THE SHITTIEST THING ABOUT THE Martin situation is that I can’t bring it up with Blue. I’m not used to keeping secrets from him.
I mean, there are a lot of things he and I don’t tell each other. We talk about all the big things, but avoid the identifying details—the names of our friends and anything too specific about school. All the stuff that I used to think defined me. But I don’t think of those things as secrets. It’s more like an unspoken agreement.
If Blue were a real junior at Creekwood with a locker and a GPA and a Facebook profile, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be telling him anything. I mean, he is a real junior at Creekwood. I know that. But in a way, he lives in my laptop. It’s hard to explain.
I was the one who found him. On the Tumblr, of all places. It was August, right when school was starting. Creeksecrets is supposed to be where you can post anonymous confessions and secret random thoughts, and people can comment, but no one really judges you. Except it all kind of devolved into this sinkhole of gossip and bad poetry and misspelled Bible quotes. And I guess it’s kind of addictive either way.
That’s where I found Blue’s post. It just kind of spoke to me. And I don’t even think it was just the gay thing. I don’t know. It was seriously like five lines, but it was grammatically correct and strangely poetic, and just completely different from anything I’d ever read before.
I guess it was about loneliness. And it’s funny, because I don’t really think of myself as lonely. But there was something so familiar about the way Blue described the feeling. It was like he had pulled the ideas from my head.
Like the way you can memorize someone’s gestures but never know their thoughts. And the feeling that people are like houses with vast rooms and tiny windows.
The way you can feel so exposed anyway.
The way he feels so hidden and so exposed about the fact that he’s gay.
I felt strangely panicked and self-conscious when I read that part, but there was also this quiet thrum of excitement.
He talked about the ocean between people. And how the whole point of everything is to find a shore worth swimming to.
I mean, I just had to know him.
Eventually I worked up the courage to post the only comment I could think of, which was: “THIS.” All caps. And then I wrote my email address. My secret Gmail account.
I spent the next week obsessing about whether or not he would contact me. And then he did. Later, he told me that my comment made him a little nervous. He’s really careful about things. Obviously, he’s more careful than I am. Basically, if Blue finds out that Martin Addison has screenshots of our emails, I’m pretty sure he’ll freak out. But he’ll freak out in a totally Blue way.
Meaning, he’ll stop emailing me.
I remember exactly how it felt to see that first message from him in my in-box. It was a little bit surreal. He wanted to know about me. For the next few days at school after that, it felt like I was a character in a movie. I could almost imagine a close-up of my face, projected wide-screen.
It’s strange, because in reality, I’m not the leading guy. Maybe I’m the best friend.
I guess I didn’t really think of myself as interesting until I was interesting to Blue. So I can’t tell him. I’d rather not lose him.
I’ve been avoiding Martin. All week, in class and rehearsal, I see him trying to catch my eye. I know it’s kind of cowardly. This whole situation makes me feel like a coward. It’s especially stupid, because I’ve already decided I’ll help him. Or I’ll cave to his blackmail. Whatever you want to call it. It honestly makes me feel a little sick.
I’m distracted all through dinner. My parents are especially jolly tonight because it’s Bachelorette night. I’m dead serious. As in the reality show. We all watched the show yesterday, but tonight is the night we Skype with Alice at Wesleyan to discuss it. It’s the new Spier family tradition. I could not be more aware that this is perfectly ridiculous.
I don’t even know. My family’s always been like this.
“And how are Leo and Nicole?” my dad asks, mouth twitching around the edges of his fork. Switching Leah’s and Nick’s genders is like the pinnacle of Dad-humor.
“They’re amazing,” I say.
“LOL, Dad,” Nora says flatly. My little sister. Recently, she’s been using text abbreviations out loud sometimes, even though she never uses them in actual text messages. I think it’s supposed to be ironic. She looks at me. “Si, did you see Nick playing guitar outside the atrium?”
“Sounds like Nick’s trying to get a girlfriend,” says my mom.
That’s funny, Mom, because get this. I’m actually trying to prevent Nick from getting the girl he likes, so Martin Addison won’t tell the whole school I’m gay. Did I mention I’m gay?
I mean, how do people even begin with this stuff?
Maybe it would be different if we lived in New York, but I don’t know how to be gay in Georgia. We’re right outside Atlanta, so I know it could be worse. But Shady Creek isn’t exactly a progressive paradise. At school, there are one or two guys who are out, and people definitely give them crap. Not like violent crap. But the word “fag” isn’t exactly uncommon. And I guess there are a few lesbian and bisexual girls, but I think it’s different for girls. Maybe it’s easier. If there’s one thing the Tumblr has taught me, it’s that a lot of guys consider it hot when a girl is a lesbian.
Though, I guess it happens in reverse. There are girls like Leah, who do these yaoi pencil sketches and post them to websites.
Which I guess is cool with me. Leah’s drawings are actually kind of awesome.
And Leah’s also into slash fanfiction, which got me curious enough to poke around the internet and find some last summer. I couldn’t believe how much there was to choose from: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy hooking up in thousands of ways in every broom closet at Hogwarts. I found the ones with decent grammar and stayed up reading all night. It was a weird couple of weeks. That was the summer I taught myself how to do laundry. There are some socks that shouldn’t be washed by your mom.
After dinner, Nora sets up Skype on the desktop computer in the living room. In the camera window, Alice looks a little disheveled, but it’s probably the hair—wood-blond and rumpled. All three of us have ridiculous hair. In the background, Alice’s bed is unmade and covered with pillows, and someone’s purchased a round, shaggy carpet to cover the few feet of floor space. It’s still strange to imagine Alice sharing a dorm room with a random girl from Minneapolis. Like, who would have ever guessed I’d see anything sports-related in Alice’s room? Minnesota Twins, indeed.
“Okay, you’re pixelated. I’m going to—no wait, you’re good. Oh my God, Dad, is that a rose?”
Our dad is holding a red rose and cackling into the webcam. I’m not even kidding. My family is all freaking business when it comes to The Bachelorette.
“Simon, do your Chris Harrison imitation.”
Fact: my Harrison imitation is utter and complete genius. At least, it is under normal circumstances. But I’m not at the top of my game today.
I’m just so preoccupied. And it’s not just Martin saving the emails. It’s the emails themselves. I’ve been feeling a little strange about the girlfriend thing ever since Blue asked about it. I wonder if he thinks I’m really fake. I get the impression that once he realized he was gay, he didn’t date girls, and it was as simple as that.
“So Michael D. claims to have used the fantasy suite for talking,” Alice says. “Do we believe that?”
“Not for a minute, kid,” Dad replies.
“They always say that,” says Nora. She cocks her head, and I just now notice that her ear has five piercings, all the way up and around.
“Right?” says Alice. “Bub, are you going to weigh in?”
“Nora, when did you do that?” I touch my earlobe.
She kind of blushes. “Last weekend?”
“Let me see,” Alice demands. Nora turns her ear toward the webcam. “Whoa.”
“I mean, why?” I ask.
“Because I wanted to.”
“But, like, why so many?”
“Can we talk about the fantasy suite now?” she says. Nora gets squirmy when the focus is on her.
“I mean, it’s the fantasy suite,” I say. “They totally did it. I’m pretty sure the fantasy doesn’t involve talking.”
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean intercourse.”
“MOM. Jesus Christ.”
I guess it was easy being in relationships where I didn’t really have to think about all the tiny humiliations that come with being attracted to someone. It’s like, I get along well with girls. Kissing them is fine. Dating them was really manageable.
“How about Daniel F.?” Nora asks, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Seriously, the piercings. I don’t get her.
“Okay, Daniel F.’s the hottest one,” says Alice. My mom and Alice are always using the phrase “eye candy” to talk about these people.
“Are you kidding me?” my dad says. “The gay one?”
“Daniel’s not gay,” Nora objects.
“Kid, he’s a one-man Pride Parade. An eternal flame.”
My whole body tenses. Leah once said that she’d rather have people call her fat directly than have to sit there and listen to them talking shit about some other girl’s weight. I actually think I agree with that. Nothing is worse than the secret humiliation of being insulted by proxy.
“Dad, stop,” says Alice.
And so Dad starts singing that song “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles.
I never know if my dad says that kind of stuff because he means it, or if he’s just trying to push Alice’s buttons. I mean, if that’s the way he feels, I guess it’s good to know. Even if I can’t un-know it.
So, the other issue is the lunch table. It’s been less than a week since the blackmail conversation, but Martin intercepts me on my way back from the lunch line.
“What do you want, Martin?”
He glances at my table. “Room for one more?”
“Um.” I look down. “Not really.”
There’s this weird beat of silence.
“We’ve got eight people already.”
“Didn’t realize the seats were assigned.”
I don’t have a clue what to say to that. People sit where they always sit. I thought that was basically a law of the universe.
You can’t just switch around the lunch tables in October.
And my group is weird, but it works. Nick, Leah, and me. Leah’s two friends, Morgan and Anna, who read manga and wear black eyeliner, and are basically interchangeable. Anna and I actually dated freshman year, and I still think she and Morgan are interchangeable.
Then you have the holy randomness of Nick’s soccer friends: awkward silence Bram and semi-douche Garrett. And Abby. She moved here from DC just before the beginning of the school year, and I guess we were sort of drawn to each other. It was some combination of fate and alphabetical homeroom assignments.
Anyway, that’s the eight of us. And it’s basically locked down. Already, we’re squeezing two extra chairs into a six-person table.
“Yeah, well.” Martin tilts backward in his chair and looks up at the ceiling. “I just figured we were on the same page here with the Abby thing, but . . .”
Then he raises his eyebrows at me. Seriously.
So, we haven’t exactly laid out the terms of this blackmail arrangement, but clearly it goes something like this: Martin asks for whatever the hell he wants. And then I’m supposed to do it.
It’s just so fucking awesome.
“Look, I want to help you.”
“Whatever you say, Spier.”
“Listen.” I lower my voice, almost to a whisper. “I’m gonna talk to her and stuff. Okay? But you’ve got to let me handle it.”
He shrugs.
I feel his stink-eye on me all the way to my table.
I have to act normal. It’s not like I can say anything. I mean, now I have to say something about him to Abby, I guess. But it’ll be the exact opposite of what I want to say.
It may be a little hard getting Abby to like this kid. Because I kind of can’t stand him.
I guess that’s beside the point now.
Except the days keep ticking by, and I still haven’t handled it. I haven’t talked to Abby, or invited Martin along to crap, or locked them into empty classrooms together. I don’t even know what he wants, honestly.
I’m kind of hoping to avoid finding out for as long as humanly possible. I guess I’ve been doing a lot of disappearing. Or glomming onto Nick and Leah, so Martin won’t try to talk to me. I pull into the parking lot on Tuesday, and Nora hops out—but when I don’t follow, she pokes her head back inside.
“Um, are you coming?”
“Eventually,” I say.
“All right.” She pauses. “Are you okay?”
“What? Yeah.”
She looks at me.
“Nora. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” she says, stepping back. She shuts the door with a soft click and heads toward the entrance. I don’t know. Nora’s weirdly observant sometimes, but talking to her about stuff can be kind of awkward. I never really noticed it until Alice left for school.
I end up playing around on my phone, refreshing my email and watching music videos on YouTube. But there’s a knock on the passenger side window, and I almost jump. I think I’ve started expecting to see Martin everywhere. Except it’s just Nick. I gesture through the window for him to come in.
He climbs into the seat. “What are you doing?”
Avoiding Martin.
“Watching videos,” I say.
“Oh man. Perfect. I’ve got this song in my head.”
“If it’s by the Who,” I inform him, “or Def Skynyrd or anyone like that, then no freaking way.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say ‘Def Skynyrd.’”
I love messing with Nick.
We end up watching part of an episode of Adventure Time as a compromise, and it’s the exact perfect distraction. I keep an eye on the clock, because I don’t actually want to miss English class. I just want to cut off that margin of time before class begins, where Martin might try to talk to me.
And it’s funny. I know Nick can tell something’s up with me, but he doesn’t ask questions or try to make me talk. It’s just one of those things about us. I know his voice and expressions and his weird little habits. His random existential monologues. The way he taps his fingertips along the pad of his thumb when he’s nervous. And I guess he probably knows the same kinds of things about me. I mean, we’ve known each other since we were four. But really, I don’t have a clue what goes on inside his head most of the time.
It actually reminds me a lot of the thing Blue posted on the Tumblr.
Nick takes my phone and starts scrolling through the videos. “If we can find one with Christ imagery, we can totally justify skipping English.”
“Um, if we find Christ imagery, I’m using Adventure Time for my free-response essay.”
He looks at me and laughs.
The thing is, it isn’t lonely with Nick. It’s just easy. So maybe it’s a good thing.
I’m a little early for Thursday’s rehearsal, so I slip out the side door of the auditorium and walk around to the back of the school. It’s actually pretty chilly for Georgia, and it looks like it rained sometime after lunch. Really, though, there are only two kinds of weather: hoodie weather and weather where you wear a hoodie anyway.
I must have left my earbuds in my backpack in the auditorium. I hate listening to stuff through the speakers of my phone, but music is always better than no music. I lean against the brick wall behind the cafeteria, searching my music library for an EP by Leda. I haven’t listened to it yet, but the fact that Leah and Anna are obsessed is a promising sign.
Suddenly, I’m not alone.
“Okay, Spier. What’s your deal?” Martin asks, sidling up beside me against the wall.
“My deal?”
“I think you’re avoiding me.”
We’re both wearing Chucks, and I can’t decide if my feet look small or if his look huge. Martin probably has six inches on me. Our shadows look ridiculous next to each other.
“Well, I’m not,” I say. I step off the wall and start walking back toward the auditorium. I mean, I’m not trying to piss off Ms. Albright.
Martin catches up to me. “Seriously,” he says, “I’m not going to show anyone the emails, okay? Stop freaking out about it.”
But I think I’ll take that with about a million fucking grains of salt. Because he sure as hell didn’t say he was deleting them.
He looks at me, and I can’t quite read his expression. It’s funny. All the years I’ve been in class with this kid, laughing along with everyone at the random shit he says. All the times I’ve seen him in plays. We even sat next to each other in choir for a year. But really, I barely know him. I guess I don’t know him at all.
Never in my life have I underestimated someone so severely.
“I said I was going to talk to her,” I say finally. “Okay?”
My hands are on the auditorium door.
“Wait,” he says. I look up at him, and he’s holding his phone. “Would it be easier if we exchanged numbers?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“I mean . . .” He shrugs.
“Jesus Christ, Martin.” I grab his phone, and my hands are practically vibrating with total fury as I punch my number into his contacts.
“Awesome! And I’ll just call you so you have mine.”
“Whatever.”
Fucking Martin Addison. I’m definitely putting him in my contacts as “Monkey’s Asshole.”
I push through the door, and Ms. Albright herds us on stage. “All right. I need Fagin, Dodger, Oliver, and boys. Act One, Scene Six. Let’s go.”
“Simon!” Abby flings her arms around me, and then pokes me in the cheeks. “Never leave me again.”
“What did I miss?” I kind of force a smile.
“Nothing,” she says under her breath, “but I’m in Taylor hell here.”
“The blondest circle of hell.”
Taylor Metternich. She’s the worst kind of perfect. Like, if perfection had a dark side. I don’t know how else to explain it. I always imagine her sitting in front of a mirror at night, counting strokes as she brushes her hair. And she’s the kind of person who posts on Facebook asking you how you did on the history quiz. Not to be supportive. She wants to know your grade.
“Okay, boys,” says Ms. Albright. Hilarious, because Martin, Cal Price, and I are the only ones onstage who technically qualify. “Bear with me, because we’re going to do some blocking.” She combs her bangs out of her eyes and tucks them behind her ear. Ms. Albright is really young for a teacher, and she has bright red hair. Like, electric red.
“Act One, Scene Six is the pickpocket scene, right?” asks Taylor, because she’s also the kind of person who pretends to ask a question just to show off what she already knows.
“Right,” Ms. Albright says. “Take it away, Cal.”
Cal is the stage manager. He’s a junior like me, and he carries a double-spaced copy of the script clipped into a giant blue binder, exploding with pencil notes. It’s funny that his job is basically to order us around and be stressed out, because he’s the least authoritative person I’ve ever met. He’s a little bit soft-spoken, and he has an actual southern accent. Which is something you almost never hear in Atlanta, really.
He also has those kind of shaggy brown bangs I like, and dark, ocean-colored eyes. I haven’t heard anything about him being gay, but there’s this kind of vibe I get, maybe.
“All right,” says Ms. Albright, “Dodger has just befriended Oliver, and he’s bringing him back to the hideout for the first time to meet Fagin and the boys. So. What’s your objective?”
“To show him who’s boss,” says Emily Goff.
“Maybe to mess with him a little?” says Mila Odom.
“You got it. He’s the new guy, and you’re not going to make it easy for him. He’s a nerd. You want to intimidate him and steal his crap.” That makes a couple of people laugh. Ms. Albright is moderately badass for a teacher.
She and Cal put us into position—Ms. Albright calls it “setting the tableau.” They want me lying down propped up by my elbows on a platform, tossing a little coin bag. When Dodger and Oliver enter, all of us are supposed to jump up and make a grab for Oliver’s satchel. I have the idea to stuff it under my shirt and stagger around the stage with my hand on my lower back like I’m pregnant.
Ms. Albright totally loves it.
Everyone laughs, and honest to God, this is the absolute best kind of moment. The auditorium lights are off except for the ones over the stage, and we’re all bright eyed and giggle-drunk. I fall a little bit in love with everyone. Even Taylor.
Even Martin. He smiles at me when he catches my eye, and I really just have to grin back at him. He’s such a freaking asswipe, seriously, but he’s just so gangly and fidgety and ridiculous. It takes some of the passion out of hating him.
So yeah. I’m not going to write a poem in his honor. And I don’t know what he expects me to say to Abby. No clue. But I guess—I’ll think of something.
Rehearsal ends, but Abby and I dangle our feet off the edge of one of the platforms, watching Ms. Albright and Cal make notes in the big blue binder. The south county late bus doesn’t leave for another fifteen minutes, and then it’s another hour until Abby gets home. She and most of the other black kids spend more time commuting to school each day than I do in a week. Atlanta is so weirdly segregated, and no one ever talks about it.
She yawns and leans back flat on the platform with one arm tucked behind her head. She’s wearing tights and one of those short patterned dresses, and her left wrist is loaded with woven friendship bracelets.
Martin sits across the stage, a few feet away, zipping his backpack so slowly it must be deliberate. He seems to be making a point of not looking at us.
Abby’s eyes are closed. She has the kind of mouth that always rests in a faint smile, and she smells a little like French toast. If I were straight. The Abby thing. I do think I get it.
“Hey, Martin,” I say, and my voice sounds strange. He looks up at me. “Are you going to Garrett’s tomorrow?”
“I, uh,” he says. “Like a party?”
“It’s a Halloween party. You should come. I’ll send you the address.”
Just a quick text to Monkey’s Asshole.
“Yeah, maybe,” he says. He leans forward and stands, and immediately trips over his shoelace. Then he tries to play it off like some kind of dance move. Abby laughs, and he grins, and I’m not even kidding: he actually takes a bow. I mean, I don’t even know what to say to that. I guess there’s this hazy middle ground between laughing at someone and laughing with someone.
I’m pretty sure that middle ground is Martin.
Abby turns her head to look at me. “Didn’t know you were friends with Marty,” she says.
Which is just about the most hilarious fucking statement ever.