None of the Above (21 page)

In an eerily calm voice, Darren held up his hands palm out. Despite the chill, I could see a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. “Look, is this about money? Because . . . here. I've got some cash on me. And a phone. Take it.” He bent over and laid his wallet and phone on the ground.

Josh ignored Darren. So he didn't see how Darren had pressed one of the numbers on his phone a little more deliberately than most people would during a supposed mugging.

“Mind your own business, will you?” Josh said.

There was no way I wanted Darren to get involved. He was tall, but Josh had at least fifty pounds on him. I still held out a crazy hope that I could talk Josh down. “It's okay, Darren,” I called out. “We're just trying to figure some things out. You should go back inside—I don't want you to miss the concert.”

“Nah, those guys suck,” Darren lied. “I just wanted to get
some fresh air.” I almost laughed at the thought of him coming out to breathe in the smell of stale hops and old puke.

Josh turned to take a closer look at Darren. “I told you. Get. The fuck. Out of here.” He let go of me and took a threatening step in his direction.

Still, Darren didn't go.

Instead, he turned to one side, like he was a fencer getting into a ready stance. He curled his hand into a fist, and I felt a sinking sense of impending doom.

Josh threw the first punch, but Darren managed to dodge it. They circled each other a couple of times, but before Darren could even get a punch in, Josh rushed him, swept his ankle up in a vicious circle and kicked Darren's legs out from under him. I winced as Darren dropped to the ground with a thud. I thought I heard a shoulder crack. Josh looked around grimly, and picked up an empty bottle lying in the alleyway.

I couldn't run for help because they were blocking my way to the club. Desperately, I scrabbled through the debris on the ground next to me. No rocks. No bottles. Then my fingers curled around a can of spray paint left behind by a graffiti artist.

I hauled myself up. Josh leaned over a half-crouching Darren, the bottle raised high. The light from the streetlamp made the brown glass glitter. With all my strength, I slammed the spray paint down onto Josh's head with both hands.

The can dented with the impact.

Josh's head didn't. He turned on me. A vein stuck out in his forehead. His breaths came out in huge puffs of steam. He reached for me.

And I brought my leg back in my best hurdler leap, and kicked him in the balls.

It turned out that David Letterman's gender-verification test had something to it, after all.

Josh toppled over with a garbled moan. On the ground, Darren let out a faint whoop of relief. Then the back door slammed open and someone shouted, “There he is!”

“Darren, Kristin, are you okay?” Jessica ran out, trailed by Quincy.

An older, red-haired man ran out and made a beeline for me and Josh. He stopped about a foot away. “What's going on here? The cops are on their way!”

There was a dull thud as Josh dropped the bottle. He got to his feet, grimacing. He was so close I could feel him tremble as he struggled to gain control over his emotions.

“No, Mr. Sanderson,” Josh said. Clearly the guy was a manager of some kind. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding?” The red-haired man looked at me, and frowned. “Did someone hit you, miss?”

“Yes.” I pointed at Josh.

The red-haired man's frown deepened into a scowl. “So you're the type of guy that likes to hit women?” he growled.

Josh reddened, then looked at me. Suddenly he grinned. A crowd had gathered at the door. “Actually, sir, that's not a
woman
over there.”

I froze.
No, no, no. Not here
.

Josh looked through the crowd and found the bouncer who'd been at the entrance. “Hey, Pinky, did this one pay the chick rate?” The bouncer nodded and Josh's grin widened. “Then she's guilty of fraud. She's a man.”

I crossed my arms to cover my chest, and kept on squeezing as if I could pinch myself right out of existence.

“You're a tranny?” a bouncer asked, bug-eyed.

“Actually, the technical term is intersex,” Quincy said. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I was mortified.

“What, are you her . . . his . . . boyfriend?” the red-haired man asked. He was still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Oh, no,” Quincy said, making a point of putting his arm around Jessica. “Just a friend.”

Josh's laughter made me wince. Left unsaid was the question: What kind of freak would date someone like me?

A few of the girls huddled in the club doorway giggled, and I stared at the ground. A gust of wind blew through the alley. In the distance I could hear the emcee trying to get people
back into the club, and some of the curious heads disappeared. I heard the red-haired man enlist Pinky to get Josh inside.

Within minutes, the cops that policed the clubbing district arrived. One of them, a stout older man with graying temples, took a statement from me, and asked if I wanted to press charges.

I thought of police stations and depositions and having to tell my dad, and shook my head. “There'll be a report of everything, right? In case anything else happens?” Though I doubted it. Josh wasn't stupid. He knew that he could never do anything now, after having fifty witnesses.

“We'll have a record, miss. And if you change your mind . . .” He handed me a business card, which I clutched tightly like a talisman. I tried to get out a thank-you, but all I could manage was a shaky smile.

After the cops left, I sat down against a pile of broken-down boxes, too drained to move and too raw to go back inside. In the blessed silence after the last group of people filed out, the burn of my shame faded to a dull ache.

But I had done it. My worst-case scenario had occurred, and I was still here.

The last surge of adrenaline had come and gone, and I felt hollowed out inside.

Darren limped up, rubbing his shoulder. He sat down next to me, picked up the dented spray paint can, and flipped it around and around.

“You okay?” he asked me.

I nodded, and forced an unconvincing smile. “Thanks for . . . intervening.”

“It's not like I did anything but distract him. You delivered the knockout punch.” He let out a puff of a laugh. “Remind me to donate to a sperm bank before I ever pick a fight with you.”

I smiled. Then I burst out crying.

All the anxiety and guilt and self-loathing that I'd been holding in for weeks came out in the catharsis Dr. LaForte had been hoping for since I started therapy. But it wasn't fear that pushed all my emotions past the tipping point; it was the realization that I was kind of in love with Darren Kowalski for making me laugh minutes after I'd survived a potential hate crime. I cried like a baby, and as embarrassing as it was to have a meltdown with the object of my affection sitting there patting me awkwardly on the arm to get me to stop, the release was so liberating that I didn't care.

When the torrent had subsided, I leaned my head back to gaze up into the midwinter sky. The air was so clear and cold that you could see the stars even through the city lights.

“Wanna get in out of the cold?” Darren asked. He had his hands tucked deep into his pockets.

“You should go inside. I just need another second or two out here.”

“No, I'll stay and keep you company,” he said, trying to pretend that he wasn't freezing. Though I could have stayed
out there all night, I took pity on him and went inside.

The minute we stepped back into Club Eternal, Gretchen came running. “There you are, Kristin! Are you okay? We heard there was a fight.”

“I'm fine,” I said. “I just want to get home.”

“Are you sure you're up to driving all the way back to Utica alone?” Leslie asked. “You could always crash in my dorm.”

“I can drive with her and walk home,” Darren said behind me. “If that's okay with you,” he added, suddenly shy.

Julia flashed me a quick smile. I blushed, wondering what Becky would say about Darren driving home with me again.

“Okay, then,” Gretchen said, jangling her keys. “I'll call you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” I nodded.

After Darren sardined himself into my car, we didn't talk much. I fiddled with my stereo and settled on a classic rock station, not sure what to say, not daring to start something that Darren might not be willing or able to finish. As we neared my neighborhood, he pressed some money into my hand to pay for the toll on the Thruway. I waved him off.

“No, please,” I said. “It's the least I can do for dragging you into that situation.”

“Whatever; it was nothing.”

“No, seriously. What would Becky have thought if you'd gotten hurt defending me?”

Darren winced. “Well, if I go by what she said when she dumped me last weekend, she'd probably think I deserved it.”

“Oh no!” A thrill went down my spine, and my cheeks flushed. “What happened?” I worked to keep my voice steady.

“It's not that big of a deal; I mean, it was kind of doomed from the start. She's a sophomore, and I'm going to be leaving for college. She really didn't like the idea of me being in New York City. Besides . . .” Darren paused, and I watched him struggle for a second before he turned to give me a swift, shy glance. “I think she knew that I might have feelings for someone else.”

Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe. There was an ache just below my right collarbone; it was the wrong side of the chest to be my heart, really, but close enough. Darren started to say something. False-started. Finally, he asked me:

“You know that I've had a crush on you since our parents dated, right?”

“No,” I whispered. I'd always assumed that he was just shy, and nice. I shook my head, unable to think of anything remotely crushworthy about me during middle school.

We turned off the main drag onto my street. All the traffic signals had switched to flashing yellow; it was getting to be the witching hour. How else to explain what Darren was telling me?

“Why me?” I asked.

Darren laughed, incredulous. “Because you're probably the only Homecoming Queen in the world who would ever wonder why someone would like her.”

I grimaced. “I'm also probably the only Homecoming Queen who's intersex.”

“True enough. But you can run me into the ground and aren't snotty about it. Your idea of a fun Saturday-night activity is filling éclairs with my mom. And you make a mean Popsicle-stick puppet.”

I remembered the day at the clinic when I'd caught him staring at me under the play tent. I'd thought he'd just been ogling the freak. “Aren't you afraid of what people will think?”

I pulled into my driveway, and cut the engine. For the longest time, he didn't respond. My nerves roller-coastered as we listened to the tinkling creaks of the cooling engine.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet but clear as glass. “If there's one thing I learned from my dad leaving my mom, it's that love isn't a choice. You fall for the person, not their chromosomes.”

The knot in my chest had been present for so long I'd forgotten it was there. But with Darren's words I could feel it loosening. I made a little noise that could've been a laugh, except I was crying again.

“Shit.” Darren fumbled around in his coat pocket for a tissue and came up with a crumpled Carmella's napkin. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “This is, like, the most unromantic object ever offered to wipe away someone's tears.”

I gasped a laugh as Darren dabbed at my face, then shivered as he ran a finger along my cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned into the warmth of his palm, sensing rather than seeing him pull closer to me, his breath growing ragged. I caught the
faint scent of Dr Pepper and Old Spice.

When our lips touched, I could taste my own tears.

Our kiss was tentative at first, as if this thing between us was made of spun glass, liable to break if we moved too quickly. When Josh and I had kissed, it'd been furtive and rushed. With Darren, though, I knew instantly that we had all the time in the world.

I'd been running for so long, trying to escape from who I was. Here in the steady circle of Darren's arms, I was finally ready to stand still.

It was almost three before I got home, but I was wide awake. My dad had left the front porch light on, and I crept in as silently as I could, the door making only the barest whisper. I was unwinding my scarf in the dark when the foyer lights flickered on.

Footsteps creaked down the stairs and my father squinted at me. “Kristin, that you?”

“Sorry to wake you up, Dad.”

“Thank God you're all right.” Rough with sleep, his tone was accusing, which I thought was odd because the last couple of times I went out, my dad had been so excited that he didn't bother setting a curfew.

“You could've texted me if you were worried,” I reminded him.

He sighed, and rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin.
“Didn't want to cramp your style,” he said finally. “Well, glad you're home all right.” He started to go back up the stairs, and for some reason the sight of the frayed cuffs of his flannel pajamas made my eyes prickle.

“Dad?” I called out, just wanting him to be close.

He turned around and squinted at me again. But at first I couldn't get the words out. Finally: “You know that I love you, right?”

He rubbed his eyes with his fists, and then blinked rapidly a few times. “You know I love you too, sweetie. Forever and ever, until the sun fades.”

I blinked too, as my vision blurred. “Forever and ever,” I repeated, and my dad walked down the last few steps and wrapped me in his arms. I burrowed into the soft, Irish Spring scent of his shirt.

“Dad,” I said, “remind me to make an appointment with Dr. Cheng on Monday.”

I felt him stiffen, but I went on. “She needs to fill out some paperwork so Coach Auerbach will let me start practice again once I go back to school.”

My father collapsed into himself with relief, hugged me tighter. I led him back up the stairs and kissed his salt-and-pepper cheek before going into my room.

But I couldn't fall asleep.

So I turned on my computer and created a new Facebook profile using my high school email, instead of my middle school
one. For my profile picture I chose a picture of me when I was ten years old and making valentines with my mother. I friended Gretchen, Julia, Darren, Jessica, and Quincy right away. Then I added Vee and Faith, remembering to forgive and be forgiven.

My blank timeline stared back at me. It was beautiful.