on hearing every sordid detail, squealing with delight whenever a nipple entered the picture.
“So now I have two mommies?” he joked.
“That might be premature. I’m not sure she’s ready to be a card-carrying LGBTQ-club kid.”
“Um, from what you’ve just shared, she could be president of the club.”
Kris was still living with his drag mother, channeling every queen he met, wandering through the wilderness of his sexual and gender identity, assuming he was THE expert in the subject, blissfully naïve to the truth that his best buddy Kim was part of a race of people obliterating the very conceits of gender and sexuality to begin with.
“Vice president,” I say, and Kris laughs.
“Treasurer, because girlfriend was all about your coin purse,” he cracks.
“Gross.”
“Shanté, you stay,” he declares in his best RuPaul voice.
“You sashay away.”
“Mopping is stealing.”
“You really need to stop watching Paris Is Burning on Netflix every day,” I say.
“And you really need to stop being a boring-ass drag, you big lez.”
“Who are you calling big?” I joke.
I watch Kris smiling on the tiny screen in his vintage perforated tank top and high-waisted jeans, and it hits me that in a few weeks, unless I decide to put him in the circle of trust, we won’t be friends anymore.
Because I won’t be Kim anymore.
“So when’s your next sex bout?” he asks.
“I’m having it now.”
Kris does a full-on fake puke. “Did you read that article in Nat Geo about how there are gay dolphins? Legit same-sex dolphin couples. Put that in your homosexuality-is-unnatural pipe and smoke it, phobic arseholes.” I hear a gravelly voice in the background asking Kris about cigarettes. “I’m happy for you, you stupid bitch,” he says, “but I gotta go.”
“Me too.”
“Now find me a freak to love.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. I know a lot of freaks.” I point at him, and Kris blows me a kiss as the screen freezes, then goes black.
I try Facetiming Audrey after that, but she doesn’t pick up. I push down the worry that immediately crowds my thoughts. Worry that she is scouring the dark web for a drug to vanish any trace in her head of our afternoon by the river. Worry that Jason somehow senses a ripple in his Abider-leaning matrix and has cornered Audrey in her bedroom, screaming at her with a megaphone about the dangers of hanging with anyone who doesn’t look like one of those kids from Cabaret who sing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” Who am I kidding? That’s every night at Audrey’s house.
I try Facetiming Destiny. She texts that she can’t pick up, says to call like it’s 1999 or some crap. So I old-school phone her.
“Hey, girl,” she says when she picks up. “How’s sweet, sad Andy?”
“Fine. Sweet. Sad. Still in love with you.”
“Awwww.”
“So. I had sex with Audrey.”
“Hello! Why didn’t you say so?”
“I just did.”
“Man. That’s major. Beyond. How do you feel? How was it?”
“Remember the rain scene in The Notebook?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Like that, only sunny.”
“So, not the worst.” Destiny laughs.
“No. Not the worst.” I laugh back. Then proceed to tell her all the gories. And, of course, my irrational fears.
“Not so irrational, given the history there,” Destiny observes.
I knew she was right. Making Audrey my Static is like trying to thread a needle with my feet. An uphill battle, at best. Premature, according to every Changers and Static standard since the final decades of the twentieth century. But you can’t choose who you love. Right? Or when you love.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Destiny says, “but my priority is you. Your safety. Your heart. You’re a goddamned jewel, and from what I’ve seen, that family is Shining-level scary.”
I stay quiet.
Destiny continues: “I mean, her brother? He’s like a car alarm that never shuts off. And her parents? I don’t know, Kim.”
“You’re not wrong, but—”
“But.” I hear her sigh on the other end of phone. “You’re sure this is what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m here for it.”
“Thanks, Destiny.”
“What are you going to do about the fall? Your last V?” she asks.
“I promised to tell her.”
Another long sigh.
“I’m tired of lying,” I add.
“I hear you. But . . .”
“But what?”
“You have no idea what’s going to happen next year. Can you trust her?”
“Yes,” I say defensively.
“Dang, DJ’s texting. Gotta go. Be careful.”
* * *
It’s three a.m. I can’t sleep. It’s like I have a big test tomorrow. I check the clock every hour. In a way, I do have a test. School is ending in less than two weeks. Audrey will go to her hidey-hole church camp. I will be stuck here. Odds are we won’t see each other until the first day of my final V. Which could be anything. I could be anyone. Anyone but Kim. Or Oryon. Or Drew. Or Ethan. In the end, Audrey loved all of them in a way. More than I loved them myself.
When people get married, they’re supposed to stick together through anything. For better or worse. Sickness and health. Hell or high water. That’s what love is supposed to do. But the divorce stats tell a different story. All people change, and the people who love them often hate the change, and then that’s that.
* * *
It’s four a.m. And I’m spiraling. I’ve always been a spiraler. I guess Ethan’s overthinking and struggles with anxiety are one of the lovely bonuses that
