Everyone laughed.
"What I'm getting at," said Ms. Campbell, "is that I'm again trying to see if we can find parallels between our society and the society Orwell predicted in
1984."
According to Ms. Campbell, Orwell had predicted text messages. They were newspeak. Ms. Campbell was cool, but sometimes she just dug a little too deep.
"He was wrong about this," said Lisa, "because in our society, we aren't forbidden to have sex."
"No," said Jason, "but maybe it's just backwards. I mean, if you live in a society where you're sexually repressed, then having sex is an act of rebellion. But if you live in a society where sex is condoned and encouraged, then the opposite would be true."
"So not having sex would be an act of rebellion?" asked Ms. Campbell.
Half of the class snickered. I looked around. They were staring at me. Suddenly, I knew what this was all about. I should never have confided in Eve and Sherry. Those girls had big mouths. Everyone was laughing at me because Toby and I weren't having sex. I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
Ms. Campbell furrowed her brow. "Why is that funny?" she asked.
"I don't think it's funny at all," said Jason. "Actually, if someone did that in a permissive society like ours, I think it would be brave."
He was looking right at me. Jason was taking up for me. That was cool of him. I caught his eyes for a moment, trying to communicate that I was grateful.
"Am I hearing you right?" asked Ms. Campbell. "Jason, you're saying that in today's society, abstinence is a form of rebellion?"
"Kind of," said Jason.
Later on, in French class, I intercepted a note that was making its rounds across the class. It said, "Azazel Jones has a deformed pussy." I crumpled it up and stared straight ahead. This was awful.
I barely made it to lunch, and when I did, I exploded to Toby in the lunch line, "I can't take this!"
Toby seemed confused. "Take what? Why are you upset?"
I showed him the note.
He uncrumpled it. "This is kind of messed up," he said, finally sounding a little concerned.
"Kind of?" I said. "I happen to mention to Sherry and Eve last night that we aren't having sex, and now I'm
deformed?!"
We took our trays off the rack and proceeded into the kitchen.
Toby looked confused as he slid his tray along in front of the cafeteria workers. "How are those things even related?" He looked across at one of the cooks. "No jello, okay?"
"They said that there was no way you wouldn't want to have sex with me unless something was wrong with me," I told him. "And now everyone thinks something's wrong with me."
"Jesus," said Toby. "I can't believe those girls." He shook his head, looking angry for a second. Then he stopped. "Why'd you tell them that anyway?"
"They were talking about having sex with their boyfriends," I said. "They asked me a question. I couldn't relate, what was I supposed to say?"
"Say it's private," said Toby. "Say it's none of their business."
"Is that what you say?" I demanded. We emerged from the kitchen, carrying our lunch trays.
We started across the cafeteria to our regular table. Several of the girls spotted us as we approached. They huddled together, speaking in voices too low to hear. Then they burst into laughter.
I stopped. "I can't eat at that table," I said.
"Oh geez, you don't even know if they were talking about you," said Toby.
"I do know," I said. "I'm not even hungry anyway."
I dumped my tray in the trashcan and tore out of the cafeteria and through the halls.
There was a little alcove behind the gym that I knew about. Maybe nobody would see me if I just went there and cried.
There was no one in the alcove. I leaned against the wall. Rested my head against it.
This had to be the worst day of my entire life. Why was everyone being so awful?
When I'd thought that I was the oldest virgin on earth, I'd been exaggerating. Surely there were other girls in school who hadn't had sex. Surely I wasn't the only girl. And I couldn't be the only person who thought it was okay to be a virgin, could I? I slid down the wall and covered my face with my hands.
Someone rounded the corner, calling my name. I expected it to be Toby. I expected that he would have followed me. But it wasn't. It was Jason.
"Hey," I said, feeling dangerously close to tears.
"Hey," he said. "I, um, saw you run out of the cafeteria. I'm sorry everybody's being so awful."
"It's not your fault," I said. Jason was being nice to me, and that didn't do anything to stop the impending flood of tears. They started to leak out of my eyes. I brushed them away angrily. "It's just stupid," I said. "I hate it. I feel like everyone else has done it and that they're right. Something is wrong with me."
Jason sat down next to me. "Well, not everyone else has done it," he said.
"I know, but it just seems..." Then I realized he was admitting something to me. "Oh,"
I said.
He smiled at me. "I've never even had a girlfriend," he said.
"Really?" I said. "But you're so..."
"Weird," he said.
"No, you're not," I said. But hadn't I said about him, thought that about him, too many times to count? "That wasn't what I was going to say. You're...smart and brave and strong and you're...you know, very attractive."
Jason laughed. "Right," he said sarcastically. "Sure."
"I'm serious," I said.
"Stop. I came here to cheer
you
up, not the other way around."
I smiled. "Well, whatever you did, it kind of worked." I wasn't crying anymore.
"Cool," he said.
We were quiet for a couple minutes.
"You know, Azazel," he said, "I don't know if I ever really told you how grateful I am that you found me when you did. And that you took me back to your house and...
This...all of this, the school, your parents, everything. It's so...great. I always wanted to have a life like this. And it's because of you."
"What?" I said. "I just did what—"
"Who's back there?" interrupted a voice.
A teacher? Weren't we allowed back here at lunch?
But it was Adam Neels and Joe Anthony, the two worst troublemakers in our school.
They practically lived in ISS. They stood in front of us, with their greasy hair and camouflaged jackets and pimply faces, and I could just tell this wasn't going to be good. How was I supposed to know this was their spot?
Jason and I both stood up.
"Oh," said Adam. "It's Azazel Jones with one of the foster fucks."
"We're going," I said.
"No, it's cool," said Joe. "You two can stay."
"Hey Azazel," said Adam. "I hear that you don't have a cunt, and that's why your dumbass boyfriend can't figure out how to fuck you."
"No," said Joe, "that's not what I heard. I heard she's actually a dude. Her mom just makes her dress up in girl clothes."
Jason folded his arms over his chest. "Don't talk to her like that," he said calmly.
"What are you gonna do about it?" asked Joe, advancing on Jason.
Joe was at least a head taller than Jason, and much wider. Standing next to Jason, Joe looked like an overgrown oaf.
"Yeah," said Adam, coming closer to me. "You packing a dick in those jeans, Azazel?
Why don't you let us see?"
Adam took another step forward, and his face was right in my face, and his hands were on my waist. I flattened myself against the wall, terrified. What was he going to do? Should I scream?
"Don't touch her," said Jason's voice, still quiet and calm.
Adam whipped his head around to face Jason. "Her?" he mocked. "You sure that she's a her?"
It happened so fast. Jason drove his fist into Adam's face. Adam yelled and backed away, his hand going to his lip, which was gushing blood. Joe lumbered for Jason, but Jason nimbly ducked under Joe's outstretched arms. Behind Joe now, he gripped the back of Joe's neck and slammed Joe's forehead into the wall. Then Jason reached out, took my hand, and pulled me away from the alcove.
"Let's get out of here," he said.
We hurried out into the crowded gym. I looked behind us, expecting Adam and Joe to be hot in pursuit. But they weren't there. I stared at Jason, stunned.
It had been so matter-of-fact. So precise. He hadn't thought. He'd just acted. He'd quickly and neatly dispatched both of the boys. Jason hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
"Fine," I said, dazed. I couldn't believe he'd just done that.
"People are jerks," he muttered.
* * *
It took a week, but the rumors about my gender and deformed genitals eventually died down at school. People were starting to focus on Homecoming, which was only a week away. The dance happened to coincide with Halloween, and the girls that Toby and I ate with were buzzing with theme ideas. They wanted the Homecoming Dance to be a costume ball. It sounded okay, as far as I was concerned. I didn't know what I was going to dress up as. There was one clear silver lining in the whole set up. If there was a Homecoming Dance on Halloween, my parents couldn't force me to attend one of their lame parties.
Actually, I hadn't heard any talk about a party from my parents. Apparently, a party hadn't been their big plan for Halloween. Or, if it had, it was no longer on the table.
The big news at home was that the state was going to let us keep Jason. He was officially registered in their system now, and there was no chance of the arm of the law swooping down and sending him to a shelter or something. I hadn't really thought that would happen. Jason wouldn't stay in a shelter. There was just no way. He would just run off.
I still knew next to nothing about Jason. I'd started waking up early on Sundays, trying to catch him alone again. But he was never awake anymore, and there wasn't anything good on TV on Sunday morning. Sometimes, I formulated theories about Jason. He'd said he was running from a group of people who were like Freemasons with guns. I wondered if they were the Illuminati. The Illuminati was a secret society that controlled everything on earth. They had ties to numerous world governments.
They pulled hidden strings.
But that didn't make sense. Why would the Illuminati be looking for Jason? I considered the facts. Jason was very, very smart. He was educated. Someone had taken pains to make sure Jason was well read. That sounded like something the Illuminati might do, but again...why Jason? Jason also was skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He had excellent control over his emotions. I'd never seen him angry. None of that fit with the Illuminati.
Sometimes, I thought Jason was a robot, a secret prototype that the government had created to be a killing machine or something. I speculated that Jason maybe didn't know he was a robot. That was why he'd been told this story about his mother, who was dead, and all of that. He thought he was human, but actually he was a machine.
I didn't think that was really true.
But it bothered me. Who was this boy who lived in my house? Why couldn't I crack his secrets? And why didn't anyone else seem as concerned as I was with figuring out who he was and where he came from?
Jason had blended into my family. He ate like the rest of the Jones boys. He played video games with them, even participated in their good-natured teasing. He did his chores. He was respectful to my parents. To my knowledge, he hadn't gone out to any parties or been drinking since the incident at the Nelson farm. But even though he seemed like a regular kid—albeit an obedient, responsible one—there was something about him that just seemed, well, different. He was quiet a lot. He was separate. Even when he was laughing, he didn't seem...happy. He seemed haunted. I thought that something very bad had happened to Jason at some point in his life. I wanted to know what it was, but at the same time, if it had damaged Jason so deeply, maybe I didn't.
Halloween and the dance loomed. Lilith was excited about it, even though she didn’t have a date. "I'll go solo if no one asks," she said. "Then I won't be stuck dancing with the same stupid boy all night." She wanted to find a costume, and she invited me to go shopping with her.
Since Bramford was in the middle of nowhere, we had drive forty-five minutes to Cumberland, Maryland to do any decent shopping. Lilith was excited on the way up, chattering about her various costume options.
"I'm thinking," she said, "slutty nurse, or maybe slutty cheerleader, or maybe just slut."
I laughed. "Lilith, you know there's a dress code for this dance."
She sighed. "I know. And it drives me nuts. Halloween is the one night of the year where you can get away with wearing next to nothing, and this dance is just raining on my parade."
I had no idea what I was going to dress up as. I'd tried to get some ideas from Toby. I thought it might be kind of cute if we had matching costumes. But Toby had decided to dress up as Michael Myers, and I was so not dressing up as a helpless victim. So that idea was out.
"I know exactly what you should dress up as," said Lilith. "The Virgin Mary."
"Lilith!" I exclaimed. "That's so mean. Why would you say that?"
"Oh, it's a joke! It'll show all those bitches at school that you don't care what they say about you. It would be hilarious."
"No way," I said. "But maybe a Vestal virgin."
Lilith laughed. "Really?"
I thought about it. "Vestal virgins are way sexier than the Virgin Mary," I said.
Lilith allowed me that.
Our first stop was the Goodwill store, in order to find cheap pieces that would make up the bulk of our costumes. We'd spend more money on accessories. All of this was Lilith's scheming. I didn't think about things like this. I hit the racks, looking for something that looked kind of like a toga. I didn't even know what Vestal virgins looked like. I figured it didn't matter. No one else would know what they looked like either. After all, they hadn't been around for over a thousand years.