to figure out when you became such a sad, scared ball sack.”
“Excuse me, what?”
“Aren’t you the same Dre who literally crawled through garbage to sneak into a sold-out concert? And aren’t you the same Dre who stood up to a guy twice his size for picking on a freshman?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it turned out he wasn’t being picked on. They were rehearsing for a play.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mel said. “You are weird, you are deranged, you are annoying, and you are persistent and fierce as fuck. If you want to make something happen, make it happen. Don’t let whatever’s hanging you up stand in the way.”
I pulled Mel in and kissed the side of her head. “I love you, Mel.” And I did. But the problem was that I had no idea what, if anything, was happening between me and Dean, and it wasn’t something I could force. If Dean didn’t have any romantic feelings for me, I had to respect that, no matter how weird, deranged, annoying, persistent, and fierce Mel thought I was.
Dean
THIS WAS SUPPOSEDLY the best night of my life. That’s what everyone kept saying. Tamal stuck his head out the window and yelled it as I drove us to the dance; Astrid said it from the back seat as we pulled into the parking lot at school. Even Mr. Baxter clapped me on the shoulder and said “Welcome to the best night of your life” as I passed through the metal detectors at the entrance to the gym.
But if they were right, then why was I so bored?
I stood at the edges of the dance floor with my hands in my pockets as a song I didn’t like turned into a song I didn’t know, and the crowd went a little wild. They were still coming off the high of winning the game the night before, with a touchdown in the final ten seconds, surprising everyone, and we were at that stage of the dance where the homecoming royals had been crowned—Asa Ford and Devi Kapoor—and the need to keep shoes on or worry about hair had passed. The majority of the dancers had given into the Bacchanalian revelry and were, possibly, having the best night of their lives.
I, on the other hand, was not.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t dance. I had, in fact, proven I knew how to dance with Ellen when she’d had my mother and me on her show. I had actually taken dance lessons. Not to go on the show, of course. My mom had me take them so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself if I ever needed to dance at one of her fancy fundraisers or balls. They didn’t do the kinds of dancing at school dances that they did at my mom’s events, but I still would have enjoyed the opportunity to have semi-rhythmic seizures while surrounded by my friends set to music I probably wouldn’t have chosen to listen to if given another option. It was just . . . I don’t know. I wanted more than to spend another night pretending.
There was nothing wrong with the concept of a dance; it was the expectations that went along with them that bothered me. If I could have danced without people assuming things about me because of it, I would have. But if I’d wanted to cut loose and dance with Tamal, people probably would have assumed I was gay. If I’d danced with any girl, she might think I was attracted to her and might feel led on when she realized I wasn’t. Not to mention that everyone in the gym—students and chaperones—had the potential to snap a picture covertly and ruin my life and my mother’s campaign. Maybe this could have been one of the best nights of my life if a dance could have been nothing more than a dance, but nothing in my life was that simple.
Nothing except talking to Dre.
I slipped into the restroom and locked myself in the farthest stall from the door. I sat on the toilet and pulled out my phone. Still no new messages from Dre. His reply to my attempted explanation about being ace had been sweet, but it had felt like a period rather than a question mark—a polite smile rather than an invitation to continue talking—and I didn’t want to be pushy by initiating another conversation if he wasn’t interested.
But there was something about talking to Dre. Explaining my feelings to him about being demi had felt like