Blue Jeans and Sweatshirts

by Jo Ramsey

  Because of it, Guillermo had quit sports, and that sucked. He was one of our school’s best athletes, and now he refused to be on any teams because of one or two ignorant jackwads.

  There were a couple of other openly gay guys in the drama club. They got hassled too, but since they mostly stuck together and hung out with other drama people, they didn’t get it as bad as Evan. And I’d heard people speculating that Xan and Alyssa were a couple, but since neither of them really talked to anyone else at school, no one knew for sure.

  I didn’t want to be another name on the list of people to harass. I’d been picked on because of my weight, and for being in drama club, and a few other things over the years, but that was all minor stuff. Everyone teased someone about something, and it didn’t bother me.

  If they knew the truth about my sexuality, though, things would get worse, and I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I had enough problems.

  “Think hard,” Evan said. “I’m not saying you should tell everyone you’re a lesbian. Maybe you should tell your parents and my mom, at least, but not people at school. Your friends who would accept it already know. I’m just saying maybe you should ‘break up’ with Nathan. If you don’t want to be open about you and Chastaine, that’s fine, but at least stop covering it up by acting like you and Nathan are together.”

  “I said I’ll think about it,” I snapped. “I’m not making any promises. I’d want to talk to Nathan and Chastaine first, for one thing. See what they think. Nathan made it sound like he wants to keep doing the fake couple thing so people won’t figure out he’s gay, but he wants me to stop hanging around with Chastaine so much. I don’t know what Chastaine thinks. But I’m not the only one involved, so I’m not changing anything without talking to them.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Evan picked up his tea again. “At least admit to yourself that you’re not straight and you’re dating a girl, and think about whether you’re being fair to yourself and them. Can you promise me that much?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” That didn’t necessarily mean I would. Only that I wouldn’t completely refuse.

  “Thanks.” He picked up the remote. “I’ll stop lecturing you now. You know I’m just trying to help, right? We cousins have to look out for each other.”

  “Yeah. I know.” I gave him something I hoped looked like a smile. It didn’t feel like one. I was still too annoyed. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He started the TV show again and stopped talking while he watched the pageant coach encourage some girl to try on a sparkly dress and makeup. I drank my tea and tried to pretend I didn’t feel about five times fatter than the girl on the show.

  Chapter 6

  AFTER MY tea and some celery at Evan’s, followed by the plain chicken breast and a couple of spoonfuls of corn my parents made me eat when I got home, I felt less annoyed. And for the first time in a few days, my head didn’t hurt at all.

  I’d eaten too much as far as I was concerned, but I couldn’t deny I felt a little better. Maybe Evan and the other people who kept getting on my case weren’t totally wrong. Except when I looked in my mirror the next morning, I looked fatter than the day before.

  While I showered and got dressed and ready for school, I tried not to look at anything that would show my reflection. When I put on one of my old outfits, the jeans were so loose they almost fell off, so obviously I hadn’t gained any weight in the past twenty-four hours. I didn’t remember those jeans being so loose when I’d tried them on only a few days earlier, so maybe I’d actually lost more weight, no matter what the mirror said.

  Mom and Dad hadn’t left for work yet, and when I walked into the kitchen, Mom handed me a glass of skim milk. “I won’t try to make you eat breakfast, but please at least drink this.”

  “I’ll try.” That was becoming my favorite answer, mainly because I didn’t know what else to say when people kept pushing food on me. I took a sip of the milk and sat at the table across from Dad, who had a few slices of toast and a glass of orange juice in front of him.

  “Your mom and I wanted to talk to you,” he said.

  “Oh.” Here we go again. I was getting tired of all the serious discussions. I was sixteen. Old enough to live my life and make decisions without everyone else telling me what I should do. But it seemed like no one agreed with that.

  Mom joined us at the table with a cup of coffee. “We were glad to see you eating last night,” she said. “And that bothered me. Eating is just something people do, not something a parent should be proud of their teenager for doing.”

  “If you say so.” I fidgeted with my glass. I couldn’t walk out on my parents any more than I could have on Evan, but I really wanted to.

  “I’ve been talking to Imogen,” Mom said. “She gave me the name of Evan’s counselor. I called yesterday. Brooke won’t see you, because it’s the practice’s policy not to have a counselor seeing two members of the same family unless it’s joint counseling. But she gave me the name of another counselor in the practice.”

  “I don’t need counseling.” I tried to keep my tone completely bland, but inside I was seething, as Evan would have said. Leave it to my parents to decide I was crazy. Now I definitely wished I could get the hell out of there, but if I’d tried, they probably would have come after me.

  “We’d like you to meet her and talk to her,” Dad said. “Her name is Lorraine. You have an appointment with her this afternoon. I’ll be picking you up at school to take you.”

  This time I couldn’t stay calm. “I don’t need counseling!” I shouted. “Why the hell can’t you guys leave me alone?”

  “Because you’re acting like this.” Mom’s voice sounded choked. “Because you don’t see anything wrong with passing out from not eating. Because I don’t know what’s going on with you anymore, but you’re angry all the time, and we’re worried.”

  I let go of my glass so I wouldn’t smash it on the floor. I wasn’t in the mood to clean up broken glass. “What if I have something more important to do after school?”

  “What do you have to do?” Dad demanded.

  I didn’t answer right away. There was no answer. We weren’t having a support group meeting, since no one could get their acts together to schedule one. Drama club wasn’t meeting again until the following week. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hang out with any of my friends, even if that would have given me a good excuse.

  “Homework,” I said finally.

  “Your appointment is at three thirty, and it’s an intake appointment, which means you’ll only be there for about fifteen minutes,” Mom said. “You’ll be home in plenty of time to do your homework. We don’t want to make this into an ultimatum, Holly, but we will if we have to.”

  “Whatever.” That meant they would ground me or take away my phone or something if I didn’t do what they wanted. Even if I wasn’t planning to go anywhere or text or call anyone, I didn’t want to deal with being punished for something stupid. I didn’t have much choice.

  “I’ll pick you up at the end of school,” Dad said. “Right in front of the building.”

  “Fine.” I touched my glass but didn’t pick it up. I hadn’t had any appetite when I woke up, and now I damn sure didn’t want to put anything in my stomach. I was so angry I was afraid I’d puke all over the table.

  “Just go to this appointment,” Mom said. “We’ll see what happens from there. We aren’t asking you to promise any more than that right now.”

  “I said fine.” I got up. I couldn’t keep sitting there with both of them staring at me. I’d listened to what they wanted to say, so there wasn’t any point in being there any longer. “Are there any further orders?”

  “You said you’d drink your milk.” Mom sounded tired.

  I started to tell her I’d drink it after they left, but the way she was looking at me, I doubted she would go along with that. She probably figured if they didn’t watch me drink it, I would dump it down the sink as soon as they were gone.

 
; I couldn’t honestly say I wouldn’t, so I picked up the glass and slowly sipped the milk for a few minutes while Mom watched me and Dad finished his breakfast.

  Finally they left, even though I still had milk in my glass. Apparently they figured watching me drink wasn’t worth being late for work. As soon as they were gone, I poured the rest of my milk into the sink.

  I skipped the donut shop. After what my parents had pulled, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone else, especially in a place where more people would probably have bugged me about eating or drinking something. Instead I went straight to the school library, which opened half an hour before school started for the kids who couldn’t do their homework at home.

  Xan and Alyssa were the only other students in there, and both of them looked over at me when I walked in. I figured now was as good a time as any to find out whether they wanted anything to do with the support group, not to mention when they were available for meetings. I’d pretty much decided to leave everything up to Chastaine, but I was starting to feel like if I didn’t take some control, nothing more was going to happen.

  I sat at their table without asking. “Hey. Evan said you guys wanted to be part of our support group?”

  “Yeah.” Alyssa fiddled with the plastic bracelets on her left wrist and didn’t look at me. Her hair was shorter than it had been before vacation, almost a crew cut but with a longer chunk almost covering her right eye. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s a great idea.”

  “Me neither, but I told Evan we’d give it a shot.” Xan looked out at me from under her hood. “When’s the next meeting? He said you guys had one last week, but we couldn’t make it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’re still trying to figure it out. Everyone has different schedules. I just asked to find out whether you guys were still interested once we get our act together.”

  “I have counseling on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Alyssa said.

  “I have stuff going on sometimes,” Xan said in a tone that let me know it would be a bad idea to ask what her “stuff” was.

  Not that I would have asked. No one asked questions about Xan. The only thing I knew about her was something had happened to her in middle school, and since then, half the time when she was at school, she wasn’t in class. And sometimes she wasn’t even at school. I’d heard rumors, but I figured they were like most rumors. Half true, half crap. And mostly none of my business.

  “Okay, well, if you guys still want to be part of the group, I’ll pass it on,” I said. “Everyone has activities and sports and whatever, so this is getting complicated. But I think we can work around Tuesdays and Thursdays, anyway.”

  “Don’t rearrange things on my account,” Alyssa said. “Like I said, I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I don’t exactly enjoy talking about what happened. Plus that’s what I’m in counseling for, so I don’t see why I should talk to other people about it.”

  “I understand.” I didn’t want to get into all the reasons having someone else to talk to might be good for her. I couldn’t be entirely sure I would know what I was talking about. Maybe counseling was enough. I didn’t know, since I’d never had it.

  Though according to my parents, that was about to change.

  “We have to get some stuff done,” Xan said. “Thanks for checking in with us.”

  “Um, sure.” I stood up. The way she was glaring at me didn’t leave me much choice.

  Neither of them said anything else, so I went to another table and sat down to stare at the door until it was time to go to class. It wasn’t exactly exciting, but it was better than the halls or cafeteria, and way better than the donut shop would have been.

  When the bell finally rang, I went to first period. Chastaine was standing by the classroom door, looking irritated. I thought about ignoring her, but she probably wouldn’t have taken it well, so I went over to her. “Hi.”

  “Where were you?” she demanded. “And what’s even going on? I thought we fixed things yesterday, but then you started avoiding me again.”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t want to get into any discussion with her in the middle of the hall. “I keep getting ticked off, and then you get ticked off, and I don’t even know.”

  “So we’re done?”

  I was too tired to figure out what she meant right away. Then I realized she was talking about our relationship, or whatever we had. “That’s up to you, I guess. I mean….” I stopped as a few people walked between us. “Look, can we talk about this at lunch or something? This isn’t a good time.”

  “What about coming over after school?” she asked.

  “Can’t. My dad’s picking me up.” I hoped she wouldn’t ask why.

  “Okay. Lunch, then.” She didn’t look thrilled. “Promise?”

  “Yeah. I promise.” That was one promise I would actually keep. I wanted to figure out where we were with each other as much as she did.

  We couldn’t talk any more right then. Everyone was trying to get into the room before the late bell rang, and there was no way they wouldn’t overhear us. I went in and sat at the back of the room, ignoring the glare from the guy whose seat I’d swiped. I didn’t feel like being in my usual seat up front. I wanted to stay out of the way.

  By lunchtime I was dreading talking to Chastaine. I had way too much to say, and we only had half an hour for lunch. Plus there was no way to know what she would tell me, and I was a little afraid to find out.

  She got to the cafeteria before me and staked out a table near the entrance, where it was a little quieter and less crowded than where we usually sat. When I joined her, sitting beside her in response to her pointing at that seat, she put a bottle of water and a tray containing a piece of grilled chicken and some carrot sticks in front of me. “It’s supposed to be a chicken sandwich, but I figured you wouldn’t eat the roll.”

  “Thanks.” I stared at the food. My stomach growled, reminding me that other than the milk, I hadn’t eaten all day. Even though that wasn’t a bad thing as far as I was concerned, my head hurt and I wanted to snarl at everyone. Eating a little bit the day before had helped with those things, so I hoped it would have the same effect now.

  I nibbled one of the carrot sticks while Chastaine took a bite of her chicken sandwich. After she swallowed, she said, “So what is going on? We got into an argument Friday, and then yesterday we said everything was okay. But you haven’t really talked to me since then.”

  “You could have called me,” I pointed out. “Or texted, or IMed, or something. Instead of, you know, just wondering and then ambushing me in the hall.”

  “I wanted to talk to you face-to-face,” she said. “Which wasn’t something I could do before school, since you didn’t show up at the donut shop. We were worried.”

  “Again, someone could have called or texted.” I was kind of surprised Evan hadn’t. Usually he freaked out if I didn’t show up where he expected me to.

  “Evan said maybe your parents were talking to you, so you didn’t leave your house early enough.” She shrugged. “He said to leave you alone, and I figure since he’s your cousin, he knows better than me.”

  “I guess.” I put down the half of the carrot stick I hadn’t eaten yet and took a sip of water. “I left my house at the usual time. I just didn’t feel like sitting there with all the donuts and fattening drinks.”

  “Okay.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m not going to start on that. Anyway, so are we good or not? I’m not sure what’s going on right now, but if you want to call this off, I’m fine with it. I wouldn’t be happy, but it would be better than wondering.”

  “I don’t know.” I rubbed my forehead. “I mean…. Shit.”

  She blinked a couple of times. “I don’t usually hear you swear.”

  “There’s too much going on, and I can’t make decisions.” My voice broke. I pressed my hands against my eyes. The only thing worse than having a serious discussion in the school cafeteria would be crying there.

  “Tell me,”
she said.

  I didn’t plan to tell her anything, but I started talking, and it all kind of poured out. “Nathan’s pissed at me because people are starting to guess that I’m seeing you, which means I’m not seeing him. And according to him, if I’m not seeing him, people will realize he’s gay. He doesn’t want anyone to know about him, so I’m supposed to keep pretending to be his girlfriend, which means no one can figure out about you and me. And my parents are making me go to a counselor. And you took over the support group stuff, which doesn’t really matter because it sounds like no one’s ever actually going to schedule another meeting anyway.”

  I stopped. I was even closer to crying now, and if I’d kept talking, I wouldn’t have been able to keep the tears where they belonged.

  “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I know how you feel. Sort of. I know how it feels to have everything going to shit, anyway.”

  I didn’t know whether she meant she’d dealt with worse stuff than me, or if she was genuinely being sympathetic. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She glanced around then touched my hand. “You’re fine. So one thing at a time, all right? I want to help.”

  “Okay.” I doubted she’d be able to do much, but if it made her feel better to try, I didn’t have any reason to stop her.

  “So.” She paused to eat another bite of her sandwich. I ate the rest of my carrot stick while I waited.

  “The support group,” she said finally. “I didn’t mean to take over. I’m kind of used to running things, and I didn’t think. I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes or something.”

  “You didn’t even really let me talk at the meeting,” I said. “Or yesterday when we were trying to plan the next meeting.”

  “At the meeting, you were in a bad mood, and I wasn’t sure if you were going to go off on someone.” She held up her hand. “That isn’t an excuse. It’s just what I was thinking at the time, but I still should have given you a chance to talk. It was your idea, and I didn’t mean to steal it.”