28
Gentlemen

“I told you Schrader wasn’t who you thought he was,” Trevor says, waiting for me again halfway between St. Catherine’s and the Clark Street station. “Not all guys are like him, though, Bijou. Some of us are actually gentlemen.”

I ignore him and keep walking. I want nothing to do with Alex, with Trevor, with any of them.

Please, please, please leave me alone.

Please, please, please don’t let my aunt and uncle see the video.

Just let me be invisible.

I go to that tree that Alex and I used to call our Gran Bwa. What a stupid joke that was. There is no spirit in that tree. It is an old, broken-looking thing, covered with scars and holes and ugly blemishes.

I read his note, crumple it up, and throw it in the gutter in front of Trini-Daddy’s. He says he can explain everything. He says he is sorry, but an apology won’t make a difference in my life. Can Alex snap his fingers and make everyone in school see me the way they saw me only forty-eight hours ago? No, he can’t.

I thought I could be friends with an American boy. I thought I could trust him even though we come from such different places and have such different experiences.

I was wrong.

Bijou,

Maybe I shouldn’t write again, but since I haven’t heard from you in a couple days, I had to try again. I know that when you understand what happened, and how it happened, you’ll see that while I might have been stupid, I wasn’t trying to be mean. That’s the last thing I would ever do.

I was talking to Ira and Nomura in the bathroom before the movie. And I was quoting Rocky and Trevor, repeating some terrible things that they had said about you to me earlier that week. Maybe that was my mistake, right there. I shouldn’t have repeated words that ugly. I should have kept them private, where they belong.

But they were not my words; they were Rocky and Trevor’s. If you think I could have said those awful things, then you never knew me in the first place.

When I saw that Ira had his camera on, I asked (demanded, actually) that he erase everything he had filmed. But he didn’t. I thought I could trust him, but obviously I was wrong. He’s no friend of mine. Not anymore.

But, Bijou, you’ve got to believe me: I’m the same person I’ve been all along. I’m the guy who wants to get to know you better, and the guy who knows that you have no interest whatsoever in marrying me so you can stay in the U.S.! (Sorry, a lame attempt at a joke.)

Please, please think this over. Please trust me. And write me back, okay?

Your friend, always,

Alex