“Only that he wanted to pursue you back in the day to prove something to his father.”
“Well, if he was only interested in me to please his father, it’sgood it never happened,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t even remember him from back then. How young do you think we were?”
I had to stop myself from taking my tension out on Daisy. I should have been upset with myself and my emotions. I felt like I may lose Jay now that people thought we were hot for each other. It was all fun and games at one point, but what if the whispers got too serious and Jay had to drop me completely to make a girl his permanent fixation?
With my shirt loose now, I picked up a notebook and sat on my bed. “People saw Jay and I dancing together. It stresses me to know that people are giving us so much attention. They were already bullying me before.”
“Jay will protect you from it,” Daisy said. “He likes you.”
“Does he? It doesn’t seem that way,” I mumble. “What do you see?”
“Hmm, I see he takes every excuse to look at you, and you’re the only one who doesn’t quite notice it because you’re never looking at him when he does—that’s the point.”
“Do you think he might be... you know?” I ventured, hesitating as new sentences formed in my mind.
Daisy didn’t seem to follow. “What?”
“There are people who like people of their same gender,” I said, my voice quiet.
That gave her pause. “I don’t get that impression of Jay, but who knows? I’ve almost loved girls the way I’ve loved boys.”
“You have?”
“Take Anna May,” she said, staring dreamily off into thehallway, fingers teasing her heel straps. “We were friends as kids. She’d make me her Valentine every year. She didn’t want to have to worry about courting someone just to eat chocolates. We carried the tradition through junior high and it gave me something to look forward to year after year because it wasn’t this mad dash to find love. Just an excuse to love ourselves.”
I could not describe what I had with Jay so poetically. And what we had was less sweet, more rough around the edges. I didn’t think Daisy quite understood what I was getting at.
What I had with Jay was not as easily described, but if I were to be fully honest, I didn’t know how she’d react. How would anyone react, if they knew what I was really thinking, about him, and us, and what our friendship meant to me? It might put me on course for a lonely little life.
“I think I may be broken,” I said. “Like a plate somebody dropped, just trying to piece myself together and failing miserably.”
“We’re all failing miserably, Nick. The key is pretending that you have it all together,” Daisy said, with a sympathetic smile and a gentle parting squeeze on my arm. “Good night.”
She turned to leave, and I fell back on my bed, wondering if Gatsby, the father, knew about Jay’s letters being published. Did he know about the school drama? Would he care?
Whenever Jay spoke on his father, he seemed confused, less bold, less in the moment. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Gatsby Sr. may have been a nuisance to me, not for the reasons Jordan didn’t like him, but for new ones entirely.
Though I’d admit it to no one, I thought about Jay after the dance. Shouldn’t the night have lent itself to more?
I couldn’t sleep much or think of anything but my dissatisfaction.
By Monday morning, it had turned into a sharp need to channel the storm. I found myself skipping classes and staring at a blank page that would become something forThe Sovereign.
It would make me feel better to shatter the facade of the school. To lay waste to the image—everything West Egg pretended to be but wasn’t! To expose the hypocrisy of this place. The lies of its appearance.
If I just kept writing, it would give me something to do other than stew in my thoughts.
Does West Egg Protect Its Students?
By Nick Carrington
Let me give it to you straight, Reader: Ever since my letters from Jay Gatsby Jr. made their way through the halls, there’s nothing left for me to do but dive headfirst into this storm and try to capture it from where I stand.
So, here’s my question for you: What changed when you found out that a boy from the White House and a boy from the Blue House were talking to each other? And why, if theWest Egg Chroniclecan print stories that expose the private lives of its students, can’t we get published when wewrite about real issues? Why was the editor in chief of theChronicleso quick to publish something that could embarrass its students, but so hesitant to put out work that could make change?
I’ll tell you, Reader: West Egg wants you to believe it’s progressive, but in reality, it’s doing everything in its power to prove otherwise. Negroes are treated like window dressing—just there to make the place look diverse while we’re kept on the sidelines.
The papers will tell you this experiment is doing us a favor, but if you look closely, Negroes aren’t even allowed to tell our own stories. If you’re only inviting us to sit at your table so you can treat us like servants or a punchline, what’s the point of this so-called experiment?
