Date Me, Bryson Keller(4)

    Priya looks at me. “By the way, did you finish your script? The deadline is today, right?”

I groan. “I have a bit left to finish at lunch today. I think I have a date with the computer lab.” For each of the plays that we study, my drama teacher, Mrs. Henning, allows her students to audition to write a school play based on it. The deadline for the Romeo and Juliet one is after lunch today. I still don’t have an ending. All my ideas blow, and I’ve spent hours staring at a blinking cursor, the blank page matching my blank mind. But it’s now or never. Last year I came close to being selected: my modernized version of Hamlet was the runner-up. This year I want to be chosen. It’s one of my goals for my senior year.

“That’s cutting it close.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, Priya,” I say. Priya only allows her friends to call her by her shortened name. She says it is a reward for all those who put in the time and effort to learn how to say her full name correctly. There is one thing that Priyanka Reddy doesn’t tolerate, and that is laziness. Donny is just Donny to everyone—so he’s the exact opposite. Maybe they truly are meant to be together.

“Still not going well?” Donny asks.

“Each word is like pulling teeth.” I close my eyes. “I just haven’t been inspired. Retelling Romeo and Juliet is tough.” Especially when I have no real dating experience is what I don’t add. “But I’m determined. I have to win this year.”

    “Potential is what matters. I’m sure Henning is looking for that instead of perfection. You’re talented. You’ll do great!” Priya opens the glove compartment and finds her makeup bag. As much as this is Donny’s car, it’s also a part of our group. The Quackmobile holds little pieces of all of us.

The truth is, Donny’s family has more money than they know what to do with. When the term old money is thrown around, the Duckworth family is definitely on the list. For Donny’s birthday last year, his parents bought him this beautiful red Mustang—with racing stripes to boot. Donny was ecstatic at first, but then he saw the vanity license plate, QUACK IV, and outright refused to drive it. Of course, Priya and I convinced him otherwise, because who cares about some stupid license plate anyway? And from that day on, the three musketeers had a steed to ride.

We pull into the school’s parking lot after a quick ten-minute drive. My house is the closest to school—not in a gated community—which is why I get picked up last.

“Oh, the latest issue of the Herald is out,” Priya says, looking at her phone.

“For someone you hate, you follow Shannon’s newspaper editorials pretty diligently.”

“I can hate the person but appreciate their work.” She glares at me. “I contain multitudes.”

“Anything good?” Donny asks, changing the topic.

    “There’s an interview with Bryson’s latest ex.”

“Who asked Bryson out last week?” I ask.

“Isabella from my biology class,” Priya says.

“Which one?” There are four seniors named Isabella.

We climb from the Quackmobile and Priya opens her Instagram. She clicks on #DateMeBrysonKeller and holds up a picture to us. It’s of a brunette girl and Bryson.

“Isabella Mendini.” Priya turns the screen back to her and sighs. “It should be illegal for Bryson to have this bone structure.”

She isn’t wrong. Of course, my admiration is only done from afar and in secret. My heart beats for another.

As if my thoughts have summoned him, my unrequited crush saunters into view. Isaac is tall with curly blond hair and blue eyes that remind me of the ocean. He has his blazer thrown over his shoulder, and he’s holding a soccer ball under his arm. Why does he need a soccer ball to go to school? Who knows? But it’s a common sight when it comes to Isaac.

We head toward the school entrance, studying the chaos that surrounds us. Ever since the dare started, Monday mornings have become a circus. A crowd lingers at the entrance, mostly spectators. Bryson has kept to the rule that only seniors can take part. It seems that they’re all waiting for the arrival of the man of the hour.

“It’s amazing how the dare has spread,” Donny says. When it first started, it was mostly the girls from cheerleading and the soccer team who asked Bryson out. Then the girls from drama class. But now the dare is out there, and people with no real connection to Bryson and those activities are stepping up to ask him out for fun.

    “I heard Eric say that if he could ask Bryson out, he would,” Priya says.

I try not to react to the news of another boy wanting to ask Bryson out.

“Eric?” Donny asks. “The gay one?”

I’m pretty sure, like 85 percent sure, that Donny will be fine with me being gay. Generally, he seems really supportive. It’s him saying stuff like this, though, that makes me hesitate.

Priya smacks Donny on the arm. “Eric Ferguson,” she says. “That’s his name.”

I plan on telling both Priya and Donny…after we’ve graduated from high school. I don’t plan on coming out until then, because even in a school with out-and-proud students and an active LGBTQ club, “gay” is still a label. It doesn’t matter that Eric is a state champion in chess or even that he’s the vice principal’s son. Those are all second to his sexuality. That’s the thing with labels: they tend to stick to you like unwanted gum. It’s why I’m so careful not to be labeled. More than anything, I do not want to be Kai Sheridan, “the gay one.”