Been Here All Along

by Sandy Hall

  “Oh God, iron finger,” he says, bending over a little. “Why do you have the pointiest fingers on earth?”

  “It’s a mystery.”

  “Did you hear about Ruby and Josh?” he asks, pitching his voice low.

  “I heard they broke up.”

  “They exploded. I was standing there the whole time they were fighting, and it was a complete horror show.”

  He goes on to fill me in on all the gory details about how it went down. He pauses halfway through and takes a deep breath, like a doctor about to deliver bad news. “Josh called you a pansy, and I feel like such a coward for not walking up to him and knocking his teeth out.”

  I squeeze Gideon’s shoulder, trying to comfort him even though it makes me feel slightly sick to my stomach.

  “It happens,” I say.

  “A good boyfriend would have totally defended your honor and knocked his teeth out.”

  “Yeah, but then that boyfriend would have been suspended from school and it would have tarnished his record.”

  “Good point,” he says. “But then he called me a pansy, too. Ruby was kind of, sort of trying to defend us, but she was so clearly upset at that point.”

  I try not to think about how much better it makes me feel to know that Josh called both of us pansies.

  “At least we’re pansies together,” I say, making a joke of it.

  He smiles. “Anyway, the worst part was after Josh walked away, Ruby’s bag got caught on a locker and the seam basically exploded.”

  “Oh man. Insult to injury.”

  “Exactly. So I went over to help, but she wasn’t exactly in a good place. I just feel bad that it had to happen at all. I’m left feeling, well, the best word for it is icky. There’s no good word for it. I just feel completely icky,” Gideon says.

  “That sucks.” I try to think of something to lighten the mood. “So are you planning on breaking up with me now, too? Seeing as how we’ve basically been together about the same amount of time? Aren’t breakups supposed to happen in threes?”

  “I thought that was deaths, but sure, let’s go with it.”

  “Fine, bad things happen in threes,” I say.

  “I mean, it’s only been two weeks. I think I should give you a little bit more of a chance. I’m not a quitter,” Gideon says, puffing his chest out.

  “It’s, like, just barely a week since we went on our first date,” I tell him.

  For once Gideon doesn’t check every nook and cranny of the entire school before kissing me on the cheek. It’s just a little peck, but it feels like a big move forward, considering everything that Gideon witnessed earlier and how nervous he usually is about public displays of affection.

  “I like that you know that,” he says.

  We turn around and head down the hall, holding hands in the nearly empty school.

  “What are we doing today?” I ask.

  “Whatever you want. Do you need help with anything?”

  I pause as we’re about to go through the heavy front doors and pull his hand to stop him.

  “I don’t. They’re still coming up with a plan for me, and Ms. Gupta is helping me with my English paper. But thanks for asking.”

  “Thanks for not being offended that I asked,” he says.

  Ruby

  Kyle and Gideon don’t even notice Lilah, Lauren, and me around the corner in the senior hallway as they walk out of the building. But we definitely notice them.

  “God, they’re so gross,” Lilah says.

  “You can’t call gay people gross,” Lauren tells her. “It’s, like, against the law. It’s a hate crime.”

  “I’m not saying they’re gross because they’re gay. I’m saying they’re gross because they’re all, like, lovey-dovey and flaunting it.”

  “But did you say it because they were gay? Do you think other couples are gross?”

  “I think any couple that I’m not a part of is completely gross,” Lilah says.

  Lauren nods sympathetically. “What do you think, Ruby?” she asks.

  “I think I hate everyone. I can’t believe I messed everything up with Josh, and Gideon was there to see the whole thing go down. I don’t even know how that happened. Like, why was he the one person who had to be there to see everything fall apart?” I slide down the locker and land on the floor. At least this time my bag doesn’t get caught and fall apart. Oh, that’s right, that’s because that already happened today, so I don’t have a bag anymore.

  “So what are you going to do?” Lilah asks, sitting next to me on the floor.

  “Yeah, we should plot revenge,” Lauren says, sitting next to her.

  I pick up my phone to check the time. I need to be at Marco’s baseball practice at four thirty to pick him up, but we still have about a half hour until I have to leave.

  “The first thing I need to do is change the lock screen on my phone,” I say, when I notice it’s a picture of Josh and me. I unlock the phone and go into my pictures, but Lilah pulls the phone out of my hand.

  “Oh my God,” she says, scrolling through my albums. “You have to delete so many pictures. Good-bye, Josh, good-bye, Josh.”

  I smile. Her dramatics are at least entertaining.

  “Why do you still have pictures of Kyle?” she asks, turning to show me one of him and me hanging out at the diner a couple of months ago.

  Lilah hits the little trash can to delete it.

  “Good-bye, Kyle,” Lilah says, waving at the screen, and then deletes another and another. Then she stops and tips her chin down, zooming in on something. “What is this? Is this a list?”

  Lauren leans over. “A list of everything that’s wrong with Kyle Kaminsky.”

  “Does it say ‘tiny penis’? ’Cause I’m pretty sure it should say that.”

  “Shit, delete that,” I say. I meant to get rid of it and the other ones so many times, but they were so far back in my pictures that I just kept forgetting.

  “Hell no,” Lilah says. “Who wrote this?”

  “Not me,” I tell her.

  “OMG, was it Gideon? Did Gideon write this?”

  “It’s a long story.” I try to grab for the phone but Lilah pulls away from me, tapping at the buttons and making me nervous.

  “Perfect boyfriend Gideon, talking shit and writing mean lists,” Lauren says, shaking her head.

  “Just delete it. Come on, guys. I don’t want to mess around with this stuff. It’s not worth it. I’m trying to be mature.”

  “You don’t have to be mature,” Lauren says.

  “Or you can be and I’ll take care of this for you,” Lilah says.

  “Lilah, what are you doing?”

  Her phone vibrates in her bag.

  “Nothing,” she says innocently.

  She hands me back the phone and the list is gone, but I have a bad feeling she sent it to herself.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask again.

  “Nothing. It’s just a little insurance. I don’t want anyone to make my friend feel bad.”

  “Delete it from your phone,” I say slowly, hoping she understands from my tone that I’m not fooling around anymore.

  “Fine, fine,” she says after one more second where I feel like my heart is in my throat. “You can even do it yourself.”

  She hands me the phone, and I delete the text she sent herself and her most recent photos just to be on the safe side. I’m sure there are other places she could have hidden it, but honestly, I don’t think she’s that smart.

  “Happy now?” she asks.

  “Yes, very.”

  “Good. Let’s go find something to do to cheer you up.” She and Lauren stand and put their hands out for me, pulling me up off the floor.

  Because that’s what friends do. They pull you up when you need them to.

  twenty-one

  Gideon

  On Saturday I spend the day volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. I’ve tried to get Kyle to come with me for years, but he just refuses, and this time
was no different. He told me he needed to play video games with Buster.

  At least I can always trust him to be honest with me.

  When we turn onto my street, it’s almost eight o’clock, because I spent the last couple of hours eating pizza with Maddie and Sawyer and a bunch of other people from the crew. I like being part of a “crew.”

  “Dude,” Sawyer says. “There are a lot of people at your house right now.”

  “Oh crap,” I say. “I’m pretty sure my mom mentioned this to me and I completely ignored her.”

  “What did she tell you?” Maddie asks.

  “Something, something, Saturday night. Party. Home by seven?” I check my phone, and sure enough, about forty-five minutes ago I got a “Where are you?” text from my mother, followed by a “You better get your ass home soon” text from Ezra.

  “Freaking awesome,” I say. “Any chance you guys want to come in and create a diversion so I can get up to my room and shower?”

  Sawyer sniffs his armpit and shakes his head as Maddie says, “Definitely not.”

  They drop me off a few houses away, because there’s literally no place to pull over and our driveway is overflowing. When I walk up to the house, I can see Ezra sitting on the front porch, wearing his version of “dress-up clothes”: a blue button-down shirt rolled up at the elbows that I’m sure our mom threw a fit over and a pair of navy slacks that he probably borrowed from our dad.

  I get to the top step and look over at him in the glow from the porch light. He’s sitting in one of the rocking chairs that no one ever sits in.

  “Please tell me one thing,” I say.

  He nods.

  “Is she really having a coming-out party for me?”

  He laughs so hard he almost rocks the chair backward off the ground.

  “You’ll just have to go inside and find out, won’t you?”

  “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

  Ezra gets up and hooks a brotherly arm around my neck. “You were born ready.”

  We go into the house and my mother’s standing there in a cocktail dress and pearls, a little overdressed compared to everyone else in the house, I notice.

  “Ma, I thought you were joking about the coming-out party!” I say to her.

  “I was mostly. This is actually a party for someone in Daddy’s office who’s retiring, but it seemed like a good time for you to tell everyone your good news, too.”

  “How many people have you told?” I ask.

  “Oh, not that many.” She looks around as if counting heads, and that makes me nervous. Then she kisses my cheek.

  “It’s not really your news to tell, you know that, right?”

  “I know that, Gideon. I promise I didn’t tell anyone you wouldn’t have. Now go upstairs and shower before anyone else gets a whiff of how awful you smell.”

  I roll my eyes but follow her instructions obediently, mostly because I hate being dirty. And if I can smell myself, I can only imagine how bad I must smell to other people.

  Before I shower, I take another glance at my cell phone, hoping to hear from Kyle. Maybe he’ll get home early from Buster’s and decide he wants to come hang out over here for a little while. Sadly, I have zero texts.

  After a quick shower, I get out, try to tame my hair, put on some “decent” clothes, and head back downstairs to the party.

  Ezra spends most of the next hour following me around and forcing me to talk to people from my father’s work about my new “lifestyle choice.” I make sure to elbow him in the kidney every time he says something inappropriate. By the end of the night I’m sure he’ll have a pretty decent bruise. But the man is unstoppable. He just loves making a spectacle of himself.

  He finally decides to sneak me a tall glass of Coke with the lightest splash of rum in it and then acts like I should be forever grateful.

  “You’re underage. You’re lucky I gave you anything at all. I could go to prison.”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t go to prison for giving a seventeen-year-old the barest vapors of rum. I don’t think that’s how the justice system works.”

  We wander around the room, being the good little sons our parents expect us to be. Several people congratulate me; mostly they just ask what my college plans look like. Now that’s something I don’t mind talking about at all.

  I have no idea how much time has passed, but at one point one of the partners’ wives pulls me aside and basically wants to gossip. She asks a lot of questions about how school is going. Apparently she has a daughter who is a freshman, but I don’t know her.

  “So are you dating anyone? Because I also have a son who’s in his second year at Drew who might be interested.”

  “I am in fact dating someone,” I tell her, trying to look at least somewhat sorry to reject her son.

  I excuse myself and decide that I’ve waited long enough to look at my phone. My parents are stuck in a loop of conversation with some old man in the corner. I can tell by the sad looks in their eyes that they don’t know how to get out of it. My mother tries to pull me over with her death stare, but I make a beeline for the stairs and head for the peace and quiet of my room.

  At least for a few minutes.

  Kyle

  Spending the day playing video games with Buster was both a wonderful and terrible decision. We lose all track of time. We probably would have never left the cocoon of his room if it wasn’t for hunger.

  Around seven o’clock he calls for a pizza, forcing him to look at his phone for the first time in hours. He pauses the game and unlocks his phone.

  “Dude,” he says, making a face at the screen.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Do you have any texts?”

  I root around in the couch cushions for my own phone, having felt it slip out when it was still light out. I grab it and unlock it, but I’ve got nothing. I’m a little sad that I haven’t heard from Gideon, but I’m pretty sure he’s probably still busy with his volunteering thing.

  “There’s, like, this text,” Buster says, staring at his phone.

  “Okay.”

  “A list.”

  “Come on, Buster, use your words and explain what’s going on.”

  He gives me the finger and then he opens and closes his mouth a few times before just handing me his phone.

  And it is a text, with a picture of a list. The text says “Pass it on,” and the list is written in neat penmanship on binder paper.

  I zoom in. It’s Gideon’s handwriting. I would know it anywhere.

  The title of the list is “Everything That’s Wrong with Kyle.” The first thing on the list is He’s too tall. I almost start to laugh, because it’s gotta be some kind of joke. I mean, obviously I’m tall. But is there really such a thing as too tall? Does Gideon really think that of me?

  My throat tightens as I continue reading. He’s really awkward sometimes. I lick my lips and try to swallow. I skim a bit more. Then I get to one that says, He’s not as smart as me. That one hurts. That hurts a lot. But not as much as the one after it. When I gave him the Lord of the Rings trilogy to read, he said he just “couldn’t get into it.” I even tried to get him to read The Hobbit and he wouldn’t. And that’s practically a kids’ book.

  I toss the phone away like it’s hot and try to understand what I was just reading. Buster looks at me like he’s a dog that just had an accident on a new carpet.

  “Dude,” he says.

  I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands until I see spots and that weird kaleidoscope of colors that usually makes me feel better. But it doesn’t help.

  “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head. I definitely am not. I am really, really not okay.

  “Did, uh, do you think, um, did Gideon write that?”

  I look over at him and nod. “Who sent it to you?” I ask.

  “Looks like some chick from my Spanish class. I wonder how long it’s been going around,” he says, tapping at his phone.

  “Is it in a gro
up text?” I ask.

  “Yeah, a bunch of numbers, but I don’t know any of them.” He scrolls.

  My hands are shaking, but I don’t even know what I’m feeling. It’s all one big blur of anger, shame, embarrassment, sadness. How could Gideon do this to me? After I told him everything that’s been going on lately. He writes a list and takes a picture and just texts it out to people?

  I must say this out loud because Buster answers. “It’s not from Gideon, though.”

  “I know. But the ‘pass it on’ thing, it had to start somewhere.”

  “Yeah” is all Buster says. He’s obviously not going to be much help here.

  “I gotta go,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, I get it. See you, bro.”

  He walks me downstairs, looking at me like he’s worried I might try to dive out a window or something.

  “You gonna be okay?”

  I shrug. I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that I probably won’t be okay. This is all very not okay. “Can you text me that list?”

  “Sure, if you really want me to.” He looks at his phone and sends it.

  “Thanks, man.”

  I head to my car and barely close the door before I start to cry.

  Ezra

  I’m talking to one of the young wives, flirting pretty obviously, pretending I’m on Mad Men or some shit, when Kyle comes bursting through the back door.

  And believe me, it’s pretty hard to burst through a sliding door. But somehow he manages it.

  His nose is all red and his eyes are kind of glassy. Something is very wrong.

  “Where’s Gideon?”

  “I think up in his room. He was going to find his phone because he missed you.”

  Kyle rolls his eyes.

  “What’s…” He gestures toward the front of the house.

  “Parental cocktail party.” I gesture at his face. “What’s, uh, happening here?”

  “Nothing good,” he mutters. Then he moves fast down the hallway, threading between bodies and racing for the stairs, as much as you can race in a crowd.

  Something is definitely wrong.

  twenty-two

  Kyle

  I didn’t realize there was a party going on at the Berkos’. That’s how angry I was and still am. I made it all the way down the street and into their house without noticing the millions of cars everywhere, without seeing that all the lights were on downstairs.