“I don’t want to hassle you,” she said.
“Cece, don’t.”
She ripped the form in half. The bell rang and she took off.
“Cece,” I called after her. She started running. I chased her to the stairwell, then lost her. Slumping against the railing, I closed my eyes and fought off the static in my head. “It’s no hassle,” I murmured over the internal din. “I’d fight for you.”
***
There was a charge in the air that afternoon, people whispering. I caught a snatch of conversation behind me before econ class started, my ears pricking up at the words, “Gay club.”
I whipped my head around and saw one girl stick a finger down her throat.
So that was it. News travels fast, I thought. And I bet I knew who was fueling the rumor mill.
“Holland. Oh, good.” Kirsten rushed up behind me after school. I was headed for swim team practice. “I need to talk to you,” she said.
I whirled on her. “Why are you telling people about the lesbigay club? What we talk about in student council is private.”
She drew back. “I know that. I haven’t said anything.”
She looked offended, and sounded it. “Listen, Trevor and I were wondering if you and Seth wanted to go out with us on Friday night. Well, I was wondering.” Kirsten swallowed hard. “We’re always hanging out with Trevor’s friends and they’re so… I don’t know. Boring. Haley Ackerson’s parents are out of town and she’s having this party Friday night. Will you come with us?”
“Um, sure. Okay.” I felt off balance. Guilty for accusing her. “Friday? Oh, wait. I have a swim meet on Friday.”
Kirsten’s face darkened, like she thought I was lying.
“I do,” I said.
“Okay, whatever. I just wanted you to spend more time with Trevor. Get to know him. He’s really sweet, Holland. I know you’d like him if you just gave him a chance.”
“I like him.” That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t the issue.
Kirsten’s eyes grazed the floor. “You think he’s too young for me. I know that. But he’s not. He’s really mature for his age. He’s the first guy I’ve ever met who doesn’t just want to jump in the sack, you know? He cares about me. He loves me. He really does.” Kirsten sounded anxious, needy. Leah’s words echoed in my head: She thinks you judge her.
“Maybe we could go Saturday night,” I told her. “To a movie or something.” I hated parties, anyway. They were just excuses for getting loaded and making out en masse.
Kirsten brightened. “Cool. Okay. We could go out to dinner or something first.” She hugged me. “Thanks, Holland. I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. “At the meeting. You know me, I live to play devil’s advocate.” Her eyes gleamed.
As she sauntered off, I stared at her back. Since when? The only side Kirsten ever took in a debate was her own. There were times I didn’t get her. I didn’t get her at all.
When I pushed through the door at the bottom of the stairs, I caught sight of Cece near the juice machine outside the locker rooms. She was standing with a couple of guys from the gymnastics team, I think. The door to the weight room was open. Something about the look on her face made me quicken my step.
As I got closer, one of the guys flattened his hand on the machine over Cece’s head and said, “Come on, one kiss. Try it, you’ll like it.” He puckered his lips and made smooching sounds.
Cece stiffened. “Get away from me,” she said. “What’s your problem?”
“It’s not my problem.”
The other guy grabbed Cece’s arm and shoved her against the machine. “Feel this? Huh?”
“Hey,” I yelled, sprinting the rest of the way. Both guys whipped their heads around. “Leave her alone!” I wedged myself between them. “What the hell are you doing?”
The guys backed off. “Nothing. Just goofing around.”
Cece bolted for the stairs.
“Cece, wait.” I left the muscleheads in my dust.
She was halfway up the steps when I snagged her arm. I spun her around and said, “Are you okay?” She was shaking. God.
“Sick, Holland,” she said. “You have sick people here.”
“Not everyone. A couple of guys.” I narrowed my eyes in their direction. “Jerks.”
She shook her head and started up the steps again.
“Cece.” I couldn’t hold onto her. “We’ll report them for sexual harassment.”
She stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around. “No,” she said. “No. It’ll only make it worse.”
“We can’t just let them get away with it.”
“Yes, we can.” She swallowed hard. “They’ll come after me.” Her face paled and she let out a shudder. “Forget it.” She ducked around me and charged out the east door.
“Hi, Holl.” A couple of girls on swim team approached. “We better get out asses down there or Chiang’ll make us do sprints sets again.”
“Right.” Her fear still pulsed through me. Blindly, I stumbled down the stairs.
Chapter 9
I didn’t see her on Tuesday. She never materialized at her locker and wasn’t in art. Jerks. I shoud’ve reported them myself. Her absence worried me. What if she never came back? What if I never saw her again? That night I leafed through the phone book to find “Goddard.” There were dozens. Too many to call. What would I say, anyway? “Does Cece live here?” What if she did? What if she answered?
“Please,” I’d say. “Don’t leave. Come back and subject yourself to more violation and sexual assault.”
God, what if she felt that way? What if she felt threatened? I was up all night obsessing about it. About her. I must’ve drifted off sometime because I woke up to Mom shaking my shoulder. “Holl? You’re going to be late,” she said. “Didn’t your alarm go off?”
Shit. I’d forgotten to set it.
Arbuthnot paused in mid-sentence as I slithered into class fifteen minutes past the late bell. I had to sit in back, didn’t I, so my ass would be visible grass. “You’re late, Holland.” She stopped me in my tracks.
Let us state the obvious. Turning around in the aisle, I smiled and said, “Sorry, Mrs. Arbuthnot. We had a family emergency this morning. My dad’s going to live, though. The EMTs caught the heart attach in time.”
That shut her up. Shut everyone up. To the people I passed on the way to my desk, I mouthed, Nooo. Shook my head. They smothered grins.
Arbuthnot mumbled an apology. As I slid into my seat, I noticed she seemed a little off kilter now. Good. Just doing my part to curb harassment at its source. “You’ll, um, each prepare a character sketch of Beowulf,” Arbuthnot said, sifting through a pile of books on her desk. She knocked one off. “Focus on what you believe are his most telling personality traits. Analyze how and why each is important to his development as a warrior.”
The guy in front of me raised his hand.
“Yes, Marcus,” Arbuthnot acknowledged, regaining composure.
“Can we pick the fact that Wulfie is gay?”
My spine fused. People twisted their heads to gawk at Marcus. They swivelled back to catch Arbuthnot’s reaction. She said, “And how did you come to that conclusion?”
“The scene with him and his merry men, splashing around in the water. Seems pretty swishy to me.” He waggled a limp wrist.
Everybody laughed.
Arbuthnot’s face went purple. “Leave the room immediately,” she snarled, pointing to the door.
“What? I’m just saying…”
“Out!” she shouted.
Marcus cursed under his breath, then scraped back his chair and shoveled his books into his arms. He strutted out, wiggling his hips all the way. The catcalls trailed his through the door.
Any other time I might’ve found him slightly amusing. Today I wanted to stand and scream, “What is this? National Gay Bashing Week?” But I couldn’t. I couldn't command my muscles to move. Couldn't get out of my chair. Couldn’t bring myself to do what I knew was right.
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***
She wasn’t in art. She was gone forever, I knew it. When I got home after work, I felt sick. Physically ill. Mom asked at dinner if I was okay and I lied; said, “Yeah, fine.” She was so busy fussing with Hannah, who was coming down with a cold and acting unusually cranky, that she didn’t pursue it. Didn’t push. Neal had been on the phone ever since we sat down to eat, hollering at his hard-of-hearing dad, which was giving me a headache to go along with my stomachache. I moved food around on my plate, then excused myself and trudged down to my room.
How many were there? I wondered. Four, a dozen, the whole school? When had it begun? Had Southglenn always been this way? So hostile? We had a strong policy against bullying, but how was that any different from harassment or discrimination? It was all about hate. There should be laws. Were there laws? Can you legislate against hatred? Why hadn’t we discussed this in any of my government classes?
Cece’s question burned in my brain: Why weren’t more gays out? She seemed to imply, or know for sure, that we had more gays and lesbian in our school. Who were they? Where were they hiding? Did they walk the halls in fear of their lives? God, I couldn’t imagine that. Every day, having to act invisible, protect yourself. Having to put up with assholes and bigots.
“Holland,” Mom called down the stairs. “You have company.”
Cece? Could it be?
I took the stairs two at a time and rushed into the living room. “Leah. Hi.” Of course it wasn’t Cece. She didn’t know where I lived. Leah sat on the edge of the recliner, bouncing Hannah in her lap.
“I can’t believe how big she is.” Leah spread Hannah’s arms apart and played pat-a-cake. “It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve seen her, hasn’t it?” she asked Mom, who was folding baby clothes next to Neal on the sofa. Some stupid reality show on TV had a fat guy fastening a bungee belt around his middle. “I was just here over Christmas,” Leah said.
“They grow up fast.” Mom smiled at me. “Too fast.”
“No kidding,” Leah said. “Her hair’s gotten darker. Plus, she’s put on like twenty pounds.”
“Ten of that is the dump in her diapers.” I fanned the air. “Whew, Hannie. A little too much mashed banana.”
Mom tossed me a Huggies.
“I’ll do it.” Leah held out a hand and I passed her the diaper. I’d known Leah practically my whole life and could tell something was up. She wasn’t crazy about babies, since she had three bratty little brothers. She rarely dropped by in the evening when we were in school. She worked and I worked, or I had practice, or I had Seth. A wave of guilt washed over me. I never had found time for a real heart-to-heart with Leah.
I was going to say, Bring Hannah to my room, but Leah laid her out on the rug to change her. The dryer buzzed downstairs. Mom slapped Neal’s leg and said, “Come on, honey. Be a good role model and help me with the laundry.”
“Now?” Neal whined. “But he’s going to jump off the cliff.”
“Holland will let you know if he lives.” Mom scooped Hannah off the floor.
Thank you, I mouthed as she passed by. Neal traipsed after her, grumbling.
I curled cross-legged on the floor next to Leah. “What’s up?”
She exhaled a long breath. “Conner broke up with me.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasped. I scrabbled to my knees and threw my arms around Leah, expecting her to disintegrate it tears, suffer an emotional meltdown, implode. She didn’t. Didn’t react at all. I drew back.
“It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it,” she said.
“Were you?” This was news to me. “I thought you were deliriously happy.” That’s what she always said whenever anyone asked. “ ‘We’re deliriously happy. We couldn’t be happier.’”
She fondled her ring finger, which was now empty. “Things were sort of weird over Christmas. Even before that, he hadn’t been e-mailing me as often. Or calling. I think he really wanted to break up before Christmas, but he didn’t have the heart.”
“The balls, you mean.” I shook my head. “God, Leah. You never told me there was anything wrong.”
She met my eyes. “I was hoping it was just me. You know how I am. If anyone’s even in a bad mood, I figure it’s something I did or said.”
I rubbed her arm. “What did he say exactly?”
“Exactly?” She tilted her head at an odd angle. “His exact words were, ‘I’m setting you free.’”
Oh, no. That could only mean…
“Obviously he’s met someone else.” Leah’s head dropped.
“Bastard. I never did like him.”
Leah let out a short laugh. “That’s what my mom said. Not that I told her first; she was just standing there when he called tonight. You’re the first one I’ve told.”
Whatever difference that made. “Your mom’s right. The guy’s a prick.”
“Yesterday, he was God’s gift. Today he’s a prick.”
“Leah –”
“It’s okay. I understand.” She scooped up a rubber ducky from the floor and squeezed it. “It’s for the best, really. It never would’ve lasted. We don’t have the same thing you and Seth do. The fire, you know? The passion.” She smiled at me.
The Passion. Right. Screams blasted from the TV and I remoted it off. “So, what are you going to do? Next year, I mean. You were so psyched about Americorps.”
“Only because he was.” Leah set the duck atop a box of baby wipes. “I don’t know. Remember how you and me and Kirsten always talked about getting an apartment together after high school? Going to the same college? That was our dream.”
Yeah, a hundred years ago. The apartment still sounded like fun.
“Kirs has been talking about Western State. Her cousin goes there and he really likes it. Maybe I’ll apply with her.” Leah pushed to her feet and wandered over to the picture window. Drawing the sheers, she gazed out into the night and added, “Kirsten’s going to shit a brick when she hears about Connor.” Leah twisted her head around to look at me. “Maybe not. She was more in love with him than I was, I think.”
“Kirsten was in love with his money,” I muttered. “But then, so was I.”
“So was I,” Leah said. We both cracked up. She released the curtains and turned, folding her arms around herself. “It was nice to dress up and go out. All those society dances and fund-raisers his mother was involved in…”
“Don’t forget the flowers and candy and crap.”
“That too.” Her eyes shone. The light extinguished when she added, “But sometimes he made me feel like he was buying me. Like, for instance, he always let me know exactly how much he’d spent, so I’d feel obligated to –” She stopped.
My jaw unhinged. “Have sex with him?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, it wasn’t like that. He never forced me or anything. I probably just imagined it.” She shook her head. “I’m mad at him, that’s all.”
“Leah, if you felt that way, it was real. You have every right to be pissed. Come on.”
Her face changed. “You’re right. Especially if he’s been cheating on me.”
“Oh, Leah.” I wanted to hold her. Comfort her. I knew her well enough to know she was devastated. She’d made all these plans; rearranged her life around him. Before I could get up and got to her, she lowered herself to the sofa and bent over, elbows on knees. “What are you doing next your?” she asked. “Going to college with Seth, probably, huh? You couldn’t talk him into Western State, could you?”
Mom bustled into the room. “You can’t be serious,” she said.
How long had she been standing there, listening? I hated when she did that.
Settling Hannah into her baby seat beside me, Mom said, “You girls need bigger dreams. There’s no way Holland’s going to a state school. I know Seth wouldn’t dream of it. And you shouldn’t either, Leah. It’d be a waste of your talent.”
“Unless, of course, your talent is human waste,” I murmured.
Mom looked at me. I looked
at her back. How did she know what Seth dreamed of?
Leah said to me, “Have you decided? Seth was asking me yesterday if you’d said anything.”
“Jesus.” I shot to my feet. “Why doesn’t everybody just get off my back.” I stormed into the kitchen, almost colliding with Neal. We side-stepped each other, being careful not to touch. As I wrenched open the refrigerator and grabbed the milk carton, I sensed Leah behind me. She Said, “I’m Sorry, Holland. I didn’t know it was a sore subject.”
I took a slug of milk, set the carton back in the fridge, then plastered on my don’t-worry-about-it smile. “I haven’t decided, okay? Seth assumes I want to go with him, but I don’t know what I want.”
“Okay,” Leah said. “No pressure.”
No pressure. Right. So why was I on the verge of explosion?
“You want to come with me to tell Kirsten about Connor?” Leah said. “We shouldn’t leave her out. You know how she gets.
I didn’t really want to go. It was late, I didn’t feel well. “Sure. Let me get my shoes.” I padded over and gave Leah a hug. What are friends for?
***
Thursday Cece reappeared, huddling in front of her locker with her coffee and donuts and earphones, the baseball cap on her head. She wore a T-shirt that screamed: OUT! AND PROUD!
I was so glad to see her, the hall lights grew brighter.
Her eyes were closed, but she blinked up at my approach. Hi, I mouthed.
She removed the earphones. Leaning forward a little, she reached around and shut her locker door.
I dropped my duffel. “Oh, my God.” Both hands rose to cover my mouth. “My God.” Someone had spray-painted down the length of her locker: DIE DYKE.
“Not terribly artistic, were they?” Cece cocked her head upward. “I mean, the letters all run together. There’s no style at all. Really amateurish. Not to mention extremely unoriginal.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Didn’t realize tears were streaming down my face until Cece shouted, “Don’t!” She rushed across the hall and pinned me against my locker. “Don’t cry. Don’t you let them see us cry.” Her eyes pooled with tears. She retreated and gathered her stuff.