by Leah Thomas
“I really don’t know,” Mr. Wheeler murmurs, before I can escape down the stairs, “I don’t know where or who he’d be without you.”
At the bottom of the stairs, the players have moved. John’s back at his desk in the corner, typing feverishly on a forum, and Matt is leaning over the card tables behind the couch, adjusting Warhammer figures on a playing field made of Styrofoam mountains and mirror lakes. Phil is alone on the sectional with a controller in his hand, punching the hell out of someone in Mortal Kombat. He hits the start button and pauses the game as I hold out a soda to him, then budges to the side.
I pick up a controller, sit on the couch so that our knees are almost touching, and do my best to start punching, too.
KALYN
I GREW UP in a lawless land. The Alleghany Mobile Park caught too much sunlight in all the wrong places, so you could see rust and grime on everything from fences to people. Lawless lands tend to grow a hearty crop of little pyromaniacs, and I was part of that. The older AMP boys set their own rules. You either had to scuffle with them or lie down and be grimy like everything else, mud under the tires of their stolen bicycles.
Hell if I was lyin’ down.
When I was five, I almost clawed out Howie Scott’s eyeball during a violent round of “chickenscratch.” His mother came banging on our door, sobbing like a screech owl. When Mom answered, I took a good gander at the woman in our doorway.
Enormous Mrs. Scott, with her holey T-shirt and her arms covered in black track marks, her mouth filled with yellow teeth. Howie looked tiny beside her, covered in snot and blood and eye gunk, and I almost felt lucky, until Mom pulled the flyswatter down from its hook on the cupboard.
It was the night before my first day of first grade. By the time I got off the bus, my raw bottom felt like it was growing fiery spurs from the rattling. I got to Ms. Brandt’s classroom, wincing so bad my face was probably sucked into the vortex-y anus of itself. “Take a seat” was a death sentence.
Other parents were delivering their crybabies in person. Other parents had flashy cameras out, arms wide for hugs. Other kids were dressed like little Barbies. I stood alone by the coat rack, trying to decide if I could lie like a slug on the rug.
After Mom smacked me with the flyswatter, she’d spent the rest of the night cradling me in her lap, whispering apologies between drunken hiccups.
I stood next to the coat rack with my scrubbed red face and my red bottom and my ill-fitting dress and a fire spread to every inch of me. I knew there was no way fire would be allowed to go to kindergarten. I curled my fists and approached the nearest crybaby, ready to swing—
A girl took my hand.
“Hello!” My savior had black bangs and a beaded scrunchie wrapped around her ponytail. “I’m Olivia. What’s your name?”
“Kalyn-Rose Tulip Spence.”
“Wanna sit by me?”
I wiped my nose all down my arm. “Okay.”
Sitting still hurt like Hades, and some other kid’s name was taped to the desk, but I sat down next to Olivia. She gave me one of her pencils.
They say people can’t really remember experiences from age five.
Olivia Wong became my first best friend, and I’d forget her if I could.
I don’t know why she liked me. When you’re little, you don’t ask. Maybe Olivia saw me as an outcast and related to that, ’cause she and her sister were the only half-Chinese girls in Alleghany. One of the first things I asked Olivia was if she could see okay with little eyes like that. That’s how I learned I was a bigoted little shit.
“Don’t be RACIST.”
“What’sat mean?”
“Means you don’t like Chinese people.”
I remember dropping my chocolate milk. “But I like you the most.”
“Then say nice things, Kalyn.”
Saying nice things was easier when I was Olivia’s shadow. If Olivia smiled, I smiled. If Olivia shook someone’s hand, my grubby palm appeared just after hers. Olivia shared her Lunchables when I didn’t bring a lunch, rubbed my back when I ranted.
Olivia invited me over to her fancy cabin on the lakeshore, I turned up quiet as a shrew, gawping at how Olivia and her dad and her mom and her baby sister ate food with napkins on their laps, chewing with their mouths closed. That night we fell asleep in sleeping bags under the living room skylight. We pretended we were in the wilderness.
When applications to join the Brownie Girl Scout troop were passed round our classroom, I sprinted off the bus, knocking two AMP boys over and ignoring their shouts.
Mom hardly glanced at the form. “We can’t afford this, hon.”
“It doesn’t cost nothin’.”
“Oh, it will. Not just the uniform and badges. It’ll be field trips, right? Camping? Who’s drivin’? I have to work, Kalyn.”
“Olivia’s parents can drive me!”
Mom cocked her pistol. “So why don’t you just move in with the Wongs?”
“I would if I could, damn it!” I ran outside before she could swat me.
When I came back, Mom was washing the dishes. I couldn’t tell if it was soapy or salty water on her cheeks. We call it Spence pride, but it comes from both sides. “Why don’t you have Olivia over this weekend?” she said.
The answer seemed obvious. But I couldn’t say anything but “Okay.”
On Friday, I pulled Olivia away from her bus and led her to the pickup area.
“You’re coming to my house!” I said, cheerful as possible.
You’d think I’d told Olivia every day was her birthday. “Can we build a fort?”
“Yeah, obviously!” I grinned, but my eyes felt nettled. Mom pulled up in her rusty truck and honked the horn. Olivia jumped like a spooked cat.
“Hey, honey. You get permission from your parents?”
“Yeah, obviously!” I answered, yanking Olivia inside with me.
Olivia’s eyes widened as we chugged away from the school, blaring Garth Brooks from busted speakers. She gaped when we left the main roads, and her jaw basically fell off once we drove past the AMP entrance sign. Olivia seemed hypnotized by all the silver trailers. Folks were outside sipping Natty Ices in lawn chairs, burning autumn leaves and saluting the death of summer with bonfire pyres.
“We’re gonna build a fort, Liv.”
Olivia said nothing at first. But once we got to our trailer and the shock wore off, she tried coming around. When she learned Mom and I shared one lumpy bed, Olivia didn’t miss a beat: “You’ll always have someone to cuddle with!” And when she learned our bathroom and shower were one and the same, she thought that was pure genius. “You can shower and do your business at the same time!”
Mom was pulling a shot glass off the drying rack, so I hurried Olivia outside.
She seemed awed by the glimmering glass and forgotten furniture populating the junkyard, thrilled by the frog pond beyond the last row of trailers, but our tummies were grumbling. I knew not to dream of cocoa, but I hoped we had some food in the trailer.
When we got back, Mom was still upright, scribbling away in her notepad. She’d made nachos. They were cold and gunky, but I was so relieved that I kissed her on the cheek. She smelled like booze, but it wasn’t so bad.
Olivia sat down right next to her. “What you writing, Mrs. Spence?”
“A letter to Kalyn’s daddy.”
“Is he a soldier?”
“Kalyn didn’t tell you?” I pretended to scrape leftover nachos into the trash, but Mom stared right at me. “He’s in prison for murder.”
Things got real quiet. I could hear the neighbors’ TV blaring Jeopardy!
“We love him to bits, don’t we, Kalyn?”
Acting was no good in front of another Spence. “Yeah, Mom.”
“I’m going to bed.” Mom squeezed my shoulder before stumbling to the bedroom and slamming the door.
“Your dad . . . killed someone?”
“So what if he did?” I leaned against the kitchen counter. “Let’s play out
side.”
Olivia reached for my hand. I folded my arms against my chest. “Killing is evil. The Bible says.”
“Well? Things ain’t all black and white. You should know that. You’re not black or white.” This was like one of my nonsense jokes, except it was nothing like one.
Olivia’s face became a map of wincing creases.
“I can’t play nice like you, Olivia. I don’t have a nice house or a nice attitude or a dad who didn’t kill someone. If you don’t like it, you can get out.”
Olivia cried big, gobby tears. “You can be nice. When you try!”
“Maybe I don’t wanna.” I showed Olivia my fists. “Maybe I wanna kill you.”
I wish she’d have laughed, but Olivia wailed and locked herself in the bathroom. I called Mr. Wong and gave him our address. “Come get your shitty kid.” I hung up the phone and kicked a hole in the wall. Mr. Wong had already called the police, because he hadn’t given permission for Olivia to come home with me. He never would’ve, if he’d known where I lived.
Mr. Wong stood in our doorway and tucked his kid behind him. Mr. Wong had ironed clothes and perfect white blocks of ivory in his mouth and a real reasonable tone of voice. He suggested me and Olivia stop spending time together. He asked Mom not to put me in Girl Scouts.
By Monday, kids at school were whispering. The rumors must have started with Olivia. On Wednesday, someone threw a rock at me during recess. Back in the classroom, I took a pair of scissors from my desk, grabbed hold of Olivia’s ponytail, and snipped it right off the top of her head. I shoved it down the back of her collared shirt while she screamed, and voilà! I got my first suspension.
That was one way to decapitate a childhood friendship.
I was the daughter of a murderer. Scissors were the least of it. I promised to be myself from then on. I broke that promise with the invention of Rose Poplawski.
Except it turns out that Rose dies in the darkness, and Kalyn thrives.
Kalyn, not Rose, snorts herself stupid, hearing Gus Peake dissect fashion trends and make painful puns, watching Gus Peake drool over the Gaggle dweebs. Kalyn is toleratin’ Gus’s doomed attempts to pitch his weirdo best friend as a catch.
“I’ll dress him for you,” Gus tells me. “I could dress him up in J-fashion.”
“J-fashion?”
“Japanese street fashion! Like visual kei, or gyaru, or lolita, or—”
I wish I had a camera that could capture the way folks light up when they’re talking about things they care about. But a picture won’t show how Gus goes from slumping and wounded to leaning forward and electric. It can’t show how color enters his face when it wasn’t there a blink ago, or how the air feels suddenly warmer because there’s love heating his words.
It’s not just that Gus is my first friend in a decade. It’s not just that I’ve been snagged by wiry eyes or caught in the clutter of his speech.
I almost believe—no, hell—I do believe that once Gus finally sees where I live, finally meets Grandma and Mom and hears our stupid redneck backstory, he’ll still want me to be Kalyn, and he’ll still wanna be my friend.
Gus understands what it’s like, having people make assumptions. When he finds out Dad’s in prison, I don’t think he’ll hold it against me. When I tell Gus my dad’s a murderer, I bet Gus’s dad won’t even come knocking on my door.
“So. About the whole homecoming pickle, Guspar.”
“Also not my name.”
It’s Monday, October 2nd. The parade and homecoming game are on Friday, and the dance is on Saturday. You can’t get away from knowing that, here in Jefferson Prison. There are banners hanging off banners. Our kiln is the only patch of turf in the whole building that hasn’t been infested with rogue pom-poms.
If we can get over the Philcoming hurdle, we can jump the big ole “Dad’s a murderer” one next.
“The pickle is, I’m not interested in Phil, not that way. It’s not because he thinks I’m slightly fictional or even because he made you stalk me, which is still fucked as shit.”
“Okay.” Gus looks damn-near relieved. “Is it the acne?”
“It’s the penis, actually. Not my thing.”
I wait for some loud reaction—years back, when I told Mom, she knocked over some vegetable oil and set the stove on fire before hollering that I was officially the most rebellious Spence in history—but this is Gus.
“I’ll inform him of this stip-stipulation, but I don’t think he’ll part with that.”
I elbow his arm. “Yeah, and I don’t think you’d want him to.”
Gus pauses to put the words in the right order. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ain’t you in love with Phil?” The dim lighting in this old closet makes amber jack-o’-lantern cutouts of Gus’s eyes.
“In love?” Like he’s never thought about it. “With Phil?”
“You’re always shivering, but you’re not always trembling, Gus.”
“If I . . . love Phil, why would I set him up with you?”
“Because that’s what he wants, and you want what he wants. Because even if he’s a creep, he’s your favorite creep. You want Phil to creep on up to happiness.”
I like the way Gus cocks his head to the side when he’s thinking, like he’s chewing the cud of the impossible.
“I’m callin’ it. You’re head-over-heels, call-a-priest gay for Quillpower.”
Gus is a humanoid forehead crease. “Have you seen Phil?”
“Not how you see him, apparently!”
Gus frowns like the dickens, and Charles Dickens could definitely frown. “I’m not gay, not exactly. I don’t think I am.”
“What are you, then?”
“Confused,” he says, heart-attack serious.
“Yep. That’s pretty gay.”
“But my parents are already gay! And you’re gay!”
“You sayin’ we’re over our quota? Because I don’t think that’s ever stopped straight people.”
His creases won’t iron out. “Who are you gay for? Sarah?”
“Dunno right now.” Honestly, it probably is Sarah. I’ve been to her farmhouse a few times, met her parents, and studied with her after school like a good little Rose. But ever since I called her out for laughing at Gus, Sarah’s smiles are harder to swallow. I skip lunch to hang out with the kid who made her aware of her stinkin’ mortality.
“Phil would say, um, that it’s too much for one character. I’m already the disabled kid. I have a tragic backstory. The last thing my character arc needs is another complication.”
“Does it have to be a complication?” I wonder what he means by tragic backstory, but man, do I know better than to ask. “Here’s your daily reminder that life ain’t a story, Gusteban. Maybe we’re all a little gay for our best friends.”
I reach up and muss his curls. I think Gus likes it when I touch him, based on how he leans into it. “You should come over for dinner and meet my moms,” he says.
I remember the tears of Olivia Wong. “You want me to come over?”
“Um. Did I say it wrong?”
I sit up and hug him in the dark. I wonder if both of us were just dyin’ to be known a little. I let go before he does. I’m always blindsided by how tense Gus is. He’s an actual coiled spring.
“Will Phil be joining us?”
“Um . . . maybe not.” Gus puts his good hand on his chin. “Come as Kalyn. I don’t like Rose as much.”
“Me neither.” I’m not sure whether I’m lying. I’m wondering whether my gunpowder marrow is dissolving. Maybe there’s nothing raw and red about me anymore.
“I’m going to wear the space brace tomorrow, I think,” Gus says. The bell rings.
“I don’t know what that means, Guthrie, but good for you.”
We take a moment to smack the dust off each other.
GUS
JUST WEEKS AGO, I was content spending my days admiring the Gaggle from afar, riding to and from school with Phil, playing tabletop gam
es at his house. Living in a tomb, but with the doors flung open: that felt like enough to ask for.
I never meant to make friends with anyone.
Kalyn smells like smoke, but she’s not afraid to touch me. She doesn’t pull punches. She treats me like a person worth being around. Sometimes she says tactless things about my CP, or about Phil. She isn’t always patient while I’m thinking. But . . .
“You’re the only person I can cut loose around,” she says.
Ditto.
It’s not quite carefreedom, because we’re both careful. But Kalyn’s never ashamed of anything. She’s never uncomfortable.
On the Tuesday before homecoming, the ride to school in the Death Van is uncomfortable. I’ve spent every day of my life for the past decade with Phil, but I’ve never felt this aware of him before.
I can understand why Kalyn thinks I love Phil. Phil’s a constant comfort in my life. I care about him more than I care about anyone else, but there’s never been much competition. My camp friends are far away. They don’t factor into my daily existence.
“Honestly, compatriot, you’re not heeding me. Again.”
Thanks to Kalyn, I have to consider that the reason I squirmed when Phil asked me to ask her out might be because I wanted him to ask me instead. I wasn’t ready to deal with that yesterday. I called Tamara for a ride and told Phil I had an appointment.
Now I have to face him, and I still don’t know. When it comes to people, I care about personality before anything else, and gender’s another characteristic that factors into that. Maybe that does land me in one queer realm or another, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in love with Phil Wheeler, does it?
You’re all he’s got, too. That’s what Mr. Wheeler said.
I’m so gay and confused.
For once, Phil turns the music down. “If the answer’s no, just tell me, Gus.” When Phil drops his Shakespearean gimmick, it’s serious.