Page 67 of Another Day (Every Day 2)

“Does Justin even do gossip? He doesn’t strike me as the type.”

No, but I can imagine Lindsay going up to him and sharing her theories—I just thought you should know, she’d say, gossip’s good little helper.

It could explain his noncommunication today. But a thousand other things could also explain

it. And calling him and making a big deal of some rumor could seriously backfire if he hasn’t heard anything.

“Really,” Preston says, “don’t worry about it. The only reason I brought it up was…well, for selfish reasons. Woe is me. I am woe.”

He’s only kind-of joking, and it’s only kind-of convincing.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He smiles ruefully. “I’m fine. Although I’d be much more fine if you’d said you’d already given the swoopy-haired boy my number.”

“What happened with Alec?”

“Not swoopy-haired.”

“And that guy in Massachusetts you were chatting with?”

“Not swoopy-haired. And not local.”

“So swoopy hair is the thing? You can’t be with a guy unless his hair swoops?”

“If there’s an exception, I haven’t met him yet.”

“I’m serious. Do you really believe that much in a ‘type’? Is there really only one kind of person for you? Couldn’t you be open to someone outside your type if he or she was great enough?”

“Or she?”

“I’m just saying—if you loved someone enough, would it really matter?”

“I know you want me to say no, but let’s be real here. We’re all wired to like certain things and to hate certain things. A lot of these things are negotiable, but some of them are fundamental. Don’t ask me why—I’d need a PhD and a really powerful microscope to begin to tell you why. Could I love a guy without swoopy hair? Yeah, sure. Could I love a guy with a mullet? Much harder. Could I love a girl with a mullet? As a friend, sure. But—how to put this?—would I want to have relations with her? No. Not interested. At all. Nuh-uh.”

“But don’t you wish it were possible? I mean, don’t you wish anything were possible?”

“Do I wish it? Sure. I mean, why not? But do I think it’s true? Nope. Sorry. Not by a long shot. I have two years of being in love with our mutual friend Ben to show for that. Not everything is possible. Falling for a straight boy is thus inadvisable.”

I don’t steer to the side of the road at the breaking of this news, but I do turn down the radio to focus in on it more. “Wait—you’re in love with Ben?”

“I was in love with Ben. The torture chamber kind of love. Oh, Lord, what I would have done for, to, or with that boy. This was before he was with Rebecca. Well, the beginning of it was before he was with Rebecca.”

I picture Ben two years ago. His swoopy hair.

“But you knew he wasn’t gay, right?” I ask. “I mean, he wasn’t, was he? I’m not missing that, too?”

“No, you’re not.” Preston stares out the window. “It was just something I tried to convince myself could happen. It was easier for me to come out if I thought there was someone to be in love with. A destination for my trajectory. I know that’s silly, and I know he did nothing to deserve it—but I had to picture some kind of future, and while I was at it, I decided to cut him out from reality and paste him into my fantasy. I felt a lot of things at that moment, and I needed to feel every single one of them. Then I had to tell myself I was done. He wasn’t going to suddenly like boys, any more than I was going to suddenly like girls.”

I know Preston won’t understand where the question’s coming from, yet I have to ask. “But what if he could’ve changed? I mean, what if Ben could’ve changed into a girl, and you could have been with him that way?”

“Rhiannon, if I’d wanted to fall for a girl, there were plenty of awesome girls around to fall for. That’s not how it works.”

Silly. I feel silly.

“I know, I know,” I say. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Then he takes a good look at me. “What’s on your mind?”