The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School(15)

I look around one last time. Even with only four hundred students, I somehow feel smaller standing alone in this cafeteria than I ever did at Rover. All the classroom buildings are outside, so there are no internal hallways for me to hide in. The art teacher says her room is always open for lunch, but I don’t want to spend lunch alone with a teacher. Not quite that desperate. I think about going to the bathroom to eat in one of the stalls like a lonely new girl in a movie. But let’s be real. That shit is disgusting.

Instead, I go out to the courtyard and sit at one of the tables. This gives me time to review our jewelry orders on my phone. I’m happy to see that some new orders have already come in since this morning. I confirm them, then look around to see I’m the only one sitting alone. There aren’t really any loners at this school. It seems like all the quiet kids have their own group. It makes me miss Rover. There were tons of loners there, so at least I wasn’t alone in being alone. But I can’t go back. I can’t even reminisce about the good times without remembering how it all ended. . . .

When I told Bianca I loved her, it made her cry. Like it was somehow harder for her than it was for me. Why did I do that?

It all makes sense now, she said. She told me it creeped her out. That if only she had known, she would have avoided all of it. All of me. As if she wouldn’t have cried on my shoulder when her parents got divorced, or let me cry on hers when my dad got deported. As if none of it mattered because I’m gay.

When I told her I loved her, she made me feel like a leech, like I took advantage of her by being her friend. Like it was only for my benefit. It didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t ready to come out until then. The years we spent as best friends didn’t matter because I must have had ulterior motives, and everything I had done now seemed creepy. She told our friends and they ghosted me.

If Bianca and I met today instead of ten years ago, I don’t think we’d be friends. Besides our mutual love of makeup, we don’t have much in common. She was always a pretty judgmental person and liked to gossip about things we had no business knowing, while I preferred to mind my business. But we grew up together, and that should count for something. Even her mom hates me now. I had to block both their numbers from my mom’s phone so they couldn’t tell her. Luckily, my cooties seemed to have spread to Mami, and Bianca and her mom are ignoring her, too. Losing a best friend is one thing, and it sucked. It still sucks. But I won’t lose my mom.

So I take it back. I don’t miss Rover, or anyone who goes there. I’m doing fine by myself at Slayton, thank you very much.

I jump when someone reaches for my fries.

“Jesus!” I put my hand over my heart and laugh when I realize it’s just Cesar. “Why aren’t you with all your friends?” I doubt Slayton’s social butterfly is in a similar position to my own.

“You weren’t eating, so I came to help you out.” He grins.

I smack his hand away from my fries and stuff a handful of them into my mouth. “Happy?” The words are muffled by the fries.

“Yeah.” He smiles and sits across from me. “So, you too cool to sit with your friends now?”

I take my time chewing before I answer. “Yup.”

He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t pry. For once, though, I want to talk about it. I want to scream about it. I take a breath to keep myself from actually yelling.

“If I sit with them, I know I’ll hit someone, and I don’t want to get suspended.”

“Right. That’s why you won’t fight them.” He looks like he’s trying not to smile, and I hate it. I’m not in the mood to hear about my inability to stand up for myself. I just want to be mad right now. Is that so bad?

“Shut up.”

He shuts up and takes another one of my fries. I know I shouldn’t be mad at Cesar. He’s trying to help. And if anyone at this school would get it, it’s him.

“I do not care to sit with ignorant rich folk who think hoop earrings on brown skin makes me ghetto.”

Cesar’s eyebrows shoot up and he shakes his head. “The caucacity!” I shush him and look around us.

“Cesar, read the room!” I say, but I can’t help but laugh. No one was listening.

He ignores me and glares at Karen and them through the cafeteria window, not that they can actually see him. “You want me to handle them for you?”

“Really, Cesar.” I know it’s an empty offer. There’s no way he’s fighting Jenna and Karen for me. Still, I don’t like him talking like that. Slayton Cesar should not be entertaining the thought of getting into fights.

“I got you.” He looks me dead in the eye without blinking and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Just say the word and I’ll ding-dong ditch ’em.” The weirdo winks at me.

“You’re too much!” I laugh, and he grins.

“I know you’d do the same for me.”

“Damn right I would.”

“In lak’ech,” he says, and I think I get what he means. We’re the same, Cesar and I.

The setup in first hour is different the next day. Six desks sit at the front of the room. Three on one side, three on the other, all facing each other. I take my usual spot in the front corner.

“Do you know what we’re doing?” Bo says as she sits next to me.