Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (35 page)

But he just grabs his books and runs right by me, out into the hall, and away.

My hand still reaches out to the air. Crash slaps it five because somebody has to do something, I guess. Herr Reitz comes and kneels in front of me. His bologna halitosis breath hits me full force. “Belle? You okay? You want to leave?”

“No.” I shake my head. I look into Crash’s eyes, Tom’s. “I want to stay.”

“I’ll pick you up for the dance?” Tom says when the bell rings. He doesn’t ask me if I’m okay about the whole Bob scene, which is good, because it would probably push me over the edge and into the land of melodrama girl, where nothing can stop the tears or the screaming or me from finding Bob’s pasty butt and kicking it into New Hampshire.

“Sure,” I say and smile up at him. I zip Gabriel back into her gig bag.

Tom shakes his head at me, while I pull Gabriel’s bag over my shoulder. “How did I get so lucky?”

“You?” I am stunned.

“Yeah, me.” There goes that Tom smile again, straight to my heart. I shake my head, because this is all so strange and raw and new and good, like your leg right after you shave it. I think about all those years of high school with Tom calling me a Commie and me cringing whenever he was around because I used to like him in middle school and he so obviously was this jock boy whose deepest emotion was teasing. Not that teasing is an emotion, but that’s how shallow I thought he was.

“I can’t believe you,” I tell Tom.

“What do you mean?” He moves his arm in a gallant way to let me out the door first.

My free hand flaps around in the air. “I don’t know. You’re so nice. I mean, before Monday, I thought you were just some teasing jerk who didn’t care about me at all.”

“Belle,” he whispers, staring into my eyes, “people aren’t always what they seem.”

I giggle and pretend to be that guy in the old karate
movie or the kid in the cartoon
Avatar
. “Oh, wise one, you are so wise.”

He grabs my gig bag off my shoulder and laughs. “Shut up and let me carry that.”

“Okay,” I say and watch his cute bottom strut down the corridor. I scurry after him. “Okay.”

When Tom’s truck parks into my driveway, the rain pours down, hammering a percussion tune against the roof and sides of my house. Down the road, just a bit, Eddie’s house lights flash on and off like a warning. He left a note for me outside the house. I found it when I got home from school. A four-word note:
Sorry. I’m so sorry.
I shuddered, remembering Eddie’s hand and his hard voice. What had happened to the Eddie I used to know, I have no clue.

“He’s here,” my mom says, rushing into my room.

I step away from my window. “I know.”

My mom grabs my hands and pulls my arms away from my side. “Don’t you look beautiful?”

“Mom, it’s not like the prom or anything. It’s just a skirt,” I blush.

She pulls me into a hug. “Well, you’re my beautiful baby.”

Letting go, she searches my face. “You feeling strong enough to go?”

“Mom, it was just a little concussion,” I say, trying to make my voice not annoyed. It doesn’t work but she doesn’t care, she just tweaks my nose while the doorbell rings.

She rushes off. “I better let that poor boy in from the rain.”

Then she throws the kicker over her shoulder, “I was talking about your emotional health, not just your physical health, know-it-all.”

Her big yellow slippers flip flop down the hallway. I turn to the mirror and put on some lip gloss. Mothers. I try not too hard to look at my face, paler than normal because of the lack of sun and too much stress. My hair will be wet soon, so there was no use struggling over that.

“Fine,” I sigh at myself. “I look fine.”

Tom chuckles at the door. “You sure do.”

“Look who’s talking?” I say, turning and smiling. He just keeps his little half grin plastered on his face while I look him up and down. His pants fit against those muscular thighs just the right way and his wet coat make his shoulders seem even broader.

He runs a hand through his brown hair. “Good show?”

I trot over to him, stand on my toes, and kiss his lips, just a tiny, light peck that still makes me want to swoon. Then I pull away. His eyes are still closed. “You bet.”

I pick up his gray, shiny tie, and it lands heavy against my palm. I finger the material. “This is?”

“Duct tape.”

I let it drop against his chest, my fingers graze the wetness of his unzipped jacket.

“No quotes though?”

“Not today.”

“You are one weird boy.”

He shrugs and gets cocky. “That’s why you like me.”

“True.”

He zooms into my room and comes out with Gabriel. My breath hitches inside my throat. “What are you doing?”

“We’re bringing her,” he says and starts hauling his butt down the hall and zips down the stairs.

“No, we’re not. I’m not going to play Gabriel at the dance.”

“Maybe afterwards,” he says and then yells to my mom. “Good night, Mrs. Philbrick!”

“Good night, Tom!” she yells back.

But he’s already gone. That boy better watch out or I’ll use some duct tape on him.

The heavy rain turns to a much nicer drizzle by the time we get to school and it’s dropped about ten degrees, which means it’ll snow soon. Tom parks in the back lot, because the main lot is already filled. He grabs my hand and says, “Are you ready for this? Our first official-couple event?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Couple?”

“Aren’t we a couple?” He leans away from me, drops my hand, and actually looks hurt.

I shrug and tease him. “I don’t know. I don’t remember if you ever officially asked out a pinko commie girl such as myself.”

He growls and lunges at me. I scream and pretend to try to get away, but I’m not really trying. Actually, everything in my body is trying to get closer, like there’s some monstrous Tom magnet that pulls my body closer. He grabs my head in his hands and his eyes flash in the light of the parking lot. “
You
are a pinko commie subversive.”

“Yep,” I bite my lip. “That’s me.”

He kisses me then, a long leaning of his body against mine, a slow rush of lips touching my own and everything in my body simultaneously sighs and sings, sighs and sings and it is such a good, good, song.

Someone pounds on the hood and Shawn jerks open Tom’s door, shaking his head. He hauls Tom out and roughs up his hair. “Jesus, can’t you guys even wait until after the freaking dance?”

“Nope.” I hop out of my side of the car. Em smiles at me and twirls around in the drizzle.

“Nice outfit,” I say, pointing at her French-looking swirly skirt and boots.

She smiles and then pouts. “It’s getting wet.”

“Shawn,” Tom pushes him away, roughhousing him almost into the street light. “Your date is getting wet.”

Shawn mutters something I can’t hear. Tom gives him the finger and a smile and then follows Em and me. Because we’ve given up on them we are hightailing it toward the high school. She hooks her arm in mine and we bend our heads against the rain, which has now turned to part snow.

“You look happy,” she says.

Shocked, I stop walking and she pulls me along. “I am.”

“Good,” she gives my arm a little squeeze. The sound of bass-drum beats thud out of the school. The dance is in the cafeteria, like always, real high-budget stuff. They dim the lights, move the tables, and hire this deejay guy named Mike who works at the post office in Franklin and always hits on the teachers.

I’m about to tell Em about the song in my head, which is Cliff Eberhardt singing Bob Dylan’s
I Want You
, which is really funny when I think about it, because it’s so obvious where my mind is. I don’t get a chance to say it though because Bob comes thundering toward us from the back of the parking lot. His hair’s all over the place and his white pants—yes, white pants on a boy, past Labor Day!—are wet and muddy up the side.

Em’s grip on my arm gets tighter and Tom jumps up to my side and in front of me, not blocking me but ready to. I put my hand against his back.

Bob’s eyes wild over and his breath sounds like he’s got an asthma attack or something. “Belle . . . Belle . . .”

“What? You’re talking to me now? I thought I was a freak.” The words come out before I can stop them, that’s how angry I am.

Tom moves from me and yanks Bob’s arm so he’s not looking at me. Tom’s voice is total menace. “Don’t even think about it, buddy.”

“No. No. You don’t . . . It’s Dylan. Eddie Caron’s about to pummel Dylan,” Bob pants out.

I jerk away from Em. “Where?”

Bob points to the main parking lot, tears rush down his face. My head spins images of Dylan, dead or bleeding in some parking space somewhere.

“Bob, go in the school and get help. Em, call the police on your cell. Where’s your cell?” I ask her, bulleting out instructions like some sort of army sergeant.

“It’s in the car,” she says. She runs back and screams, “Shawn, I need the keys to your car!”

I don’t wait. I run across the parking area, the front of the school, and into the main parking lot. Tom thunders with me and then in front of me, but I keep up. Shawn catches up too.

“Don’t hurt him,” I murmur with every stride. “Don’t hurt him.”

Headlights flick by. The music in the school shifts to a slow song. The rain gets heavy again, but I don’t care. I catch up to Tom and Shawn.

“We can’t let him hurt him,” I yell.

“We’ll handle it, Belle,” Shawn says and stops running. Tom and I stop, too. Because there under the streetlight is not a broken Dylan with the massive Eddie hovering over him, beating him to a pulp. Instead, Dylan pounds away at Eddie Caron, and Eddie just stands there, taking it.

Dylan, my sweet Dylan, has fists that fly like bullets, bashing against Eddie again and again. And Eddie, yeah, he’s twice as big as Dylan, but he’s cowering, his hands cover his head, and he yells, “Stop. Stop!”

Dylan doesn’t stop. He starts kicking. His face is a twisted mask of hate. This is not my Dylan, is it? I don’t know. I don’t know.

I race over and grab his arm. “Dylan.”

He shrugs me off and Tom and Shawn come alive then, grab him, yank him away. Eddie looks up, meets me in the eyes and his first-grade self is the one that stares, a little wounded boy looking to be a knight, searching for a princess. Blood trickles out of his nose.