Behind Jesse, a blast of static. In front of her: a square of gravel, a dwindling horizon of possibilities.
Jesse hears the squeal of the bathroom door swinging wide on its hinges, feels the rush of air around her that is suddenly sucked through the room when it opens.
And then, Snediker’s high, mirthless whine:
“Busted.”
2
Emily
With me, it’s about the person. I don’t believe in labels. I think people should be free to do whatever they want with whoever they want. Some people might say I’m bisexual and the only reason I wouldn’t say that is because I don’t believe in labels of any kind. I feel so grateful to be growing up today, when things are so much more free than they used to be. Nowadays people can just be who they are, they don’t have to define themselves in words.
I’m very tolerant of all different kinds of differences. I was the one who proposed the Diversity Circus event to student council last year and headed the committee that organized it and found us a venue for it off campus and figured out how to rent the pony for pony rides and it was a ton of work but P.S.? We made a huge pile of money on it—it was one of our top three biggest moneymaking events of the year for student council, after the Fall Formal and the Lasagna Supper, which are always the biggest events of the year and which are traditions, so they’re guaranteed to make money. Diversity Circus was a brand-new event on the student council calendar and still it came in third for revenue for the year, and we used part of the money we made on it to bring in a speaker from the national office of GLSEN, which is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, an awesome organization, and even though I didn’t have time to attend that event, I did book the room for it and I had a big part in making it happen and I heard that it went really well. Lots of people came.
One of the things I love best about our school is that it’s such a diverse place. I have one friend who has a small hand from birth and one other friend who’s a Muslim—she wears a head scarf and everything. At some schools those people might get teased or made to feel unwelcome, but at our school those kids are as welcome as any normal kids. I’m really, really proud of that. As vice president of student council, I feel personally responsible for making our school such a welcoming, diverse place. To me, that’s one of the most important parts of my job.
But unfortunately, that’s partly why my personal life has to be so complicated. As vice president of student council I have a responsibility to be sort of the public face of the school. When I walk around school, or around town, even, I don’t just represent myself, I represent the entire student body. That’s why I don’t just get to do whatever I want whenever I want to. It’s like, if I wanted to get drunk on a Saturday night and go joyriding in my parents’ car—tons of kids do this, I’ve seen them—I can’t, because I have to think about my public persona and my responsibility to the school. If I wanted to cut class and go do some shoplifting at the mall, or smoke cigarettes in the parking lot, or not do my homework, or do any different kind of rule-breaking thing that other kids do for fun without even thinking about it, I can’t, because for a person with a public persona like me, there are consequences. If I want to get sort of involved with Jesse Halberstam in any way, I have to really, really think about what that could do not just to me, not just to Michael, but to the entire school. It’s a serious responsibility.
The problem with Michael isn’t even Michael, it’s that we’ve been together for so long. Michael and I have known each other since we were born, and we’ve been going out since eighth grade, which is really too young to start dating someone, I realize now that I’m older. Our parents let it happen because our moms are best-best friends, they’ve known each other forever, since before college even. They love that we’re together, our dads love that we’re together, everyone in school loves that we’re together. We’re the proverbial perfect couple. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know what would happen to this town if we broke up—so many people have so much invested in our relationship. I mean, I do, too—I love him, we’ve shared so much over the years, and we know each other so well. We’ve grown up together. We’re practically brother and sister. Which is the problem. You shouldn’t go out with someone who feels like a member of your family.
Jesse Halberstam does not feel like a member of my family. Sometimes she doesn’t even feel like a member of my species. She’s so… I don’t know, I can’t explain her. She’s a mess. She cuts her own hair with a Swiss Army Knife. She picks the mosquito bites on her arms until they bleed. She wears those unspeakable rubber boots. Half the time when she talks I don’t understand a word she’s saying, and the other half the time she’s saying something totally bonkers about how we have to, like, smash society and live in its ruins like futuristic barbarian cave people or whatever. I just tune her out when she talks like that. If I actually listened to her theories about the world, I’d have to conclude she was mentally insane. But most of the time I don’t have to listen to her theories because she’s not talking, she’s kissing me.