“Cut it out, man,” he says, yanking his arm away. Brody gets between you, gently maneuvering you away.
“Leave him alone,” Brody says. “He’s not hurting anyone.”
“He’s hurting Farshid.”
“Come on, it’s just a word,” Brody says. “And what does it matter? You hate the guy. We all do.”
You don’t hate Farshid.
You don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean you hate him. It doesn’t mean you want to hurt him.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s wrong.” You clear your throat. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to…”
But stop what? It’s too late. It’s already there, even if the letters aren’t all filled in yet.
“You’ll what?” Reggie asks. “You gonna tell on us? Who’s gonna believe you anyway? Everyone knows you hate the gays.”
You should tell.
Tell on Reggie, at least. He was the one who put you up to it at the assembly, after all. And you remember that word on the whiteboard before Thanksgiving. Back then you wondered if it was him, but now…
What about Brody, though?
Brody’s your friend.
Brody doesn’t mean it, does he?
You shake your head and turn away. Your shoe squeaks against the tile floor. Brody’s footsteps follow.
“Hey,” he says, soft, but you keep walking. “Come on, man, wait.”
You don’t want to wait. Don’t want to stop. If you keep moving maybe you can outrun this feeling. This dread. This shame.
If you stop, you have to face it. Have to answer all the ugly questions bubbling in your sour stomach.
You’re never having coffee again.
But he grabs your shoulder, not hard but firm, and you round on him.
“I can’t believe you,” you tell him.
He throws up his hands. “Hey, it was Reggie who did it.”
“But you told him about Farshid.”
“It was funny. He got rejected so bad.”
A spike of sympathy runs through you. You know what that feels like. How small and useless you felt when Mariana shot you down.
Now that you think about it, that was Brody’s fault, wasn’t it?
“You’re my best friend,” you say, but he interrupts you with another “No homo,” and you snap.
“Would you quit that? Being friends doesn’t make us gay, andthere’s nothing wrong with it anyway. You’re my best friend, but this isn’t cool.”
“It’s just a joke,” he says again, crossing his arms, but his face is turning red. “I thought you had a sense of humor.”
“And I thought you were a good guy,” you snap.
