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“I’m going to play the cancer card.”

I snatched the phone back. “Eurgh,no, that’s not fair.”

“Neither is cancer.”

I stared her down, and Dylan struggled to the floor to join Crista on her iPad. I lowered my voice so Crista didn’t overhear. The last thing I wanted was a re-formation of the Will fan club right now. “Fine. It’s Will.”

“Will from the lake?”

“Bingo.”

“Oh mygosh,” Aunt Linda squealed. “You didn’t tell me he lives in Collinswood.”

“He lives in Napier, but he goes to Collinswood High.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

My grin felt a little pained. Probably not as award winning as my musical debut as a bush, put it that way. “Nah. He’s not out, so we don’t have that much to do with each other.”

“Sounds like he wants to sit next to you in class. That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Wednesday, 6:47 PM

Hey, wanna sit next to me tomorrow in music? I promise I won’t distract you. Finding it hard to keep up! I’m dumb: (

No wonder he was finding it hard to keep up. He knew nothing about music. It made zero sense for him to have transferred into the class at all.

“Yeah, well, not serious enough for him to risk being seen alone with me,” I said, exiting the message app. “So, whatever.”

Aunt Linda turned the television down with the remote. She meant business. D and M time, so it would seem. “I remember when you were in eighth grade, and you had that crush on the older boy. What was his name again?”

“Ben.”

“Ben.You were crazy about him.”

Damn right I was. Ben with the perfect singing voice and bright green eyes. Who wouldn’t have been crazy about Ben? Too bad Ben was straighter than a curtain rod. “So?”

“So, even though you told me all about Ben, you didn’t tell everyone.”

Of course I hadn’t. Barely anyone even knew I was gay back then. I hadn’t come out properly until tenth grade. “Yeah, I wasn’t out yet. I get your point, but it’s different. I could never have had Ben anyway. If he’d told me he liked me, I would’ve done anything.”

“Well, maybe you were ready a little earlier than some. You also had a supportive family, and great friends. Not everyone has it so easy.”

I was unmoved. “If Will liked me the way I liked Ben, he’d atleastspeak to me in public.”

“Is music class not public?”

“Sure, but he ignored me forweeksup until just recently. In the halls, and in the cafeteria, and in English…”

“But not music class anymore. Seems like progress to me. It’s small, but it’s something. Sounds like he’s trying.”

Eurgh. I hated it when adults made sense.

“Try not to take it personally if he’s not going as quickly as you’d like him to,” Aunt Linda said. “If friendship is all he’s able to give you right now, don’t knock it because you were hoping for more. Maybe, if you’re lucky, he’ll be ready for something else one day. If not, at worst you’ll have yourself a good friend in a new school.”

I thought about it, trying to find the holes in her argument. It didn’t appeal to me, the idea that Will might only ever be a friend. Was that because deep down, I was hoping he’d magically turn back into the old Will overnight?

Aunt Linda might be right. Maybe I’d been unfair to pin that kind of expectation on Will. Now that I thought about it, he had been trying. Sure, he hadn’t done the thing I wanted him to do most of all—declare his love for me publicly on the bleachers in a grand musical number—but that didn’t mean I had to knock the baby steps, did it?