We’re at the cafeteria now, but instead of going outside like we usually do, he steers us to a table. No one is around, except the staff starting to put lunch together.
“I have to tell you, Taylor was awesome,” he says as he sits down—but not before double-checking that even the lunch ladies can’t hear us. “I promised him I’ll be there for the real Pride Week festivities, now that kickoff is over. So we have to go back. It is absolutely imperative that we go back.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” I say.
“I owe you my life for covering for me. I don’t know what you told your mom, but it worked—she didn’t rat me out. I didn’t get home until about three o’clock on Sunday, and I was sure my mom was going to be waiting in the front room with this huge magnet, and she’d make me watch as she fried my phone and my laptop. Or she’d make me read only James Patterson until I left for college. Something really cruel like that. But she wasn’t even home! She’d left me a note—Hope you and Mark had a good night. I’ll say we did!”
He is happy for me. I remind myself that he is happy for me.
The first time something happened between us, I wasn’t expecting it. We were in his basement, playing some game that was half racing and half mortal combat. I was handing his ass to him, and he wasn’t taking it too well. The bloodshed on the screen started to spread into the room. I’d slam his vehicle into a ditch and he’d poke me in the ribs. I’d crash into his vehicle’s side and he would use his body to crash back into me. Finally, the fifth or sixth time this happened, I threw down my controller and attacked full on. Laughing and shoving, ducking and pushing and yelling out hyperbolic threats. Before I knew it, we were rolling on the floor, and he was on top of me, and we were still laughing, but there was also something serious in the way he was looking at me, and something serious in the way I was feeling that look. He had me pinned, and then he eased up a little, settled down a little. And now it was something else. I had wanted it for a long time but had never imagined I would get it. I kissed him first—I know I kissed him first—but it didn’t feel like I was kissing him first, because I was only confirming what I had already seen, what I suddenly knew. We kissed, and it was awkward afterwards, awkward when we were sitting up again, awkward when our minds had to give what we were doing a name. I thought it was the end of the world, but it wasn’t. I thought it was the start of the world, but it wasn’t. Instead it was an introduction to the halfway world where we’d spend the next two years.
And now … he’s so excited, he’s practically beaming that we didn’t get caught, and I don’t want him to be happy for me.
I want him to be happy with me.
But I don’t know how to get there. I’ve never known how to get there.
“I swear,” he goes on, “I had no idea how much fun that was going to be. Leave this place behind and try something else on for size. Or someone else, ha ha. You know how I am. More than anyone, you know how I am. So I’m sure you can appreciate it when I tell you that you have one hundred percent won me over.”
“To what?” I ask.
“To adventure! To the city! To pride, ha ha.”
I know I should be asking him more about his night. But the best I can do is, “So you told Taylor you were in college?”
“Nope. I told him the truth. How weird is that? And even weirder? He skipped kindergarten, so he’s only a year older than me. Not that he was looking for someone from high school. Honestly, I think he made his approach partly because he saw me with you and was sure you had to be in college to be on the bar like that. You wild man, you.”
He’s being playful, even appreciative. But it feels just as crummy as snarkiness would.
“You know what?” I tell him. “I almost forgot. I actually have to go to the library. For this report. About Sylvia Plath.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll have a Plathora of material for you,” he says. I get up, but he doesn’t do the same.
“You coming?” I ask. I still want to be with him. I just don’t want to be talking about his weekend right now.
“Nah,” he says, taking out his phone. “I’m going to stay here and chat a little with Taylor. He was texting me during first period, but Ms. Gold’s ruthless when it comes to phones in her class.”
I should leave him to it. It shouldn’t really matter. But it matters. Some pride in me won’t allow me to pretend it doesn’t.
“So are you two, like, together now?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “Because we’re texting? Are you with Katie Cleary now because you went to a party together? It is what it is, and I don’t know what it is yet. I’m just trying to get to the point where I see if I can find out. ’Til then, it’s just flirting.”
“And what about us? Do we just stop?”
He looks at me, genuinely mystified, and says, “Stop what?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Never mind.”