“Government next,” I reply, dreading sitting behind Talia for an hour after this morning. “Then math, then English.”
“Anything due in those classes?” He starts packing up his bag and checks his watch, pursing his lips at the time.
“No? I think we’re going to keep reviewing for AP testing, but that’s it.” At this point, any other tests feel useless. Most of us have picked our colleges or made plans for gap years or alternate career paths, so what’s the point of wringing us dry with more exams?
“Okay, good,” he says, zipping up his backpack. His smile is bright but has a mischievous glint that I’ve never seen, nor would expect to see, on his face before. “We’re going to ditch.”
“Oh,” I reply, standing. “Wait, what?”
* * *
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask Wesley as he casually walks toward the student parking lot, where the gates are wide open. I can’t stop glancing around, expecting someone to stop us. Getting away with ditching chemistry felt like sheer luck, but this is definitely pushing it.
“Trust me, I’ve never been caught before,” he says as he unlocks his car and motions for me to get in. I can’t believe I’ve gone here for nearly four years and had no idea how easily I could just leave or skip class. Not that, admittedly, I ever would have had the nerve to try. But still, what kind of security is this?
“Student athletes usually leave around this time for games,” he explains as we buckle in. “But they hardly ever have someone checking for passes. I thought they would’ve cracked down on security by now.” He pulls out of the lot with ease, no guards in sight. “But I guess not.”
Wesley’s words catch up to me, and I face him, my mouth agape. “Wait, you’ve ditched before?”
His lips twitch upward. “Junior year was shitty when I first transferred. I had a free period after lunch and used to ditch about once a week for the first two months until my parents caught on. They made me switch my classes around to discourage me from doing it anymore, and counselors started keeping an eye on my attendance.”
“Okay, so just to summarize: You’re not straight, you ditch school, and you curse?” I say, and his mouth transforms into a full smile. “Geez, you think you know a guy.”
“The things you learn about someone when you don’t just passively sit across from them at lunch,” he laughs, and, surprisingly, I do too.
The car drives as smoothly as I remember from when he dropped me off last week, and he’s eerily confident behind the wheel for someone who usually seems so nervous.
“Where are we even going?” I ask, fighting the temptation to prop my feet up on the dashboard. One rebellious act at a time, Ophelia.
“I thought we could just drive and talk until school ends.”
“Boo,” I moan. “What’s the fun in that?”
“The fun is getting to open up about everything you’ve kept bottled up for the past several weeks,” he says with forced enthusiasm. “We can’t ditch every day until graduation, as much as I’d frankly love to avoid Sammie’s teasing.”
I groan loudly, lying back against the leather seat. “Talking about my feelings never got me anywhere. I’m taking a new approach.”
“Which involves you ignoring your parents and best friends?”
“Precisely.”
“Looks like it’s working out for you.” He eyes my hair and dress unsubtly.
If he were anyone else, I’d flip him off right now. “It was only one kiss.”
“And how many people have you kissed otherwise?”
“Only Lucas,” I admit, still looking down and away.
Wesley doesn’t reply to that, letting my words speak for themselves. But I can’t tolerate the quiet, so I decide to speak up.
“Can I ask you something?” He nods without moving his eyes off the road. “What does being asexual actually mean? I thought I knew the basics, but you seem to have crushes on multiple people and are clearly open to dating and pursuing them, so…”
“So where does asexuality come into play?” he finishes for me, and I nod. He considers for a moment, tilting his head. “I feel versions of love, like liking and crushing and even love itself, but I don’t feel the lust. When I look at Lindsay, I don’t feel the urge to push her against a wall and make out with her like I imagine Sammie does.” He grimaces. “But I do want to date her, and don’t mind the idea of kissing her. I don’t know, it’s hard to put into words sometimes. It’s a spectrum and different for everyone, like most things. Basically, I don’t want or need sex the way most people seem to.”
I let his words sink in as I brush aside a strand of hair that escaped my bun. “So when you asked if Lindsay was hoping to have sex after prom…”
“Yeah,” he says, finishing my thought again. “One day, maybe I’ll be open to trying, especially because I do want kids eventually.” He blushes profusely, but still speaks as if talking about sex with me is no big deal. “But I don’t think I’d enjoy it that much. I’m not that disgusted by it—some ace people are, and some aren’t—but it definitely isn’t appealing to me.”
“You should tell Linds about it,” I say. “I think she would understand.”
“Pot, meet kettle, much?” he says.
“Leave the metaphors to the child of the English professor, please.”
He laughs. “Fine, okay. Forget about the kiss. I know it’s scary to talk about sexuality—like I said, my old friends didn’t exactly support me the way I’d wanted—but why are you, specifically, scared of it?”
“They know me,” I say without thinking. “My parents and Sammie and Agatha and Lindsay. I garden, I wear floral prints and eat papas rellenas and like boys. I like boys—all the time, obsessively. That’s who I am; that’s who they know me to be.
“So what happens when I can’t tend to my garden in the fall when I’m away at school? I’ll be studying botany, but I won’t be out there every Sunday morning, fertilizing and pruning and watering. What happens when I find a cute dress or skirt or top that doesn’t have a trace of flowers? Or what about if I find a new favorite food? My friends will be different. My clothes, routine, diet, surroundings … everything will be different in a few months. Agatha will be in SoCal, and Linds will be halfway across the country. I won’t eat dinner with my parents every night or wake up in the same room I have my whole life. And I’ll have Sammie, but what’s to say he won’t ditch me again like he did in middle school? Then what’ll I have, who will I be? This is the one thing that I can control, the one thing that doesn’t have to change.”