The Inside of Out

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  I was in shoes and down the stairs by the time she said the word “later.” But before I could offer to hitchhike to her house with food and/or medical supplies, Hannah had already hung up.

  Monday morning, fifteen minutes before Hannah was supposed to collect me, she sent a text.

  “SO SORRY can’t drive today. I’ll make it up—promise—see you at school!”

  Mom was already gone. Her protest group had made some headway, so she was meeting with a city councilman to talk about taking over that field. This meant I was forced to accept a ride to school from my game-addled father, who kept rounding corners so narrowly, I swore we were going to jump the curb.

  “Yikes.” He chuckled nervously as I stumbled through the car door onto school property. “The last car I drove was a Lamborghini hovercraft. Galactic Grand Prix: Eternity. Handled a lot better than this one.”

  I managed a wave and had nearly regained my balance when I saw QB Saunders loitering outside the school entrance, messing with the strap of his backpack. I heaved a breath and prepared for impact.

  “Smurfette!” QB stepped into my path. “I mean . . . Daisy. Hey.”

  A vein was pumping in his neck, his forehead creased. Holy thundercats—I knew what this was. QB was trying not to make fun of me. It was work. He was sweating, little curls of blond hair sticking to his ears. Why didn’t he take off that damn jacket?

  “Hi.” I kept walking.

  He fell into step beside me. “Did you, um, have an awesome weekend?”

  This conversation had just tipped from strange to delightfully surreal. I had to press my lips together to hold in a squeal of laughter.

  “I did!” I got out. “I had an awesome weekend, Chris, thank you for asking!”

  “Cool, so . . .” QB’s voice died out. We literally had nothing to talk about.

  As we walked through the bustling lobby, I assumed the spell he was under would be broken. But QB stuck to me like a barnacle.

  “You excited for homecoming?”

  This was too much. I turned to stare at him in utter incredulity . . . then noticed that everyone else was staring at us too.

  No, not us. Him. Conversations were falling to a fevered hush, eyes darting to QB and then away, like they couldn’t even bear to look at him. Because of me? Panic licked like flames at my vision. I knew this feeling only too well.

  Before it could progress to shame sweats, I gave QB a nod and a “See ya,” and hurried to homeroom.

  Weirdly, separating from QB didn’t seem to stop whatever eerie mania had taken over the school. The hallways were jammed with kids sharing “Oh. My. God”s and “Shut up, what?!”s before running to the next huddle of people and starting the process all over again.

  Even the freshmen in my French class were buzzing like flies around a trash can.

  As soon as I sat down, a girl I’d never talked to leaned way over and said, “You will not believe what I just heard.”

  I hated to admit it, but I was dying to find out.

  “En français!” Prof Hélène called out in exasperation.

  The girl thought for a second, then said:

  “Natalie Beck est totally gay.”

  7

  Pre-calc. Fourth period. The Beck sat in her usual spot in back, auburn ponytail hanging perfectly vertical, posture erect, notebooks and pencils arranged in perpendicular rows on her desk. Nothing new. But her mouth was welded shut and her blue eyes focused ahead, like she was trying to drill a hole into the whiteboard with her brain.

  Natalie had two underlings in this class, both longtime high-ranking officials in the We Hate Daisy Army. Madison Speiss was a dyed-blond, five-one terror whose father owned a Jaguar dealership or seven, while Dana Costas was a more muted shade of awful, the kind of girl who might have been gorgeous if she weren’t constantly fidgeting with her curly hair and her clothes. On more than one occasion, I’d walked into the girls’ room to catch her staring sadly at herself in the restroom mirrors and had to fight the urge to whisper, “The problem is with your souuuuuuul.”

  Today, in her normal back-row seat, Dana was more fidgety than ever. Instead of talking to Natalie—her best friend—she kept exchanging Meaningful Glances with Madison, who had moved two rows up, abandoning the back of the room for the first time in her academic career. Judging by her smug expression, Madison was making some sort of a statement.

  No wonder Natalie refused to look at them—or anybody else in the class. Everyone knew. But knowing wasn’t enough. They had to crane their necks to stare at her, lean over to whisper between aisles. Even when Mr. Thornton started the lesson, I saw three people sneak out cell phones to message each other under their desks, barely stifling snickers.

  The second class broke, Natalie walked briskly to the door, only to face down a hallway crammed with students. At the sight of her, everyone fell conspicuously silent. Natalie pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin, Anne Boleyn walking to the scaffold. Then I saw her hands clench and unclench at her sides, and we might as well have been seven again, daring each other to knock on the door of the haunted old McLaren house—Nat-Nat in front, willing herself strong.

  I touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She turned to me, impassive as a saint. I waited for her to answer, and so did the rest of the hallway. Instead, her eyes slowly lowered until they were power-drilling into my hand. I flinched, let go, and she walked away. And suddenly, I was the one everybody was goggling.

  Served me right. I’d walked directly into this. But as I gathered a shaky breath and huffed away, it wasn’t myself I felt disgusted with. It was Hannah.

  I’d slipped for five seconds, just long enough to treat Natalie Beck as though she had anything other than Xenomorph acid pumping through her veins. But Hannah? She’d been slipping for the past month. Maybe more. How could she have fallen for this person?

  My path didn’t connect with Hannah’s until lunchtime. Once I’d purchased an especially greasy grilled cheese sandwich with an extra plate so we could share, I searched the room for her, wondering how she was coping with all this.

  It was an easy room to scan. Hardly anybody was at the tables. At least half the people here had assumed mob formation on one side of the cafeteria, faces crammed against the windowpanes.

  The squirrels must be mating again, I thought. Seems early, but who am I to judge? Maybe they’re just enjoying a little off-season friski—

  “Take my seat.” I turned to see Jack Jackson gallantly dusting a chair with his napkin. “I was just leaving.”

  “Oh! Thanks,” I said, craning my neck to see past the wall of students, who were, annoyingly, also blocking my view to the steps. “I’m actually looking for . . .”

  “Hannah’s outside. With Natalie Beck.”

  Oh, no. Not squirrels. Of course not. This was a much bigger draw.

  They were staring at the stoop.

  Every cell in my body urged me forward, to join Hannah, to shield her from view—but no. After this morning’s altercation, I knew better than to reenter the Beck’s ballistic range.

  Right. Of course she’s eating with Natalie. Natalie’s been outed. There’s no reason not to. She could eat with Natalie every day from now on.

  Which left me with a dizzying array of new dining options. I glanced around, feeling extremely small.

  Peppering the room were tables informally reserved by people I’d barely spoken to, except maybe to ask what the teacher had just said the homework was. A bunch of the Parapsychology Club kids hung out at the table just behind me. We knew each other, yeah, but after the “You’re all so freaking smug. It must be nice to know everything about the universe!” incident that ended my affiliation with the group last year, I doubted they’d clear me a space when they returned from gawking out the window.

  To my left was the table where Dan Sawtuck and Mara Thomas
usually sat. I’d done an English class project with them last year and we were still sort of friendly, I guessed, but they’d started dating since then and pretty much spent the whole lunch hour making out, so my presence at their table would probably be awkward for all involved.

  I spotted some other options that would place me alongside people whose birthday parties I’d gone to, whose jokes I’d laughed at in class, who’d held the door for me on their way out of the restroom. But it felt too weird to walk up and invade their space without Hannah to provide the social niceties. Me by myself was tantamount to, “Hi, I’m Daisy, will you please be my friend?” and I was so not up for that today. Or, you know, ever.

  Jack had already slipped out of the cafeteria and there was nobody else at the table, so I fell into his seat and picked at my lunch, sliding Hannah’s extra plate under my own. It felt disorienting sitting here, like switching from map mode to first-person POV in a video game. I thought I knew the exact social layout of this room, but now that I was fully ensconced, I could make out so much more.

  Along the far wall, I saw Raina eating at a table where everyone’s heads were ducked, doing homework. A few tables down, Sean was laughing along with his bevy of devoted drama girls. And close to the door, I spotted Sophie carrying on a quiet conversation with a group of classmates in competing earth-toned outfits.

  From what I could tell, the Alliance members barely acknowledged one another outside their weekly meetings. But now I saw one thing binding them together—out of everyone in the cafeteria, Raina, Sean, and Sophie were the only three whose faces didn’t turn to the windows every few seconds. There was something focused about the way each of them sat in place, refusing to look. A form of respect.

  As I polished off my lunch, four gawky guys broke from the window, nudging one another with leering expressions, like they’d just watched a peep show instead of two girls eating sandwiches. At the sight of them, Sophie’s serene smile disappeared. I watched them motion toward her, and then, as if drawn in by her discomfort, veer to her table.

  For a second, I hoped they were just going over there to set up a pot deal for later, but then one of them said something I couldn’t make out and they all started laughing. Sophie’s face went pale. A shaggy-haired boy at her table half stood, jaw clenched, then sank again, defeated by their numbers.

  One of the four douchenozzles leered over his shoulder, so I got a look at his face—as Slytherin-snide as it was in eighth grade. Seth Ross.

  Sophie was fighting to recover a smile and I was steeling myself to march over and slug him again if need be, when somebody slapped a folded piece of notebook paper down on my plastic tray, startling me back into my seat.

  I whipped around to see QB striding away, trailing Darius. QB had been getting more than his share of negative attention in the wake of today’s bombshell, but right now, Darius’s glower seemed to have opened a path in front of them, allowing them to escape without overt mocking. Football had its perks—even if you never won a game.

  I unfolded the page they’d left me, expecting to find some taunt, or threat, or accusation about my own sexuality, but it was something far more disturbing.

  Please meet me after class. I’ll treat for pizza. Need to talk.

  ~ Chris.

  First, I marveled that he’d signed it Chris. Was it because I’d called him that this morning? It wasn’t the oddest thing in the world to sign your own name on a note. But QB had been “QB” since sixth grade. His friends would correct teachers on his behalf when they called roll with the standard “Chris Saunders.”

  But what was I thinking? Chris was not what was insane. What was insane was that “Chris” had left me a note imploring me to get pizza with him.

  Either this was an elaborate practical joke or QB had been body-snatched.

  Hannah had time to give me only the quickest of whispered rundowns before we sat for bio.

  “She came out to Madison and Dana over the weekend. Madison quoted the Bible, said that she was uncomfortable that Natalie was ‘choosing this path.’”

  Hannah paused for effect, but I could see the irony all on my own. Madison was not the purest lily in God’s garden. Not that I had any issue with the percentage of the junior and senior class she’d worked her way through, but if you’re gonna talk righteous paths . . .

  “Dana promised to support her,” Hannah went on. “She seemed great about it, apparently. And then she went home and emailed half the school.”

  “Oh God,” I said, and thankfully got shushed by the teacher before I was forced to recite “Poor Natalie,” my next expected line.

  This situation was horrible. No question. But the Beck wasn’t exactly a defenseless victim. She chose her friends a long time ago and set the tone for the way they treated other people—including me. If the situation had been reversed, who’s to say she wouldn’t have behaved exactly the same way?

  I knew better than to expect a Natalie-free ride home from Hannah today, so after the last bell rang, I hid in the girls’ rest-room and called my mom approximately one million times, getting only voicemail. Dad too. Same result.

  The sharp corner of QB’s note was digging into my jeans pocket. He was seventeen. He probably had a car. He could give me a ride home. After we ate pizza. And talked. And flew to the moon on giant papier-mâché butterflies.

  I was leaning against the bathroom’s windowsill, calculating the cost of a taxi, when two girls came in, holding each other up between bursts of debilitating laughter.

  A pang scrunched my stomach. Hannah and I always got into giggle fits over the stupidest things—the gym teacher running all over the basketball court trying to catch a possum, the “phallic oak” lecture in English after we’d read Jane Eyre.

  Then I heard what the two girls were saying.

  “Who is he waiting for? He’s just standing out there like an idiot.”

  “He is an idiot! How can you not know your girlfriend’s a dyke?”

  “Maybe he turned her.” Giggles galore.

  I shoved myself away from the window and past the two banshees, managing to shoulder-check both of them like a cowboy leaving a saloon. Then, ignoring their “Excuse me?”s, I slammed the bathroom door behind me, not stopping until I reached the exit beside the arts wing—where QB Saunders was, in fact, standing there like an idiot.

  His sad orphan face lightened a fraction when he saw me. Oh God.

  I felt sorry for him. For QB Saunders.

  “Pizza,” I barked. “Let’s go.”

  People were staring, so I walked, hoping he’d have the sense to follow. Mario’s Pizzeria was only three blocks away. I had to assume that’s where he was planning to take me. It was The Place, full of the very people Hannah and I went to the Moonlight Coffee Shop to avoid.

  I had to stop when a minivan blasting death metal rounded the corner, inches from my face. QB caught up beside me.

  He up-nodded lasciviously. “You look really—”

  “Nope.” I put my hand up as I faced him. “What is this? What are you doing?”

  His smile flickered. “Um . . .”

  “You’ve done nothing for the past decade but make fun of me. Why are you suddenly friendly?”

  QB’s brow furrowed with the massive effort of coming up with a reply. The street cleared. I growled a sigh and crossed.

  It wasn’t until we’d gotten to Mario’s, ordered slices and sodas, and sat at a picnic table in the dingy back garden with everyone in the world staring at us that he answered my question.

  “I wasn’t trying to be a dick. When I teased you, I mean.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Seriously!” His face went soft, all innocence. “It was nice teasing. Like friends do.” At my raised eyebrow, he fell somber. “You’re not the easiest person to start a conversation with, you know.”

  Dozens of overlapping response
s sprung to mind, from “That’s ridiculous, I am a Class One Loudmouth,” to “Tell me something interesting and I’ll respond,” but then I realized I’d just sat there staring at QB for close to a minute without physically saying anything, so he might have had a point.

  What I came out with was “Fine.”

  QB looked encouraged. And then, abruptly, heartbroken. “You heard about Natalie?”

  I nodded and took an enormous bite of pizza, determined to eat and get out of here as quickly as possible. The cheese singed the roof of my mouth.

  He leaned over the table, his voice low. “Did you know . . . before?”

  I shrugged. “Like a couple of days.”

  “That’s it?” QB looked confused. It was a familiar expression. “I thought maybe you could tell by looking at her. Like . . . radar.”

  It took a sugary gulp of soda for my brain to kick into gear.

  I stared at him. “You mean . . . gaydar?”

  “Yeah!” He perked up. “Like that.”

  “Oh my God.” A laugh got stuck in my throat. “You think I’m gay!”

  “What? Well, yeah. Aren’t you? You and Hannah von Lincoln or whatever. Everyone knows she’s your ex.”

  “She’s my best friend. Not ex, current. But that’s it. We’re platonic soul mates.”

  “Oh.” QB slumped, his expression shuffling between confusion and disappointment. He took a bite of his pizza, but stopped mid-chew like he’d lost the energy to digest it. I pushed his soda toward him. He sipped and swallowed.

  When he glanced back up, he didn’t look any happier. “So I guess she’s with Natalie now.”

  “I guess. No accounting for taste.”

  He squinted. “You don’t like this either.”

  “I’m not the world’s biggest Natalie Beck fan.”

  QB recoiled, apparently shocked. “But Natalie’s an amazing person! She’s seriously the most awesome—”

  I motioned for him to lower his voice. A squirrely kid from my homeroom passed with a tray, one ear cocked toward our conversation, and at last QB seemed to realize he was not in the middle of a therapy session. He rocked back in his chair and his face relaxed. Smarmy. Arrogant. The face I was used to.