Time Bomb(51)

“I don’t understand.”

Rashid shrugged. “It was easier when I was younger. At least it seemed like it was. People didn’t automatically think I was Muslim until I had a beard. We’re not supposed to cut it when it grows in; did you know that? My cousins were jealous this summer because the beard made me look older. But here, it only seems to make people think about how I am different. Even my friends.”

“That’s why you shaved your beard? To be like everyone else?” Diana asked from her perch near the window in the far corner of the room.

“No.” Rashid looked down at his hands. “I shaved it because I wanted people to see me. I did it here so my family wouldn’t see what I was doing before I was done. The school was letting students take new identification photographs today, and I hoped . . .” Rashid shrugged and shook his head.

For a second, everything was silent. The radio was still crackling, but Tad heard nothing other than Rashid’s words and the pain behind them.

Finally Tad spoke. “You thought if you looked like everyone else, people would stop calling you names or looking at you sideways?” He understood that. He should. His life was filled with moments that made him wish he were someone else.

White kids calling him Monkey Man or Afro Boy—even though he kept his hair short.

When he was little, having his friends tell him their parents called him Half-Breed. Then the cleverer ones shouting “Zebra!”

People telling him that he couldn’t understand what it was really like to be black because his daddy was white. He didn’t count as black. He certainly didn’t count as white. And when he told his family he was gay, he realized that no matter how much they might try to understand him, he’d never be the same as they were. He’d always be the odd man out who had to work to fit in.

And then Frankie made him feel that who he was was okay, before snatching that away.

Tad’s heart beat faster. His palms sweated even more as the memory of those moments twisted in his gut.

“Boo-freakin’-hoo,” Z said, dropping a box of stuff onto the floor. Kaitlin jerked in her sleep, and Rashid moved to her side as Z said, “You shaved—something a zillion guys do every day—and your family is going to hate your makeover. Sorry, but I’m not sorry. At least you have a family to give a crap, so how about we stop telling sob stories and figure out how we’re going to get Kaitlin to the paramedics and the rest of us out of this place?”

Z crossed the room to the storage closet. He disappeared inside, and Tad said, “I think most of us in this room can understand what you’re dealing with.”

Cas nodded.

“Do you think anyone would assume any of you could be a killer because of how you look or how you pray?” Rashid asked.

“No, but I’ve had people make assumptions about me because I’m black.” Tad swallowed hard, looked at Frankie, and said, “And also because I’m gay.” Now that he’d admitted it to someone outside his family, it was like a balloon inflated inside him, waiting to be popped.

“You’re gay?” Diana asked from the corner.

He nodded, never taking his eyes off Frankie. “Yeah. News flash. Macho football players can be gay.”

“How about we do true confessions later and worry about escaping now?” Frankie said, grabbing a couple of extension cords off the ground. Tad had come to the school today to force Frankie to face him and admit the truth. To admit that they had been more than friends and to tape that admission. He hadn’t planned on showing the tape to anyone. He just wanted proof that he hadn’t fooled himself and to let Frankie know eventually that it existed. Then Frankie would finally understand what it was like to have someone twist you up inside and make you worry about who you were and whether there was something wrong with you. Tad had earned that. He’d earned having the upper hand for once.

And maybe he would have used it.

Tad swallowed hard at that thought. He told himself he’d never wanted to use the tape, but he’d been angry and tired and maybe he’d wanted to make the tape because he didn’t want Frankie to get a pass the way he always did. The way Tad never could.

Knowing that he’d been angry enough to think that way sucked, but it didn’t make it any less true. And if he wanted Frankie to face it all, now was the time. Frankie could deny they had kissed. He could deny all the late-night phone calls, but everyone in the room would still hear what Tad said.

The words sprang to Tad’s lips, but as he looked around, he realized he didn’t want to talk about Frankie and his choices. Frankie wasn’t important.

So instead, Tad said, “If we think it’s safe enough, Rashid said there might be some things we can use in Mr. Lott’s room.”

Rashid nodded. “I can go. I’m in Robotics Club. I know where everything is kept.”

“What about the smoke?” Cas asked.

Rashid turned to her. “I can hold a piece of wet paper towel over my mouth. I won’t be gone long.”

“I’ll go with you,” Tad offered.

“You don’t trust me to go on my own?”

“Of course I trust you,” he shot back. “But I was in that room during the first explosion, and I know where the floor is cracked. I can help.”

He waited to see if Rashid turned him down.