KALYN

I READ SOMEWHERE that girls are too apologetic. There are women who say “Sorry” when someone else runs into them, and girls who say “Sorry” after sharing their opinions. This is a conditioned response that’s existed for generations, a seed planted when we’re too young to know it and usually without our parents even realizing they’re planting it.

And saying “girls are too apologetic” still sounds like blaming them for something they didn’t choose, so fuck all that noise.

But apologizing all the time decreases the value of the word. What we’re really saying is “my presence is less valuable than yours.” It’s sexist bullshit. I’d like to say that’s why Spences don’t apologize, but that’s not really why. We’ve just got this whole “oppositional” thing in our bloodstream. If someone shouts blue, we shout red.

I’ve heard more sorries over the past couple weeks than I’ve heard my whole life. Gus apologizes for taking up space, apologizes for misspeaking, apologizes for his weirdo best friend. He’s not apologizing for existing, but sometimes it sounds like that.

But hell, pobody’s nerfect, and you know what? Gus has never expected apologies from me. It’s been weeks of me not giving him a straight answer about homecoming. All he wants to do is what I want to do: shoot the shit.

“What do you mean, you’ve never played D&D?” he demands during our eighth meeting. By now we’ve sneaked some blankets and a lamp into the crematorikiln, and it’s not as gloomy as it used to be. It’s what I think childhood might feel like.

“You say that as if most people have played D&D.”

Gus kicks at the dust with his boots. “Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . ​I just meant that you usually know, do things most people haven’t.”

“You mean smoking, swearin’, and drinking?”

“I mean looking after, um, the olderly. Elderly.” His ears are luminous Christmas bulbs. “I mean pretending to be fake-nice but secretly being actually nice.”

I wince. “I’m not nice.”

Gus wipes his chin. “Yes, you are.”

“Seriously, I’m not.”

“Agree to disagree.”

I should let it go and start talking books and movies and crap (we both have a soft spot for cheesy old sci-fi movies, me for the unintentional humor and Gus for the bare-budget costuming), but the knowing look in his eyes makes me tetchy. “How the hell do you know? I could be an actual piece of shit. I could be makin’ it all up! The shit about old people and being nice to you: they could all be lies, you idiot.”

“Don’t c-call me an idiot.” His smile’s gone in a puff of steam.

“Yeah—I mean—sorry.” Guess apologizin’ is catching, or maybe there are good apologies and bad ones.

“And don’t call yourself names. That’s not nice.”

“What names do you call yourself, Gus, when there’s no one else around?”

“Selfish.”

“Huh. Me too. But who isn’t?”

“My parents,” Gus murmurs. “They give me everything.” We talk about everything, but we haven’t talked about our families. It’s like this silent, mutually agreed thing. Like he knows it, Gus clears his throat. “Sorry.”

“Is there anything you aren’t sorry for? Jegus.”

“I’m not sorry I followed you.”

“Shit. Me neither. Especially now I know it was all about Quillpower.”

He tilts his head. “What did you think it would be about?”

“I thought you’d figured out my dark past.” I try to make it sound like a joke.

“Did you kill someone?” I think he’s trying to joke, too, but it sounds unnatural. We haven’t talked about true crime, even if we’ve talked about every other genre.

“What do you think this is, Heathers? Would you help me hide a body?”

“Hiding them isn’t practical,” Gus says slowly. “People always find them.”

“You ain’t kidding.” My laugh is shrill.

Gus chuckles; it sounds forced, but I appreciate it. “We could figure something else out, I guess. Um. Yeah.”

“Creep,” I say, but I’m grinning.

“Creeps,” he amends, and puts out his fist. I bump it against mine.