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“. . . making excuses not to sleep over,” Eden says.

I scramble to catch up on what I might have missed.

“And inviting lots of friends when we slept at her house—as if she didn’t want to be alone with me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I saved her the trouble of breaking it off. I stopped returning her calls. It was just too humiliating.”

“Humiliating?”

“To have someone pretend to be your friend when they really don’t want to be.”

The ice cube feeling spreads to my chest as I imagine how awful that must have been. I read about friends fading away in one of those self-help books for gay teens that Frank bought me in ninth grade, but I never knew the people involved. Now, knowing about Eden and Lia, it all feels more real. More like it could happen to me.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

FOURTEEN

Monday, the Redneck parks his truck
next to my car in the student parking lot. I take my time getting my phone and car keys in all the right pockets, but he doesn’t leave. He stands there with a scowl etched across his forehead.

So I take a deep breath and say, “Hey, Nick.”

“’S’up, Fagmag?”

I wince at the sting of my new nickname. “Can’t believe it’s Monday already.”

“You weren’t supposed to show it to anyone,” he says, the words coming out in one long grunt.

“Sorry about that. I dropped my books. Eden picked it up.”

“That’s what she said.”

“It got in,” I tell him, trying to cheer him up. “You’ll get that extra credit from Taylor.”

He doesn’t cheer up, just changes the topic. “I know what you two are doing.”

Crap.

“And if you think that pretending to be unfagged is helping my sister see straight, you got another thing coming.”

Huh? I didn’t understand a word of that.

“Got that, Fagmag?” he asks about my non-answer.

“Got it, Nick,” I say even though I don’t. “No problem.”

He stops to tie his boot and I walk faster. There’s a reason I’ve been running a mile in gym class. It might come in handy someday. Soon.

That afternoon, at the
Gumshoe
meeting, I proceed with my carefully planned tactics. I show DeMarco, Lia, Holland, and Michael how the dummy with Challis’s graphic short has more variety and more visual interest. Holland nods right along.

“I don’t know, Jamie. Maybe we shouldn’t do a comic. We didn’t have one last year, and we won the award anyway,” DeMarco reasons.

“But it looks amazing—adds visual variety,” I say, purposely ignoring their previous comments about the story being fluffy and plotless.

“It’s not how it looks from a distance, Jamie,” Lia
says. “It’s the characters—the gay characters. Kissing. It’s, like, wrong in so many—”

Michael stops her. “It’s not about making judgments; it’s about the future of
Gumshoe
. We got funding from the school, from taxpayers. They won’t like this story and we don’t need it—it’s just not that great.”

“A thousand dollars,” DeMarco says. “I looked it up.”

Forget gaining ground—I’m losing this battle. I see it all over Holland’s face. She’s about to wave a white flag, surrender to the masses. And I should have known; Eden told me about Lia’s not-exactly-accepting behavior last night.

“My parents are on the PTO,” Lia says, “and they won’t—”

I scramble for footing, try to find the right words. They fail me and I say, “Parents don’t read high school literary magazines.”

“True,” Lia agrees. “But they don’t have to read to see this!” She jabs her finger at the page where the boys are kissing.

This is when Dr. Taylor steps in. “Thank you, Jamie, for bringing this point up again. It was worth discussing. But I’m afraid the discussion is over.”

The others pack up their things and file out of the classroom. I watch them go, feeling like a wounded soldier left on the battlefield. Stupid. I can’t even think of the right thing to say. Even when I’m right.

Michael turns and gives me one last look, his hand on the doorframe. He takes a noisy breath, exhales. “Look, Jamie. I’m sorry.”

“I thought . . . ,” I start, but hesitate. “I thought you were, well . . .”

“Yeah, I know. I was in the GSA, so everyone, um, assumed things.”

“You’re in the GSA?” I echo, perking up a little.

“Was. To support my sister. But it wasn’t worth the hassle.”

I give him a questioning look.

“It was her club. She started it. When she graduated, I told her I’d go. But after a while, it got to be too much—the rumors, I mean.”

I nod. I get it. I believed those rumors. But there’s something I still don’t get. “But if you’re a straight ally, why don’t you want Challis’s story in
Gumshoe
?”

“C’mon, Jamie. It’s not worth it. Take out the fact that it’s about two boys, and the story falls flat.”

“But it is about two boys,” I say.

“But it doesn’t mean it’s good.”

“I like it. I think it’s brave.”

“Okay, so you like it,” Michael says. “But it doesn’t mean it’s worth the trouble. I’ve seen the hatred—parents storming the school board meetings, waving signs, quoting Leviticus—that’s what happened when Nell started the GSA.”

We were in junior high when this was going on—not that I remember it clearly. I do remember my mom getting upset, talking about sending me to Boise High and not Lincoln. I didn’t understand why, exactly. Just that Mason was going to Lincoln and, damn it, that’s where I wanted to go.

Michael takes an audible breath. “It was horrible. Scary. I don’t want to go through that again. Not for some girl’s fan art.”

“I remember,” I say. “But why can’t we fight for this, too?”

“Because it’s fluff, Jamie. It’s not worth it.”

“It isn’t fluff. It’s a love story—about two people like your sister. Doesn’t your sister deserve a love story? Doesn’t everyone?”
Don’t I?

“Yes,” Michael says, his face looking tired as he sniffles. “Just not in
Gumshoe
, okay?”

I get the feeling this isn’t going anywhere and I don’t argue.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

FIFTEEN

Tuesday starts off badly. Challis is
waiting for me in the student parking lot before school. “I couldn’t talk them into it,” I say.

“Homophobic twerps,” she mumbles, and then asks, “That was the reason, right?”

“They thought parents might not like it, among other reasons.”

“Other reasons?”

“Well, someone said it was fluff.”

“Fluff?” Challis asks. “It’s not fluff.”

“That’s what I said, but he wouldn’t budge.”

“He? You mean Michael, not DeMarco, right?” Her jaw pops open. “Michael-who-won’t-come-to-the-GSA-because-some-jerk-called-him-queer?”

Crap.

“Tell Michael I don’t do fluff!”

I want to tell her to tell him herself, but I don’t. “He
didn’t want to lose funding.”

Challis barks out a laugh. “Funding? More like censorship!”

I nod.

She must see my face just then, because she stops and says, “Thanks, Jamie. I know you did what you could.”

I manage a smile.

And, awkwardly, Challis gives me a hug.

After school I still feel awful. I feel like I let Challis down, and for some reason, she’s someone I didn’t want to let down. Maybe because I put her on a pedestal, admired her because she was everything I couldn’t be—out at school and in the GSA. I couldn’t imagine how much guts that would take.

I have tons of friends at school, and honestly, it’s a calculated move. I never say no to anyone who offers me friendship, from football players to band geeks, cheerleaders to brainiacs. Even though I was voted most likely to have the most Facebook friends, I still feel like I don’t fit in: I’m one of the guys, but I’m not into girls; I’d hang out with girls, but I don’t understand them.

My mom says that’s why students created GSAs—that they are a place to fit in, no matter what brand of different you are. But walking in through that door—room 302—at 3:30 on a Thursday would be like getting a tattoo on my forehead. It wouldn’t ever wash off. My
little secret would be out in the world and I could never take it back.

Challis’s comic is under my skin, itching like poison ivy. If I told my mom, she’d call Dr. Taylor or Principal Chambers and make a big fuss. And the last thing I need is a big gay fuss.

I have half a thought to talk to Mason about it because he’s logical with a clear-cut sense of right and wrong, and he’d see that censoring Challis’s story was wrong. But talking to him about this might lead to talking to him about other things—like me.

I call the one person I can talk to.

We meet in the park a few blocks from her house. “Challis understands,” Eden tells me, twisting the chains of her swing to face me.

“I guess,” I agree. “But it’s the principle of it all. Her comic should be in
Gumshoe
.”

“It should be. But that isn’t how the world works. We should be able to get married in the state where we live.”

It takes me a minute to catch up. She didn’t mean “we” as in us, but “we” as in all same-sex couples. I adjust my backside in the pinch-y rubber swing.

“You’ll see it more when you’re out,” she says. “Or is that why you’re in the closet?”

“I’m out,” I say defensively.

Her eyebrows go up.

“To my mom,” I admit, and dig the toes of my
sneakers into the wood chips.

“Cool,” she says. “No wonder she looked at me cross-eyed.”

“Yeah. I don’t have a lot of friends who are girls.”

“Aw.” Eden reaches over and grabs the chain of my swing. We twist to face each other.

“That makes me feel special.”

I smile as a wave of shyness passes over me.

“You’re, like, totally cute, Jamie. And you haven’t had
any
girlfriends?”

My cheeks warm at the compliment. “One,” I say. “In kindergarten. Before I knew girls had cooties.”

“Before you knew what gay was?” Eden prompts.

“Yeah,” I say. “I didn’t figure that out until junior high.”

“I hated junior high.”

I nod sympathetically, and then tell her about the day that I began to think that I might be gay. “In eighth grade,” I begin, “we had a substitute teacher for a whole week. He was barely out of college—like, twenty-two, tops. Mr. Middlebrook. The girls went into insta-flirt mode the second he walked into the room—I swear the wind from their batting eyelashes blew his necktie up over one shoulder.” I laugh, thinking this would be a great
Gumshoe
story.

“He called my name, looked at me, and smiled. And that moment, I knew what the girls were feeling.”
I remember that tumbling mix of awe and bashfulness, admiration, and the intense desire to crawl under my desk as if it were yesterday.

“Did you ever talk to him?” Eden asks.

“Oh, that’s a funny story too. During class he caught Ashley Quincy texting and took her phone away.”

Eden smiles. Ashley Quincy isn’t her favorite person. No one popular is.

“And Ashley said, ‘Come on, Gerrod. Give it back!’ Turns out, he was her cousin. He told her to come back after school to pick it up. At that moment, I wished more than anything that I had a phone. Because I wanted to get caught texting, wanted to have Mr. Middlebrook take it away and ask me to come to his classroom to after school.”

Eden laughs approvingly.

“Ashley pouted for a good ten minutes, until Mr. Middlebrook walked over, bent down, and whispered, ‘Come on, Goober, it’s not that bad.’”

“He called her Goober?” Eden asks.

“Yep. And Ashley smacked her hands down on her desk so hard, Mr. Middlebrook jumped. Then he went back to teaching algebra.”

We sway side to side on our swings.

“Ashley started passing notes telling everything she knew about him: that he was allergic to hot dogs, puked on roller coasters, and listened to country music. I think
she meant to turn the class against him, but the girls found this information fascinating—thought he sounded sweet, and not at all like any eighth-grade boy they knew.”

“Sounds like it,” Eden said. “Eighth-grade boys smell.”

I laugh.

“So what’d you do?” Eden asks.

“I found a way to stay after school.”

“You got in trouble?”

“Nope. I found a math problem he explained differently than our teacher had. And would you believe there was a line at his desk? All girls and me. All waiting for their cell phones—they had been texting in class. On purpose.

“He had the phones in his desk—all but Ashley’s. Hers was in his jacket pocket and when he reached for it, all these notes spilled out. They were love notes. From girls.”

Some kids burst out of a minivan and run across the grass.

“In his pockets?” she asks, watching the kids. “Like, girls put notes in his pockets?”

“‘Cell phone?’ he asked me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Math question.’ Boy, did he look relieved. ‘How do you put up with them?’ he asked, pointing to the notes. I didn’t really get that he was confiding in me, so I told him I thought they were crushing on him. And he shook his head and said,
‘Double not interested.’”

“Gay,” Eden concludes. “So now you’re a math whiz? Gerrod Middlebrook inspired you.”

“I aced algebra—learned how to really solve problems, not just answer the ones that were on the tests.” I’m in AP Calculus, but I don’t mention it.

“Cool,” Eden says.

“He was the first gay man I ever met,” I admit.

“But you knew you were gay?”

“Maybe not right away, but that was the week it started to click—kind of like algebra.”

Eden and I sit in still silence. And I realize that I never told anyone that story before, even though it totally defines who I am and how I relate to people around me. It makes me feel close to her. I wonder if she feels the same way.