Something is off the next day. Justin barely speaks to me. Rebecca looks at me curiously. Even my teachers seem more aware that I’m in the room, and won’t stop calling on me. I have an English report I have to finish during lunch, so I spend it in the library.
After sixth period, Preston texts to see if I want to do something after school. I feel like I haven’t talked to him in a while—and I’m grateful that someone is actually trying to make plans with me.
We decide to drive to the outlet mall—Preston has a cousin at Burberry who’s let him know the coat he’s been crushing on is getting marked down today. He still can’t afford it, but at least he can try it on one more time before it’s sold.
I think the coat’s going to be the top priority in our conversation, but then Preston jumps in my car, plugs in his iPod to blast some Robyn, and says, “So…spill!”
“What am I supposed to be spilling?” I ask as I pull out of the parking lot.
Preston sighs theatrically. “Must I spell it out for you? I have it from very reliable sources that you were walking the halls yesterday with a rather attractive gentleman who nobody’s ever seen before. You may have even sequestered yourself in an empty classroom with him—although when you emerged, there was no evidence of untoward behavior. Apparently his hair is very swoopy, which has led at least fifty-eight percent of my reliable sources to believe he may play for my team. Which would be the most exciting news to hit my world in about a decade. Every night I pray for a lovely, swoopy-haired homosexual to come to our school, in the same way that Margaret prayed for boobs and my grandfather prays for my eternal salvation.”
I remind myself I need to keep driving. I need to focus or I know I’m going to swerve.
Caution. My first instinct is to say, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But clearly someone saw me. Many people saw me.
My second instinct is to think, Justin’s heard. Justin knows.
My third instinct is to scream.
My fourth instinct is to cry.
My fifth instinct is to deny all these other instincts and say, lightly, “I’m sorry, Preston—I have no idea if he swoops your way. He was just a prospective student—I’ve started showing them around, like Tiffany does. He lives in California—he’s not even sure his dad is going to get the job here. And even if he did…the whole question of straightness or gayness didn’t come up.”
“Oh.” Poor Preston looks so disappointed.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. A boy can dream, can’t he?”
I want to tell him maybe it’s better that way. Maybe real life is never going to live up to his daydreamy kind of love.
“So who saw me?” I ask delicately. “I mean, us.”
“Kara Wallace and her group. Lindsay Craig thought you were macking on him—but then they saw you leave and said everything was in the right place, if you know what I mean. Kara was all excited, because her gaydar was really going off.”
“Do you really believe in that gaydar stuff?”
Preston nods. “You can tell. There’s an energy that travels between you. I can’t say whether it’s body language or if there’s an actual chemical reaction. But you can feel it. He puts it out there, you put it out there, and you can feel it.”
I think about A. About the way I knew it was him.
Then I put that thought away.
“And has word of this spread? I mean, should I be worried about Justin hearing the gossip?”
“Does Justin even do gossip? He doesn’t strike me as the type.”
No, but I can imagine Lindsay going up to him and sharing her theories—I just thought you should know, she’d say, gossip’s good little helper.
It could explain his noncommunication today. But a thousand other things could also explain it. And calling him and making a big deal of some rumor could seriously backfire if he hasn’t heard anything.
“Really,” Preston says, “don’t worry about it. The only reason I brought it up was…well, for selfish reasons. Woe is me. I am woe.”
He’s only kind-of joking, and it’s only kind-of convincing.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He smiles ruefully. “I’m fine. Although I’d be much more fine if you’d said you’d already given the swoopy-haired boy my number.”
“What happened with Alec?”
“Not swoopy-haired.”
“And that guy in Massachusetts you were chatting with?”
“Not swoopy-haired. And not local.”
“So swoopy hair is the thing? You can’t be with a guy unless his hair swoops?”
“If there’s an exception, I haven’t met him yet.”
“I’m serious. Do you really believe that much in a ‘type’? Is there really only one kind of person for you? Couldn’t you be open to someone outside your type if he or she was great enough?”
“Or she?”
“I’m just saying—if you loved someone enough, would it really matter?”
“I know you want me to say no, but let’s be real here. We’re all wired to like certain things and to hate certain things. A lot of these things are negotiable, but some of them are fundamental. Don’t ask me why—I’d need a PhD and a really powerful microscope to begin to tell you why. Could I love a guy without swoopy hair? Yeah, sure. Could I love a guy with a mullet? Much harder. Could I love a girl with a mullet? As a friend, sure. But—how to put this?—would I want to have relations with her? No. Not interested. At all. Nuh-uh.”
“But don’t you wish it were possible? I mean, don’t you wish anything were possible?”
“Do I wish it? Sure. I mean, why not? But do I think it’s true? Nope. Sorry. Not by a long shot. I have two years of being in love with our mutual friend Ben to show for that. Not everything is possible. Falling for a straight boy is thus inadvisable.”
I don’t steer to the side of the road at the breaking of this news, but I do turn down the radio to focus in on it more. “Wait—you’re in love with Ben?”
“I was in love with Ben. The torture chamber kind of love. Oh, Lord, what I would have done for, to, or with that boy. This was before he was with Rebecca. Well, the beginning of it was before he was with Rebecca.”
I picture Ben two years ago. His swoopy hair.
“But you knew he wasn’t gay, right?” I ask. “I mean, he wasn’t, was he? I’m not missing that, too?”
“No, you’re not.” Preston stares out the window. “It was just something I tried to convince myself could happen. It was easier for me to come out if I thought there was someone to be in love with. A destination for my trajectory. I know that’s silly, and I know he did nothing to deserve it—but I had to picture some kind of future, and while I was at it, I decided to cut him out from reality and paste him into my fantasy. I felt a lot of things at that moment, and I needed to feel every single one of them. Then I had to tell myself I was done. He wasn’t going to suddenly like boys, any more than I was going to suddenly like girls.”
I know Preston won’t understand where the question’s coming from, yet I have to ask. “But what if he could’ve changed? I mean, what if Ben could’ve changed into a girl, and you could have been with him that way?”
“Rhiannon, if I’d wanted to fall for a girl, there were plenty of awesome girls around to fall for. That’s not how it works.”
Silly. I feel silly.
“I know, I know,” I say. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Then he takes a good look at me. “What’s on your mind?”
I can’t tell him the real reason, but I wonder if I can try to keep it vague and still have a conversation.
“I’m just wondering why people stay together,” I say. “Why they connect in the first place, and what keeps that connection strong. I want it to be all the things inside—who you are, what you believe. But what if the things on the outside are just as important? When I was little, I was always worried I’d fall in love with someone ugly. Like Shrek. Then I figured that love would make anyone beautiful to me, if I loved them enough. I want to believe in that. I want to believe that you can love someone so strongly that none of that will matter. But what if it does?”
We’re at the mall now. I pull into a parking space. Neither of us makes a move to leave the car.
Preston is looking really concerned.
“Is this about Justin?” he asks. “Are you no longer attracted to him?”
“No!”
“Is it about…someone else?”
“NO!”
Preston holds up his hands. “Okay, okay! Just checking.”
“It was just something I was thinking about. That’s all.”
I’m letting him down. I’m letting myself down. Because I’m shutting down this conversation. I’m making it clear we’re done.
We get out of the car and head to the Burberry outlet. Preston tries on the coat and I tell him it looks amazing. We talk about clothes and classes and our friends. But we don’t talk about what’s really on my mind. Preston knows this. I know this.
I keep waiting for a text from Justin. Either he’s heard the gossip and is going to want to know who the guy was, or he hasn’t, and he’ll text to see what I’m doing.
One of the two.
Or, in the end, neither.
I think about writing to A, but I convince myself not to. I don’t want to encourage him too much. I can’t have him show up again. I need to figure things out. But how can you figure out something that doesn’t have a shape? It’s the shapeless things—like love, like attraction—that are the hardest to map.
I give in and text Justin as midnight nears. I’m sleepy and vulnerable. The night won’t let me settle down until I get rid of at least one thing that’s unsettling me. I decide to keep it simple.
Missed you today.
He doesn’t write back to me until the next morning.
Did you?