Бекки Алберталли - Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“So you’re saying the problem is I’m not trying to hide it. The problem is I’m not lying to you.”

My dad stands up suddenly, and I look at him, and I realize he’s really freaking pissed off. Which is so unusual that it makes me nervous, but it also makes me a little fearless, and so I say, “Do you like it better when I lie about things? It probably sucks for you now that you can’t make fun of gay people anymore. I bet Mom won’t let you, right?”

“Simon,” says my dad, like a warning.

I giggle, but it comes out too sharp. “That awkward moment when you realize you’ve been making gay jokes in front of your gay kid for the last seventeen years.”

There’s this awful, tense silence. My dad just looks at me.

Finally, my mom comes back in, and she looks back and forth between us for a minute. And then she says, “I sent Abby and Nick home.”

“What? Mom!” I stand up too fast, and my stomach flips. “No. No. I’m just here to get my shirt.”

“Oh, I think you’re staying in tonight,” says my mom. “Your dad and I need a minute to talk. Why don’t you go get yourself a glass of water, and we’ll be right in.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“It’s not a request,” says my mom.

They have to be fucking kidding me. I’m supposed to sit here and drink my water, and they just get to talk about me behind my back. I slam the kitchen door shut.

As soon as the water hits my lips, I gulp it down so fast I almost forget to breathe. My stomach is churning. I think the water makes it worse. I pretzel my arms on the table and tuck my head into my elbow. I’m so freaking tired.

My parents come in a few minutes later and sit down next to me at the table. “Did you have water?” asks my dad.

I nudge my empty glass toward him without lifting my head.

“Good,” he says. He pauses. “Kid, we’ve got to talk consequences.”

Right, because things aren’t shitty enough. People at school think I’m a joke, and there’s a boy I can’t seem to stop being in love with, and he just might be someone I can’t stand. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to puke tonight.

But yeah. They want to talk consequences.

“We’ve discussed it, and—presumably this is a first offense?” I nod into my arms. “Then your mom and I have agreed that you’ll be grounded for two weeks starting tomorrow.”

I whip my head up. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, I can’t?”

“It’s the play next weekend.”

“Oh, we’re well aware,” says my dad. “And you can go to school and rehearsals and all of your performances, but you’ll come straight home afterward. And your laptop is moving into the living room for a week.”

“And I’ll take your phone right now,” says my mom, putting out her hand. All business.

“That’s so effed up,” I say, because that’s what you say, but I mean, honestly? I don’t even fucking care.

IT’S MLK WEEKEND, SO WE don’t get back to school until Tuesday. When I get there, Abby’s waiting in front of my locker. “Where have you been? I’ve been texting you all weekend. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my eyes.

“I was really worried about you. When your mom came out . . . your mom is actually kind of terrifying. I thought she was going to give me a Breathalyzer.”

Oh God. “Sorry,” I say. “They’re really intense about driving.” Abby steps aside, so I can twist in my locker combination.

“No, it was fine,” she says. “I just felt bad leaving you. And then when I didn’t hear back from you all weekend . . .”

I click the latch open. “They took my phone away. And my computer. And I’m grounded for two weeks.” I dig around for my French notebook. “So yeah.”

Abby’s face falls. “But what about the play?”

“No, that’s fine. They’re not messing with that.” I push my locker closed, and the latch clicks dully.

“Well, good,” she says. “But I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“What’s your fault?” Nick asks, falling into step with us on the way to English.

“Simon’s grounded,” she says.

“It’s not your fault at all,” I say. “I’m the one who got drunk and paraded it in front of my parents.”

“Not your best move,” says Nick. I look at him. Something’s different, and I can’t quite pin it down.

Then I realize: it’s the hands. They’re holding hands. My head snaps up to look at them, and they both smile self-consciously. Nick shrugs.

“Well well well,” I say. “I guess you guys didn’t miss me too much Friday night, after all.”

“Not really,” says Nick. Abby buries her face in his shoulder.

I pry the story out of Abby during small group conversation practice in French class.

“So how did it go down? Tell me everything. C’était un surprise ,” I add as Madame Blanc makes her way up my row.

“ C’était une surprise , Simon. Au féminin .” You have to love French teachers. They make such a big freaking deal about gender, but they always pronounce my name like Simone .

“Um, nous étions . . .” Abby smiles up at Madame Blanc, and then waits for her to move out of earshot. “Yeah, so we dropped you off, and I was kind of upset, because your mom seemed really mad, and I didn’t want her to think I would drink and drive.”

“She wouldn’t have let you drive home if she thought that.”

“Yeah, well,” Abby says, “I don’t know. Anyway, we left, but we ended up just parking in Nick’s driveway for a while, just in case you were able to talk your parents into letting you come back out.”

“Yeah, sorry. No dice.”

“Oh, I know,” she says. “I just felt weird leaving without you. We texted you, and then we waited for a little while.”

“Sorry,” I say again.

“No, it was fine,” Abby says, and then she breaks into a huge grin. “C’était magnifique.”

Lunch is actually amazing, because Morgan and Bram both had birthdays over the long weekend, and Leah’s very strict about everyone getting their own giant sheet cake. Which means two cakes, both chocolate.

Except I don’t know who brought the cakes today, because Leah never shows up for lunch at all. And now that I think about it, she wasn’t in English or French.

I reach into my back pocket automatically, but then I remember my phone is in custody. So, I lean over toward Anna, who’s wearing two party hats and eating a pile of straight-up icing. “Hey, where’s Leah?”

“Um,” says Anna, not meeting my eyes. “She’s here.”

“She’s at school?”

Anna shrugs.

I try not to worry about it, but I don’t see her all day, and then I don’t see her the next day either. Except Anna says she’s here. And her car’s in the parking lot, which makes it so much weirder. And her car’s still in the parking lot at seven, when we finally get out of rehearsal. I’m not sure what’s going on.

I just want to make contact. Maybe there are missed texts from her on my phone that I don’t even know about.

Or maybe not. I don’t know. It just sucks.

But on Thursday afternoon, in that narrow window between school and rehearsal, I finally see her stepping out of the bathroom near the atrium.

“Leah!” I run over to her and catch her in a hug. “Where have you been?”

She stiffens in my arms.

I step back. “Um, is everything okay?”

She looks at me with jagged eyes. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she says. She tugs her shirt down and then folds her arms up under her chest.

“What?” I look at her. “Leah, what happened?”

“You tell me,” she says. “How was Friday? Did you, Nick, and Abby have fun?”