“Thomas is such a bad idea,” Lana said. “Plus, he’s already way in love with…” She darted a glance at Andrew and then looked away. “Someone already.”
Stones settled in Andrew’s stomach.Dove.
They sorted flag pieces in silence for a few minutes before Chloe started talking about types of embroidery stitches and Lana blustered that she could learn to sew within the next half hour. Andrew wanted to fumble an excuse to leave, but he also felt tied to this moment with thin cords of defiance. Ofwant. Just once, Andrew wanted to step outside of his skin and be someone who could talk easily, fit next to other people and not want to take himself apart and analyze everything he’d done wrong. He wanted to know if anyone at GSA was asexual too, if they packed it down inside their chest because it hurt them the way it hurt him.
He should ask.
Hecouldn’t ask.
He hadn’t meant to make the girls come out to him just now, but it felt like they’d held out a tentative gift. Opened a door in case he wanted to slip inside, too.
“I think I’m asexual, but not like—” He stopped and tried to collect himself. “I could fall in love once, I think, but I don’t want the… physical stuff. I know this isn’t, um… normal. I just—” Why had he even started talking? He burned from the inside out, and his cheeks must be flaming by now. He’d all but saidsexwithout saying it, and they were probably confused because he was being unclear, and talking in circles and—
Lana gave him a careful look as if she was fully aware of his inner meltdown, and she spoke with all her sharpness filed back. “There are plenty of people like that. But strike ‘normal’ out of this conversation—it’s the most obtuse word and I hate it. There are asexual people who don’t want sex or they hate it or are indifferent about it. It’s a spectrum.”
The knot in Andrew’s chest gave. He had never talked about this because he couldn’t afford to take his feelings for Thomas out of their battered box and ask if he was broken to fall in love and not want sex.
“Okay.” Andrew barely got the word out. He’d said it, he’d confessed out loud, and now he needed to disappear inside himself and breathe for a second. Maybe they sensed this because the conversation tumbled into how long it would take to sew all these flags, and they let him sit in silence.
He kind of liked Lana and Chloe.
Footsteps scuffed at the classroom door, and they looked up expecting Ms. Poppy’s return—but Thomas stood there. Since classes had finished for the day, he’d changed into jeans and a green striped tee shirt with a frayed hem. Without his uniform, he went from disreputable private school bad boy to mussed and distracted artist who wore half his paint on himself. Heheld a paper bag of the dreaded sandwiches and chewed his lip. Maybe he’d been watching them for a while.
Andrew wasn’t sure if he wanted Thomas to have heard or not. He scrambled to his feet, careful not to mess up any of the fabric piles.
“Thanks for helping.” Chloe waved at him, black hair falling over her face to hide her quiet smile.
Lana grunted, giving Thomas a sour glare, but she tugged at Andrew’s pants as he started to step around her, so he looked down. “If you’re lonely, you can talk to us whenever.”
He nodded, because speaking felt too much right then. She let go.
Andrew followed Thomas downstairs, their footsteps in sync. Part of Andrew wanted to blurt it all out, but most of him didn’t. It was irrelevant to start obsessing over how he felt when the truth was this: Thomas liked girls. Specifically, Dove.
“What were you all talking about?” Thomas said, too casual.
Have you ever thought about kissing me?“Just how their flags got destroyed.”
“Probably Bryce Kane and his vultures.” Thomas led them back to their homework table and surveyed the mess. “Let’s eat outside. Rain sort of stopped. Unless you don’t want to?”
“I’m not the one scared of October,” Andrew said, as if he wasn’t scared of everything else.
SIXTEEN
Andrew followed Thomas into the garden with the weariness of a boy facing a briar noose. If this was one of his stories, he’d write about a cornered fox chewing its own leg off to escape until the wound bloomed with flowers.
The sharp hunger inside him was never for food these days, not when he already felt crowded with monsters and panic and anticipation that everything might grow so much worse.
Thomas plunged deep into the gardens that wrapped around the Wickwood manor and dorms. When the sun shone, the gardens sprawled like a fairy tale, with hedges and lawns the color of emeralds and jade, all trimmed and precise. Brick paths nipped around rosebushes and ivy trellises and led to cherubic stone benches and an ivy-smothered gazebo. Now everything shimmered under a layer of silver rain and the garden didn’t look whimsical. It looked like it had been crying.
“You said it wasn’t raining. I’m literally getting wet.” Andrew knew he sounded petulant, but he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t need to be fed and monitored like a baby bird.
“The gazebo will be dry.” Thomas hopped over a puddle.
The air felt damp enough to drink; Andrew’s lungs were already having trouble. He pinched the bridge of his nose and crushed his eyes closed for a second before he realized it wasn’tthe heavy air wrecking him—he was sliding toward a panic attack. He hated being like this.
“Thomas, can we just go—”
The path curved toward the gazebo, and Thomas pulled up short. Bryce Kane and his friends were already there, shoving each other with bullish laughter. They’d stomped mud all over the white wood floors and littered chip bags everywhere. The second they saw Andrew and Thomas, they started howling.
