Ship It(4)

Kyle readjusts his John Deere hat so that it’s sitting on the very back of his head like it might fall off if not for the sheer charisma of his farmer-boy hair. He looks at me like he’s just now realized I was here. I’m used to the popular farm kids treating me like I’m invisible, but it’s particularly irritating when Kyle does it, considering the fact that I used to be very visible to him.

“What’s your shirt?” he asks me, kind of out of the blue.

I move the sides of my hoodie out of the way and look down at my shirt. It’s my second favorite Demon Heart T-shirt. “It’s for this show, Demon Heart.”

I know he doesn’t know the show because it hadn’t started airing yet when we were hanging out last year. At the time, I was pretty obsessed with this series of books called Citybreakers and only wanted to read/talk about/write fic about them. Kyle thinks reading for pleasure is for “chumps.” Also, the only thing he likes to watch on TV is ultimate fighting. “Because I’m a man, Claire,” he would say.

In case it’s unclear, Kyle is literally the worst.

Andrea takes her hair out of her ponytail, brushes it with her fingers, and then starts putting it back up again exactly the same, but slightly tighter. I never do this with my ponytail, I just tighten it throughout the day until it’s time to take it out. Is that what Kyle likes about her? That she has really clean, tight ponytails? But what could Andrea possibly see in him?

“Demon Heart?” Kyle squints at my T-shirt again. It’s the one with promo photos of Smokey and Heart gazing deeply into each other’s eyes, ostensibly locked in eternal conflict, but the shirt, like the show, is open for interpretation. And I choose to see love.

So does Kyle, apparently. “Why do they look like they’re about to kiss?”

Andrea snorts and punches him. “Be nice,” she says.

“I’m serious, that’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.

For a second there, I almost pity him. This shirt is the gayest thing he’s ever seen? Okay, sure, it’s a pretty gay shirt. But a gayer shirt would have them actually kissing. Or shirtless. Or it would show Heart taking Smokey from behind and… Well, there’s plenty of fic out there going into the details. The fic is pretty damn gay. This shirt? This shirt is just subtext.

Kyle snickers.

“Kyyyle,” Andrea whines. Their relationship is a mystery to me.

“What?” Kyle feigns innocence.

I straighten my glasses. “You think being gay is funny?”

“I think that shirt is hilarious,” he says. I want to reach over and knock the stupid precarious tractor hat off his head.

“Kyle, shut up, she’s probably gay herself.” Andrea turns to me. “There’s nothing wrong with that.” How generous of her. How progressive.

I look at Kyle to see if he wants to respond. Apparently he does not, so I turn back to Andrea. “I’m not gay,” I tell her.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, “obviously. She’s in love with the gay dudes on her shirt.”

It’s too much. I suppress a snort, then I catch Kyle’s eye and the dumb expression on his face makes me really belly laugh. Andrea leans away from me, confused and a little afraid, but Kyle just gets mad. “What?” he demands. “What’s so funny?”

“You know, there are people out there who think we’re crazy? That we see stuff that’s not there, that the show’s never gonna make it canon. But I just wanna state for the record that Kyle Cunningham, Kyle freaking Cunningham sees it. We’re not crazy.” Kyle is looking at me like I just kicked his prize heifer and I don’t care. “If Kyle Cunningham ships it, we should all be shipping it.”

“I don’t ship it,” Kyle says sharply, his mood turning dark. But I don’t care, he brought this on himself.

“Why, does that freak you out? That you ship two dudes?” I ask.

“Give it a rest, Claire.”

“Yeah, figures. You know what I never understood? Why they always cast straight men as heroes in everything… because you’re honestly the most terrified people on the planet.”

Andrea looks back and forth between us with wide eyes. Poor chick has no idea what kind of idiot she’s going to prom with. Kyle starts to say something, but I wave him off. “Forget it,” I say and grab my stuff. They’ll never understand.

I can hear their whispers before I even reach the exit. I close my eyes and shove through the doors.

Screw this place.


On the bus, everyone else has someone to talk to. Row after row of chattering kids, excited for their afternoons to start, for summer to start. I slip into the seat next to Joanie Engstrom, who is eating an apple from the top down, core and all. Joanie and I aren’t friends, exactly, but we’re allies—someone to pair up with in class on group projects, someone to sit next to on the bus when all the other seats are full. She smiles at me, then looks back down at her Bible open in her lap—well-worn and Post-it–noted from a lifetime of use. I’m not sure what more there is to glean from those pages after she’s read them so many times, but I’m not one to judge since I’ve seen all the available episodes of Demon Heart upwards of a dozen times.

As Joanie reads, taking another bite of her apple, I look past her and watch Pine Bluff pass by out the windows, all six glorious stoplights.