Simon reaches for the deck of playing cards and begins to shuffle. “Did anyone see my op-ed in the Cryer about getting solar panels on the cafeteria roof?”
“No one reads the school paper except for you, doofus,” Janna says.
I saw the article. Should I say I saw the article?
Simon deals everyone five cards, facedown. “Y’all are a bunch of newsless know-nothings.”
Celia sniffs. “Pop culture is so passé.”
“Oh my God,” Janna says. “Why must you be so pretentious?”
Celia sniffs again. “Because it’s fun.” She cracks a smile as her clay-stained hands deftly shift the order of cards in her hand.
“Why must she?” murmurs Matt. “Pot. Kettle.” Janna shoots him a dirty look that morphs silly when she sticks her tongue out.
“News is not pop culture,” Simon grumbles. “It’s news.”
“I read it.” My voice is small in the room. “It was good.”
Simon looks at me. “The game is no-limit Texas Hold’em. It’s ongoing. We’ll stake you a dollar up front. If you run out of pennies after that, it’s your problem.”
Patrick sends a tube of pennies rolling toward me. It rocks to a stop right in front of me.
One end of the penny tube is dented, giving it the tapered look of a tiny brown penis. I fold my hand around it and fight the urge to giggle.
In my head, Sheila’s voice goes, Oh my God; you’re such a little perv.
Don’t I know it.
I use my nail to flick up the penny penis head—ha ha—and tear back the wrapper.
“You ever played Texas rules before?” Simon asks me.
“Just regular poker.”
“Draw?”
“I guess.” I know the various poker hands. Full house. Straight. Flush. I just don’t always remember what order they go in.
Simon rattles off the basic rules, which include something about flops and rivers. Cards will be turned over. I’ve seen this on TV. It’ll be okay.
“You got it?” he says.
I shuffle my cards into order by suit. “Um, which is better, a straight or a flush? I always forget that part.”
“Straight’s not better than anything,” Matt pipes up. “That’s how I remember it.” Everyone but me laughs.
I want to laugh, too, but I can’t. “Okay.”
“Got it now?” Matt Rincorn smiles at me. At me. In response, my mouth does something that I hope comes across more like a smile than drooling.
Matt was hot even before he came out last year, but after that his hotness, like, quadrupled. Sexy and strong and brave. The only out gay guy in our entire high school. Quite a few schools in the area have actual GSAs and such, but not ours. We live in the vortex between three megachurches, and it shows. Matt coming out made him practically a legend.
I’m not the only anything. Not the only Black guy—not even the only biracial—not the only blue belt, and nowhere near the only Christian. (If I can still call myself one since my heart lives in sin.) I’m probably not the only guy who secretly crushes on Matt Rincorn.
Turns out, I’m not even the only one with a dead sister. I glance at Celia, who’s stacking an impressive amount of pennies on the table out of a plastic sandwich baggie. Everyone else does the same. The sound of pennies clicking on fake wood has an eerie rhythm, like the chorus echoing in my head.
Sheila is dead.
Sheila is dead.
Sheila.
Is.
Dead.
It sounds harsh to keep repeating it like that, but I constantly need to remind myself.