by Mike Jung
“Um, yes you were,” Eric said with a frown.
“Nope. I can’t believe you fell for it. Suckers.”
Okay, hurt feelings are one thing, but being a huge jerk about it is something else.
“Yeah, dude, you totally got us.” Eric sounded as mad as I was starting to feel, but I decided to try one more time.
“Dude, seriously, the Rocket Cats show—”
“What about the Rocket Cats show?”
Sean said that in such a harsh, bullying tone that I leaned backward so I could get farther away from him, and my stomach instantly twisted itself into a knot.
“Nothing.” I stood up, and a second later Eric was standing too. “We just thought maybe you’d understand it’s nothing personal—”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“Stop interrupting me!” I said. “It’s not about you, you know!”
“Obviously.” Sean waved an arm dramatically toward the door. “Since it’s not about me, you might as well get out of here.”
“Fine by me,” I said, feeling angry and confused. What the heck was going on??
“Yeah, we’re out,” Eric said. Sean watched us as we walked across the room, but then he spoke just before we reached the door.
“It’s gonna suck for you guys if Mr. D finds out about your crappy plan, though.”
Okay, we’d seen the Secret Nice Version Sean, but that was over; this was Sean at His Most Evil. I couldn’t help it—I totally froze up with panic at the thought of getting in that kind of trouble—but that was when Eric showed why people should always stick with their best friends.
“Why?” Eric said. I had no idea what he was getting at, but it gave me the time I needed to pull myself together. Sean clearly had no idea what Eric was getting at either.
“What do you mean, why? Do you want to get expelled?”
“No,” Eric said. “Do you want everyone at school to know you like the Rocket Cats?”
Oh. Oh.
Sean stared at Eric for a solid five seconds without saying anything, and I had to fight the urge to squirm or look down at my feet. We were blackmailing Sean! I’d never done that to anyone before.
Me and Eric, me and Eric, me and Eric …
“It’s not—” I said.
“It’s not what?” Sean snapped at me, and that actually helped. It’s easier to blackmail someone who’s not being all friendly and happy.
“It’s not a bad thing to like the Rocket Cats, you know.” And suddenly I was being honest with Sean again! But in a weirdly dishonest way because we were fighting fire with fire! My head started to hurt. “It’s not like we’d be publicly dragging you or something.”
“We like the Rocket Cats,” Eric said with a shrug. “And so do you.”
Sean made an nnnnggghhh sound.
“I mean, you said it yourself,” Eric said. “It’d be so cool.”
Eric was really twisting the knife. Backward. Or counterclockwise. Or something.
“And it is cool that you wear a Rocket Cats shirt to bed,” I said.
I crossed my arms, partly to try to look tough, but mostly to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. Saying stuff that’s true if you look at it one way, but threatening if you look at it another way was so hard!
“Okay, so you’re gonna be like that, whatever,” Sean said, his voice getting higher with each word. He flapped his hands at us like he was shooing a fly. “Get out of my house, losers.”
“Not until you swear you won’t say anything,” I said. My voice came really, really, really close to quivering, and I had to clench pretty much every muscle in my body to stop it.
“I don’t care what you queers do!” Sean barked. “Go ahead and make out at the conference or whatever, just get out of here before I beat your faces in!”
Good enough. I was too angry and scared and rattled to keep talking anyway, and when I grabbed Eric and pushed him toward the door I saw his hands shaking too, so it was definitely time to go.
We left without another word.
Sean’s mom was nowhere in sight, so we broke with protocol and didn’t thank her or anything before getting out of there. I went down the porch steps two at a time, and Eric didn’t even bother, jumping all the way down all four steps at once. He landed on the front path in a crouch, putting down both hands to steady himself as I used my momentum to break into a run. We hit the sidewalk at full speed and didn’t stop running until we’d run four full blocks, all the way to where Sean’s street dead-ended into Zajac Road. Cars whizzed past us as we hunched over with our hands on our knees, sucking wind.
“What just happened??” Eric said between big, whooping gulps of air.
“I don’t even know,” I said, gasping.
“That was,” Eric said, “terrifying!”
“I know, right?” I said. “What’s gonna happen?”
“I’m supposed to know?” Eric straightened up slowly. “Wow, look at your hands!”
By then I was standing up straight too, and I realized I was running my hands through my hair without thinking about it, so I brought them down to eye level. They were shaking.
“Whoa,” I said, and my voice felt shaky too. I felt sweat running down my temples.
Eric came over, wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and shook me back and forth.
“You didn’t crack under the pressure!” he said.
“Well, almost.”
“Not me.”
“Oh please, you lie like a rug.”
“Matt. Nobody says ‘lie like a rug.’”
“I do. I’m somebody.”
“Yeah, you are.”
We hugged, and of course someone had to blare their car horn as they drove past, making us jump. We glared at the back of the car as it disappeared down the street.
“Jerks,” Eric said.
“No kidding,” I said as I looked at my watch. “Ugh, I should probably go home. I still have to finish my math homework.”
“You want to grab a cookie at my house first?”
“Definitely.” One of the benefits of Eric’s mom being a pastry chef was that she was always testing new dessert recipes and letting me and Eric eat the results. One of the drawbacks was getting new jobs in cities on the other side of the country, of course.
“Is it a new recipe?”
“Yeah, it’s chocolate and hazelnut and something else.”
“Dude. I’ll race you there!”
We ran the last two blocks to Eric’s house, reenergized by the thought of cookies. His mom was out being a pastry chef or whatever, so we kept our Day of Evil Behavior alive by ignoring the house rules and bringing our cookies into the living room. A bookcase with a zillion cookbooks took up most of one wall, and I couldn’t help wondering when Eric’s mom would start packing them up for the move.
“What do you think?” Eric said through a mouthful of cookie.
I nodded, wiped my sweaty face on my shoulder, then swallowed hard. “Really good. And I don’t even like hazelnuts.”
Eric nodded and handed me another cookie.
“What do you think about what Gabi said?” I said after taking a small bite.
“About what?” Eric said.
“About, you know, thinking we’re gay.”
Eric chewed a bite of cookie and shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s definitely the nicest person who’s told us we’re gay.”
“Yeah, and she didn’t say it like it’s a BAD thing, you know what I mean? Everybody else says YOU’RE GAY like it means you’ve just been infected by a zombie or something.”
“Seriously.”
“And you’re right about Sean.” I rubbed my forehead with the heel of one palm. “He does say it like that.”
“Right. Can I ask you a question?” Eric said.
“Dude, that’s never a good way to ask a question,” I said. “Now I’m all worried about what you’re gonna ask.”
“Yeah, I know, and this conversation was so not awkward at all until now! Seriously, th
ough.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Do you think you might be gay?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, I don’t have a girlfriend or anything, but I wouldn’t MIND having a girlfriend.”
“Me neither.”
“Would it bother you if I was?”
“I don’t think so. Would it bother you if I was?”
“No. Are you?”
Eric shook his head.
“I guess that’s okay,” I said. Eric laughed, which made me laugh too.
“Wait, why are we talking about how it’s okay to not be gay?” he said.
“I’m not. And you’re not either.”
“Isn’t blackmailing people kind of terrible?” I sank even deeper into the couch, which was extremely squishy and soft. It was a really good movie-watching couch.
“Not if the other person is blackmailing you first. Remember that part?”
“Yeah. Still.” I breathed out a big, lip-flapping gust of air, PBBBBBBDBDBDBDBTTTHHHHH.
“You should probably get going.” Eric held up his left wrist in front of me and tapped on his watch with his other hand.
“Oh shoot, right.” I dragged myself out from the smashed-down couch cushions and stood up. Eric got up and put his hands on my shoulders.
“It’s gonna work,” he said, shaking me forward and back for emphasis. “DefenderCon. It’ll be fine.”
“Okay.”
I still felt like doom lay over the horizon, though.
“You look great, Matt, let’s take a picture!”
“Dad. We already took pictures at home.”
“Just one more in front of the school, please.”
“DAD.”
“It’s the spring concert, Matt! March is a great time for pictures!”
I groaned.
“Honey,” Mom said.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Dad said as he stuck his phone in his pocket.
“Respect bodily autonomy, Dad.”
“Yes, you’re totally right, Matt.”
To give credit where it’s due, Mom and Dad really mean it when they say they’ll take no for an answer about stuff that’s not really that important, like taking an endless number of pictures. That doesn’t mean they won’t be annoying about it first, though.
We were part of a stream of orchestra kids and families who were walking into the school, which always feels like a different place at night. For one thing, orchestra members go in through a smaller set of double doors off to the side of the building, while audience members have to walk past that entrance, go in through the big front doors, and turn into the auditorium. The fact that it’s dark outside makes it feel brighter inside, even though the lights are all the same as when it’s daytime.
Everyone’s also dressed for orchestra, which isn’t like marching band at all because we don’t wear uniforms. We have to wear fancy clothes—white shirts with collars, black pants or skirts, and black dress shoes—but they’re regular fancy clothes. So everyone in orchestra looks different too.
Just inside the doors a gang of girls surrounded Graysin Oh, who wasn’t actually talking—he was just listening to everyone else talk. Maybe that was his secret. A couple of trumpet players were hanging out by the door leading to the auditorium stage, but Kenny wasn’t one of them, and Sean was also nowhere to be seen, so I relaxed as I searched for Eric. The practice rooms were both occupied by woodwind players, and the only people in the band room were Skye Oh and a couple of the other flute players. I waved at them, but Skye was the only one who waved back. She just kept on talking with the other girls, though, so I decided to go back outside and wait for Eric.
I threaded my way through the other band geeks who were arriving and walked outside, stopping at the top of the steps leading up to the door. More people were milling around out there—families walking from the parking lot to the school, parents saying “good luck” and “break a leg” to kids as they went to their separate doors, and orchestra kids hanging out with their instrument cases in their hands. Everyone looked pretty happy, except for some of the non-orchestra kids who were obviously there because their parents were making them be there.
A car screeched to a stop at the end of the block, across the street from the school parking lot, and someone got out of the rear door, then walked over to the driver’s window. Whoever it was started to lean down, like they were going to talk to the person driving, but as they were doing it the car pulled away, blew through the stop sign at the corner, turned right, and disappeared.
A bunch of families were getting out of their cars and walking toward the school, and a lot of them turned to look as the mystery person stood up and watched the car drive off. They all looked away when the person turned around and started walking slowly toward the school all alone, though. It looked like their family (or whoever was driving that car) wasn’t staying for the concert, and I was feeling more and more awful about it until they walked into the light at the edge of the school parking lot and I realized it was Kenny.
Ugh. It was super weird to feel bad for Kenny, just like it’d been to hear Sean’s mom talking trash about Sean; I still didn’t like it. Luckily, I also recognized two of the other people walking in from the parking lot: Eric and his pastry chef mom. They both waved, and I waved back as I went down the steps and met them on the sidewalk.
“Hi, Matt.” Eric’s mom preferred being called “Ellie,” which made sense since that was her name. She had a complicated smile on her face, kind of happy and sad at the same time, but it was a friendly complicated smile, so I smiled back even though I was still mad at her for deciding to move.
“Hi, Ellie.”
“Hey,” Eric said as he propped his arm on my shoulder and leaned against me, which might have tilted me off-balance if I hadn’t already braced myself for it.
“Last orchestra thing of the year, huh?” I said.
“Yeah.” Eric smiled, but it was a complicated smile just like his mom’s, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.
Last orchestra thing of any year for the two of us.
Ellie reached out with both hands and touched us each on one shoulder.
“Well … have a great show, guys,” she said. “You’re going to be great.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Eric said as Ellie kissed him on one cheek. At the same time I saw Kenny walk past out of the corner of my eye. He was eyeballing Eric and his mom with an incredibly sad expression, and he caught me looking at him just before I could turn away. The memory of seeing him stare at Graysin flashed through my mind, and it occurred to me that repeatedly seeing things Kenny didn’t want me to see was probably a bad idea.
Kenny’s face turned red all at once, and he lurched up the steps and into the building.
“Welp, Kenny’s here,” I said.
“Oh, okay. Party’s over, huh?”
“Maybe it’s just gonna be a different kind of party.”
“Yeah, if by ‘different,’ you mean ‘terrible.’”
“Come on, let’s go inside.” I threw my arm all the way over Eric’s shoulder, and as we headed into the building I felt the most bizarre kind of fear. I was used to being afraid what Kenny might try to do to us, but after seeing this sad and unhappy side of Kenny and actually feeling sorry for him, I was afraid that once Eric was gone and I was alone, I’d be as miserable as Kenny looked.
We walked through the door, and of course Kenny the Miserable One was standing just inside it, ready to stick out his foot and trip me, which is exactly what he did. I stumbled forward, and I probably would have fallen on my face if Eric hadn’t braced his feet and reached up to grab my hand that was resting on his shoulder. We spun partway around, and I had to put my free hand down on the floor for a second, but I stayed on my feet and managed not to crash into anyone. Kenny laughed.
“Is that gonna be your wedding dance, losers?” he said.
“No, it’s our dance of sadness that you still exist,” Eric snapped back.
One of the girls circling Graysin laughed—it was Nora Dairman—and when I looked over there I saw the whole circle of people was watching us. Kenny’s face turned dark red—it was like a face-shaped blood clot—and he scowled.
“What are you laughing at, Nora?” he said.
“Oh, there are so many things,” Nora said cheerfully. By now everyone in the hallway was listening, and I wondered where the heck Mr. D was, because the look on Kenny’s face was starting to scare me.
“Yeah, well, you better shut up.”
“Why don’t you?” Nora said. “I mean, seriously, if anyone around here should get married, it’s you and Sean.”
The whole hallway burst into laughter, and Kenny shrank back against the wall with a wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. It was seriously turning into the Year of Seeing Kenny Do Things I’d Never Seen Him Do Before.
“Great, I’m happy to hear you all in such a good mood!”
Mr. D was preceded by his voice, but I looked over my shoulder just in time to see him turn the corner from the band room, grinning like he was having the time of his life. He probably was, too—for some reason he really likes the spring concert, maybe because it involved less marching. The laughter in the hallway quieted down, but the Kenny-fueled tension was mostly gone.
“It’s time to warm up, musicians, let’s go!”
I looked back at Kenny as Mr. D. spun on his heel and led the lemming migration back into the band room. Sean appeared in the doorway and skidded to a halt just inside, right next to Kenny. He was breathing hard, like he’d been running, and he looked at Kenny with no idea what he’d just missed.
“Hey, man, sorry I’m—”
Kenny cut Sean off by giving him a shove, and I mean a hard one, right in the chest.
“WHOA!”
Sean pinwheeled his arms and staggered back all the way across the hallway and into the opposite wall. He grunted as his back hit the cement, and slapped his palms against the wall to keep from falling down.
“Dude, what is that for—”
“Leave me alone,” Kenny said in a voice that was low, but still terrifying.
“Matt, let’s go,” Eric said into my ear, and that sounded good to me. This was probably another thing Kenny wouldn’t want me to see, and I’d had my fill.
