Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend

  Tom clears his throat behind me.

  I turn around.

  “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Hi’?” he asks. He smiles.

  My heart leaps against my ribs, but I act cool. I will not show it. “Hi.”

  His smile widens. I blush. He laughs.

  Crash yells out, “Tom and Belle are flirting again.”

  Herr Reitz adjusts his clown nose. It’s hard to take a teacher seriously when they have a multi-colored wig stuck on their head and giant banana shoes, but he puts on a serious voice. “Can you say it in German, Rasheesh?”

  Crash shakes his head. “Hell, no.”

  Then he holds up his hands and says, “Tomen and Bellen ist geflirten, ja?”

  He bows. Herr Reitz glares at him. He honks his clown nose. “Belle, why don’t you escape these idiots and bring this note to the office for me, bitte?”

  I take the note. Herr Reitz nods and smiles. When I walk by Tom’s desk, my blush deepens, heating my cheeks the way it always does. Tom winks and inside my chest, my heart starts singing songs.

  Then it happens.

  I’m alone in the hallway, running the errand for Herr Reitz, thinking about how going to the dance might not be that big a deal at all if I get to dance with Tom. It’s when I’m imagining Tom’s hand pressed into the bottom of my back that Eddie Caron steps out from the boys’ bathroom. I smile at him, but my ancient protector does not smile back. What was it Mimi said? That I was delusional, always expecting the best from people, even people who stand outside on the road and stare up at my room at night.

  “Eddie?” my voice squeaks.

  He moves in front of me, blocking my way back to class. The radiator next to me hisses and clicks like it’s getting ready to explode.

  I move to the left. He moves to the left. I move to the right. He moves to the right.

  “Eddie, let me get by,” I say, trying to make my voice strong. The radiator clicks louder. Eddie’s eyes stare me down like a dog stares you down when it’s deciding whether to obey your command or not.

  He’s huge. His black t-shirt stretches over a chest that’s much too wide to be consider human sized. It’s more tractor-trailer size. When we were little, he used to pull toy tractor trailers down the street and put ants inside. He’d say he was taking them to better weather in Florida. I stare at him, this massive man, this not-moving Eddie, and wonder where that little boy went.

  The radiator finally clanks on, a big growl and hiss, all combined. No one is in the hall to hear it except us.

  Eddie moves. He grabs my arm in his fleshy fingers. I force myself not to panic. We are in the hall. This is Eddie Caron, my neighbor. He’s not mad at me. He’s mad at Dylan. We are in school. I am safe. “Let me go, Eddie!”

  He glares. Fingers tighten.

  “So gay-boy Dylan dumped you, huh? And bing—you go out with Tom Tanner. Tom Tanner, a freaking soccer punk?”

  “He’s not a soccer punk,” I say and forget to be scared.

  Eddie isn’t scared either. His fingers hurt my arm and his eyes look like Muffin’s when she can’t decide to scratch at you because she’s so upset you’ve moved her off her law text book. “When’s my turn, Belle? Huh, when the fuck is my turn?”

  His other hand reaches up, grabs my other arm. His eyes jitter back and forth and his breath smells like beer.

  “Jesus, Eddie! Are you drunk? What are you doing?” I twist like they said to do in that self-defense class Em and I took with Janine at the Y but my arms do not get free. Damn Janine. I step back. My arms stay in Eddie’s hands. Fear pumps my blood to my skin. I wrench away, but my arms stay. “Eddie, let me go.”

  But this man who is the new Eddie doesn’t listen. He doesn’t listen. His steel fingers wrap around my arms tighter. I shake. My legs warp into plastic things and I kick at him, but he moves so my foot barely makes contact with his body. His eyes anger. He smashes me against the lockers. My head bashes against the back of one and throbs.

  “Don’t fight me,” he grunt-talks real low, his face all close to mine. “Don’t fight me, bitch.”

  “I’m not a bitch. I’m Belle, your goddamn neighbor. Eddie. Jesus,” I spit out at him. “You’re hurting me.”

  His eyes turn to hurt stars, airplanes flying away and never coming back. His eyes ache but his hands don’t let go.

  “And now, what, you doing super-soccer-star Tommy? What about me, Belle? What about me?” He shifts his arm up against my neck, the hard muscle of it squeezes my throat shut. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. His other hand grabs at my breast and squeezes hard. Pain splinters off into my shoulder and heart. He snarls. “Too much for the gay boy to handle, huh? You know, he used to like me, Dylan did, when we were what, seven? Didn’t know it then, though. I only just figured it out. Slow, stupid, Eddie right? You were slow too though, huh? Little Miss National Honor Society was pretty freaking slow too.”

  I lift my knee, but miss his groin, get only his thigh, but it’s enough. It’s enough to make him loosen and gasp. I shove at him, my old playmate, my old knight. I duck and slide away, racing, racing, down the hall. I round the corner and slam into Mimi Cote. She falls down and I reach my hand to help her up, but she jumps up herself and hisses at me, “Bitch.”

  Fag hag.

  Slut.

  Dyke.

  Bitch.

  Fag hag.

  Dyke.

  Slut.

  Bitch.

  I am none of these things.

  I am none of these things.

  None.

  I am a running girl. I run. I run. I run through the fluorescent-light halls and slam into the classroom. My face is almost crying. My hands shake. My heart beats hard, beats hard, too hard.

  Everyone stares. Everyone. Tom’s face blanks like a mannequin, but his eyes stare too, horrified, dark.

  Herr Reitz grabs my jerking hand in his sweaty one. And I know what’s going to happen and that I don’t have much time. I plead with Herr Reitz, without words, with just eyes.

  His voice is a question. “Belle?”

  Tom leaps up. His mouth moves. “She’s going to have a seizure.”

  He pulls me onto the floor. His eyes are large and brown, tree-bark good and scared.

  Freak.

  That’s what everyone will say about me now; what everyone will call me. Not fag hag, but freak.

  Freak.

  Emily drives me home.

  “I’m not supposed to have them.”

  “Did you have any caffeine?”

  “No.”

  “Chew any gum?”

  “No. Well, the other day, but it was the non-aspartame kind.”

  I stare out the car window but see nothing, just blurs. I can’t focus. “I hit my head on the locker when he . . .”

  I do not finish.

  “Maybe that’s it,” Emily says. She takes a big breath. “Maybe it’s the stress. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

  My voice numbs the car. “Yeah.”

  Emily drives. “The nurse’s office smells like puke.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s suspended, you know. They suspended him,” she says, anger tightening her voice. “They might expel him. Shawn saw him and said he was sobbing in the parking lot, just bawling his eyes out, saying, ‘Tell Belle I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry.’”

  I nod and pull Tom’s soccer coat around me, trying to hide. I don’t know where the coat came from, but I’m glad it’s there. It smells like him. “Good.”

  “Tom said he put that under your head when you had your seizure,” Emily sniffs in. “Dylan’s gone ballistic. He was in the principal’s office demanding to see you, saying he was going to sue the school if they didn’t kick Eddie out. His hair was flopping all over
the place. He still loves you, you know.”

  “He’s gay.”

  “He’s a good friend.” Emily stops at a red light. There’s a dog in the car next to us. Even though it’s cold, the owner’s got the window rolled down and the dog’s snuffing up all the air, smiling at the cars.

  “I wish I were a dog,” I say.

  “Dogs have seizures too.”

  “Great.”

  Emily touches my shoulder and I look at her. Kindness fills her eyes.

  “Everyone will think I’m a freak.” My voice breaks when I say it. I bite my lip and a gulp lodges itself in the middle of my throat, threatening to explode. I think, maybe it’s not a gulp, but my heart, my heart looking for a place to escape.

  Emily shrugs. “We’ll spin it. We’ll say Eddie gave you a concussion.”

  I shake my head. “Tom knows that’s not it. Shawn too. I passed out Monday, remember. The whole freaking soccer team saw me.”

  The light turns green. Emily puts her hand back on the steering wheel.

  “Sweetie, we will spin this. It will be fine. Tom doesn’t care if you have seizures.”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t know that.”

  Emily says nothing for a minute and then she says in a soft mother voice, “God, Belle, you really like him.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I put the window down. Cold air rushes in and I hang my head out, a dog sniffing the air. It doesn’t work, though. It doesn’t make me smile.

  My mother wants me to stay home from school tomorrow. The doctor confirms Emily’s guess. Stress may have caused the seizure, or the head bash against the locker, or the momentary lack of oxygen. The emergency room says it’s just a minor concussion.

  “Just a minor concussion,” my mother complains on the ride home. “Since when is a concussion minor?”

  She puts me in bed. The phone rings and rings. The doorbell sounds. I do not move. I turn my head so that I can see Gabriel, my blue guitar, against the wall. I will have to tune her. I haven’t played her for almost a week. She must be sad, not even going to school with me anymore. I used to skip lunch sometimes and play in the band room, or upstairs at German. Sometimes Em and Dylan and some other people like Anna or Kara would come and hang and listen. Poor Gabriel, no one is listening to her sing anymore. She’s just an empty hole with no vibrations. My fingers twitch, but I can’t pick her up.

  My little duct tape guitar sits on the night table by my bed. I touch it with my finger and think about Tom. My heart flops upside down. The last thing I remember are his scared eyes.

  “I don’t know, she’s got a concussion,” my mom says to someone. Emily? Tom? No, my heart knows who it is. Somehow, I know it is Dylan.

  He murmurs something to my mother and a minute later he opens my door, steps into my bedroom, sits on the edge of my bed. We used to call it our love bed.

  His hand pushes hair from my forehead. His fingers brush tears from my cheek. “Sweetie.”

  I close my eyes. Why is everyone calling me sweetie lately?

  “Belle?”

  My eyes open again. Dylan leans closer and whispers, “I am so sorry.”

  My lip trembles. My arms open. He holds me to him. “Me too.”

  From across the room, by the window, Gabriel makes the sweet sound of a G chord, all by itself, like magic. Dylan doesn’t even look up, just keeps his head next to mine, murmuring things I can’t quite hear, but it sounds sweet and smooth and lilting like a lullaby.

  He is so warm against me. He is so warm my shaking stops. My words come out solid, whole, plump like blueberries in August. “I love you.”

  He kisses my hair and he doesn’t hesitate. He just says it right back, “I love you, too.”

  And I know we both mean it. And I know we don’t need to say it for it to be true, but it’s still nice to hear. And I know it’s not the kind of love we both thought it was once, but that doesn’t make it any less good or any less true.

  He starts to sing, softly, an old Van Morrison song about beautiful, magical places and people being forever friends. It’s not one of Dylan’s opera songs, or one of my girl folk songs, but it is our song, our friendship song. His lullaby voice pushes me toward sleep, but before I shut my eyes, I notice Gabriel, my blue guitar, leaning against the wall. Tomorrow I will stand her up. Tomorrow I will buy new strings and play something good and sweet and in tune. And maybe I will buy some duct tape and make little people who will always be friends and I will stick them onto Em’s dashboard and I will give one to Dylan and another one to Tom.

  But that is for tomorrow.

  For today, Dylan and I will fall asleep there on my love bed, lengthened out next to each other. We will hold each other throughout the night, the way we’ve always promised to, the way friends are supposed to when things go bad. Together, we will hold each other safe.

  But this is no fairy tale and the Harvest King and Queen do not get to sleep together happily ever after throughout the night. Dylan is not suddenly ungay and I am not suddenly un-in-lust with Tom.

  Everything is not suddenly better.

  My mom does not even let him stay the night, of course. She lets him stay two hours and then hustles him away. He looks embarrassed that he’s been in my bed and my mom’s caught him, which is ridiculous because this is the first time he’s been in my bed fully clothed and where nothing’s happened.

  I am groggy and tired but I wave goodbye.

  After she lets him out, my mom comes and sits beside me, holding my hand.

  “I want to go to school tomorrow,” I tell her.

  “We’ll see.”

  “I’m going.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I swallow and squeeze her hand. “I can’t hide forever.”

  “You have a concussion, sweetie.”

  “I have to go to school,” I say. “If I don’t go tomorrow I’ll never be brave enough to go back.”

  She kisses my forehead. “We’ll see.”

  She starts humming a lullaby song, “Go to sleep, little whirl, close your pretense, blue skies.”

  I squeeze her hand and ask her. “Mom, do you mess up the words on purpose?”

  She waits a second. She waits another one and sighs out, “Yes.”

  “Why do you do that?” I sit up straight and she gently puts her hands on my shoulders to push me back down.

  She tucks the covers around me again and says, “Sometimes it’s good to give people something they’re not expecting. You get what I mean?”

  I shake my head.

  “Plus, it makes people laugh.”

  The overcast sunlight shifts through my windows and wakes me up. I stay there in my bed, and pull my pillow over my head. It’s cool against my forehead. The memory of yesterday smacks itself back into my soul, like a sucker punch to the belly. And I jump up.

  My hands do not jerk.

  My head aches but does not spin.

  I shoot a glance at the clock. It’s ten o’clock, my mother didn’t wake me up. I sigh, but can’t be mad. Gabriel rests against the wall and I pick her up and imagine strumming a shuffling blues rhythm; strumming an E-chord down and up, down and up. But I just can’t do it. Instead, I run my fingertips softly along the edge of her fret board.

  My mom comes and leans against the door frame, arms crossed in front of her chest, smiling. “You going to play her soon?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good.”

  We compromise. My mom had me sleep late and then lets me go to school late. I’m not happy about it, but it works.

  Dropping me off, she hands me my gig case and her eyes go worried. “Stay safe, sweetie.”

  I nod and act all brave. “Don’t worry. All’s good.”

  Then I exit the car. The cold
blasts me, whips through Tom’s jacket and my shirt. My hair lashes out behind me, but I fight against the frigid wind and the muted cloudy sky and I walk forward into school.

  The first person I see is Bob. He glares at me.

  “Hey,” I say and raise my hand to wave, but he just scurries through the empty corridor, feet slapping on the dirty linoleum, like I don’t exist.

  Then the bell for the period rings. I get there in time for lunch, but despite all my brave talk, I don’t go. Instead, I walk through the halls, as everyone rushes out of their classes. I pass by Kara.

  “Belle?” Her eyes wide. “You okay? I heard about . . .”

  I cut her off, but smile. “I’m good.”

  She stares at me and nods and it’s like there’s a computer processor stuck behind her eyes, computing all sorts of information. “You going to lunch?”

  I shake my head. “Nah.”

  I lift up Gabriel in my gig bag and say, “I’m going to study hall and play. Tell Em if you see her, okay?”

  “Okay,” Kara nods really emphatically like I’ve just told her the secret to stopping illegal detention of potential political insurgents’ wives and children.

  I pretty much ignore the other people I see, Andrew, Anna, Shawn, and just book it into the study hall room, pull out Gabriel in all her shiny blue glory, and then I begin to think about playing, but I don’t. I just hold her in the position.

  I sit in silence for a long time, just holding my guitar. It belonged to my dad once, this guitar. So, I sit there and imagine him playing it, but it isn’t real. It’s just silence. Nothing.

  I close my eyes.

  The sound of a pair of slow, loud clapping hands breaks me out of it.

  Tom sits on top of a desk by the door. I’m in the middle of the room, Gabriel on my lap and my eyes are closed and I’m not even playing her. I bite my lip and look away, worried that he’ll think of me as the freak seizure girl.

  I clear my throat. “Do you want your jacket back?”