GUS

JUST WEEKS AGO, I was content spending my days admiring the Gaggle from afar, riding to and from school with Phil, playing tabletop games at his house. Living in a tomb, but with the doors flung open: that felt like enough to ask for.

I never meant to make friends with anyone.

Kalyn smells like smoke, but she’s not afraid to touch me. She doesn’t pull punches. She treats me like a person worth being around. Sometimes she says tactless things about my CP, or about Phil. She isn’t always patient while I’m thinking. But . . .

“You’re the only person I can cut loose around,” she says.

Ditto.

It’s not quite carefreedom, because we’re both careful. But Kalyn’s never ashamed of anything. She’s never uncomfortable.

On the Tuesday before homecoming, the ride to school in the Death Van is uncomfortable. I’ve spent every day of my life for the past decade with Phil, but I’ve never felt this aware of him before.

I can understand why Kalyn thinks I love Phil. Phil’s a constant comfort in my life. I care about him more than I care about anyone else, but there’s never been much competition. My camp friends are far away. They don’t factor into my daily existence.

“Honestly, compatriot, you’re not heeding me. Again.”

Thanks to Kalyn, I have to consider that the reason I squirmed when Phil asked me to ask her out might be because I wanted him to ask me instead. I wasn’t ready to deal with that yesterday. I called Tamara for a ride and told Phil I had an appointment.

Now I have to face him, and I still don’t know. When it comes to people, I care about personality before anything else, and gender’s another characteristic that factors into that. Maybe that does land me in one queer realm or another, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in love with Phil Wheeler, does it?

You’re all he’s got, too. That’s what Mr. Wheeler said.

I’m so gay and confused.

For once, Phil turns the music down. “If the answer’s no, just tell me, Gus.” When Phil drops his Shakespearean gimmick, it’s serious.

“She . . . she didn’t say no.” Not explicitly. But she will.

“I need to know soon. I’ll need to rent a suit.”

“Rent the suit anyway. You can go even if she turns you down.”

Phil’s derision is an actual snarl. “I will not attend the ball alone.”

“Not alone.” I say it as inconsequentially as possible, because I’m trying to determine if it is inconsequential to me. “You can go with me. For fun.”

“For fun?” We pull into the student lot. Phil races another van for the spot closest to the entrance. “Do you remember middle school? You don’t dance. I don’t dance. Fodder for the wolves, Gus. That’s all we’d be.”

Phil steals the spot and switches into park.

“Who cares?” I’m not sure what I want when I blurt, clearly, with no branches to block me, “Phil, come to homecoming with me.”

Without warning, Phil starts laughing.

Suddenly we’re not quite friends. Suddenly we’re back to the day second-grade Phil taught me that sometimes ch sounds like chuh and sometimes like kuh, and how fascinating was that? One thing could be two things at once. And I chuckled and told him I knew that already, because sweet-and-sour sauce exists. He laughed.

I never thought I could hate the sound of Phil’s laugh.

“Oh, come lively!” Phil undoes his seat belt. “You’ve made your point. I’ll rent the damn suit, but please. Tell her to keep me informed, and should she come to a conclusion, deliver it posthaste.”

As he opens the door, I murmur, “You tell her.”

Phil pauses. Autumn has stricken Samsboro, and through the open door I hear the crackle of leaves across pavement. The wind teases Phil’s straggly hair. “Really, Gus? I don’t even know where you’ve been meeting her. I thought I couldn’t be any less popular, but I’ve spent a lot of lunches alone.”

Kalyn never told me not to bring Phil to the kiln. But I never suggested it. Maybe I never actually wanted to bring them together.

Oh, god. Kalyn could be right. I could be in love with Phil. But Phil hasn’t even factored me in as someone who might be capable of a love confession.

“We’ve been over this. Nobody is interested in talking to me, girls least of all.”

“Then what are you planning to do at the dance, mime at her?” I bite my tongue, but Phil’s just rejected me. And the worst part is he doesn’t even realize it, and I’m angry at him, at myself, even at Kalyn for planting a seed I can’t water.

“You said you’d relay my charms. You’d make it easier.”

“Make what easier? Phil, she’s a person, not a puzzle.”

“I’m not an imbecile.”

“Okay. Okay. Just. Phil, I don’t like . . . ​um. If I talk to Kalyn, I want to talk to her because she’s my friend, not because you want something out of it.”

He tilts his head. “How long before you abandon her, too?”

“I haven’t abandoned you! I was doing this for—for—!” I can’t say the word, even though it’s right there. I smack myself in the forehead.

Phil pulls out his PSP. “ ‘Why bastard? Wherefore base,’ ” he mutters, setting something alight in a digital realm. “ ‘When my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous, and my shape as true . . . ?’ ”

“Phil. Please. Could you please cut the drama for once?”

Phil doesn’t look up. I’m not even the sidekick. It doesn’t matter that my shape isn’t true, that my dimensions have always been off, that my dead arm and leg are cramping again.

“I’ll take care to heed your advice.” Phil lets his PSP screen darken with a quiet click. “Lady Macbeth can give you a ride home tonight.”

I punch the dash and splinters travel up my arm. “Phil. Don’t, stop being—stop!”

Phil closes the door and lurches away, propelled by gusts of leaf-strewn wind. I get out as fast as I can, but it’s not fast enough. Phil knows exactly how fast he has to walk to be beyond my reach, and he’s doing double that pace now.

By the time I find my balance, I’m gritting my teeth and hobbling solo up the slight incline to Jefferson High’s entrance, hating myself for petrifying, for turning to stone, for speaking up, for that confusing invitation, for chasing Phil now, for cluttering my words, for not being Macbeth, because even a mad Scottish king might be preferable to this. In my head, Dad is tsking so loud my ears buzz, and I’m doing my best to pull this concrete pillar that used to be my right leg behind me—­

Timber.

The tiny entranceway steps catch me for the first time in years.

Me and my inadvisable Doc Martens.

My fall is witnessed by a small crowd of Gagglers, loitering beside the flagpole. Now it’s a scene that should only exist in fiction: the dumbass with a disability eats pavement in front of his idols exactly as the bell rings.

My teeth smack together and there’s gravel on my tongue. I taste tinny blood.

Hands descend around me, palms out, beautiful living hands trying to lift me without allowing me a moment to lift myself, and as these hands descend, concerned voices follow in their wake, and the speakers aren’t listening when I tell them to leave me alone, maybe because I’m not saying the words aloud but still—­

“HANDS OFF, RUBBERNECKERS!” The fingers flitter away. The holler softens. “I mean, please. I’ll take care of it. He’s my friend.”

What’s worse:

a. All those Gagglers helping me?

b. How quickly they stop?

Kalyn flops down beside me, all cascading gingham dress and braided knots of hair with flowers woven in, all crooked smile. For a while, we lie on our backs on the sidewalk. Kalyn uses her sickly lemonade Rose voice to shoo stragglers off as the last of the morning traffic passes us by.

“Freakin’ buzzards,” she grumbles.

My arm and leg threaten to spasm. If that happens, I won’t be getting up. My jaw aches, but I can’t open my mouth. I will myself to unwind.

The second bell sounds. Kalyn lifts herself up on one elbow. “Check it out, Gustulio. Stop eyeballin’ the sidewalk. That cloud looks like a urinal!”

I take a deep breath, push myself up on my good arm, and roll over. My jaw unclenches. “Huh.”

“Do you see it? It’s up there, to your left.”

I spit again and form my words carefully. “I don’t know, but yer-in-all I see.”

“Oh, Gus, I’m crippled with laughter.”

“If you were on my good side, I’d be, um, smashing, I mean, smacking you.”

It comes to my attention that there’s pressure in my hand. Without looking, this could mean anything. Astereognosis is another of my glorious menagerie of issues, and that excessive-looking word means I can’t always tell what things are just by touching them; I need to see them or hear them, too. “My hand feels weird.”

“That’s just me holdin’ it.”

“You should get up,” I say. “Your dress will get filthy.”

“It always does anyhow, Gus, if you haven’t worked that one out yet.”

“Rose won’t like that, will she?”

“She’s not here right now; leave a damn message.”

“. . . Kalyn?”

Her reply is soft. “Gus?”

“Um. We don’t have to worry about Phil and homecoming anymore.” I can’t see the urinal in the sky. I can’t see anything, with my eyes pinched shut. “Or, um, worry about Phil at all.”

“ ‘We’?” She sits up. “Aw, Gus. Is it my fault?”

“No.” I think about it. “Maybe. Not really?”

“Wow, I feel so reassured!” Kalyn hops to her feet, and god, do I envy the simple grace of it. “Do you want help, or not want help?”

I inhale, trying not to overthink it. “Would you ask most people that question?”

“Fuck if I know. I’m the sort who’d usually stomp over the bodies.”

“Okay.” I get up on my own steam. My nose is bleeding and so are my gums, and if I wipe in earnest I’ll definitely just be smearing blood on that dress. My arm and leg are tight knots. After a moment, I tell Kalyn she can use me as a tardy excuse.

“It’s not even an excuse, man. You’re a gen-u-ine mess today.”

I thought we were alone, but now that I’m a little less dizzy and a little more upright, I notice that Garth of the Gaggle still watches us from under the flagpole. His best subject in school is the Art of Leaning Against Things. He takes a bubble pipe from between his lips and toasts me with it. His Docs match mine. Maybe I’m concussed.

“. . . earth to Gus? Hey? Guess this means dinner’s off?”

“Dinner is still on. In fact, wanna leave early?” I’m scrambling for my phone. It’s the same model as the old one. Grabbing it isn’t easy with scraped knuckles. Now that I’m loosening up, I’m beginning to sting and shake all over.

“You wanna skip?”

“Is it skipping if a mom approves?”

“Heck yes it is. I was skipping for about a year because of my mom, and that’s why I’m—never mind.”

She’s acting like me. Kalyn is struggling with words. I wait.

“Hell. Let’s do it. Take me, Gus!” She feigns a faint. While I call Tamara, Kalyn keeps pointing out shapes in the sky. She’s decided most of them are genitalia.

Within thirty seconds, Tamara caves. “I’m coming to get you right now.”

“I sound that bad?”

“Nah, Gus. You sound good. Do I hear a girl?”

I’m bleeding from the forehead and knuckles. My knees ache like they’ve been snapped in two. My best friend of ten years has just dumped me.

But I’m smiling.

“Yeah,” I tell Tamara. “Can’t wait for you to meet her.”

I hang up.

We wait on the steps. A teacher should be dragging us inside, but they let us be. It’s a miniature miracle. Kalyn picks at her elbow, which means she wants a cigarette. “What are you thinking about, Wondergus?”

I’m thinking about all the possible options I gave myself. My alphabetical list. About how no one but me decided those were my only possibilities, about how I never left an option for myself to be happy, side note or not, about how I never imagined an awful day could feel so close to okay, so long as someone was next to me.

I point at the sky. “That cloud looks like a witch’s titty in a brass bra.”