Page 40

Chapter Forty

Andrew

Coyote Creek High School still smells exactly the same, the distinct scent combination of floor wax, old textbooks, and teenage anxiety. My footsteps echo against the linoleum as I navigate hallways that feel both smaller and more familiar than they should.

Handy Andy.

The urge to hunch my shoulders hits me with muscle memory that apparently survived a decade and millions of dollars.

But I’m not that scared kid anymore. I’m the guy who is in love with Justin Morris. And that’s worth facing every ghost these halls can throw at me.

The gymnasium has been transformed with fairy lights and what appears to be every party decoration within a fifty-mile radius, as if someone typed high school reunion aesthetic into Pinterest and then implemented every single suggestion.

A banner proclaiming Welcome Back Class of 2015! hangs slightly crooked above the stage.

When I hesitantly give my name to Maddie Birwood sitting behind the registration table, her eyes light up. For an instant, I’m reminded of her once announcing, “Eww, it’s here,” when I entered the library during study hall, and I take a step backward.

But it’s not insults Maddie wants to throw my way today.

“Oh my god, Andrew Yates! You have to meet my husband. He’s been dying to pitch you his startup idea.”

Andrew Yates.

My name echoes around the room. My throat closes as conversations halt mid-sentence, heads swiveling toward me like some bizarre synchronized dance routine.

Whispers ripple through the crowd, my name passing from lip to lip like a game of telephone. Only this time, instead of morphing into cruel variations, it’s gaining honorifics with each repetition. Genius. Multi-millionaire. Success story.

And instead of insults, I’m suddenly drowning in business cards and eager smiles. These people who spent four years alternating between ridiculing me and pretending I was invisible are now competing to be my new best friend. Sam Eagleton, who once decided my last name was Gaytes instead of Yates, gushes to me about how his company uses NovaCore software and how amazing it is.

Sarah Chen, who was borderline nerdy and deflected attention from herself by loudly announcing, “Don’t catch the gay!” whenever I walked into AP Chemistry and would then laugh like she’d delivered an Oscar-worthy performance, is now hovering around me and giving me friendly smiles. Apparently, running a successful diversity consulting firm makes her past sins easier to forget.

But I don’t pay much attention to the people clamoring for my attention. I’m too busy scanning the room, looking for our former class president and football captain.

How will he react to me? What will he say?

I’ve put my heart on the line. I’ve told him exactly how I feel.

I’ve done everything I can.

If he refuses to speak to me, if he walks away tonight, my revenge plan will have managed to turn Teenage Andrew’s worst moments into something even more painful.

Justin’s rejection of me now will be infinitely worse than his treatment of me in high school. Because Justin knows the real me. Not the scared kid from high school, not the successful tech entrepreneur, but the person who finally learned how to be authentic through pretending to be someone else.

But before I can spot Justin, I hear another voice that causes my stomach to plummet.

“Holy shit, is that Andrew Yates?”

Connor Martinez’s voice carries across the gymnasium floor with the same subtle grace he used to demonstrate while “accidentally” checking people into lockers. He’s headed my way with Tad in tow, both of them wearing expressions that suggest they’ve just discovered their high school punching bag is actually Bruce Wayne.

“So it turns out the geek really did inherit the earth,” Tad says.

“And several Silicon Valley zip codes,” Connor adds, attempting what I assume is supposed to be a friendly smile but looks more like someone experiencing minor dental distress.

I adjust my glasses, which are the same frames I wore as Drew Smith because somewhere between pretending to be someone else and falling in love with Justin, they became part of who I actually am.

“Connor. Tad.” I’m pleased to find my voice comes out steady, even slightly amused. “I see you still come as a matched set.”

Connor’s face performs complicated gymnastics as he tries to navigate this new dynamic where I’m apparently someone worth impressing.

“Listen, about high school… No hard feelings, right? We were just kids being stupid.”

“Well, you definitely achieved stupidity to a high degree, so congratulations.”

Tad actually laughs at that before catching himself. The sound seems to startle him as much as it does Connor.

I open my mouth to continue but then stop myself. After all, didn’t Justin teach me that everyone’s story is more complicated than it appears from the outside?

Even the villains in our personal narratives have their own chapters we never got to read.

And when I turn slightly, my breath rushes out of me. Suddenly, Connor and Tad in front of me cease to matter.

Because I’ve just spotted Justin.

My mouth goes dry and my feet feel like they’ve glued themselves to the floor.

He’s standing near the makeshift stage, talking to Vincent Perez who was his vice president. He’s wearing charcoal dress pants and a cream-colored sweater over a collared shirt.

Oh my god, I love him so much. I want nothing more than to wrap him in my arms and press my face into that spot where his neck meets his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne until the rest of the world fades away.

And then he sees me.

Our gazes lock across the room, and suddenly, I’m drowning in blue-green, searching desperately for any hint of the warmth that used to live there.

But Justin’s face is written in a code I can’t crack anymore. It’s carefully neutral in a way that makes my stomach twist.

I’ve never felt more lost while looking at something so familiar. My heart ricochets around my chest like a pinball caught in an endless game, racking up points of pain with each bounce.

The screech of microphone feedback cuts through the gymnasium like a startled cat, making everyone wince and temporarily breaking Justin’s gaze on mine.

Maddie’s standing at the microphone on the stage, frantically adjusting her Class of 2015 sash that keeps sliding off one shoulder like it’s trying to escape the reunion entirely.

“Hey, everyone,” she says in her pert, upbeat cheerleader voice. “We’re about to kick off the formalities, so if y’all could just gather around.”

The crowd obeys her instructions and migrates toward the stage, everyone doing that awkward side-step shuffle while protecting their drinks with the same fierce dedication they once reserved for protecting their spot in the lunch line.

Maddie gives a giant smile that I’m pretty sure is the same one she used to flash right before announcing mandatory spirit-week participation.

“To begin tonight’s walk down memory lane, we’ve got a very special speech from our former class president, who’s flown all the way from London to be with us tonight. Justin, the stage is yours.”

There’s a loud applause punctuated by whoops and whistles that sound exactly like they did at pep rallies when Justin could make the whole school worship him with just a smile.

Justin’s confident stride takes him up the stairs to the podium on the stage. He’s carrying a tablet that he plugs into the projector screen before turning to the microphone.

“Hey, everyone,” he starts, and his voice still carries that warm confidence that used to make my stomach flip even when I was supposed to hate him. “It’s so great to see y’all tonight.”

Yeah, I’m not sure if great is my go-to word for how it feels to see him. Heartbreaking and nauseating is more appropriate for how I’m feeling right now.

“I had this whole speech prepared about how we’ve all grown and changed since high school, but then I saw Connor still trying to copy off Tad’s name tag, so maybe some things stay exactly the same.”

Laughter ripples through the crowd.

Tears prickle my eyelids as I watch Justin command the room with his easy charm. I had him. This amazing man loved me, and then I lost him.

And I don’t know how I will ever recover from that.

The stage lights catch on his hair, perfectly styled despite the Texas humidity that makes my hair revolt.

“But most things do change, which is good, right? Because I don’t think any of us wants to still be the same people who thought stealing someone’s inhaler during gym class was peak comedy.

“And do you know what’s funny about high school?” Justin continues. “We spend so much time trying to be who everyone expects us to be that we sometimes forget to figure out who we actually are.”

The mood in the room seems to have shifted. All muted conversation has stopped and people are giving Justin their full attention.

“And no one was better at playing their assigned role than I was,” Justin continues, his voice carrying a hint of self-deprecation that would have been unthinkable back then. “Star quarterback, class president, voted Most Likely to Peak in High School —okay, that last one wasn’t official, but let’s be honest, the odds weren’t exactly in my favor.”

There are a few smiles, but the gymnasium has gone so quiet you could hear a class ring drop, every former classmate hanging on Justin’s words.

“Sometimes life has this way of completely rewriting your script,” Justin says. His usual salesperson polish seems to fade, his stance becoming more relaxed. “Sometimes you find yourself in London of all places, learning that authenticity tastes better than perfection. Even if it comes with questionable British food choices.”

He looks directly at me, and I can’t look anywhere else.

My heart thuds like it’s attempting to match the speed of my racing thoughts.

Does Justin referencing London mean anything?

He breaks his gaze from mine, looking back at the crowd.

“In the spirit of this theme, I thought it would be interesting to go over the predictions we made ten years ago.”

He presses something on his laptop, and the projector screen behind him flickers to life. It’s displaying the Most Likely To page from the yearbook.

My hands grip my thighs, fingers pressing into the fabric of my pants.

“ Most Likely to Never Leave Texas: Amy Rodriguez ,’” Justin reads, his lips quirking upward. “Amy unfortunately couldn’t make it tonight, but last time I checked, she was teaching English in Tokyo and married to a professional sumo wrestler. I guess sometimes the universe has a better imagination than we do.”

A laugh ripples through the crowd. I fold my arms over my chest, trying to contain the way my heart seems determined to escape my ribcage.

“ Most Likely to Win a Nobel Prize: Kevin Lai ,’” Justin gestures to where Kevin is standing. “While Kevin hasn’t quite achieved Nobel status yet, I saw on social media he did recently win first place in the National Air Guitar Championships. I’d say that’s basically the same level of prestige, right, Kevin?”

“Totally,” Kevin calls back.

I watch as Justin talks through some more of the predictions with his usual charm and humor.

The magnitude of my loss hits me fresh. I will have to spend the rest of my life coping with what I did to him, how I hurt him. Coping without him by my side.

But then he clicks through to the next presentation slide, and his voice cuts through my spiral of self-recrimination.

“ Most Likely to Stay Together Forever: Justin Morris and Madeline Birwood .”

On the projector screen, Teenage Justin and Teenage Maddie look like they stepped straight out of a teen movie casting call—the golden quarterback with his arm possessively around the pretty cheerleader’s waist, their matching smiles as practiced as their respective game-day routines. Looking at Teenage Justin’s carefully calculated grin, all I can see is the mask he wore, how hard he must have been working to maintain that picture-perfect facade. It’s like looking at a stranger wearing the face of someone I love.

“This one definitely needs some adjusting,” Justin says, pulling out a digital pen. “Sorry, Maddie, I think you’ve moved on, so I need to change this.”

On his screen, he crosses out Madeline Birwood with a flourish.

But he doesn’t stop there. Instead, in his slanty handwriting, he writes in another name.

Andrew Yates.

My breath leaves me in a rush like someone’s just executed a force-quit on all my vital functions.

Most Likely to Stay Together Forever: Justin Morris and Andrew Yates.

The words are blazed across the projector screen for everyone to see.

My cheeks feel all tingly as carbon dioxide takes over in my blood. I force myself to take a deep breath and then another, desperately pumping oxygen into my body so I don’t black out.

Because I don’t want to miss a second of this moment.

He’s written my name.

He’s forgiving me.

He’s claiming me.

Justin’s eyes find me at the back of the gymnasium. I can’t look at anything but him.

“I love you, Andrew Yates,” he says in his confident, class-president voice.

There’s shuffling in the crowd as people turn to look at me. I’m not sure what they see. A guy on the verge of fainting, probably.

But I don’t care what they see. Because that’s not important. What’s important is what Justin sees when he looks at me.

And Justin is on the move now, leaving the podium and heading down the stairs of the stage, his eyes not leaving mine.

The crowd parts like the Red Sea. Well, if the Red Sea was wearing varying degrees of business casual and filming everything on their phones.

I stand there, seeing him walk toward me like I’m watching a moment from someone else’s life unfold in slow motion.

And Justin is right in front of me now, all soft cream sweater and those gorgeous eyes that don’t leave mine.

“I love you,” he says again.

My legs are weak, and I lock my knees to stay upright. The fluorescent gym lights suddenly seem too bright, too sharp, like someone’s cranked up the contrast on reality.

“I love you too,” I manage to say shakily.

And apparently, a public declaration of love is not enough for Justin because he’s moving forward to place his lips on mine.

It’s our first kiss since he found out who I really am.

It’s a kiss that feels like both an apology and a promise.

I can’t say it’s the best kiss Justin and I have ever shared. It definitely wins the award for the wettest though, because it appears my eyes have decided to leak all the emotions I’m feeling right now.

Justin draws back just enough to frame my face with his hands, using his thumbs to brush away my tears.

He smiles at me, not his charming salesperson smile, but his real one.

And I’m smiling back, a ridiculous, happy, relieved, giddy, and untethered smile that makes my cheeks ache.

It’s a smile that feels like it might become permanently embedded on my face.

Applause starts slowly at first but then becomes an overwhelming roar that makes the cheering for the football team championship games in high school sound like polite golf claps in comparison.

“What the everlasting fuck?” Connor says.

“Yeah, what he said,” I say.

Justin laughs, a bright and effortless sound.

Connor looks between us with the same expression he used to wear when trying to understand calculus, equal parts confusion and desperate hope that someone will explain it in small words.

“So, you’re gay?” he asks Justin.

“Yup.”

“And you’re in love with Andrew Yates?”

“Yup. Good to see your comprehension skills haven’t failed you.” Justin slaps him on the back.

But then his hand finds my waist, pulling me in tight against him.

The message is loud and clear.

It’s Justin and me united against the world.

The scoreboard in the gym still shows the results of the last volleyball game, and I can’t help thinking how fitting it is that this moment is happening right here in high school, where everything first began.

Maddie’s on the stage now, blinking down at her notes. I’m guessing it wasn’t in her script for her ex-boyfriend to announce his love for the class nerd.

“Um…thank you, Justin, for your speech. It was…unexpected,” she manages to say into the microphone.

But Maddie’s words and the crowd’s stares don’t matter because Justin’s arm is warm around my waist, his thumb stroking patterns against my hip like he’s writing his own version of our story.

And maybe that’s exactly what we’re doing here. We’re rewriting all those old high school roles. The quarterback and the computer nerd. The bully and his target. The golden boy and the guy who hid in the shadows.

Except now we’re just Justin and Andrew. Or maybe Drew.

As Justin presses a kiss to my temple, I realize I don’t actually care what name he uses.

As long as he calls me his.