Birthday(4)

I tried bringing it up with Morgan and for the first time in our whole lives he’d just stonewalled me, said he didn’t want to talk about that, and turned over to go to sleep. It seemed so minor, would be so minor for anyone else, but we’ve never been like that. Never.

I wish I could talk to him about why everything felt so weird today, wish I knew what his secret was. I’m not stupid. I know what it probably is. I’ve never met a gay person (that I know of), but I’ll support Morgan no matter what he tells me. He must know that. He must know I would stick with him and keep his secret, right?

“Awful quiet back there,” Mom says. I look up to see her red eyebrows raised and a faint, curious smile on her lips.

“He’s thinking about boys,” Peyton says, with an exaggerated lisp. I lean back and kick at him, but he blocks and retaliates with a knuckle pop in my biceps. I yelp and rub my arm. Peyton laughs.

Dad and Mom don’t notice or don’t much care that Peyton just told the car I was gay, which makes me think about Morgan again. I’m not gay, so I’ve never really thought about it, but guys here really do throw that word around like it’s nothing. If I were gay and I heard everyone around me constantly calling everything they don’t like gay and yelling “fag!” at the drop of a hat, maybe that would make it hard to come out even to people I care about.

“Did you enjoy your birthday?” Mom asks me once I’ve stopped wincing.

“It was okay, I guess,” I say, swallowing and looking down at the cake. I worry sometimes that I’m ungrateful, because I know we have a lot of money compared to other families in Thebes, but I don’t think they should have gotten us a birthday cake this year. There was just no way it would compare to what Morgan’s mom, Donna, used to make. Even a cookie cake would have been a better choice.

“If you wanted to stay, all you had to do was say so,” Mom says.

“No,” I say. I flatten a palm against the plastic dish covering the icing. “It would have been weird without Morgan.” Mom gives me a sad smile—I feel like she gives me more and more of them every day.

“Everything’s weirder with Morgan,” Dad says from the driver’s seat. Peyton snorts beside me. The two of them share a look in the rearview mirror. Mom clears her throat and makes a point of noisily turning the page in her book, but Dad ignores her.

“What do you mean?” I ask, but Dad just drums his fingers.

“Thought he’d have grown out of it by now, that’s all.”

“Guys…” Mom says, but I can’t help but push on.

“Grown out of what?” I ask as if I don’t know. I’m thirteen, I’m not a little kid, but adults still act like I don’t know anything.

“Being a faggot,” Peyton mutters. I feel heat rising in my cheeks. There it is.

Mom shoots Peyton a look. “Peyton, please.”

There’s a moment of silence, but it doesn’t last. In my experience guys like Peyton and Dad are sort of like sharks: one drop of blood in the water puts them into a frenzy. Dad runs his fingers through his hair and glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Used to be football kept him a little tough. But come on, Eric, the boy’s always been kind of a sissy.”

“What?” I say. “No, he’s not. What the hell?” Maybe Morgan can be a little girly sometimes, but he was the best player in peewee and youth league.

“Language,” Mom says.

“Hey, Dad,” Peyton says. He leans forward, grinning like a coyote. “Hey. Remember when Morgan threw that shit fit”—I wait for Mom to correct his language, but it doesn’t come—“’cause his parents wouldn’t let him dress up as that Chinese cartoon girl for Halloween?”

Dad barks out a laugh and slaps the steering wheel. All I can think of is how that was two years ago, when Morgan had just gotten the news about his mom’s cancer. I can only guess that he probably didn’t know how to feel about anything.

“It wasn’t a girl,” I say. “It was Mulan’s male soldier costume, so if anything he was—”

“God, who cares about that stupid cartoon, nerd?” Peyton says. “He cried over Halloween either way. Like a girl.”

“All right, all right,” Dad says, but there’s laughter in his voice. The sound makes my skin crawl. “All I’m saying is that Tyler needs to show the kid how to be a man. He’s a goddamn football coach—he’s gotta whip that boy back into shape.”

Heat flares into my face. I tuck my hands into my pockets so Peyton can’t see that they’re shaking. I rest my forehead against the window and focus on the glass’s coolness. Morgan always knows how to deal with Peyton. I wish I could just cut loose like he does, snap off some gut punch of an insult, or scream and kick something over, but all I can ever seem to do is fold my hands under my arms and stay quiet. And yet somehow Morgan’s the “sissy”?

Peyton jabs me in the shoulder. “What’s wrong? Is widdle baby Eric upset?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I say through clenched teeth. What do you know? I guess I did have it in me.

Mom snaps her head around. “Language!”

“Fine!” I say.

“Don’t raise your voice at your mother!” Dad yells.