20
MORGAN
My parents surprise us and come up for brunch today instead of dinner, which I’m actually happy about. With my volunteer hours at the center later, I would have missed them otherwise, and I really need a hug from my mom after my confusing study date with Ruby. There’s nothing new to report with our case, so for once we get to just relax and laugh in between bites of my mom’s French toast casserole and my dad’s scrambled eggs. It’s kind of perfect.
When they head out for their long drive home, I flop onto my bed and go back to obsessing over my latest interaction with Ruby. It’s becoming an unwelcome habit, which is why I decide to ditch my bike in favor of a nice long jog to the center. Nothing clears my head better than running.
I turn the volume up higher on my headphones and push my pace, doing my best to forget about Ruby with every slap of my sneakers on asphalt. But then again, watching her essentially put different dots of paint on her face to turn it into, well, a whole other face, was pretty damn impressive. And the way her breath caught as I pulled up that zipper . . .
I shake my head and keep running because everything after—the way she pulled back, the way she didn’t answer when I asked if I should stay away—sucked. And god, I need to stop. I need to focus. There can be absolutely no more star-crossed lovers staring in a bathroom mirror crap, no more searching for her in the hall. She’s being downgraded from girlfriend material to random student that’s nice to look at. Because there’s no denying she is really nice to look at. And to talk to. And . . .
I run even faster—all out sprinting now—trying to outrun any thoughts of Ruby’s completely dreamy lower lip. I need to get a grip. This is just a ridiculous chemical reaction in my brain. That’s all it is. That’s all I’m letting it be.
Except I’m so utterly lost in my thoughts, trying to convince myself that’s true, that I nearly run right past the center. I bank left and cut into the parking lot at the last second.
“Hey,” Aaron says when I walk in all sweaty and out of breath. Running here, though effective, was possibly not my best idea.
“Hi.” I bend over with my hands on my thighs. Definitely should have skipped that whole sprinting-at-the-end part.
“You ready, or do you need a minute?” he asks. “Your appointment is already here.”
I stand up, bolstered by the news. Today, I’m meeting “Danny,” the student athlete they told me about before. While Aaron is going to pop in and out a few times, I’m going to be running the show mostly on my own for the very first time.
“I am definitely ready.” I grin.
Aaron leads me into the counseling room, where a boy about my age is seated. He nods beneath a thick mop of brown hair when I walk in and then fixes his eyes directly on mine. His body is tense, his knee bouncing a mile a minute, like his entire psyche is deciding between fight or flight.
“Danny, this is Morgan. Morgan, Danny. I’ll let you two get to it, but I’ll be just outside if either of you need anything.” Aaron leaves with a little wave, and I drop into the comfy chair across from Danny.
The room is small, but not too small, the overhead fluorescent lights flicked off in favor of warm floor lamps. It has a desk and chair in the center of it, but I’ve been sitting in these overstuffed recliners when I observe Aaron and Izzie’s meetings, and I like them better. Being next to the person I’m talking to feels a lot more natural than sitting on opposite sides of a desk.
Danny shifts in his seat, and I smile. “So, what do you play?”
He looks at me suspiciously. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” I don’t bother telling him that I already know it’s football and that his name—even though I’m not sure what it is—definitely isn’t Danny. I also definitely don’t tell him that I’ve seen him play against my old school, more than once. “What would you like to talk about, then?”
“Why’s your hair pink?” he asks.
“You want to talk about my hair?” Somehow this is not how I envisioned this going.
He smirks. “People don’t dye their hair weird colors if they don’t want anyone to notice.”
“Fair enough.” I cross my arms. He has a point. “I transferred from a superstrict private school that didn’t allow ‘unnatural hair colors.’ Unfortunately, it also didn’t allow girls kissing other girls—something, you know, I really like doing. So now I’m here, living with my brother, who happens to own a barbershop full of hair dye, trying to grab on to my fresh start however I can.”
Danny raises an eyebrow. “And pink hair does that?”
“Kinda. It’s something completely new to me. Besides . . .” I twist my face up in mock confusion. “Do you see how cute this looks? Everyone should go pink. In fact, I can text my brother and see if he has an opening if you—”
Danny laughs and shakes his head. “No, I’m good.”
“Okay,” I say. “Well, if you’re not here for a makeover, maybe we should talk about what you are here for.”
He sucks down a deep breath and braces himself as he nods. And then the words pour out of him. He’s gay, he says. And he’s freaked that if he comes out, his teammates will be all weird about it. I resist the urge to reassure him with platitudes like They won’t, or It will all be okay. I know that may not be true. People might be weird. They will probably be weird. They were weird to me.
So instead I tell him what my mom always tells me: “If somebody doesn’t think we deserve to love and be loved the way we want, with whatever person we want, then they don’t deserve our time or attention anyway.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
I don’t sugarcoat it. I tell him it probably will be hard and uncomfortable at first, but that everyone should live their truth. And that if he feels ready to come out, he should. Aaron smiles from the doorway—one of his quick pop-ins—and gives me a little thumbs-up before disappearing again.
“What if I come out and they kick me off the team?”
“They could try,” I say, “but hopefully they wouldn’t get very far.” He looks at me in confusion, and then I tell him my story. He says he’s heard of me and seen my family on the news. I pretend to be surprised when he tells me he goes to a private school not too far from where I used to live.
And then I tell him that hopefully one day, once this lawsuit is settled, schools won’t dare pull this crap—not even overpriced, overblown private schools like ours. He says he wishes that day were today.
And, yeah, me too.
Dylan comes home late with a pizza. He excitedly tells me that he finally asked out that woman he’s been crushing on, and she said yes. I try not to think too hard about how much I wish that were me and Ruby. He heads off to bed early, but I stay up watching Netflix all night and obsessing.
And then, sometime around midnight, throwing caution to the wind, I grab my phone and send her a text: Hope the pageant went well! ☺