Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (32 page)

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.