None of the Above(26)

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I told her.

Faith looked anxious but determined. “Come on. We’ll do it together.” She came around to open my door. I kept my gaze on the ground as I walked up to the front entrance, but out of the corner of my eye I could see flickers of movement as heads turned.

The kids on the stairs moved aside to let us through. Just inside, a guy bumped into me with his shoulder, almost knocking my bag off.

“Watch it, Kristopher!” he said, and laughed like he’d just said the funniest thing in the world.

When Faith stopped at her locker, she turned hesitantly toward me.

“Krissy,” she said as I walked past my own locker. “Krissy, just wait for me. We can go to homeroom together.” But I kept walking, past the library and to the other side of school. Toward Sam’s locker. I had to get to him, tell him my side of the story.

He’d just opened his locker when I reached him. When I called his name and touched his arm he jerked away so hard he dropped his books. It was worse than a slap.

“Get away from me,” he said, without even looking up.

“Sam,” I whispered, even though it hurt so hard to say his name that I wanted to scream. “Can we please talk?”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you, you homo,” he said loudly, his eyes darting back and forth to people behind me. Bruce and a couple of football players came over and I sensed them closing in. Fear dried my throat.

“Yo, Kristopher,” one of the guys said. “You here to give Sam-I-am another rimjob? He’s got the lube ready for you.”

Sam slammed his locker shut and I jumped.

“Can it, Luke,” Sam said. Then he turned to me, pointing his index finger at my mouth. “You stay away from me, you hear?”

“Oh no, are you breaking up with your boyfriend, Sammy? Maybe I can make it up to you tonight.” Bruce gave Sam the goose and Sam elbowed him in the neck. “Oooh, come on, baby. . . .”

His friends walked toward the gym, and as Sam turned to follow, I grabbed at his arm again. This time, when he pulled away, a thread of his sweater caught in my fingernail. He rounded on me. I could feel the muscles in his arm spasm.

“Sam, please . . . ,” I begged. “Let me explain.”

“What the f*ck is there to explain?” Sam said. His eyes were bright, like there were tears hovering in his eyes. He leaned in, and I allowed myself to hope that he was going to listen. But instead he just whispered, “I thought I loved you, you f*cking man-whore. And you’ve been lying to me. I have nothing to say to you. Ever. Again.”

He turned and left before I could explain that I hadn’t known for that long, that I hadn’t been lying. But what would have been the point? Because how could I ever convince him that I was telling the truth?

I collapsed against the lockers, and slid down into a crumple. Above me, people turned to stare as they hurried to class. I couldn’t see their faces through my tears, but I could feel the pounding and shuffling of their feet as they walked past.

The bell rang. The ground went silent. And I began to process how deeply I had been betrayed.





CHAPTER 14


I spent first period in the girls’ bathroom, using a paper towel soaked in cold water to bring down the puffiness in my eyes. Then, after the bathroom cleared a few minutes before the bell rang, I dragged myself to the north-wing stairs and waited.

In less than a minute, I heard a pair of uneven steps echoing through the empty hallway. Even after she’d transitioned to a soft cast, Vee’s teachers still let her out of class early so she could get a head start on the crowds. I’d been her bag carrier long enough that I knew her schedule by heart.

She froze when she saw me, and stared at me as if I were a stranger, not the person who physically carried her part of the way to the school nurse the day she broke her leg.

My hands clenched as I turned toward her. “How could you do this to me, Vee?”

“Do what?” she asked, seeming surprised, but that was Vee. Always an incredible actress.

“You told,” I said, my voice still stuffy with tears. “Everybody knows. Sam, too. How could you? I had the right to tell him myself. I would’ve been able to make him see that I’m the same person. I’m still Kristin. Not a freak.”

“Wait a second, wait a second.” She put her hands out as if she were stopping traffic. “Calm down. I told Faith, but you’d already told her part of it. I did not tell Sam.”

“Then how does he know? Who else did you tell?”

“Only Faith, I swear!”

Something about the tension in her shoulders and the set of her jaw told me she was lying. “No one at all?” I pressed. “Really?”

Vee squirmed. She actually squirmed, and it should have been a victory, but instead it was a disaster. “Okay, fine. I told my mom—”

“Oh. My. God. You told your mother?” I wanted to throw up.

“I mean, what was I supposed to do?” she said defensively. “I had to tell someone. It’s all so f*cked up. I mean, I was so traumatized—”

“You were traumatized?”

“Whatever, I was in shock. So I told my mom. And she said that someone should tell Sam. But I didn’t, I swear!”

“You expect me to believe that?” Never, not in a million years. It was exactly what she would do to someone who’d stolen the thing she’d dreamed about for three years. “It’s because you were jealous that they voted me Homecoming Queen, wasn’t it? You bitch!”