John Green & David Levithan

by Will Grayson (v5) Will Grayson

  I stop walking. “Um, do you need me to help or something?”

  He shakes his head no. “No offense, Grayson, but what exactly are your theater credentials?”

  He’s walking away from me, and I try to stand my ground, but then finally chase after him up the steps to school, because I’ve got a burning question. “Then why the hell did you wake me up at five forty-three in the morning?”

  He turns to me now. It becomes impossible not to feel Tiny’s immensity as he stands over me, shoulders back, his width almost entirely blocking the school behind him, his body a bundle of tiny tremors. His eyes are open unnaturally wide, like a zombie’s. “Well, I needed to tell someone,” he says.

  I think about that a minute, and then follow him into the auditorium. For the next hour, I watch Tiny as he runs around the theater like a rampaging lunatic, mumbling to himself. He puts masking tape down on the floor to mark the spots of his imaginary sets; he pirouettes across the stage as he hums song lyrics in fast motion; and every so often he shouts, “It’s not about Tiny! It’s about love!” Then people start to file in for their first period drama class, so Tiny and I go to precalc, and Tiny performs the Big-Man-in-Small-Desk miracle, and I experience the traditional amazement, and school is boring, and then at lunch I’m sitting with Gary and Nick and Tiny, and Tiny is talking about his blinding light spiritual awakening in a manner that—nothing against Tiny—kind of implies that maybe Tiny has not fully internalized the idea that the earth does not spin around the axis of Tiny Cooper, and then I say to Gary, “Hey, where is Jane?”

  And Gary says, “Sick.”

  To which Nick adds, “Sick in the I’m-spending-the-day-with-my-boyfriend-at-the-botanical-gardens kind of way.” Gary shoots Nick a disapproving look.

  Tiny quickly changes the subject, and I try to laugh at all the appropriate moments for the rest of lunch, but I’m not listening.

  I know that she is dating Douchepants McWater Polo, and I know that sometimes when you date people you engage in idiotic activities like going to the botanical gardens, but in spite of all the knowledge that ought to protect me, I still feel like shit for the rest of the day. One of these days, I keep telling myself, you’ll learn to truly shut up and not care. And until then . . . well, until then I’ll keep taking deep breaths because it feels like the wind got knocked out of me. For all my not crying, I sure feel a hell of a lot worse than I did at the end of All Dogs Go to Heaven.

  I call Tiny after school, but I get his voice mail, so I send him a text: “The Original Will Grayson requests the pleasure of a phone call whenever possible.” He doesn’t call until 9:30. I’m sitting on the couch watching a dumb romantic comedy with my parents. The plates from our take-out-Chinese-put-on-real-plates-so-you-feel-like-it’s-a-homemade dinner fill the coffee table. Dad is falling asleep, as he always does when he’s not working. Mom sits closer to me than seems necessary.

  Watching the movie, I can’t stop thinking about wanting to be at the ridiculous botanical gardens with Jane. Just walking around, her in that hoodie, and me making jokes about the Latin names of the plants, and her saying that ficaria verna would be a good name for a nerdcore hip-hop crew that only raps in Latin, and so on. I can picture the whole damned thing, actually, and it almost makes me desperate enough to complain to Mom about the situation, but that will only mean questions about Jane for the next seven to ten years. My parents get so few details about my private life that whenever they do stumble upon some morsel, they cling to it for eons. I wish they’d do a better job of hiding their desire for me to have tons of friends and girlfriends.

  Sobutand Tiny calls, and I say, “Hey,” and then I get up and go to my room and close the door behind me, and in all that time, Tiny doesn’t say anything, so I say, “Hello?”

  And he says, “Yeah, hi,” distractedly. I hear typing.

  “Tiny, are you typing?”

  After a moment he says, “Hold on. Let me finish this sentence.”

  “Tiny, you called me.”

  Silence. Typing. And then, “Yeah, I know. But I’m, uh, I gotta change the last song. Can’t be about me. Has to be about love.”

  “I wish I hadn’t kissed her. The whole boyfriend thing kind of like gnaws at my brain.”

  And then I’m quiet for a while, and finally he says, “Sorry, I just got an IM from Will. He’s telling me about lunch with this new gay friend he’s got. I know it’s not a date if it’s in the cafeteria, but still. Gideon. He sounds hot. It is pretty awesome that Will’s so out, though. He like came out to everyone in the entire world. I swear to God I think he wrote the president of the United States and was like, ‘Dear Mr. President, I am gay. Yours truly, Will Grayson. ’ It’s fucking beautiful, Grayson.”

  “Did you even hear what I said?”

  “Jane and her boyfriend ate your brain,” he answers disinterestedly.

  “I swear, Tiny, sometimes . . .” I stop myself from saying something pathetic and start over. “Do you want to do something after school tomorrow? Darts or something at your house?”

  “Rehearsal then rewrites then Will on the phone then bed. You can sit in on rehearsal if you want.”

  “Nah,” I say. “It’s cool.”

  After I hang up, I try to read Hamlet for a while, but I don’t understand it that well, and I have to keep looking over to the right margin where they define the words, and it just makes me feel like an idiot.

  Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That’s me: I’m not that.

  I’m lying on top of the covers with my clothes still on, the play still on my chest, eyes closed, mind racing. I’m thinking about Tiny. The pathetic thing I wanted to say to him on the phone—but didn’t—was this: When you’re a little kid, you have something. Maybe it’s a blanket or a stuffed animal or whatever. For me, it was this stuffed prairie dog that I got one Christmas when I was like three. I don’t even know where they found a stuffed prairie dog, but whatever, it sat up on its hind legs and I called him Marvin, and I dragged Marvin around by his prairie dog ears until I was about ten.

  And then at some point, it was nothing personal against Marvin, but he started spending more time in the closet with my other toys, and then more time, until finally Marvin became a full-time resident of the closet.

  But for many years afterward, sometimes I would get Marvin out of the closet and just hang out with him for a while—not for me, but for Marvin. I realized it was crazy, but I still did it.

  And the thing I wanted to say to Tiny is that sometimes, I feel like his Marvin.

  I remember us together: Tiny and me in gym in middle school, how the athletic wear company didn’t make gym shorts big enough to fit him, so he looked like he was wearing a skintight bathing suit. Tiny dominating at dodgeball despite his width, and always letting me finish second just by virtue of putting me in his shadow and not spiking me until the end. Tiny and me at the gay pride parade in Boys Town, ninth grade, him saying, “Grayson, I’m gay,” and me being like, “Oh, really? Is the sky blue? Does the sun rise in the east? Is the Pope Catholic?” and him being like, “Is Tiny Cooper fabulous? Do birds weep from the beauty when they hear Tiny Cooper sing?”

  I think about how much depends upon a best friend. When you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don’t scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it’s not.

  It’s stupid to blame the other Will Grayson for something that was happening before the other Will Grayson existed. And yet.

  And yet I keep thinking about him, and thinking about his eyes unblinking in Frenchy’s, waiting for someone who didn’t exist. In my memory, his eyes get bigger and bigger, almost like he’s a manga character. And then I’m thinking about that guy, Isaac, who was a girl. But the things that were said that made Will go to Frenchy’s to meet that guy—those things were said. They were real.

  All at once I grab
my phone from off my bedside table and call Jane. Voice mail. I look at the clock on the phone: it’s 9:42. I call Gary. He picks up on the fifth ring.

  “Will?”

  “Hey, Gary. Do you know Jane’s address?”

  “Um, yes?”

  “Can you give it to me?”

  He pauses. “Are you going all stalker on me, Will?”

  “No, I swear, I have a question about science,” I say.

  “You have a Tuesday night at nine forty-two question about science?”

  “Correct.”

  “Seventeen twelve Wesley.”

  “And where is her bedroom?”

  “I have to tell you, man, that my stalker meter is kind of registering in the red zone right now.” I say nothing, waiting. And then finally he says, “If you’re facing the house, it’s front and left.”

  “Awesome, thanks.”

  I grab the keys off the kitchen counter on my way out, and Dad asks where I’m going, and I try just getting by with, “Out,” but that just results in the pausing of the TV. He comes up close as if to remind me he is just a little bit taller than I am, and sternly asks, “Out with whom and to where?”

  “Tiny wants my help with his stupid play.”

  “Back by eleven,” Mom says from the couch.

  “Okay,” I say.

  I walk down the street to the car. I can see my breath, but I don’t feel cold except on my gloveless hands, and I stand outside the car for a second, looking at the sky, the orange light coming from the city to the south, the leafless streetside trees quiet in the breeze. I open the door, which cracks the silence, and drive the mile to Jane’s house. I find a spot half a block down and walk back up the street to an old, two-story house with a big porch. Those houses don’t come cheap. There’s a light on in the front-left room, but as soon as I get there, I don’t want to walk up. What if she’s changing? What if she’s lying in bed and she sees a creepy guy face pressed against the glass? What if she’s making out with Randall McBitchsquealer? So I send her a text: “Take this in the least stalkery way possible: Im outside ur house.” It’s 9:47. I figure I’ll wait until the clock turns over to 9:50 and then leave. I shove one hand into my jeans and hold the phone with the other, pressing the volume up button each time the screen goes blank. It’s been 9:49 for at least ten seconds when the front door opens and Jane peers outside.

  I wave very slightly, my hand not even rising above my head. Jane puts a finger to her lips, and then dramatically tiptoes out of the house and very slowly closes the door behind her. She walks down the steps of the porch, and in the porch light I can see that she’s wearing the same green hoodie but now with red flannel pajama pants and socks. No shoes.

  She walks up to me and whisper-says, “It’s a slightly creepy delight to see you.”

  And I say, “I have a science question.”

  She smiles and nods. “Of course you do. You’re wondering how it’s scientifically possible that you’re paying oh-so-much attention to me now that I have a boyfriend when you were totally uninterested in me before. Sadly, science is baffled by the mysteries of boy psychology.”

  But I do have a science question—about Tiny and me, and about her, and about cats. “Can you explain to me about Schrödinger’s cat?”

  “Come on,” she says, and reaches out for my coat and pulls me down the sidewalk. I’m walking beside her, not saying anything, and she’s mumbling, “God God God God God God God,” and I say, “What’s wrong?” and she says, “You. You, Grayson. You’re what’s wrong,” and I say, “What?” and she says, “You know,” and I say, “No I don’t,” and she—still walking and not looking at me—says, “There are probably some girls who don’t want guys to show up at their house randomly on a Tuesday night with questions about Edwin Schrödinger. I am sure such girls exist. But they don’t live at my house.”

  We get five or six houses past Jane’s, near to where my car is parked, and then she turns toward a house with a FOR SALE sign and walks up the stairs to a porch swing. She sits down and pats a place next to her.

  “Nobody lives here?” I ask.

  “No. It’s been for sale for, like, a year.”

  “You’ve probably made out with the Douche on this swing.”

  “I probably have,” she answers. “Schrödinger was doing a thought experiment. Okay, so, this paper had just come out arguing that if, like, an electron might be in any one of four different places, it is sort of in all four places at the same time until the moment someone determines which of the four places it’s in. Does that make sense?”

  “No,” I say. She’s wearing little white socks, and I can see her ankle when she kicks up her feet to keep the swing swinging.

  “Right, it totally doesn’t make sense. It’s mind-bendingly weird. So Schrödinger tries to point this out. He says: put a cat inside a sealed box with a little bit of radioactive stuff that might or might not—depending on the location of its subatomic particles—cause a radiation detector to trip a hammer that releases poison into the box and kills the cat. Got it?”

  “I think so,” I say.

  “So, according to the theory that electrons are in all-possible-positions until they are measured, the cat is both alive and dead until we open the box and find out if it is alive or dead. He was not endorsing cat-killing or anything. He was just saying that it seemed a little improbable that a cat could be simultaneously alive and dead.”

  But it doesn’t seem that improbable to me. It seems to me that all the things we keep in sealed boxes are both alive and dead until we open the box, that the unobserved is both there and not. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop thinking about the other Will Grayson’s huge eyes in Frenchy’s: because he had just rendered the dead-and-alive cat dead. I realize that’s why I never put myself in a situation where I really need Tiny, and why I followed the rules instead of kissing her when she was available: I chose the closed box. “Okay,” I say. I don’t look at her. “I think I get it.”

  “Well, that’s not all, actually. It turns out to be somewhat more complicated.”

  “I don’t think I’m smart enough to handle more complicated,” I say.

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” she says.

  The porch swing creaks as I try to think everything through. I look over at her.

  “Eventually, they figured out that keeping the box closed doesn’t actually keep the cat alive-and-dead. Even if you don’t observe the cat in whatever state it’s in, the air in the box does. So keeping the box closed just keeps you in the dark, not the universe.”

  “Got it,” I say. “But failing to open the box doesn’t kill the cat.” We aren’t talking about physics anymore.

  “No,” she says. “The cat was already dead—or alive, as the case may be.”

  “Well, the cat has a boyfriend,” I say.

  “Maybe the physicist likes that the cat has a boyfriend.”

  “Possible,” I say.

  “Friends,” she says.

  “Friends,” I say. We shake on it.

  chapter fourteen

  mom insists that before i go anywhere with tiny, he has to come over for dinner. i’m sure she checks all the sex predator websites beforehand. she doesn’t trust that i met him over the internet. and, given the circumstances, i can’t really blame her. she’s a little surprised when i go along with the plan, even if i do tell her

  me: just don’t ask about his forty-three ex-boyfriends, okay? or ask him about why he’s carrying around an axe.

  mom: . . .

  me: i’m kidding about the axe part.

  but really, nothing i can say can calm the woman down. it’s insane. she puts on those yellow rubber gloves and starts scrubbing with the intensity you usually reserve for when someone’s thrown up all over the furniture. i tell her she really doesn’t have to do that, because it’s not like tiny’s going to be eating off the floor. but she just waves me away and tells me to clean up my room.

  i mean to clean up my room. reall
y, i do. but all i manage to do is wipe the history from my web browser, and then i’m totally exhausted. it’s not like i don’t wipe the snot flakes from my bed in the morning. i’m a pretty clean guy. all the dirty clothes are shoved in the bottom of my closet. he’s not going to see them.

  finally, it’s time for him to get here. at school, gideon asks me if i’m nervous about tiny coming over, and i tell him i’m totally not. but, yeah, that’s a lie. mostly i’m nervous about my mom and how she’s going to act.

  i’m waiting for him in the kitchen, and mom’s running around like a madwoman.

  mom: i should fix the salad.

  me: why should you fix the salad?

  mom: doesn’t tiny like salad?

  me: i told you, i think tiny would eat baby seals if we gave them to him. but i mean, why do you have to fix the salad? who broke it? i didn’t touch it. did you break the salad, mom? if you did, YOU’D BETTER FIX IT!

  i’m joking, but she’s not really finding it funny. and i’m thinking, aren’t i supposed to be the one who’s freaking out here? tiny is going to be the first b-b-b- (i can’t do it) boy-f-f-f (c’mon, will) boyf-boyf (here we go) boyfriend of mine that she’s ever met. although if she keeps talking about salad, i might have to lock her in her bedroom before he comes over.

  mom: you’re sure he doesn’t have any allergies?

  me: calm. down.

  like i suddenly have supercanine sound skills, i hear a car pulling into the driveway. before mom can tell me to comb my hair and put on some shoes, i’m out the front door and watching tiny turn off the ignition.