The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(62)
“No, though I’ve thought about that too,” I say. “I’m freaked by the abstract idea of sex.” July glances at me, her mouth a frown, her eyebrows dipping down. “I’m not worried about what goes where and who sticks it there.”
“That sounds like the worst picture book ever,” she says. “Or the best.”
I throw her an “I’m trying to be serious here” look, and she mimes zipping her lips shut, which I figure buys me approximately thirty seconds of silence. “Like I said, I’m not sweating the details because I figure that if I do it with Rafi, far in the future, he’s the kind of guy who’ll want to take it slow and talk about it so that we’re both confident and comfortable about everything that happens.”
“What’s the abstract terror, then?” July asks.
“It’s what sex means.” I struggle to find the words. “Doing it with Rafi, or any guy, means accepting this label that people will use to judge me for the rest of my life. They’ll use it to make assumptions about me, and then act like I’m a weirdo when I don’t fit into the box they keep trying to stuff me into.”
July nudges me. “Sex doesn’t determine who you are.”
“But it determines who other people think I am,” I say. “Sometimes I wish we didn’t have to deal with this nonsense. Why should anyone have to come out? Why should anyone have to reveal their sexual identity?”
“Convenience?” July says. “If we don’t know whether someone is gay or straight or bi or asexual, how can we know whether or not they might be interested in us?”
“Walk up and ask them,” I say. When July laughs, I keep going. “I’m serious. Why should it be such a big deal for me to walk up to a guy I think is cute at Starbucks or the bookstore or wherever and ask him out?”
“What if he’s not interested?”
“Then he says, ‘No thank you.’ Why is that so difficult? If I ask a guy out, it’s not because I think he’s into guys, it’s because I think he’s cute and hope he’s into me.”
“I don’t think we’re evolved enough to live in that world yet, Dino.”
“No, I guess we’re not.”
July tries to stifle another yawn, this one bigger than before. She catches me watching her and turns away. “Stop staring.”
“Do you think—”
“It was Manny,” July says.
“What was Manny?”
Her eyes dart up at me. “The guy I did it with.”
I grab her wrist and pull her to a stop. “Wait. You said that rumor wasn’t true.”
July shakes her head. “I said I didn’t start it.”
This is kind of blowing my mind. “I have so many questions.”
“And I’m not going to answer them,” she says. “But I will tell you that it happened at a party, it lasted from 1:04 a.m. until 1:11 a.m., and I have not stopped regretting it since.”
I move in to hug July, but she pushes me away. “What?”
“I needed you then,” she says. “I don’t need you now.”
“Why are you being like this?” I ask. “Yawning and treating me like I’m not your best friend?”
July says, “You were right. We’re the reason I rose from the dead, but not so we could finish fighting about our friendship. So we could let go of it. I’m yawning because one of us has.” As if to punctuate her statement, another yawn ripples through her, and she doesn’t try to hide it.
“Me?”
“Just like before. You have Rafi now; you don’t need me.”
“What the hell, July? Friendship isn’t a zero-sum game! Can’t I love you both? Can’t I have you both in my life?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m dead, Dino. Let me die.”
My whole body is shaking, but I don’t know it’s from anger or fear, or who I’m angry at or what I’m afraid of. “What does that even mean?”
July shoves me. “It means leave.”
“Stop it.”
She shoves me again. This time so hard I fall on my ass in the sand. “Go home, Dino.”
I scramble to my feet. “And then what? You die out here? Some tourist finds your corpse?”
“Let me worry about that,” she says. “But I don’t want you around anymore.”
“I get it,” I say. “I’m like the dog or the alien or whatever that you have to threaten to get it to return to where it belongs. You gonna throw a rock at me next?”
“If I have to.”
“Fine, you want me to go? I’m gone. But don’t come crawling back from the dead when you realize you miss me this time.”
“Don’t worry,” July says. “I won’t.”
JULY
I TOSS THE CONTROLLER ON the floor and dance around the room chanting, “You’re dead! You’re dead,” because while I’m definitely a shitty loser, I’m an even worse winner.
“How do I keep getting my ass handed to me by zombie Barbie?” Zora Hood says.
“Not a zombie.”
When I told Dino to leave, I hadn’t actually thought through what was happening or what I was going to do. I kind of figured he’d take off and I’d get more tired and roll myself into the ocean so sharks could eat me. Or something. It’s not like my parents would ever discover I wasn’t in my coffin in the cemetery. Only, while the yawns kept coming, I didn’t feel an overwhelming urge to sleep. Seeing as I’d gotten rid of Dino in such dramatic fashion, I didn’t want to ruin it by begging him for a ride. So I called the only other person who knew I was not-dead.