Almost Perfect (11 page)

Jack was making an elaborate paper airplane out of the school newsletter.

“Hey, Jack?”

“Yeah?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask this, but I had to know.

“Did you, um, ever notice anything kind of …
strange
about Sage?” If Jack had even the slightest inkling that Sage was a boy, I was completely fucked.

Jack threw the airplane. It did an impressive loop-the-loop and bounced off the glass-fronted office. Mr. Bloch glowered but apparently had other things to do than throttle Jack.

“Strange? Hell, yes!”

I tasted bile. “What do you mean?”

“She likes you, Logan. That’s pretty weird.”

My stomach unknotted. “Yeah.”

Jack retrieved his aircraft. “So what’s up with you guys?”

“Nothing,” I said bluntly.

“You sure?” asked Jack, missing the warning in my voice. “I mean, I know she wouldn’t let you feel her up in public, but I thought you might be friends with privileges or something.”

“Shut up, Jack!”

He prepared for another launch. “Don’t try to tell me you’re not hot for her. Nothing wrong with that. She’s got that jungle woman thing going on. Maybe she’ll drag you by your hair—”

I grabbed Jack roughly by the arm, causing him to drop his airplane.
“I said shut up!”

My friend looked stunned for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed and, for one of the few times since I’d met him, I saw a look of true anger on his face.

“Get your hands off me.”

I realized I was crushing his toothpick arm in my hand. I let go. Across the commons, Mr. Bloch was trying to decide if he needed to intervene.

Jack stared me down. “Logan, I don’t know what the hell is going on with you. But I am not your personal punching bag. Understand?”

I looked at my shoes. Two months ago, when Jack had told me Brenda was cheating on me and I’d hit him, he had let it pass. I had never apologized, and he had never brought it up. He knew I was hurting. But you could only push your friends so far.

“Jack, I …”

He was already gone.

The weight bench had been a gift for my fifteenth birthday. Mom had gotten it at Goodwill or a garage sale or something. I’d set it up in our old shed, and I got quite a bit of use out of it.

I’d been staring up at the metal bar for almost two hours, since I got home from school. I hadn’t even stopped at the trailer. Mom had left for work a few minutes before, probably wondering where I was.

I lay there, counting the mud dauber nests on the ceiling, reflecting that my life was in the toilet. Jack and Tim thought Sage and I were dating. Before New Year’s, I would have gladly fueled that rumor. Now what? If I acted like I was mad at Sage, people would think we were having a lovers’ quarrel. And if I acted like nothing was wrong, they’d still think we were a couple.

And all this is Brenda’s fault!
If she had just broken up with me before she cheated, maybe I would have gotten over her more quickly. And asked Tanya out when she still liked me. Or maybe Brenda and I could have worked things out if she’d tried to talk to me. And we’d still be together.

But no. She had cheated on me at exactly the right time for me to fall for Sage. To fall for a boy. I’d spent over a month trying to get another guy to go out with me.

I could make all the excuses in the world. I could tell myself Sage had lied to me, that anyone would have been fooled, and it didn’t count.

But when it comes down to it, you kissed a man. And really enjoyed it. And that makes you …

“I’m not gay!”

Maybe not, Logan. But you liked kissing Sage. You wanted to do more
.

“I didn’t know she was a guy!”

So? You thought Sage would be your girlfriend if you were patient enough. You could have gone out with a real girl, but you were holding out for Sage. You were going to take him to prom
.

I leapt to my feet. “She tricked me!”

You wanted to screw him. Don’t deny it
.

“I DIDN’T KNOW! IT DOESN’T COUNT!”

Logan’s a queer! Logan’s a fag!

“I didn’t know!” Suddenly, to my horror, I realized this dialogue wasn’t going on in my head. I’d been screaming out loud. Terrified, I looked out the door of the shed. Our yard and the road in front of it were deserted.

I returned to my weight bench and began hefting the barbell.

I thought Brenda was the one. But she wasn’t
.

Sweat rolled down my face, into my ears.

I thought Sage would help me forget her. But she was a liar, too
.

A lone June bug, still alive in spite of the frost, buzzed around the roof.

All I ever wanted was for a girl to like me. I got so excited when Brenda liked me, I never noticed she was having second thoughts. And I was so into Sage, I just assumed things would work out. That I could help her with whatever was bothering her
.

The barbell clanked against the brace as I lowered it too far.

What is that expression? Fool’s paradise. When I was happy, I just thought everything was going okay. But things weren’t okay. How can I ever ask a girl out again? Sage’s betrayal tops Brenda’s. Christ only knows what the next girl I date might do
.

I let the weight fall back into the rack.

It’s never going to work out for me. I came so close, but close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades
.

T
HAT WEEK
, it warmed up and most of the snow melted. That was a good thing; I was not in the mood to shovel drive ways. In fact, I wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything. After school, I’d go home and lock myself in my room and listen to music, or go to the shed and lift weights. I went three days without seeing Mom. Jack called me a couple of times, but I pretended like I wasn’t home.

Sage came back to school the next Monday. Not to bio, thank God. I saw her in the hall between classes. For a moment, I mistook her for Tammi. She seemed like she had shrunk. Maybe it was because she was hunched down. Or walking slowly, less sure of herself than before. When she noticed me, she immediately hurried away.

I grinned as I opened my locker. Sage was afraid of me. Scared. Timid. She’d think twice before treating a guy like that again. If she knew what was good for her, she’d keep
to herself from now on. Not be so friendly, so joking. No longer be herself.

I paused.
No longer be Sage
. Was that really a good thing? Did I really want her to become something else because of me?

I slammed the locker. Whatever she was going through, she’d brought it on herself. I was the one who’d been wronged. It was all her fault.

That Sunday, Jack stopped by the trailer to remind me that we were playing touch football that afternoon. I told him I didn’t feel good, but he refused to take no for an answer. Eventually, I let him drive me out to the game.

Once or twice a month, about a dozen of us would gather in the dirt lot that might or might not have been part of Veterans Park. We called it touch football because sometimes a junior higher or a girl would join us. However, every game eventually descended into all of us pounding on each other in the mud.

We’d stand in a huddle as Jack barked off plays more elaborate than the Normandy invasion. Then we’d run out on the field and plow into the other team until someone crashed into the bike rack that marked the end zone.

I normally loved these games. I’d convinced myself that playing in these pickup matches meant that it didn’t matter that I couldn’t make the real team. Today, I was just bored. What was the point of all this? I wanted to go back home and be alone.

I glumly took my place opposite a big blond nineteen-year-old named Chad. Jack’s brother threw a pass to Tim. Tim wasn’t expecting that (normally, all he did was block).
He stared at the ball for a second before being dog piled by the other team. First down.

It happened when we were about to score the first touchdown. Chad tried to tackle one of our guys, and I blocked him a little roughly. His nose banked off my forehead.

“Ouch!” he yelped, clutching his bleeding nose.

“Sorry.” I was already wandering back to my position.

Chad had pulled a wad of tissue from his jeans pocket. “Just watch it, faggot.”

He probably hadn’t meant anything by it. When you’re a teenage guy, you pepper your conversations with
faggot, butt munch
, and
douche bag
. In the strange world of male bonding, questioning someone’s sexuality and hygiene was a way to demonstrate friendship and camaraderie. Unfortunately for Chad, I was overly sensitive about my sexual identity that day.

“What did you call me?” I bellowed. Chad, who was blowing his bloody nose, looked back at me with surprise.

“What did you call me?” I shouted again, enraged. Chad took a step backward.

The other players were staring at us. Chad, unsure of why I was screaming, blinked at me.

“I, um …”

I balled my hands into fists. “Don’t you ever call me that, asshole!”

If Chad had apologized, I might have realized how much I was overreacting. But you don’t show weakness. Not at a football game with your friends.

“What’s the matter, pussy?” he taunted, unsure of how he’d been roped into this. “The truth hurt?”

I grabbed him by his nylon jacket so hard I heard fabric rip. “Take that back, you son of a bitch! I swear, I’ll fuck you up.”

Chad pulled away, and for a second we almost went at it. When Jack laid a hand on my shoulder, I nearly jumped him.

“Whoa, whoa there, guys,” said Jack with a forced laugh. “Let’s calm down. No harm, no foul.” Chad started to back off.

“He’s beggin’ for it!” I yelled, pointing at Chad.

“You want some of this?” he countered. His eyes darted toward one of his teammates, who shrugged. He didn’t know what the fight was about, either.

“Then let’s do it!” I started to pull off my jacket when Jack put his hand on my shoulder again. This time it wasn’t a friendly tap, but a restraining grab.

“Walk away, Logan.” He was not smiling. Tim had quietly joined us and was standing at my other side.

“But …”

Jack suddenly sounded quite serious.
“Walk away.”

Jack didn’t release my shoulder until we were almost to the parking lot. Then I twisted free. I turned to my friends. Tim looked at me with concern.

“Uh, Logan, what the hell was that about?”

“You heard what he called me! I ought to go back there. …”

Jack frowned. “Jesus Christ, Logan, so what? I’ve called you worse than that. He was just talking.”

“So that’s the way it is?” I hollered back. “You’re taking his side?”

“No one said that. Would you calm down?”

“Fuck you. If you won’t stand up for me …” I waved my arm vaguely and stomped off.

When I arrived home, I was ready to punch something. But everything in the trailer was too cheap to stand up to any abuse. By the time I got to the backyard to kick the hell out of the burn barrel, my anger had subsided. I now lay curled up on the couch.

So some guy called me a faggot and I went nuts. You didn’t exactly have to be Freud to make sense of that. If I didn’t get myself under control, and fast, Sage’s secret would be the least of my problems. I had to remind myself that Sage made a very convincing girl, convincing enough to totally fool me. She was no taller than a lot of women, and that was really the only giveaway. How had she achieved that? How long had she been pretending to be female? Her parents must have allowed it, at least at home. Why on earth would a boy want to be a girl? I almost wished I was still talking to her so I could find out.

When someone knocked on the door, I knew who it had to be. Tim and Jack stood on the concrete slab that passed for our porch. They had looks of grim determination on their faces. Kind of like furniture repossessers: they had an unpleasant job to do, but they’d see it through nonetheless.

Jack was holding the football, twisting it in his hand. “Can we come in?”

That drove home how crazy things had gotten. They
hadn’t asked permission to come into the trailer since elementary school.

“Yeah.”

We all sat down, and for a minute, there was nothing but silence. Jack stood up and began pacing like a small dog on a short chain.

“So who won?” I asked after a bit.

“The game kind of ended when you left. Logan, what the hell were you trying to prove?”

I attempted to smile. “Lost my temper. Sorry.”

Now, normally, that’s all a guy needed to say. Men don’t discuss their feelings.
Sorry
usually covered just about any mistake.

Jack and Tim didn’t smile. Tim sat in the recliner looking solemn. Jack tossed the football into the air until it almost kerbonged the ceiling fan.

“Logan,” he said, still looking up. “Your mom called me yesterday.”

“Very funny.” But no one was laughing.

“He’s serious,” said Tim. “She called me too.”

My eyes widened. “Why would she call you?”

For the first time in years, Jack stood motionless. “She wanted to know if you were on drugs.”

“What would she think that for? She knows I’m not into that shit.”

Jack and Tim exchanged glances. “That’s what we told her,” said Tim. “But she said that for the past week you’ve been hiding in your room. Said you were acting all angry and wouldn’t talk to her.”

Jack spun the football on the coffee table. “We thought
you were just pissed off. But today at the game … Logan, you’re not doing meth, are you?” He wasn’t kidding. That was a serious question.

“No, I’m not on meth.” I was too embarrassed to pretend to be indignant. “I guess I really went nuts back there.”

Tim smiled, just a bit. “I wouldn’t go back to the game next month if I were you. Listen, Logan. We know what’s bothering you.”

I had been getting up to get some sodas, but I froze.
They can’t possibly know
.

“So she lied to you,” said Tim. “You’re not the only guy that’s ever happened to.”

I leaned against our entertainment center, trying to act like I wasn’t bracing myself. The trailer suddenly looked unfamiliar, like this was all some sort of post-enchilada nightmare I was having. Jack and Tim wouldn’t look at me. They knew Sage was a guy. They thought I was gay. Now I was going to have to run off and join the navy so I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life living this down.