Page 141 of When Ben Loved Tim

Instead I try to be excited for Allison and Ronnie. Leon asked out a junior, who I got to meet the other day. Half her hair was buzzed short, the rest long and dyed. She spent most of lunch explaining to us why nobody with a heart should eat meat. Leon was grinning the whole time. I’m happy for my friends. As for my enemies, I refuse to look in Krista’s direction during my economics class. I hope Tim gets diarrhea tomorrow night. The sudden onset kind. I want it to happen when he’s in the middle of a slow dance with her. A petty fantasy, but it does make me chuckle occasionally as I weather the rest of the day.

“Are you going to prom?” Danny asks when we’re sitting in our physics class.

“No,” I say. “Are you?”

He laughs, like it was a joke. “Who would I go with? Hey, how come you aren’t going with your boyfriend? Are you waiting until his school has their prom?”

He’s not quiet when asking this. Nor does he glance around as if scared of being overheard.

“No,” I answer. “He’s going with someone else. A girl, actually.”

Danny makes a face. “That’s messed up!”

“I think so too.”

We sit in silence for a moment. Then I see Danny perk up in my peripheral vision.

“Hey!” he says. “Since neither of us are going, do you want to hang out tomorrow night? You could come over to my place. We’ll watch a movie or something fun.”

I don’t even need to consider the offer. “Sure! Let’s do it!”

He writes down his address and we set a time. I’m half-tempted to ask him to prom. We still haven’t talked about the gay thing. I’m not sure where he’s at with accepting himself, or if I’m reading the situation correctly. I suppose it doesn’t matter. The hottest guy in school—besides Tim, of course—could ask me to go with him, and I’m pretty sure I would decline. The last thing I need is a front-row seat to Tim and Krista’s magical evening together.

* * * * *

The walls of Danny’s room are covered in sci-fi posters, most of them with fold-lines from magazines. Some of the shows and characters are familiar to me. Most are not. He also has action figures and toys, a few of them recent purchases. Which is weird, but I like it. I didn’t realize that science fiction was so important to him. Funny how you can sit next to someone for the better part of a year and not really know who they are. I’m eager to get into the personal stuff.

We haven’t had much time alone. After he gave me a quick tour of his room, his mother called us to dinner. He lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her. She has frizzy ginger hair and laughs easily. We ate at the table. Pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes. She’s transparently thrilled that Danny has a friend over, which makes me wish I’d done this sooner, or invited him into my little social circle, which only grew beyond Allison when she started dating Ronnie. It stings knowing I could have had another friend well before then. Someone like me, perhaps.

Danny is explaining what a rock tumbler is and why he enjoys his when he hands me a pale stone speckled with black spots. “That’s dalmatian jasper,” he says. “I dug it up in the vacant lot across the street. You can keep it if you want.”

I suck in through my teeth. “I don’t know… A dalmatian sounds like a lot of responsibility. Do I have to take it for a walk? What do I feed it?”

He grins. “Just pet it every once in a while and it’ll be fine.” Danny peeks into the pouch he’s holding. “Or you can choose something different.”

“Too late,” I say, slipping it into my pocket. “I’ve already formed an attachment.”

He looks pleased at this.

I glance around his room. “You know, at the baseball game, you said we had a lot in common, but we’re actually pretty different.”

“Oh,” he says. “I know of at least one thing.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “We’re both gay.”

After nearly a year of trying to get Tim to utter some version of that, I’m almost dumbstruck by how effortless Danny made it seem. “Really?” I ask. “When did you figure it out?”

“This year. I mean, part of me hasalwaysknown, even though I tried not to think about it. When I first heard people talking about you being gay, and that you didn’t deny it… It made the way I feel inside okay somehow. I kept trying to work up the nerve to talk to you but…” His face flushes, which is flattering. “I was really happy when we ended up sitting next to each other. That wasn’t the first time either. Did you know that?”

I nod. “Math class in the eighth grade.”

“That’s right! I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“I do,” I tell him. “You were always competing with me.”

He looks confused, but only momentarily. “You mean because I was always the first to finish every test?”