Playing for the Other Team (13 page)

“At least
I
don’t need to overcompensate,” Elle shot back.

Jasper turned to me. “I have these pink platform boots you can borrow,” he declared loudly and in a transparent attempt to lighten the suddenly very dark, awkward mood. “I’ll wear my rainbow glitter pumps. We’ll be the most fabulous-looking couple.”

Elle dissolved into giggles, and Rayna snorted into her hands.

“Gross,” Fletcher spat.

“No, dude, I told you,” Jasper called out, “you’re thinking of leprosy. Not homosexuality. The one with the rotting body parts. It’s not that hard to remember.”

Fletcher stared at him, apparently not quick enough for a verbal comeback, because all he did was give Jasper the finger. My new boyfriend only sighed.

“Oh, I give up. Don’t tax your tiny little brain. You’re not likely to catch either one.”

By now, they were entertaining most of the crowd. But Jasper only leaned back, giving the impression of having accomplished what he’d set out to do. Fletcher, still silent, didn’t sit back down until Trip elbowed him.

Mr. Barron cleared his throat three times before the majority of the attention returned to him.

“There is also the matter of the gown colors.”

Everyone groaned. Again.

Like the prom location, the school colors and mascot had been the subject of much discussion over the past couple of years. Since the school’s founding, we had been the Coal Burners, but recently it had been discovered that the term was apparently racist. So the alumni board had voted for a new mascot, and for the past year, we had been the Royals. We had not appreciated the change. For one, there was the irritating fact that they hadn’t left the decision to the students, and it was hard on the graduating seniors. We weren’t supposed to use the old logo on any pictures or memorabilia, but they hadn’t actually come up with a new logo yet. Then there had been a motion to change the school colors from green and black to the more royal-looking purple and gold. But there hadn’t been money for new uniforms, so all the athletes still wore black and green, and the cheerleaders made posters in purple and gold, and nobody knew what color to wear to show school pride. To top it all off, some parents had begun a movement claiming the name “Royals” was elitist and discriminatory.

As a result, everyone was confused, and these days nobody had any idea what the hell was going on.

“The option that would be the simplest,” Mr. Barron continued, “is to go with a neutral black for everyone.”

“We’ll look like a funeral procession!” someone pointed out. Murmurs of agreement were quick to follow.

“The administration is reluctant to go with our old forest-green color scheme because it belongs with the outdated mascot and would send the wrong message.” Mr. Barron glared at the crowd as though that was our fault. “We discussed going with all purple—”

“That’s
gay
,” Trip and Fletcher complained with a host of other students.

“—or all yellow—”

“Great, we’ll look like bananas,” Rayna groaned.

“—but in the end, we agreed it would make the most sense to go with both, so we’ll have the boys dressed in purple and the girls in yellow.”

Now nobody was happy.

“So,” Jasper sighed, leaning closer while the debate and protest raged all around us. “What’s your plan for the rest of the day, after this insanity is over?”

“I want to talk to my mom,” I said. “I still haven’t had a chance. She’s been avoiding me, and I thought giving her some time was fine, right up until the point when she went and outed me to Trip. I need to know if she even realizes what she did.” I swallowed hard. This was still difficult to think about, the wedge my coming out had driven between my mom and me. Our family had never been picture perfect, but we had always been accepting of one another. Until now.

“I’ll come with you if you need moral support,” Jasper offered.

“I don’t know.” I squeezed his hand. “I’ll think about it.”

The color debate appeared to be getting more aggressive. Nova had stood up and was making a case for yellow clashing with her complexion and ruining all her graduation pictures.

“She’s actually not bad,” Jasper acknowledged after listening for a few minutes. “She should try law school. And you know, I might even like her. But if she touches you again, she’s toast.”

I grinned. “I kind of like you being a little possessive.”

I’d meant for it to be a lighthearted comment, but Jasper didn’t take it that way. He bit his lip, looking suddenly troubled. But when I opened my mouth to ask him about what was going on in his head, the debate seemed to be reaching its conclusion—the conclusion being more and more students getting to their feet, pumping their fists, and chanting “Vote! Vote! Vote!”

I joined in, because why not?

Mr. Barron went from looking mildly irritated to full-blown hyperventilation when he tried to calm down the crowd and realized it wasn’t going to happen. Graduating seniors didn’t have much to lose. Barron couldn’t threaten to cancel or pull funds from our prom—a popular tactic from the administrators—because prom was already over with.

And we
really
wanted our say in the whole gown-color debate.

After a few minutes’ worth of worried deliberation between Mr. Barron and Miss Fisher, our vice principal picked up the microphone again.

“All right,” he said soothingly, patting the air in front of him with his free hand. “All right. You get a vote. To make this simple, we will agree on one gown color, pending administrative approval, and it will be whichever color gets the most votes.”

Pending administrative approval
sounded like a cop-out, I thought, but I didn’t voice it. I just wanted to get out of that place.

It took another forty minutes until Miss Fisher had distributed our measurement cards—the closest pieces of paper on hand, and a good way to make sure everyone got exactly one vote, since everyone had exactly one card with their name on it.

“What color suits me better?” Jasper inquired. “Purple or gold? I really don’t want to wear black.”

I studied him, my gaze drawn to his ocean-colored eyes.

“The green would have brought out your eyes,” I said with regret. But Jasper only smiled.

“Green it is.” He wrote it on his card.

“We aren’t supposed to vote for green.”

“Then he should have specified that.” Jasper grinned broadly, then shrugged. “Really, sunshine, it isn’t going to end up mattering. They’ll just go right over our heads anyway, so I’m not going to play by their stupid rules.”

“I heard the alumni are really pushing for all black,” Rayna said. “They’ll probably just go with that.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” I admitted and looked down at my card. “Should I vote for green too?”

“Yes. Wait, no.” Jasper squinted at me. “You’d look really hot in purple.”

“Well, we can’t get both, so we should probably agree—”

“You’re not listening, sunshine,” he chastised me gently. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“Then I’m going to vote for red,” Rayna decided.

“Our school colors have never—” I broke off and raised my hands in surrender. “Never mind. Red. Great idea.”

“That’ll annoy the hell out of whoever counts the votes.” Elle grinned evilly and wrote
PINK
in huge letters on the back of her card.

This could only end badly.

So I voted for silver.

* * * *

When I approached the kitchen, Brina and my mom were sitting at the small table, eating chicken-salad sandwiches in awkward silence. The last thing I wanted to do right then was burst into the room in order to discuss my sexuality, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Things needed to be said.

“Hey, Bry,” Brina greeted me with a smile. “How’d the meeting go?”

“Excellent. We had a bunch of pointless announcements followed by a pointless discussion and then by a pointless vote.”

“Sounds productive,” she said.

“Very.” I steeled myself, took a deep breath, and announced “Mom, we really need to talk.”

My mother turned her head, but she wouldn’t look at me. She had the same odd hair color as Brina and I, but hers had turned brittle and dull gray several years ago due to age and stress. Right now that brittle hair fell forward just enough to curtain her thin face.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said.

It hurt, a lot, but I tried my best not to let her dissuade me from my course. “Yeah, well,
I
have things to say.”

“I’d rather not hear them.” Her voice was distant.

“Mom!” Brina straightened in her chair and glared. “He’s done nothing wrong. It’s not his fault he’s gay. Why are you being so horrible to him?”

“Of course it’s his fault.” My mom set down her coffee cup with a bang. “He used to be just fine. He used to date girls.”

“Because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do,” I argued.

“You
are
.”

“It has been proven repeatedly that sexual preference is not a choice,” Jasper declared from behind me after clearing his throat. “So that’s really not a valid argument.”

I raised one eyebrow his way, which caused him to pull his shoulders up.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Probably not the most helpful thing to say, huh?”

I could see my mother wanting to recoil. “Who in the world are you?” she asked blankly.

“He’s my boyfriend.” I stepped aside and proudly pulled Jasper forward to stand next to me. “This is Jasper. That’s my mom. And my sister, Sabrina.”

Brina studied Jasper with considerable interest. He returned her smile, squeezed my hand, which he was still holding, and then turned to my mom, who was sitting there frozen, staring at him as though he were wearing a mask and wielding a bloodied chain saw.

“My mom has quite a few articles about that. She could share them if you’d like to read about it.”

“I don’t, thank you.”

“Mom!” I blurted out. “I didn’t do this to hurt you, and it isn’t going away! I’m gay. I’m going to be gay tomorrow and next week and next year and more than likely every year after that too. I get that you’re disappointed, but I’m not going to keep pretending just to make you feel better. I can’t.”

“I get that. I don’t think I could pretend to be a lesbian for longer than, like, an evening at a party,” Brina said thoughtfully.

“And just the same, Bryson can’t choose to be straight,” Jasper pointed out, gentling his voice. “It just is how it is.”

My mother set her jaw. “But he was always—”

“I always knew something was wrong,” I interrupted her. “Always. I just didn’t know what it was.”

She regarded me for a moment, frozen. “Then why did you never say?”

The look I gave her was pure incredulity. “With Uncle Adam around? Not very likely, even if I’d understood it at the time.”

“Uncle Adam did what he thought was best,” she said stiffly.

“Uncle Adam did whatever the hell he wanted,” Brina spit out amid a shower of crumbs. “You know as well as I do that he would have beat the crap out of Bryson.”

My mom didn’t have a reply to that. She stared down at her plate as though it was the only thing that still made sense. I knew the lost look on her face, and it pained me to have put it there, even as I knew she hadn’t left me a choice in the matter.

She thought she was losing me, like she had lost my dad, like she had lost Uncle Adam.

“What did I do wrong?” She sounded bewildered.

“Nothing,” Brina and I chorused. But it was clear we weren’t getting through to her.

“This might not be the best time,” Jasper cut in carefully, “but my folks would love to have you guys over for dinner tomorrow night.”

That was news to me. I gave him a surprised look, but his attention was focused on my mom.

“Maybe they could answer some of the questions you have,” he pointed out. “My mother was shocked at first too, when she found out she had a gay son. I’m sure she understands exactly what you’re going through right now.”

There was a moment of tense silence. My mom continued to stare at her plate, and Jasper, Brina, and I kept staring at her.

“Yes, all right, maybe we can do that,” she said eventually.

I blew out a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding.

“Wonderful.” Jasper cleared his throat. “I’ll let them know then. Um…my mom will call you with the time, if that’s okay.”

“Sure it is,” Brina answered in my mom’s stead. We had long ago gotten into the habit of doing that when my mom shut down like it appeared she had just now. Her face remained blank and still, and she didn’t seem to remember us being there at all.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” I told Jasper awkwardly.

He came along without protest, but as soon as we had crossed the hallway, he grasped my arm. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She gets like that.” I bit my lip, trying to figure out how best to explain. “When she’s overwhelmed, sometimes she just kinda…checks out. She started doing it after my dad died. She’ll snap out of it in a little while.” Then I made a desperate attempt to change the topic. “I didn’t realize your mom was upset too at first, when you came out.”

“Oh.” Jasper gave me a sheepish little smile. “I made that up.”

“And you could have told me about the dinner invitation,” I pointed out mildly.

“I made that up too. Don’t worry; my folks will be fine with it. They were upset they didn’t get to meet you when you came over the other day. My mom will jump at the chance to make dinner for you.”

I was still shaking my head at him by the time his arms came around me. His kiss was short but thorough, and he ran his hands tenderly through my hair as he smiled at me.

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” He paused, added, “Boyfriend,” in a seductive purr, and kissed me again.

Chapter Eleven

Sexually Transmitted Douchebag-itis

Figuring that if I was going to be out, I might as well be
out
, I wore Jasper’s
I play for the other team
shirt to school the next day. When I ran into Elle on my way up the steps, she smiled at it, which made me feel good because she’d been looking pretty beaten down. Much as she tried to pretend otherwise, the breakup with Trip had taken its toll on her.