Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

But there’s no way. It’s not possible.

My washcloth falls to the floor. All around me, girls tug hats off and let their hair down and scrub foamy soap onto their faces and zip up garment bags. A door bursts open somewhere, and there’s a sudden shriek of laughter.

My mind is racing. What do I know about Martin? What do I know about Blue?

Martin is smart, obviously. Is he smart enough to be Blue? I have no idea if Martin is half-Jewish. I mean, he could be. He’s not an only child, but I guess he could be lying about that. I don’t know. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense at all. Because Martin’s not gay.

But then again, someone thinks he is. Though I probably shouldn’t take anything on the authority of some anonymous asshole who called me a fag.

“Simon, no!” says Abby, appearing in the doorway.

“What?”

“You washed it off!” She stares at my face for a minute. “I guess you can still kind of see it.”

“You mean the ridiculous hotness?” I say, and she laughs.

“Listen. I just got a text from Nick, and he’s waiting for us in the parking lot. We’re taking you out tonight.”

“What?” I say. “Where?”

“I don’t know yet. But my mom’s up in DC this weekend, meaning the house and car are mine. So you’re spending the night in Suso territory.”

“We’re sleeping at your house?”

“Yup,” she says, and I notice that she’s out of makeup and back in her skinny jeans. “So go drop off your sister. Whatever you have to do.”

I look in the mirror and attempt to push down my hair. “Nora already took the bus,” I say slowly. It’s strange. The Simon in the mirror is still wearing contacts. Still almost unrecognizable. “Why are we doing this again?”

“Because we don’t have rehearsal for once,” she says, poking my cheek, “and because you’ve had a weird-ass day.”

I almost laugh. She has no fucking idea.

All the way out to the parking lot, she talks and schemes, and I let her words kind of wash over me. I’m a little stuck on this Martin situation. It’s almost unfathomable.

It would mean that Martin wrote that post on the Tumblr back in August—the one about being gay. And that Martin’s the one I’ve been emailing every day for five months. I can almost believe it, but I can’t explain the blackmail. If Martin’s actually gay, why bring Abby into it at all?

“I think we should spend the afternoon in Little Five Points,” Abby says, “and then we’re definitely going into Midtown.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

It just doesn’t make sense.

But then I think about the afternoons at Waffle House and the late evening rehearsals, and the way I was actually starting to like him before things fell apart. Blackmail with a side of friendship. Maybe that was the whole point.

Except I never got the vibe that he liked me. Not even once. So it can’t be that. Martin can’t be Blue.

Unless. But no.

Because it can’t be a joke. Blue can’t be a joke. That’s not even a possibility. No one could be that mean. Not even Martin.

I’m having trouble catching my breath.

It can’t be a joke, because I don’t know what I would do if it were a joke.

I can’t think about it. God. I’m sorry, but I can’t.

I won’t.

Nick’s waiting in front of the school, and he and Abby bump fists when they see each other. “Got him,” she says.

“So now what?” asks Nick. “We drive home and get our stuff, and then you pick us up?”

“That’s the plan,” says Abby. She swings her backpack around and unzips the smallest pouch, pulling out her car keys. Then she tilts her head to the side. “Did you guys talk to Leah?”

Nick and I look at each other.

“Not yet,” Nick says. He kind of deflates. It’s tricky, because as much as I love Leah, her presence changes everything. She’ll be moody and snarly about Nick and Abby. She’ll be weird about Midtown. And I don’t know how to describe it, really, but her self-consciousness is contagious sometimes.

But Leah hates being excluded.

“Maybe just us three,” Nick says, carefully, eyes shifting downward. I can tell he feels kind of shitty about this.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay,” Abby says. “Let’s go.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m in the backseat of Abby’s mom’s car with a stack of paperbacks under my feet.

“Put them anywhere,” Abby says, eyes flicking to meet mine in the rearview mirror. “She reads them when she’s waiting to pick me up. Or if I’m driving.”

“Wow, I get nauseous just from reading my phone in the car,” says Nick.

“Nauseated,” I say, and my heart twists.

“Well, listen to you, Mr. Linguist.” Nick turns around in his seat to grin at me.

Abby eases onto 285 and merges with no difficulty whatsoever. She doesn’t even appear tense. It occurs to me that she’s easily the best driver out of all of us.