Honestly Ben

by Bill Konigsberg

  I pleaded the Fifth, as there was no chance in hell I would be discussing my personal life with two psychopaths. I may have changed some, but there were still limits. Rafe, on the other hand, upon noting my hesitance, stage-whispered, “Tell ya later” to the guys, who both nodded in anticipation.

  As we walked across the quad, Toby glanced over at Albie and then back at us. “Can I be cereal for a second?”

  “I don’t think so,” Albie said. “I think you can either be a shape-shifter and turn into cereal forever, or you will need to remain in your current form. Those are your choices.”

  Toby ignored him. “I’m actually a little freaked out about coming out as gender fluid. Which I’m pretty sure I’m gonna do.”

  Rafe said, “It’s a lot. Of course you’re freaked.”

  I wanted to ask again: Why come out? It was hard enough being a little different at Natick. Why would a person step into the firing zone by telling the mostly juvenile boys at an all-boys school that sometimes you’re a girl?

  But also, I knew. He’d already told me. It was just hard for me to wrap my head around it.

  “It’s the fluid part,” Toby said. “That’s the part I’m really freaked about. I mean, it would be one thing to be like, ‘I’m transitioning, and my name is Tina.’ But I’m just telling people that I’m in flux, which is hard. It’s putting it on a platter and saying, ‘Here’s my confusion. Feel free to pick it apart.’ ”

  The wet grass squished under our feet as we walked in silence. The thing about coming out, it seemed to me, was vulnerability. Putting whatever it was that people might judge on a platter. Most of my life, I’d been figuring out ways to armor up, to make myself impervious to attack. That’s what we do. Humans. But especially Carvers. Don’t put yourself out there. Hold yourself back and protect. Don’t be vulnerable. And my mind flashed on Hannah, which didn’t feel so good, so I stopped thinking about that.

  “I think you’re amazing,” I said to Toby. “Truly. And if anyone gives you shit, you let me know.”

  Rafe elbowed me in the side in a gentle way, as if to say, Thanks.

  Albie broke the silence. “I think it’s okay to just say who you are without it being final or something. I mean, none of us are finished products. We change. We keep changing. We won’t be finished products ’til the day we die.”

  That made me think about my dad. I was pretty sure he saw himself as a finished product.

  Was I?

  Things went into hyperspeed on Monday of the final week before spring break. I had my big calculus test on Tuesday, which meant an all-nighter and some prayers that I’d do well enough. There was packing to do for break and the trip to Fort Lauderdale, a few more tests and lab reports. My parents were to arrive on Thursday. And then I had my speech on Friday, so long as I didn’t screw up the math test too badly.

  And after the weekend I’d had, the biggest thing was that I knew who I was. I had Rafe. Maybe I wasn’t quite ready for the team to know all my business, or to share it with my family. But at least I knew, and that had to count for something.

  In calculus class on Monday, we had a final study session for the test, and in reality I didn’t fully understand what Ms. Dyson was saying about formal manipulation of the Taylor series, let alone the shortcuts to computing it. But at least I had one night left to figure it out.

  “So starting with this test,” Ms. Dyson said, “we’re going to do things a little differently. Since we’re trying to get you prepared for the AP exam, the test will have more multiple-choice questions than you can possibly answer. I just want you to answer as many as you can, as fast as you can, okay?”

  A kid named Cal raised his hand. “Do we need to show our work?”

  She shook her head. “Just the correct answer will be enough.”

  There was murmuring throughout the classroom, and all I was thinking about was how it would feel to not be able to answer all the questions. I’d be freaked out until she returned the tests, which was not what I needed, not with my parents coming and the final touches on my Pappas Award speech staring at me.

  I felt these butterflies in my chest as we packed up our bags and left the room, and I tried to talk myself out of them. Yes, if the test was this very minute, I’d probably fail, or get a D. But I had a vague idea of most of the concepts she was discussing in class, and with a good five or six hours of studying, I’d be able to figure it all out. Probably. Ms. Dyson beamed at me as I walked out.

  “Study hard, Ben,” she said.

  “I will.”

  Heading to dinner, I caught up to Rafe on the quad. We’d been too busy to see each other all day.

  “Hey, handsome!” he said.

  “Hey. You get your history homework done?”

  “Yes, Mother,” he said.

  “Good, because we have exactly two hours after dinner to hang out. Then it’s calc time for me, all night long.”

  “Sounds like a partay,” he said.

  “Perchance,” I said, and I caught a glimpse of the baseball guys coming out of the dorm to head toward the cafeteria. “Teammates,” I said. “Gotta jet.”

  Rafe rolled his eyes. “Did you just say, ‘Gotta jet’?”

  “Hey,” I said. “This is the new, improved, don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass Ben. You know. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure this all out.”

  He cracked up. “Huh. Different. I like it. I’ll go find the boys. We will miss you terribly all meal long. Have a wonderful time bonding with Steve Nickelson.”

  “Other than the fact that he’s an asshole, he’s basically okay.” The guys weren’t close enough to hear quite yet.

  “Enjoy! Love you.”

  The longer we stood there, the closer the guys got. I felt a bubble growing in my throat. “Uh-huh. See ya,” I said to Rafe, and then I hurried over to my teammates. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

  “What up, Carver?” Mendenhall said. “You’re gonna sit with us and not your little gay buddies?”

  “You’re just jealous because gay guys—and straight females, I might add—find you disgusting.”

  He punched me in the shoulder. “If I’m disgusting, what the hell are you?” he asked.

  Dinner was fun, truth be told. We talked about the tournament in Florida. I’d be rooming with Standish, which was fine with me. I just wanted to get down there, get on the outdoor field, and play some ball after all this indoor practice.

  When I got back to my room, Rafe was already on his bed, reading. His feet were kicked up on the wall, which he was facing, his body at a ninety-degree angle.

  “Did you miss me?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He didn’t answer again.

  “Earth to Rafe.”

  He kicked his feet down from the wall and turned to face me. His eyes were a little red.

  “Whoa,” I said. “What happened?”

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Rafe sat on the floor, his back against the bed. I did the same with my bed. We both stretched out our legs, but there was still a gulf of about a foot between us.

  “I love you, Ben. I really, really love you.”

  I didn’t like the numb feeling that began to radiate in my cheeks. “I know. I love you too.”

  “I’ve never loved anyone close to as much as I love you. But I can’t … I mean … ”

  “What?” I asked. “You’re freaking me out.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “Before dinner. When you said good-bye to me. I said, ‘I love you.’ You said, ‘Uh-huh.’ ”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Obviously I love you too. Do I have to say it every five minutes?”

  “No. But you didn’t say it because your baseball buddies were right there. How did I not realize this was going to happen? Maybe I didn’t want to see it, but I need to be loved by someone who is willing to love me … openly.”

  I stared at the bottom of Rafe’s shoe. I just sat there for a while.

>   “Say something, please.”

  “God. This is so fast. Can’t I get a little time to adjust and figure it out? I’m a private person, Rafe. I don’t tell everyone my business, and I sure as hell don’t want the baseball team to know. I mean, they’re idiots. Why would I give them ammunition?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re ashamed of me. You’re ashamed to be dating me.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” I said, crossing my arms too.

  “Sure you are. If you weren’t, you’d be taking me to a dance in front of all your buddies, like you did with Hannah.”

  “Do I really need to dance with you in public to show you I love you?”

  “I’ve been with three guys in my life. Not a single one of you was willing to date me openly. I’m tired of being everyone’s secret, Ben. I want to be loved, proudly. By you. Okay?”

  I shook my head. “Wow.”

  “What does ‘wow’ mean?”

  I shook my head some more. “Are you aware of all the tightropes I’m walking? I’m gonna lose this award if I don’t study tonight. My parents are about to come down here, and that’s—really stressful.”

  He frowned. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Don’t do this right now, before a test, for God’s sake.”

  “Do what?”

  “I can’t—you can’t keep doing this, Rafe. Pulling me in different directions. You’re asking me to be someone I’m not. I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. You know I’m not about to parade you around. What if my parents found out? My dad would disown me. I just need a little time.”

  He shook his head. “You know what? It’s not like I don’t understand that and feel bad for you about it. But. I can’t hide that way anymore.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “It means what it means.”

  I felt the anger rise into my shoulders. “You couldn’t have told me that before I fell in love with you, maybe?”

  “I didn’t really know,” he said. “I didn’t really know until you answered ‘I love you’ with ‘Uh-huh.’ Then it became real clear.”

  “Wow.”

  “Ben,” he said. “I told you. I love you. I could see being with you forever. But you don’t get to forever in secret. I need more.”

  “I’m not even sure I’m gay. I’m supposed to come out just because we’re dating?”

  “You can come out as bi.”

  I didn’t want to have this conversation again. I wasn’t even sure I was bi. What would I be announcing, anyway?

  He put his head in his hands. He kept them there, and I thought for a second he was crying, but then he took them off and I realized he’d just been thinking. “Could you, like, imagine getting there? Soon? I don’t want to lose you again.”

  I closed my eyes. I tried to imagine discussing Rafe with the entire baseball team. Why the hell would I do that? It didn’t make sense to me. But I couldn’t say that to Rafe. And I couldn’t even tell him a little white lie. We’d talked a lot about lies.

  I opened my eyes. “I really don’t know,” I said, honestly.

  He sighed. “You’re not ready,” he said. “Go find Hannah. Go—I don’t know. We’ll be, like, besties again. I can’t do it. I can’t be your dirty secret. Sorry.”

  He got up and left me sitting with my back against my bed, my legs splayed out in front of me. Each limb suddenly felt like a million pounds.

  I wasn’t even gonna try to move them. What was the use?

  The longer I sat there, the more tense I got, thinking about what I was facing. Last semester, Rafe had come to talk to me about our relationship the night before a history exam. Now he’d done it again with calculus. I was supposed to pull an all-nighter, and that was the last thing I felt like doing right now.

  I sat there frozen, thinking about what I wanted.

  I wanted Rafe.

  I also wanted the award and scholarship.

  To get Rafe, I would have to be someone other than me. Because it sure as hell didn’t feel normal to me to imagine openly being a couple with him.

  To get the award and scholarship, I’d have to study my ass off when all I felt like doing was shutting my eyes and disappearing. I’d also have to give a false speech, because I knew that Peter Pappas wasn’t the person the school was making him out to be.

  Pappas. He’d been a lot like me, just with bigger stakes. Just like me, he’d tried so hard to make everyone happy, and in the end, no one was happy. Least of all him. It had killed him.

  I shook my head hard.

  When would I get to stop sacrificing to make other people happy? When would that happen?

  And how the hell was I going to forget about everything that was going on, and study for this stupid test?

  The answer was, I wasn’t going to do that.

  I lay down in my bed and closed my eyes, allowing all the sensations in my body and all the thoughts in my brain to pour over me. I was tired. Dead tired of everyone wanting something from me. Myself included. All my life, I’d wanted so much from me, and it was never, ever enough. I was tired of trying, and my brain spun off its axis, and I pictured it flying away like a remote-control helicopter that I couldn’t quite control.

  After about an hour of this, knowing my future hinged on this night of studying, I finally opened my calculus book. The equations in chapter 11 looked like hieroglyphics. Polar and vector functions put me over the edge, and it felt like knowledge was leaking from my brain. The different symbols all mushed together. I found myself breathing too fast, and my head was beginning to feel dizzy.

  I had so much to lose. If I got a C plus or worse on my math test, I could kiss my B average in that class good-bye, and with it, my award and my scholarship, which was pretty much like saying, everything in my life. My parents would be told not to come down for the ceremony, and my dad would be so disappointed in me. And who knew what other college we’d be able to afford, what kinds of scholarships I’d qualify for. No. Not doing well on the test was not an option. Nothing had ever been so important.

  I forced my eyes open wide and stared at the book, willing it all to make sense.

  It just didn’t. None of it.

  “C’mon!” I yelled at myself, out loud. “Do it! We’re Carvers. We work. We work hard!”

  The functions and equations in the book on my lap just stared back at me, smug. Laughing at me. Judging me.

  I stood up, enthralled by an idea.

  No. No way. Absolutely no way. Bad idea. Terrible idea. That was wrong. That went against everything I believed in. If I did that, I’d hate myself.

  But I pictured my dad, shaking his head at me when the news of my grade got to him. I imagined listening to Mike Scalia, the alternate Pappas Award winner, give my speech. Aware that he was getting my scholarship. No.

  That was even more wrong.

  I took a deep breath, stood up, and took a slow walk down the hall, trying to talk some sense into myself. But there was no sense here. It was a no-win situation.

  “Hey,” Mendenhall said when he answered the door. “Wassup, Carver?”

  “Shit,” I said, shaking my head. “I heard you have the test keys?”

  He smiled and waved me into his room.

  The next morning, I walked in a haze to calculus, where I sat down, unable to look at anyone, and waited for my test.

  The multiple-choice answers were chiseled onto my pencil in tiny writing. I’d cheat on this one test, and then, before the next one, I’d get back on track. I even decided I’d get a few wrong so as to not seem too perfect. Nothing to make my grade lower than a B plus, but nothing too good to arouse suspicion either, especially when I went back to not cheating.

  After the test, I trudged back to the dorm, even though I had history next. I sank into my bed and let this flimsy blue feeling crest over my head like a wave. I felt utterly unable to handle any little thing, and I just wanted to stay there forever, buried under the current as it rushed
over me.

  I was now a cheater. A cheater. Me.

  Rafe was gone. We were over. And why? Because I wouldn’t say “I love you” in front of my baseball team? He couldn’t give me a week or two to get comfortable with our new situation?

  It felt like he’d burrowed his way into my heart again, and then smashed it. And I’d let him do it. Again. Rafe said we could go back to being best friends, but I didn’t work like that. My heart hurt. It actually hurt.

  Too much stuff in my brain. Along with the fact that I was now officially alone and a cheater, lab reports were never ending, and there was another one due in two days. History essay, due tomorrow. Undone. Baseball practice later, where I had to be a leader and be tough. My parents arriving in the morning, and they’d spend the day going to classes with me, and I’d be unprepared, and that would be really bad. My speech. It was ready, but it wasn’t ready, because I felt like a fraud every time I practiced it. It was a lie.

  Too many things.

  I lay back on the bed. My dad never missed a day of work in his life. I must be the laziest person in the history of the world. Everybody thought of me as solid and strong, but if they saw me now they’d know the real me. And that was so terrifying that I got under the covers. And then the weirdest thing happened. My eyelids got as heavy as the rest of me, and I let them close, and I let the world disappear. I went to sleep.

  My eyes crept open when the clock said 10:17, and I realized it was chemistry class time. I wasn’t one to skip classes, ever. As of Friday, I would be the Peter Pappas Award winner. All-around good guy and scholar and athlete. Award winners and all-around good guys don’t cheat, and they don’t just sleep through the day.

  I closed my eyes again, and even though my brain wasn’t that sleepy, I willed myself into oblivion.

  There was a knock on the door. I opened my eyes. 11:29. It was almost lunchtime.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, and I stumbled to the door, bleary-eyed.