Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (10 page)

Em’s face turns the color of roasted ham. Anna, who is at the lab table in front of us, starts laughing.

So does Mr. Zeki. He recovers quickly. His too-tight groin area shifts closer to us, our pig, and Emily’s head. “I see. Let’s see if Pamela has a spleen, shall we? Or maybe her other endowments have taken over her entire anatomy.”

The class laughs. Emily puts her head in her hands. Pamela just sprawls there, waiting for the exploration.

“I hate Mr. Zeki,” Emily says later.

“Me too.”

“I know we have an above-normal quota of freaky teachers here, but he’s the worst.”

“No, my German teacher is the worst. He dresses up like a woman,” I say.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, slamming books in her locker and pulling out her gym clothes. Emily has PE last period. I have German. “I was really worried about you at lunch, and then when you ran out.”

I shrug. “My mom would say I’ve become unstrung.”

“I know I didn’t run after you, but I thought that would make it even a bigger deal and Shawn said Tom would take care of you, that he’s good at stuff like that. Breakdowns and stuff. Must be because his dad’s a cop. Tom took care of you, didn’t he?”

I shrug again and lie, “I did not have a breakdown.”

Emily looks at me, really looks at me, wipes my growing-out bangs away from my face. “It’ll be okay, you know. You still have six more days of whining.”

I try to smile but I can’t do it. “Think I’ll make it?”

Emily grabs my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “Yeah. Yeah. I think so.” She fumbles her camera out of her duffel bag and as she snaps a picture of me, her tiny sports bra drops out of her bag onto the floor and some idiot sophomore boys start pointing and laughing. She scoops it up, hauls out her middle finger, and waves it at them. She turns to me and says with a big sigh that hits all of her, “Me? I’m not so sure.”

Because I’ve been dreading German I walk really slowly down the halls. It feels like everyone’s staring at me, whispering about me and Dylan, me and Dylan. People like Rachel Austin and Callie Smith say hi and ask how I’m feeling, and I know that today I am in the hot topic in the Eastbrook High School hallways and in the notes everyone passes each other instead of listening to the teacher, and don’t forget all the text messages.

“Did you hear Belle Philbrick passed out at lunch?” Katie Vachon says to Travis Bunker as I walk by. “She and Dylan broke up.”

“Did you hear he’s gay?”

“No way,” Katie says. She used to have a crush on Dylan. We run spring track together. I used to think she was nice, until right now.

“Yeah-huh. Somebody saw him kissing a guy with no hair at parking lot of the Bangor Mall.”

“Wow.”

“Double wow.”

“She booked it out of there, too.”

“She fainted?”

“Swear to God.”

“Mimi says she’s totally mental.”

I ball my hands into fists and wonder if they think I can’t hear them.

Shawn passes by and says, “Hi.”

Some people nod.

Some people turn their heads away. Some people turn their hearts away. Some people turn, turn, turn.

Totally mental.

Some people like Rosie Piazza ask me how I’m doing, if I’m okay.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

Dylan isn’t the only one who knows how to lie.

I slip into my chair, hoping no one will notice me. Tom’s desk is right behind me, but I don’t look at him. I’m afraid to look at him. I’m afraid to look at anybody in here, but there’s one person I really want to look at. There’s one person I want to stare with x-ray-vision eyes, just stare and stare and stare and ask him, “How could you?”

I want to grab him by the shirt and haul him up out of his chair like I’m one of those ripped action-movie stars. I want to beat him over the head with a guitar until they both splinter into pieces on the floor. I want to haul his squat butt up and say, “How could you? How could you? He was mine!”

But that was never true, was it? He never was mine.

He always belonged to himself. He always belonged to Bob. I just didn’t know it. I didn’t know anything.

“Guten Tag, Belle,” says Mr. Reitz, Herr Reitz we’re supposed to call him.

So much for being invisible.

“Guten Tag, Herr Reitz,” I say real low, so I almost can’t even hear myself.

He saunters up to me and smiles. He’s wearing lederhosen today, which is better than when he wears his clown outfit or dresses up like a female opera singer. That means we’ll be doing Beatles songs in German. You can always tell what the lesson plan is by what Mr. Reitz wears. First, though, he decides to torment me.

“Was habst du letztes Wochenende gemacht?” he asks.

What did I do this weekend? I slouch down lower and say the only thing I can remember in German right now.

“Ich habe im Atlantik letztem Wochenende geschwimmen.” I swam in the Atlantic. It’s a lie, but it’s better than, “I found out my boyfriend was gay, passed out at lunch, cried for hours, and wished I could die.”

Herr Reitz, always the actor, grabs his arms and shivers. “War es kalt?”

Yeah, I tell him, it was really freaking cold. “It was so cold that the chickens were lining up at the KFC, begging to jump into the pressure cooker.”

That throws him. That throws everyone, and Herr Reitz bends over, clutching his lederhosen-clad stomach. I let myself smile.

When he finally rights himself he says, “Can you say that in German?”

I shake my head.

“You don’t have to. That was too funny. Somebody write that down!”

Then he goes back into German Teacher Mode, moves on to Bob and asks him the same thing, “Was habst du letztes Wochenende gemacht?”

Bob flinches and behind his glasses, his twitchy little eyes look at me. His twitchy little eyes look at me and it’s all I can do not to get up and pound him. Behind me, I can hear Tom let out a breath real, real slow. I grip the edge of my chair and will myself to be still.

Herr Reitz waits for Bob’s answer.

We all wait for Bob’s answer.

“Ich habe gesungen,” he says.

I sang.

Once when Emily was driving us to one of his jazz choir concerts I asked Dylan about it, about why Bob was always hanging around him but never around us.

“He’s shy,” Dylan said.

Emily and I gave each other looks and he leaned in from the backseat, his voice all emphatic.

“He’s got a lot of baggage,” Dylan said. Em turned down the music. “His mom has multiple sclerosis.”

We knew that. Everyone in Hancock County knew that. Bob’s mom used to be the band teacher, but she had to retire early because of her MS. There were all sorts of fundraising concerts for her. Dylan and I both performed in them. Still, Em nodded, all sympathetic. I stared out the window feeling evil, but I wouldn’t let it go.

“He looks at you funny, just hangs around you,” I said and I wanted to say, eating up your popcorn words and your sing me songs like I do. Like I do.

Dylan put his hand on my shoulder. “He just needs a friend. We’ve always been friends.”

“But why can’t he hang out with all of us?”

Em took a picture of us then. Dylan’s face all twisted and angry and me angry and sad and stupid all at once.

“Don’t get all hyper about it, Belle. It’s not a big deal,” his hand left on my shoulder. Em snapped off another one-handed picture and swerved. “I’m just helping him out. Is that some sort of bad thing?”

I shook my head. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “No, it’s not.”

I want to know. Do they make music together? Does he play the saxophone and does Dylan sing and is it sweeter than it was with me? Is it a bebop melody or a lullaby?