I fiddle around with my bow tie and hair as Nate does the obligatory thank-you section to various teachers. Despite my bravado with Chloe, I’m not actually that confident of a win. At least, not from people voting for me. If anything’s gonna swing it, it’s the Dylan factor. He’s loved, so loved, there’s a chance the rest of the year might have backed him – and me, by default, although I’m well aware that would have been a very reluctant vote for most of them.
Dan and Beth have been dating since year seven, so are like this long-standing beacon of romance and loyalty (so obviously stand no chance because neither of those things are qualities any of this lot admire), but Chloe is a total backstabbing bitch, so is inexplicably incredibly popular and really does stand to take the crown, having been particularly vile for most of the year but going on a huge schmoozing campaign recently, so that people would feel so grateful she was being nice they’d actually vote for her, like some weird Stockholm syndrome type situation.
I turn my attention back to Nate.
“We’ve been through many ups and downs together. So, to every one of us who had to read a passage out in Science that contained the word ‘organism’ and said it wrong; to every one of us who couldn’t contain our laughter when Mr Higgins explained we’d be having a big discussion in class by saying we’d be having a ‘mass debate’; and to every one of us who discovered too late that if you do the high jump while wearing loose-fitting boxer shorts then there’s a high chance you’ll end up giving an unexpected anatomy lesson to some innocent bystanders – or maybe that was just me – I salute you. We made it. We’re here. So here’s to us, the graduating class of 2020.”
In fairness to him, there’s a lot of applause and a fair bit of cheering and, bless him, just for a second, he looks really proud of himself.
And now it’s time.
“Without further ado—” Nate begins, using a phrase that people only ever use in speeches, “I’d like to welcome the candidates for this year’s prom king and queen!”
More applause and cheering, and we troupe on to the stage, forming three couples, all to Nate’s right. Dylan’s already giggling and I give him a sharp dig in the kidney so he bucks up and takes it seriously. “This is so dumb,” he mumbles.
“Just smile,” I tell him, through gritted teeth.
Nate glances over us all, lingering slightly, but maybe I’m wrong, on me, before turning back to his lectern and microphone.
That’s when I notice how much his hands are shaking.
“Um, so,” he stutters, “I know the thing about prom king and queen is that it’s a vote, and lots of things can influence that, which aren’t always about who the most deserving winners are … how popular you are, that sort of thing…”
I like how he’s pre-empting a win by Chloe by throwing a certain amount of shade her way, but I’ve no idea where this is going.
“But also, I think prom king and queen is … should be a celebration of … well…” He swallows, really hard, like his Adam’s apple is stuck in his throat. “Well, it’s about being proud, I think. Proud of who you are, proud of your relationship, proud of your friends, of what you’ve achieved, proud of being you, and I … I think that’s something maybe we should all aspire to, and so what I think I’m trying to say—”
My eyes widen because I already know exactly how this is going to end (no one says “proud” that much without it meaning this), and I’m surprised, shocked, delighted, and I love him all at once, but also a little pang of sadness ripples through my stomach because, despite everything, this feels like something he would have shared with me first, once.
“I’m trying to say, am saying, telling you all, that … I’m gay.”
I turn to Dylan and reach for his hand because this is so cute.
“I’m gay and I don’t want to hide it from you any more.”
But Dylan is gazing out at someone in the crowd.
“If this is all about being who we are, then, this is me.”
I follow Dylan’s gaze. He’s looking at Tariq. Which is weird, because what’s this got to do with Tariq? And then he glances back at me. “Cool,” Dylan mutters, rubbing his nose.
Something feels off.
I move my hand back to my side.
“This is me,” Nate says again.
There are cheers and applause for Nate. Good for him. I join in, even though there’s a prickle of something unpleasant replicating through my veins.
“Something else,” Nate says, clearly taken aback, but also buoyed by the show of support in the room. “I am … seeing someone. And I really like him, and it’s Tariq, so, um…”
I glance down at Tariq again. People in his immediate vicinity are hugging him, and there are coos of support, a few “Ahhh”s and it feels like now is the moment Tariq needs to leap up onstage and give his brave boyfriend a kiss … but he doesn’t.
What he does do is shift his eyes, just for a second, to Dylan.
My breath catches.
And in that moment I know.
Nate gives Tariq a little wave from behind the podium. It’s awkward, heartbreaking in how sweet it is, and clear he wants him to come up and share the moment with him.
Nate swallows again, flushed and hot. “Anyway, that’s my super big piece of breaking news—”
A ripple of laughter from the crowd.
I edge a little closer to Dylan. “So,” I whisper.
Nate checks his notes. “I guess we should get back to the issue in hand – who will be crowned this year’s prom king and queen?!”
“So?” Dylan replies.
“Tariq,” I say.
“Yeah,” Dylan says. “Who knew? Dark horse, huh?”
“Very sly. How long’s it been going on?”
“How should I know? Shut up!” he hisses. “Just be happy for them!”
“Huh,” I nod. “Happy. Tariq didn’t exactly look happy just now.”
“He was surprised!” Dylan whispers.
“Surprised? How do you know he was surprised?”
“’Cause Nate didn’t say beforehand he was gonna do this.”
I nod, satisfied, and let Dylan think about what he’s just said.
“Huh,” I say. “And how do you know he didn’t tell him?”
Dylan’s eyes widen. “What the hell are you talking about, man?”
He says it too loud. Nate stumbles and is put off his stride. He gives us a nervous glance before carrying on. “The competition was particularly stiff this year…”
There’s laughter and a “Whoa-hey!” on the word “stiff” – year eleven being as immature and predictable as ever.
“I know what you’re implying,” Dylan hisses.
“And what’s that?”
Dylan licks his lips, swallows. “I dunno.”
“Oh, it’s just you literally just said you did know.”
“Stop trying to trip me up,” Dylan says, reaching for my hand. “Come here.”
I let him hold my hand, keeping some semblance of a smile on my face for the sake of the crowd, because this really isn’t the moment for a screaming row. Nate’s just come out. Nate’s just told everyone about his boyfriend. And apparently Nate’s boyfriend is screwing mine. Of that, I am ninety-nine per cent certain. I’m in shock, I’m just staring forward, I can feel my whole body shaking, I can’t even process the enormity of this yet, I know it’ll crush me … but I know it’ll kill Nate.
“Chill, dude,” Dylan whispers. “Doesn’t matter if we win or not, I’ll still love ya anyway!”
I do not reply.
I don’t have any words.
Nate’s brandishing a golden envelope. “I have the names of the winners from the secret ballot here, and I can tell you it was close, but there was a winner!”
Nate does that thing from TV talent shows where he waits way too long to announce the result.
“Please just tell us,” some girl shouts, with literally zero excitement in her voice.
“Sorry,” Nate
says. He clears his throat, opens the golden envelope, reads it and takes a deep breath. “The prom king and queen 2020 are…”
Total hush falls over the entire room.
“Jack Parker and Dylan Hooper.”
The room erupts in cheers.
Dylan throws his hands in the air, basking in it all, then he picks me up, lifts me off the floor and twirls me around.
I’m like a rag doll, and I just let him.
When I’m back on the floor, Nate is brandishing two golden crowns. “Please step forward so I can crown you,” Nate says.
Dylan is right up there, suddenly loving it all. I wander up behind him.
“Who’s king and who’s queen?” Nate whispers.
“Bit personal!” Dylan laughs.
Nate’s face is a picture of innocence, really not getting it.
“I think it’s obvious I’m the king,” Dylan adds.
“Huh. OK,” Nate says. “Please kneel!” he announces.
Dylan makes a big show of kneeling so his face is indecently close to Nate’s crotch, which elicits further cheers from the overexcited crowd, and a flurry of photos. “Say that to all the boys now, huh, Nate?” Dylan grins.
Nate just stares at him. “No,” he says. He glances nervously at the crowd, and then at Tariq. “I didn’t mean that.”
Whatever poison is multiplying inside me is reaching some kind of critical mass. I don’t care if we don’t talk any more. I don’t care if he hates me. We used to be best mates and Nate does not deserve any of this.
Nate raises the crown above Dylan’s head. “I hereby crown you—”
“WAIT!” I shout.
Everything stops. Everyone’s staring. I’m like the person who has barged into the church at the last moment with an objection to the marriage.
Nate’s wide-eyed, semi-terrified, frozen in mid-air with the crown in his hands.
“Do it, crown me!” Dylan tells him.
“Don’t!” I say. “Do not crown him.”
Dylan blows out a breath. “Wow, OK, let’s have some drama from Jack so this can all be about him.”
There’s an “oh my god” from somewhere in the crowd, and the atmosphere switches in that instant. I think, I guess, I hope, it’s because no one can quite believe the venom that just came out of Dylan’s mouth, because I certainly can’t. Dylan can be prickly, but it’s usually good-natured. Now he’s spitting poison at me, in front of everyone, like I’m actual dirt.
A surge of panic runs through me because there’s a chance this is all in my head. There’s a chance I’m about to make myself not only look stupid, but accuse the most popular boy in the school of cheating on me, and if I’m wrong, or even if I’m right, quite honestly, there’s no way back from that. But I know what I saw. I know in my gut. Dylan looked at Tariq before Nate even mentioned he was seeing Tariq. And that look … I know that look. Seen it many times before. A look that speaks of an understanding, a shared history, but something locked away, secret, not for other people.
I try to steady my erratic breathing. “Dylan,” I say. “Do you think, hand on heart, you should accept the crown?” He goes to speak but I hold my hand up to stop him. “Do you think, hand on heart, that you embody all the qualities befitting of this accolade?”
“What, being fit?” Dylan shrugs. “Um, yeah?”
And in that second all I feel towards him is hate.
But I swallow it down. For now. “No,” I say. “The qualities of honesty, loyalty, of—”
“Christ, if you’ve got something to say, just say it!” Dylan says.
OK, then. “Have you been seeing Tariq?”
Pin. Drop. Silence.
I have way overstepped the mark.
Not a single person knows what to do.
Dylan is staring back at me.
Nate is staring back at me.
I glance down at Tariq.
He’s got his head in his hands.
“OK, this is some weird, messed-up shit you’ve got going on in your head, Jack. And this isn’t the time—”
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t have to ‘answer the question’ because the question is offensive.”
“You’re not gonna answer the question?”
“That’s right, I’m not.”
“Then let’s ask Tariq,” I say.
And all eyes turn to him, where he’s still crouched on the floor, head in his hands. He slowly stands up, and sweeter, kinder, and less able to lie than Dylan, his face says it all.
“Say it, Tariq,” I say.
“Just ignore him,” Dylan says.
“Tariq?” Nate mutters. “What’s…” He makes a little gasp that’s half a nervous chuckle.
Tariq’s face is stony. He knows he’s screwed up. “Nate, maybe we should—”
“Just say it’s not true!” Nate says, voice wobbling. “That’s all you have to say. If it isn’t true, if it’s just Jack talking crap, you just have to say it!” He looks pleadingly at Tariq. “Please,” he mutters.
But Tariq gazes at Nate with this huge sadness in his eyes, like the game is well and truly up.
“Fucking hell,” Dylan mutters.
Nate’s shaking now. “No…”
Tariq is speechless.
I catch Chloe Kendall’s eye and she has this smug look on her face of “I told you so!” It kills me how she managed to be right about this.
“No,” Nate says. “Please. No.” He starts crying, tears streaming down his cheeks. All the years we haven’t spoken don’t matter in that moment. I move towards him – he needs someone, and no one else is gonna do it.
“Get off me!” he screams as I reach for his shoulder.
There’s this second where he just stares out at the shocked crowd, his face a red, blotchy, wet mess.
And then he runs, jumps off the front of the stage, trips on his trousers, which are way too long, staggers forward and collides directly with the Demogorgon, ramming it with his shoulder so the whole thing wobbles. Nate turns, trying to push his way through the crowd, and then there are screams as the Demogorgon falls, straight down on to Nate, who collapses under its open petal-like head.
It’s chaos.
More screaming.
Nate scrambling out from underneath the thing.
I see him charge for the exit.
He doesn’t look back.
CHAPTER SIX
NATE
•Come out to whole year.
•Discover boyfriend has been cheating you, live onstage.
•Get attacked by Demogorgon.
Seriously. FML.
I shouldn’t have come out.
I shouldn’t have told everyone.
I shouldn’t have been all “look at me” like I had anything to be proud of.
This is my comeuppance for being a little bit happy.
Of course this was how it was going to end.
*
It’s been twenty-four hours. I’m lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, wearing the same grey jogging shorts and white T-shirt I collapsed into after I got home last night. My eyes are tired and sore from no sleep and too much crying, and my hair’s sticking up in random tufts. If I was capable of growing facial hair I would definitely have stubble. I mean, I look like absolute crap, but I don’t even care.
There were no clues. No signs. Or if there were, I didn’t spot them. I don’t understand how long things had been going on between Tariq and Dylan. I don’t understand how it first happened, who contacted who, who made the first move. I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me, why he acted like he wanted me and him to be a visible couple around school if he was getting with Dylan anyway. I don’t understand how someone as nice as Tariq could do this to me.
I don’t understand how I didn’t realize I wasn’t good enough for him.
I’m so empty. So humiliated. When I got in last night, I threw my mobile on the kitchen table and left it there. I don’t want to face anyone. I don’t want
their questions, or their sympathy. How could I feel something was so right, yet get it so wrong?
“Nate?” It’s my dad, from the other side of my bedroom door. “What are you doing in there?”
“Shutting myself off from the whole of humanity.”
“Your mobile’s downstairs.”
“I know.”
“It’s bleeping a lot.”
I take a deep breath. “I’m sure.”
“Can I come in?”
I stay silent and hope he takes the hint.
Of course, he doesn’t. “So, your mum heard on the grapevine that something happened last night?” he shouts through the closed door.
“What grapevine’s that?”
“Linda at number fifty-five.”
Who else?
“Apparently you and Tariq had some cross words?”
I have to laugh because that’s beyond an understatement.
“These things happen sometimes,” Dad prattles on. “Misunderstandings and so on, maybe you two can—”
I’m over at the door in a flash and fling it open. “He’s been cheating on me, Dad! He’s seeing some other boy!” I scream in his surprised face. “I really liked him, I thought he liked me, and all along he’s been— All along he was, he—” And I can’t go on because I’m crying again. “Just go,” I manage to mutter.
Instead, Dad wraps his arms around me, I bury my face in his shoulder, and he holds me tight while I sob for what feels like hours.
Eventually, he helps me back over to my bed, and we both sit down.
“Sorry,” I say.
“I’m sorry too,” he replies. “I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’ll be OK. Reminds me of a similar thing that happened to me at your age. Me and Debs McClintock.” He sighs wistfully. “Ruined me, that girl did.”
“Life has shat on me big-time,” I say.
“Well, I know what that feels like.”
Heartbreak Boys Page 4