she said. “You like him.”
“Sure. But I don’t know if we’re in love.”
“And that’s normal.”
“But with him it’s so ordinary. It’s like—okay, you know what it’s like? Imagine if you and I were having sex. We’d do it, and then we’d play around and make fun of each other, and it’d be really simple. That’s me and Dave.”
She blinked. Maybe I’d gone too far. “Well, you’re welcome, by the way. This is all me. I put together this whole caper. This whole plan. This whole ‘pretending to be together.’ All me! Don’t believe Dave when he tries to take credit.”
“Yeah. . . .” My jaw worked. “Thanks.”
Now she blinked at me. “Are you mad?”
“No,” I said. “Not at you. It’s just that everybody is so happy. There’s this crazy rush to lump Dave and me together, as if we’re married or something—and it feels like, well, it’s good those two fags are taken, because now we don’t have to think about them too hard.”
Now her mouth opened. “Uhh, no. . . .”
I shook my head. “Not you,” I said, even though she was absolutely guilty of this too. “You’ve been cool. But it’s in everybody’s eyes. To them we’re a single unit.”
“I thought you liked him!”
“Sure, sure, but . . .” I shrugged. “I don’t know. When I got with Avani, it was really exciting. I thought about her all the time. I dreamed about us getting married and shit. With Dave it’s different.”
“And that’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Except . . . what if I don’t even like guys? What if it’s just a phase? I thought if people knew we were hooking up, that would be one thing, because that’s a fact. But people took away something different.”
We went around and around, talking over my feelings, in that deliciously pleasurable way that’s like picking at a peeling sunburn. Dave texted he was on his way over, and I told him Mari was here.
Dave: Oh, uhh, should I not come then?
Me: What? No. Just letting you know.
When he appeared there was a bit of awkward shuffling as the two said hi. He threw his bag onto the floor and sat on a couch, far away from me. I guess we hadn’t really hung out with anybody as a couple, and we had no idea where to look or how to act.
For her part, Mari looked at me, then looked at Dave.
“No, no, stay,” Dave said. “I need to do work.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know this kid does three hours of homework every single night?”
Mari closed one eye and looked at me quizzically. “What do you mean? How much do you do?”
“I don’t know. Half an hour?”
“Are you serious?” she said. “No . . . you’re kidding.”
“What’s there to do? You do the problems, and you do the translations or whatever. Maybe I’ll read for an hour or two if there’s a test tomorrow. But what else is there?”
Dave said, “This guy’s basically a genius. He doesn’t even take notes.”
“I never got into the notes thing. It’s all in the book anyway, right?”
“Yeah, but you take notes on the reading too . . . ,” Mari said.
“Why, though? It’s all in the book. It’s right there, written down already.”
“Err . . . in order to learn it?”
I shook my head. “I mean don’t get me wrong, I knew people at this school did work. But I figured those were, like, you know, the kids who you hear about at announcements, the ones who win science competitions and have 4.0 GPAs and shit, not ordinary kids like you and Dave.”
“Uhh”—Mari’s forehead crinkled, and she raised an eyebrow—“I have a 5.1.”
“See?” I said. “What the fuck? That’s insane. How is that even possible? So you get straight A’s and mostly take honors classes?”
“Err, your friend Avani does just as well.”
“Yeah, but she makes sure you know it.”
“Well, anyway, I’m here to, like, genuinely work. So if you guys—”
“No, no,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
After half an hour I was done with my homework, and I started texting and fooling around on my phone. But eventually I stole a glance at Dave and Mari, and I realized the two were completely lost in their reading.
Dave was in his bow tie, as usual, and looking at him made my stomach drop (in a good way, definitely in a good way). His hair was slicked over to one side, and his body formed one long sinuous curve. Mari looked up, noticed me staring, and gave