gratefully. “Okay, seriously. Tell us everything.”
So I did, vaguely. I made my mouth say the words. Ruby texting me, me picking her up, making everyone drinks, us dancing. “It was fun,” I heard myself say, like it was any old Saturday night. Somewhere far above me, I was trying to read Jamie’s mind—hard enough when I was looking at her, and impossible when I wasn’t.
“Did anything happen?” said Alexis.
I nodded, grinning involuntarily. “I mean, yeah. We kissed.”
“Kissed, or like made out?”
I grinned harder, which gave Alexis her answer.
“Are you together?” she squealed. I nodded, and she squealed harder. I risked another glance at Jamie, who was very much focused on her cafeteria burger, so flat it was almost two-dimensional. Then she spoke.
“That figures,” she said.
Instantly, I deflated. Jamie could do that to you. It didn’t matter how many words she used; I’d seen her do it in one. There was a tone she had, when she found something you said so completely boring, or stupid, or predictable, that made you feel embarrassed for having ever had the nerve to be born. I had rarely been on the receiving end, but I’d seen it done, powerfully: to some senior water polo player when we were juniors; to some random homophobe at the movie theater; to her mother, once. It was a power she used mostly for good, or at least I almost always thought it was deserved. But to me, for this? She had no right.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
She looked up, all faux surprised I cared. “Nothing. Just, I think we all saw that coming.”
“It’s been clear she likes you,” Ronni said, looking nervously between Jamie and me. But I knew that wasn’t what Jamie meant. Jamie meant that Ruby thought I’d be a fun experiment, and I was the sucker willing to go along with it.
“People are going to lose their shit,” Alexis said. “Not that I’m going to tell them.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, yeah, maybe don’t announce it over the intercom, but like. It’s not a secret.”
Alexis beamed, and I could practically see the flowchart of people she planned to tell unfolding across her forehead. I’d been excited for people to know I was with Ruby, and I still was, but Jamie’s comment had shaken me a little too. What if I was just revenge? What if she really was straight, and the kiss was a curiosity she now had an answer to? I knew, like Jamie knew, that we shouldn’t assume anyone was straight until proven otherwise. But it was hard not to. Statistically, most people were. And though neither of us wanted to admit it, there was something in us both that was capable, in weaker moments, of black-and-white thinking, and shutting people out.
Being a good queer was exhausting sometimes. Jamie and I used to joke about all the things we could think about instead, if we were straight: tree houses, purses, baby showers, NASCAR.
There was a part of me that was still afraid. That still felt that it’d be somehow worse for Ruby to dump me for Mikey than it would be for her to dump me for another girl. But I thought of the way she’d kissed me in the bathroom at David’s house, and again, later, in her bed. These were not things a straight girl did. Straight girls held your hand and hugged you too long and leaned their head on your shoulder. They took you right up to the edge of plausible deniability, and then they left you there.
This was different. I was almost positive.
* * *
—
Word spread in the style of wildfire: slow, then all-consuming. By Civil Liberties, the first time I even saw Ruby all day, it was obvious everyone knew. Which is not to say that everyone cared. But it seemed as if homecoming itself had provided disappointingly few good stories, and people were desperate for drama. Personally, I was more worried about Friday’s school-season opener game against Granite Hills, not only because they were very good, but because, traditionally, season-opener day was also College Day, when all the seniors