Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (31 page)

Our fetal pig’s flesh bears the marks of knives and invasions. Em snaps a picture.

“God, she’s gross,” she says.

“She’s sad, really,” I say, trying to move some skin around to make her look whole again, but the truth is, she never will be. “What do they do with them, when we’re done?”

Em shrugs. Her lip quivers. “Throw them away?”

“I don’t want them to throw Pamela away in some dumpster somewhere,” I say.

“I want to remember her.”

Em nods, shows me her camera. “That’s why I took the pictures. I’ll download them and give you one, okay?”

Em took a lot of pictures of Dylan and me. Someday I’ll look at them again, and try to figure everything out, but not now, not yet. Pamela the Fetal Pig? Her picture I can handle.

I smile at her, my Emily friend, and I nod. “Yeah, I’d like that. You and Shawn okay?”

She turns the camera at herself and snaps away. “Yeah. But sometimes he’s so dumb. He’s lucky he’s cute.”

She puts the camera down. Mr. Zeki’s gabbing to the cute student teacher in the front of the class and paying no attention to us. Em says, “What should we do about Mimi?”

“Mimi? Nothing.”

Em does not like this answer. She drums her fingers against the lab table and waits.

“We could name our next fetal pig after her?”

Em stares down at the pathetic Pamela. “That is a damn good idea.”

In German, Tom raises his eyebrows at me when I come into class. I blush and yank out my textbook, which we never use. The trees outside have lost all their leaves now. It’s gray and claustrophobic out there. Another Maine almost-winter day.

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.”