Authors: David Levithan
"He'll learn," Infinite Darlene says as Kyle recedes into a classroom. She's been saying that for a year now, without ever telling me who Kyle's going to learn from. I still wonder if it's supposed to be me.
With some break-ups, all you can think about afterwards is how badly it ended and how much the other person hurt you. With others, you become sentimental for the good times and lose track of what went wrong. When I think of Kyle, the beginnings and the endings are all mixed up. I see his enraptured face reflected in the light of a flickering movie screen; passing him a note and having him rip it into confetti-sized pieces without reading it; his hand taking mine for the first time, on the way to math class; him calling me a liar and a loser; the first time I knew he liked me, when I caught him hovering around my locker before I actually got there; the first time I knew he didn't like me anymore, when I went to give him back a book I'd borrowed and he pulled away instinctively.
He said I'd tricked him. He said it to everyone.
Only a few people believed him. But it wasn't what they thought that mattered to me. It was what he thought. And if he really believed it.
"He's the worst," Infinite Darlene says. But even she knows this isn't true. He is far from the worst.
Seeing Kyle always takes some of the volume out of my soundtrack. Now I'm no longer floating on a Noah high.
Infinite Darlene tries to cheer me up.
"I have chocolate," she says, reaching a big hand into her purse for a Milky Way mini.
I am sucking at the caramel and nougat when Joni comes up to us with her latest Noah Report.
Sadly, it's the same as the last five.
"I haven't been able to find him," she says. "I've found people who know who he is, but nobody seems to know
where
he is. Chuck was helping me before, and Chuck said that he's one of those arty types. Now, from Chuck that wasn't an ultimate compliment, but at least it pointed me in the right direction. I looked at the wall outside the art room and found a photo he did. Chuck helped me get it."
I am not really alarmed by Joni's thievery--we take things off walls and put them back all the time. But my inner security device does take notice of the number of times that Joni's name-checked Chuck. In the past, I've been able to tell that things with Ted were getting better when Joni began to name-check him again. The fact that it's now Chuck has looped me for a throw.
Joni takes a small, framed photograph out of her bag. The frame is the color of Buddy Holly's glasses, and has largely the same effect.
"You have to look at it closely," Joni tells me.
I hold the photo up to my face, ignoring my own reflection to see what lies beneath. At first I see the man in the chair, toward the back of the photo. He's the age of my grandfather and is sitting in an old wooden rocker, laughing his head off. Then I realize he's sitting in a room covered by snow globes. There must be hundreds -- maybe thousands--of the small plastic shakers, each with its own blurry locale. Snow globes cover the floor, the counters, the shelves, the table at the man's arm.
It's a very cool photograph.
"You can't keep it," Joni says.
"I know, I know." I look at it for a minute more, then hand it back.
Infinite Darlene has kept quiet through this whole exchange. But she's about to burst with curiosity.
"He's just some guy," I say.
"Do tell," she insists.
So I do. Tell.
And I know as I do that he isn't "just some guy." There was something in our two minutes together that felt like it could last for years. Telling Infinite Darlene this doesn't just feel like I'm setting myself up for gossip.
No, it feels like I'm putting my whole heart on the line.
Pride
and
Joy
Joni, Ted, and I sit together for the Homecoming Pride Rally that afternoon. It's the first rally that I've ever been in the stands for. This is due to a fluke of scheduling. Our school has too many activities and teams to be represented in each and every cheering session, so whenever we have a rally, only a dozen groups are spotlighted. They'd asked me to bring my acting troupe this time around, but I felt such recognition might damage our art--putting the personality before the performance, as it were. So as a result I am sitting in the bleachers of our gymnasium, trying to gauge the Joni-and-Ted barometer. Right now, it looks like the pressure is high. Ted keeps looking over at Joni, but Joni isn't looking as much at Ted.
He turns to me instead.
"You find your boyfriend yet?" he asks.
Panicked, I look around to see if Noah is in the immediate vicinity. Luckily, he is not.
I am starting to wonder if he actually exists.
The principal's secretary gets up to the microphone to start the rally. Everybody knows that she wields the real power in the school, so it makes sense to have her leading things here.
The gymnasium doors open and the cheerleaders come riding in on their Harleys. The crowd goes wild.
We are, I believe, the .only high school in America with a biker cheerleading team. But I could be wrong. A few years ago, it was decided that having a posse of motorcycles gun around the fields and courts was a much bigger cheer-inducer than any pom-pom routine could ever hope to be. Now, in an intricately choreographed display, the Harleys swerve around the gym, starting off in a pyramid the shape of a bird migration, then splitting up into spins and corners. For a finale, the cheerleaders rev all at once and shoot themselves off a ramp emblazoned with our high school's name. They are rewarded with massive applause.
Already the rally is doing its job. I am proud to be a student at my high school.
The tennis team is the next up. My brother and his friend Mara are the doubles champions, so they get a pretty good reception. I try to cheer loudly so Jay can hear my voice above the crowd. He's a senior now, and I know he's started to feel sad about everything coming to an end. Next year, he'll be on a college tennis team. It won't be the same.
After the tennis team has been cheered, our school cover band comes out to play. The cover band's stats are actually better than the tennis team's -- at this past year's Dave Matthews Cover Band Competition, they went all the way to the finals with their cover of the Dave Matthews Band covering "All Along the Watchtower," only to be defeated by a cover band that played "Typical Situation" while standing on their heads. Now they launch into a cover of "One Day More" from
Les Miserables,
and I admire the lead singer's versatility.
After an encore of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," the principal's secretary asks for quiet and introduces this year's homecoming king and queen. Infinite Darlene strides out in a pink ball gown, covered in part by her quarterback jersey. The homecoming king, Dave Sprat, hangs from her arm, a good thirteen inches shorter than her (if you count the heels).
Infinite Darlene is holding a portable microphone we borrowed from Zeke's van, so she can introduce and march at the same time. As the school cover band strikes up a skacore version of "We Are the Champions" (we're not
entirely
without tradition), the members of the football team line up for their presentation.
I lean over to Joni. She's fixing her eyes on Chuck.
I honestly don't know why. Chuck is the second-string quarterback who fell for Infinite Darlene and got all upset when she didn't return his affections. He was real bitter about it, worse than Ted in his fouler moods. Ted, at least, is able to lose his cool without totally losing his sense of humor. I'm not sure that Chuck's the same way. I wish Tony went to our school, so I could lift my eyebrow and get his take on the situation.
Ted doesn't seem to notice where Joni's glance is taking her. He is looking elsewhere.
"Is that him?" he asks.
Because he's Ted, he goes right ahead and points at someone in the stands across the gymnasium. I squint to make out the faces from the crowd. At first, I think he's pointing at Kyle, who is somewhat subdued in his applause for the football players as Infinite Darlene introduces them. Then I realize Ted is pointing a few rows up.
I see an empty seat. Then, next to it, I see Noah.
He senses me looking. I swear. He looks right at me.
Or maybe he's looking at Ted, who's still pointing.
"Put your finger down,"
I say between gritted teeth.
"Chill," Ted tells me, moving his finger through the air, as if he hadn't been pointing at Noah at all. I try to play along.
When the whole pointing charade is over, I see that Noah's still where he was a second ago. I don't know why I thought he would have disappeared. I guess I don't believe these things can ever be easy, although I also don't see why they have to be hard.
Joni's broken her attention from Chuck for long enough to get what's going on.
"Don't just sit here," she says.
"If you don't go over there, I will -- and I'll tell him all about your crush," Ted informs me.
I'm not sure if he's kidding or not.
It's a mighty thin border between peer pressure and bravery. Knowing that Joni and Ted aren't going to let me get out of it, I head to Noah's side of the gym. One of the teachers shoots me a stay-in-your-seat glance, but I wave her off. Over the loudspeakers, I can hear Infinite Darlene's crystal voice: "And now, introducing the quarterback . . . the one . . . the only . . .
ME!"
I look at the crowd. Everyone cheers, except for some of the more elitist drag queens, who feign disinterest.
I duck behind the bleachers, weaving to the stairs. I wonder what I'll say. I wonder if I'm about to make a fool of myself.
All I can feel is this intensity. My mind beating in time with my heart. My steps keeping sway with my hopes.
I get to the bottom of the stands. I've lost track of the space. I can't find Noah. I look back to Joni and Ted. Much to my mortification, they both point me on my way. The football presentation is over and the quiz bowling team is preparing to enter. Infinite Darlene is basking in her last round of applause. I swear she winks when she looks my way.
I focus on the seat next to Noah. I do not focus on his crazy-cool hair, or his blue suede shoes, or the specks of paint on his hands and his arms.
I am beside him.
"Is this seat taken?" I ask.
He looks up at me. And then, after a beat, he breaks out smiling.
"Hey," he says, "I've been looking all over for you."
I don't know what to say. I am so happy and so scared.
There is a roar through the stands as the quiz bowling team is announced. They come sprinting onto the court, rolling for pins while answering questions about Einstein's theory of relativity.
"I've been looking for you, too," I say at last.
He says, "Cool," and it's cool. So cool.
I sit down next to him as the audience cheers for the captain of the quiz bowling team, who's just scored a strike while listing the complete works of the Bronte sisters.
I don't want to scare him by telling him all the things that are scaring me. I don't want him to know how important this is. He has to feel the importance for himself.
So I say, "Those are cool shoes," and we talk about blue suede shoes and the duds store where he shops. We talk as the badminton team lets its birdies fly. We talk as the French Cuisine Club rises the perfect souffle. We laugh when it falls.
I am looking for signs that he understands me. I am looking for my hopes to be confirmed.
"This is such serendipity, isn't it?" he asks. I almost fall off my seat. I am a firm believer in serendipity--all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
We talk about music and find that we like the same kinds of music. We talk about movies and find that we like the same kinds of movies.
"Do you really exist?" I blurt out.
"Not at all," he says with a smile. "I've known that since I was four."
"What happened when you were four?"
"Well, I had this theory. Although I guess I was too young to know it was a theory. You see, I had this imaginary friend. She followed me everywhere--we had to set a place for her at the table, she and I talked all the time--the whole deal. Then it occurred to me that she wasn't the imaginary friend at all. I figured that
I
was the imaginary friend, and she was the one who was real. It made perfect sense to me. My parents disagreed, but I still secretly feel that I'm right."
"What was her name?" I ask.
"Sarah. Yours?'
"Thorn. With an
h."
"Maybe they're together right now."
"Oh, no. I left Thorn in Florida. He never liked to travel."
We are not taking each other too seriously, which is a serious plus. The paint on his hands is not quite purple and not quite blue. There is a speck of just-right red on one of his fingers.
The principal's secretary has the microphone again. The rally is almost over.
"I'm glad you found me," Noah says.
"Me too." I want to float, because it's that simple. He's glad I found him. I'm glad I found him.
We are not afraid to say this. I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.
It pretty much blows me away.
I think Noah recognizes this. He's looking at me with a nifty grin. The other people in our row are standing and jostling now, waiting for us to leave so they can get to the aisle and resume their day. I want time to stop.
Time doesn't stop.
"Two sixty-three," Noah tells me.
"?!???" I reply.
"My locker number," he explains. "I'll see you after school."
Now I don't want time to stop. I want it to fast-forward an hour. Noah has become my
until.
As we leave the gym, I can see Kyle shoot me a look. I don't care. Joni and Ted will no doubt be waiting under the bleachers for the full report.