early.”

  “You don’t?” he asks, his expression doubtful.

  “Ruby and I had a fight.”

  “Yeah, I saw.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Apologize?”

  “How do you know it was my fault?”

  He gives me a knowing look.

  “It really wasn’t my fault, though. She’s blowing the whole thing out of proportion.”

  “What?”

  “She’s upset that—” I pause, shooting a glance to see who’s around us. Buster’s leaning in to listen but I don’t mind, so I continue. “That I didn’t come out to her sooner.”

  Buster shakes his head. “Chicks are so sensitive.”

  “But it’s not really her thing to be upset about,” I say.

  Gideon sighs. “It’s not, but it’s not like it has absolutely nothing to do with her. You’ve known for a long time. She might need a little time to adjust.”

  “But it’s not her thing to adjust to. It’s about me. It’s not fair for her to be pissed about something that only concerns me.”

  “Maybe that’s what she’s pissed about, numb-nuts,” Buster says from my other side. “Like, she wants you to care about what she thinks and, like, know that, I don’t know, she’s an important part of your life. That she’s, like, concerned, too, or whatever.”

  “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but somewhere in there, Buster made a valid point,” Gideon says.

  Buster smiles like someone just gave him the Nobel Prize for Relationship Doctoring. “I am so valid,” Buster says.

  “Go make up with her,” Gideon says, punching me in the arm and then staring at his knuckles like he just noticed they exist.

  “Yes, you must go to her,” Buster says like he’s some kind of love guru. “It is the only way.”

  “All right, I’ll be back to find you before we leave.” I stand up and stretch.

  “Nah,” Gideon says. “Hang out with Ruby. I don’t want you to get in even more trouble.”

  “Shut up, I never get in trouble.”

  “Sure you don’t. But really, I’ll get a ride home from these guys,” he says, tapping Sawyer on the back.

  “Cool, thanks.”

  I say good-bye to everyone, and as I head for the stairs I take a look behind me for a little extra reassurance, maybe a thumbs-up or something, but Gideon is watching me go with that sweaty and confused expression on his face.

  Ruby

  Kyle finds me outside the girls’ bathroom near the senior lockers, hanging out with my friends Lilah and Lauren. I wanted to complain to them and tell them the whole story of what happened with Kyle, but it’s hard because I know I shouldn’t talk about his sexual preferences. That’s none of their business. I get that.

  But it’s my business when and how he tells me things, and this just felt wrong to me when I started thinking about it too much.

  I know I’m being kind of a weirdo about the whole thing, but it made me question our relationship. Not whether he likes me or not, but why he would wait to tell me. It’s a gray area, though. At least, that’s what I’ve decided. Because with a little more distance, I know I’m partially in the wrong here.

  And the fact that he came looking for me makes me feel very willing to apologize.

  “We’re gonna go back to the dance, Ru,” Lauren says when she sees Kyle. She tugs Lilah’s arm to drag her along.

  “Hey,” he says, wiping his hands on his jeans nervously. “I just—”

  “No, wait. Listen. I am so sorry. I’ve been thinking about it, and I overreacted. It’s like sometimes I forget that I’m not the boss of the world. It’s your thing to tell, and you should take your time and wait for your moment.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t getting what you were saying,” he says. “And it is my thing to tell, thank you for saying that, but I wasn’t understanding your point at all.”

  “I wasn’t doing a good job making my point.” I roll my eyes. “I get super jealous sometimes of you and Gideon. You’re just so close.”

  “You and me, we’re close, too,” he says, and I can tell how much he means it. “Gideon’s a different kind of close. There’s no way to compare you guys.”

  “I guess I just hoped that you liked me enough from the start to tell me this stuff.”

  “I did like you from the start. And it’s not a measurement of my feelings for you. It’s mostly just about when I felt comfortable enough to share. I wasn’t walking around feeling guilty about you not knowing. It wasn’t taking anything away from us. I wanted to make sure we’d be together for a while before I told you. I don’t know why. I guess I wanted to make sure you liked me enough first.”

  I make an exaggerated frowny face at him. “That is so cute.”

  “Thanks,” he says.

  “Wanna go back to the dance? There should be one more slow song.”

  “Yeah, I definitely have time for one more slow song.”

  We link hands and walk back to the gym, just in time for one last slow song.

  four

  Gideon

  I’ve been home from the dance for a couple of hours and I can’t sleep.

  Kyle texted me a while ago to say that he and Ruby made up and everything is fine between them. He said he’d tell me all about it in the morning. But I don’t think I want to hear about it in the morning.

  I can’t stop running this whole situation over in my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have told Kyle to apologize to Ruby. Maybe I should have listened more before giving him advice. Maybe I should have told Buster to shut up. Maybe that was my big moment to tell Kyle how I feel about him.

  But you can’t tell someone how you feel when you don’t really know yourself. I couldn’t make some big sweeping declaration of love when I feel so unsettled about everything.

  It’s after midnight. My parents are in bed. I’ve been lying here in my room since I got home, hoping that maybe if I just concentrate hard enough, I’ll b
e able to figure out how I feel about Kyle. Or at least go to sleep. It’s not working.

  I trudge downstairs to watch TV. I could watch in my room, but I think if I spend one more second in my bed I might actually lose my mind.

  I put on Parks and Recreation in hopes that it will lull me to sleep. But then Leslie Knope is going on about time management and binders and getting things done, and I know what I need to do.

  It’s time to get organized.

  I tiptoe back upstairs and go into the back of my closet, where I have a shelf full of three-ring binders of various sizes. I select a navy-blue one-inch binder, because that seems like it should be big enough. Then I grab a ream of loose-leaf paper from my desk along with a ruler and my lucky pen. Because crooked lines are never an option.

  Down in the den, I spread all my supplies out on the coffee table and turn off the TV. It’s time to concentrate.

  My first list is obviously a to-do list.

  - Research: Am I gay or just into Kyle?

  - Figure out what I’m going to do about being into Kyle. Because whether I’m gay or not, I’m pretty obviously into Kyle.

  - Organize feelings.

  - Create a plan of action.

  I realize quickly there’s not much more I can do at the moment, but I already feel more in control.

  I flip to the next page and start a T chart with the heading “Am I gay or Kyle-sexual?” On one side I write reasons I think I’m gay, and on the other I write reasons I think this is just about Kyle. The number one reason I think it’s just about Kyle is because I’ve literally never liked anyone else before. In my entire life. I can’t remember being attracted to anyone.

  I go through celebrities, models, athletes. I can understand how someone might find these people aesthetically pleasing, but I don’t think I’ve ever imagined kissing anyone until I imagined kissing Kyle in the locker room.

  But using the transitive property—if a = b and b = c, then a = c—I figure I’m both gay and in love with Kyle. Because Kyle is male and so am I. Simple as that.

  I take a moment to adjust to this idea.

  I am gay. I, Gideon Isaac Berko, am gay. It actually makes a lot of sense.

  The next blank page becomes a list of reasons Kyle and I will never work out. The crux of the issue, aside from him having a girlfriend, is that I am not anything like Chris Evans, since apparently that’s the type of guy Kyle likes.