“We’re good!” Ruth calls sweetly. She lowers her voice. “Okay, what happened?”
I run my fingertips across the tops of the dusty books. The only time anyone checks these out is when a teacher requires that one of your sources be an actual book. I’ve never been a big reader, but I wonder what it would be like to live in a house where you had room and money for bookshelves full of books you don’t have time to read.
“It was nothing....” I see the determination in Ruth’s eyes. She’s the smartest person I know, and if anyone has an answer to this, it’s her. I hesitate for a second, recalling the quick tinge of guilt I felt a moment ago. But I shake it off. I have no reason to feel that way. “Okay, I have a hypothetical question.”
She crosses her arm over her chest and leans against the shelving unit. “Let me hear it.”
“What if someone, like say Saul, who is definitely gay, kissed someone of the opposite sex?”
The tension in her forehead eases. “Everyone experiments. I mean, even straight people are a little bit gay. I think Saul went to freshman homecoming with a girl. I dated Matt Hankins in ninth grade for four months. Four months of kissing a Dorito-flavored mouth with unchecked facial stubble irritating my skin.”
“Right. I get that. But what if said person wasn’t feeling very confused about it?”
She raises an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t really know.” Every bit of hesitation and uncertainty reveals itself in my voice.
Ruth gives me a thin but sympathetic smile. “I guessif you really get down to it, I identify as a homoromantic demisexual.”
My forehead wrinkles into a knot. “A what?”
“Exactly,” she says. “But if I say that to people like my parents, their heads would explode. So I call myself a lesbian, and I’m okay with that.”
She gives me a hard look. “Listen, I don’t know exactly what it is you’re trying to figure out, but I would be careful about leading on other people beforeyouknow what you want. Freddie isn’t—”
“This is hypothetical,” I remind her.
“Right. Of course. Well, thisguyisn’t just some guy, and this hypothetical person might wanna be careful that they don’t mess up a good thing for no reason. Especially if this hypothetical kiss was just some hypothetical fluke, because this hypothetical person is definitely only attracted to girls.”
I nod my head, slowly at first and then firmer. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“But, really,” she says, “it couldn’t have meant anything, right?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Totally.”
“And maybe these two hypothetical people should do everything they can to get back to normal and just be friends.”
I don’t know why, but I can’t look her in the eyes right now, so I pick at the spine of the J-K-L encyclopedia and nod.
Ruth softens a little. “Listen, I’m not a really... I don’t know... a mushy kind of person, but you know who you are. I remember hearing you came out in ninth grade, and thinking, ‘Wow. Not only does she know who she is, she’s being who she is.’ You don’t have to let this one hypothetical thing change you if you don’t want it to.”
I try not to let her see, because I think Ruth would hate that more than anything, but her words make me tear up. I don’t know how to respond, so I say, “I guess we should get to class.”
At lunch, Freddie is quick to find me in the courtyard outside the cafeteria.
“Hey,” he says. “Can I sit down?”
“Yeah,” I tell him.Act normal. I kissed him back. Don’t be awkward. I kissed him back.
“I know I was supposed to wait for you to call me—”
“Yeah, listen, I wasn’t feeling super great this weekend, and then Hattie and Tyler were arguing, so things were sort of crazy.” All I hear is the conversation I had with Ruth this morning. I’ve got to do whatever I can to get us back to normal.
“Right.” He nods, and I can see that I could give him any excuse and it would all mean the same thing: something has changed. “You up for an extra swim in the morning? We can make up for today.”
Relief floods my chest. “Yeah! For sure!”
“You’re Ramona?” asks a white guy wearing a T-shirt that saysWhat the frak?tucked into cargo shorts. “You’reRamona,” he says, confirming it for himself. “They said to look for blue hair.”
