Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (15 page)

He was so sweet, if even an ant came by, he wouldn’t squish it. He’d pick it up and move it somewhere else. He’s so big now and we are so far apart. I can’t even imagine holding his hand. I blink my eyes and for a second wish we were little kids again and everything was easy, and our biggest problem was worrying about getting beaten up on the bus.

He stands there, waiting for me to say something intelligent, I guess, his big brawny body blocking my way into class. He smells okay, though. His eyes are harder than his kindergarten eyes.

I smile at him and say the only thing I can think of, “Thanks.”

Seeing you in the hall today hurt like hell, Dylan. My breath stopped. I am so mad at you and at the same time, I’m so worried about you. Your eyes were so sad. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you, to be gay in a world where gay is dangerous, where gay means being dragged behind a pickup truck or thrown off a bridge or not being allowed to be a scout leader. It’s a world where gay means you can die because you’ve loved.

You’re in that world now, Dylan. You’re in that world and I’m not. I’m left here, watching, hoping, waiting. I’m left here wondering about how hard it was to be you when you told me, when you loved me, when you pretended that I was your soul mate, life’s light, and all that hokey, new-age lovey-dovey stuff.

How hard it must be, Dylan.

But I’m still hurt and I’m still mad, because you were my best friend, you know. You took care of me when I had a seizure or got a B on a test, or yelled at my mom or had a fight with Emily.

We swore that we would always be there for each other, but how can we do that? How can we do that when we are in different worlds?

Why do I keep writing you notes in class? Is it because I used to? What else should I do?

I fold them up into little squares and put them in my left pocket, carry them around all day. They weigh me down. They keep me from floating away to the drop-ceiling roof with the water stains in it. They help me get it out. What else should I do? Tell me. What else should I do?

In my right pocket is the note from last Friday. I put it in my pocket every morning.

You wrote:
You don’t seem to have a cold anymore. That’s great. I love you.

I am afraid to see you. I am afraid of what I might say. I am afraid of what you might say. I’m afraid that you’ll tell me that it is true, that you never loved me, that it was all one big, fat, horrible, heart-breaking, ego-shattering lie.

Tom calls me Commie. He should call me Wimp.

An old note falls out of my copy of
Catcher in the Rye
. Go figure.

It’s all bent and crumpled and I instantly know what it is. It’s the note Emily wrote me the day before Dylan finally asked me out. Dylan and I had been friends forever and he held my hand once during a movie, but that was it. I, of course, had the hots for him. Well, I had the hots for him and Tom Tanner, but Tom didn’t call me every single afternoon. Tom didn’t have green eyes and he didn’t talk about things like souls and God and reincarnation and love and auras. Tom played with duct tape and talked about soccer and he never called me on the phone, even after he broke up with Mimi.

“Mimi asked me to the dance,” Dylan told me on the phone when he called me about it.

Hate made me clench my teeth together and grind them. I forced my mouth open to talk but I couldn’t breathe. “Mimi?”

“Yeah,” he said, chewing something. It sounded like a bagel.

Quiet rested over the phone line. I closed my eyes and put my face in my cat’s fur. I counted to ten. I imagined what life would be like with a name like Mimi. Dylan and Mimi. Dylan and Belle sounded better.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said. I swear I could hear him shrug.

“Well, do you like her?”

A pause. “Not that way.”

“Mm-hhmmm.”

I could breathe again.

Mimi and I had been best friends until eighth grade. We’d do makeup together, sleep over at each other’s houses. Mimi always put stuffed animals in between us in bed to make sure we didn’t touch each other, like that was some big awful thing. I did better in school and in sports, but she was a much better flirt.

“Do you like Tom Tanner?” she asked one time at cheering.

“Yeah.”

The next day she asked him out. Then she did it again, with Dylan.

Emily and I discussed it all via a note in Algebra II. Emily’s handwriting commanded both sides of the page, with its extravagant loops. Mine seemed cramped, tiny, shy. She was stressed about whether to drink at a party. I was stressed about the Mimi situation.

Well, Belle, scared of what?

Of being “in love.” If we went out I don’t know if we’d ever break up. I mean, I like, love him and I understand him because in a way he’s part of me and I him. We’re like two souls that are one, but not identical.

That sounds corny.

Well, okay, whether you drink or not is up to you, but don’t if you don’t want to. And do if you do. If you don’t know now decide when the time comes. You’ll know what to do. Intuition.

Good advice! Do you believe the saying opposites attract? Because if you’re that alike it would be hard to keep the relationship going. See the thing I don’t understand is what you want to happen between you two? Understand????!!!

I don’t know!

It’s just—I know it’s like meant to be and stuff, but I have to wait cause to truly love someone you have to work out the things that need to be—and you have to be ready to love them and they you. Do you know?

That’s very philosophical there Belle. But don’t you in the slightest want to be dancing in Dylan’s arms Friday night or do you want Mimi to be . . .

Tell the truth . . .

Yeah, but I can’t make him love only me and I know he does but I don’t know if he’s ready to.

Well, suppose you and Dylan were going to get married soon. Would you approve of him having affairs ?!?

If we were getting married, there’d be a commitment and he’d be ready to love me. We’re only 15. This is scary for a fifteen year old. You love people in different degrees, anyway.

Yes, I can see that, but first you have commitment to be boyfriend/girlfriend and then you have whatever next in everything, even now.

Who was it who wrote those words? Some confident girl. Some girl who knew her stuff. Some girl who didn’t have a boyfriend, and wanted one, but didn’t really need one. That girl was me.

I rip the note up into a thousand pieces, and I don’t care that I’m in the middle of English and that Rachel and Mimi stare at me with big eyes and whisper behind their pretty manicured hands. Everyone is, except for the guys. The guys like Andrew and Travis raise their eyebrows, shift their jock legs uncomfortably, the guys like Rasheesh cross their nerd knees, or if they’re invisible boys they nod in sympathy.

I don’t care. I make confetti, march up in front of Mr. Patrick, right in the middle of his lecture, and flutter the pieces into the trash bin.

Then I raise my hand and answer the next question just to prove how cool I am.

“I don’t believe that the thematic impact of Adrienne Rich’s poem, ‘The Afterwake,’ centers around the fatigue mentioned in the second stanza but on the word ‘nerves’ at the end of the first line.”

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Andrew starts laughing and applauding. Kara Raymond does a cat whistle. I sit down and smile. Mr. Patrick shakes his head and says, “I don’t know what to do with you, Philbrick.”

Andrew mutters, “I bet Tom would.”

Mr. Patrick points because he’s heard. “Andrew. You see me after class.”