Everyone is staring at me. I blink the moisture away from my eyes and take a long pull from the vodka bottle. “So, yeah. That’s the story of the lightning bolt.”
I can tell they’re all trying to come up with something to say, but I’m surprised when it’s Daniel who speaks first. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Lexi,” he says. He slides next to me and puts his arm around me.
I rest my head on his bony shoulder. “Thanks, Daniel.” I sniffle.
“I know how you feel. It’s kind of like what happened when I kissed Colin,” he says.
I remember his story of kissing the boy in the nurse’s office. “Yeah, I guess it is,” I say. “But he hit you, didn’t he? I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
“It’s the same though,” he says. “Zoë didn’t hit you, but she hurt you just as much.”
I sigh and thread my fingers through his. “At least we’ll never have to go through something like that again, right?”
Suddenly Matthew’s on his feet. “Oh yeah, because Mr. Martin and his cute little Jesus camp is going to turn you straight, right?” Crap. He’s upset. No, he’s mad.
“Yes, Matthew,” Daniel says, his voice firmer than I’ve ever heard it. “That’s right.”
Matthew laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Wake up, people! This whole place is a total scam! You can’t pray the gay away. Jesus Christ!” He kicks a rock and it skids off into the woods.
“Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Matthew,” Daniel says. This kid should really get drunk more often—he’s a hell of a lot more confident with an elevated blood alcohol level.
“Fine, sorry.” Matthew sits back down, but he’s still all worked up. “But come on, you guys have to know that you can’t change your sexuality any more than you can change your eye color. You really should just get used to it already.”
“You don’t know that,” Carolyn counters. “You’re the one who always talks about that stupid scale and sexuality being fluid and all that. So maybe we’re more fluid than you are. Ever think of that?”
“If you were that fluid, Carolyn, you wouldn’t need a team of counselors and a whole summer of workbooks and freaking role-playing exercises to make you hot for guys.”
Carolyn’s face goes bright red, and I jump in to defend her. “She’s got a point, Matthew. Maybe we’re not like you. Maybe it can work for us.”
He crosses his arms and glares at me. I glare back. I feel bad for ganging up on him, but he’s the one who started it.
“Okay, Lexi, let’s say for a minute that you’re right. Maybe you guys are different. So tell me: how’s it going?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’ve been here for a while now, doing everything they tell us to, saying whatever they want us to. And I know you three have been trying your very hardest to kick that pesky SSA once and for all. So how’s it going?”
Our eyes are locked now. His piercing stare says it all: he knows I’m hooked on Carolyn the way I was hooked on Zoë, and he knows I’m not one iota less gay now than I was when I drove up that mountain road with my mom.
I let my eyes soften. Please, I beg him silently. Don’t make me say it.
Either he really does feel bad for me, or my wordless plea is enough of a victory for him, because he lets it go.
“What about you two?” he says to Daniel and Carolyn. “You’re two of Mr. Martin’s star pupils. So, are you straight yet?”
Daniel’s confident demeanor falters. “We’ve only been here three weeks,” he mumbles.
“And it’s an eight-week program. So we’re almost halfway done. Do you feel almost fifty percent more attracted to the opposite sex than you were before you came here? If you do, then say so. Prove me wrong.” He steps back and sweeps out a hand in front of him. “The floor is yours.”
Silence.
I look from Carolyn to Daniel, waiting for them to put Matthew in his place. But Carolyn’s got that far-off look in her eye again, and Daniel is picking at the sole of his shoe.
“Yep. Didn’t think so,” Matthew says.
“No,” I say. “You don’t get to just be right about this.” I want to prove him wrong, if not for me, then for Carolyn and Daniel. So I explain it the way Kaylee did back on the second day of camp. “It’s not magic. I think we can all agree on that. It’s not like a switch can be flipped or a few wires rearranged and everything is different. It’s about learning what choices to make, what things to focus on in our lives. It’s a long-term process, like a diet.”
Daniel is nodding like crazy and giving me a grateful smile. Carolyn isn’t doing much, but she seems to be more present than she was a minute ago.
“Sounds like a pretty miserable existence to me, to have to keep denying who you are every second of your life,” Matthew mutters.
“I think the point is to keep working at it, every single day, so it becomes part of who you are,” I say.
The vodka’s gone now, and it’s pretty obvious the fun is over.
I buckle my sandals back onto my feet, we all brush the grass and dirt from our butts, and we go back inside.
Everything is exactly the same as we left it; no one seems to have missed us at all—which is funny, because so much has changed.