A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“Good.” He glanced at me. “Just checking.”

“So, hey,” I said to him, “if you’re only eighty percent gay, wouldn’t that make you bisexual?”

Bijan frowned. Faltered a moment. “Huh,” he said. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t know?”

He tilted his head at me and said, “I’m still figuring it out.”

“Do your parents know?”

“Uh.” He raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“I’m guessing no?”

“Yeah, and let’s keep it that way, okay? I’m not interested in having that conversation right now.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe, like, on my deathbed.”

“Whatever you want,” I said, and shrugged. “Your eighty percent is safe with me.”

Bijan laughed. He just looked at me. “You don’t make any sense, you know that?”

“What? Why not?”

He shook his head. Stared out across the room. “You just don’t.”

I didn’t have a chance to ask him another question. Navid was shouting at me to grab my bag, because our time in the dance room was up.

“I’m hungry as hell,” he said, as he jogged over to us. “You guys want to get something to eat?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be something strange about me, a sophomore, hanging out with a bunch of senior guys all the time. I never thought about it that way. Navid was my brother, and these were his friends. This was a familiar habitat for me. Navid had been infesting my personal space—at home, at school—with his many guy friends since forever, and, generally, I didn’t care for it. He and his friends were always eating my food. Messing with my stuff. They’d walk out of my bathroom and say, with zero self-awareness, that they’d cracked a window in there but if I had any interest in self-preservation I might want to use a different toilet for a while.

It was gross.

My brother’s friends always started out vaguely good-looking, but all it took was a single week of focused observation before these dudes made me want to barricade myself in my room.

So it wasn’t until we were leaving the dance studio that I was suddenly reminded that I was in high school, and that, for some reason, Navid and his friends were kind of cool. Cool enough that a cheerleader would be inspired to speak to me.

I’d begun noticing them, all the time now. The cheerleaders. They were always around, after school, and it took me an embarrassing length of time to realize that they were probably around all the time because they were getting together for practice every day. So when we ran into a group of girls as we were leaving, I was no longer surprised. What surprised me was when one of them waved me over.

At first I was confused. I thought she was having a conniption. And I was so certain that this girl was not waving at me that I ignored her for a full fifteen seconds before Navid finally nudged me and said, “Uh, I think that girl is trying to get your attention.”

It was crazy, but she was.

“That’s nice,” I said. “Can we go?”

“You’re just going to ignore her?” Jacobi looked amazed, and not in a good way.

“There is a one hundred percent chance that she has no good reason to talk to me,” I said. “So, yes. I’m going to ignore her.”

Bijan shook his head at me. He almost—almost—smiled.

Navid shoved me forward. “You said you were going to be nice.”

“No I didn’t.”

But they all looked so disappointed in me that I finally gave in. I loathed myself the entire twenty-five-foot walk over to her, but I did it.

The moment I was close enough, she grabbed my arm.

I stiffened.

“Hey,” she said quickly. She wasn’t even looking at me; she was looking behind me. “Who’s that guy over there?”

Wow, there was little I hated more than this conversation.

“Uh, who are you?” I said.

“What?” She glanced at me. “Oh. I’m Bethany. Hey, how are you even friends with these guys?”

This was it. This, right here. This was why I didn’t talk to people. “Is this why you called me over here? Because you want me to hook you up with one of these dudes?”

“Yeah. That one.” She gestured with her head. “The one with the blue eyes.”

“Who? Carlos?” I frowned. “The guy with the curly black hair?”

She nodded. “His name is Carlos?”

I sighed.

“Carlos,” I shouted. “Will you come over here, please?”

He walked over, confused. But then I introduced him to Bethany, and he looked suddenly delighted.

“Have fun,” I said. “Bye.”

Bethany tried to thank me, but I waved her away. I’d never been so disappointed in my own gender. The quality of this female interaction had been worse than abysmal. And I was just about to leave when I was suddenly distracted by a familiar face.

It was Ocean, exiting the gym.

He had that large gym bag strapped across his chest and he looked like he’d taken a shower; his hair was wet and his cheeks were pink. I saw him for only a second before he crossed the hall into another room and disappeared.

My heart sank.

I hadn’t talked to Ocean in three days. I wanted to. I really, really wanted to, but I was trying to do what I thought was the right thing. I didn’t want to lead him on. I didn’t want him to think that there was potential here, between us. He tried, twice, to catch up with me after class, but I brushed him off. I did my best to avoid his eyes. I didn’t go online. I kept our bio conversations as brief and boring as possible. I was trying not to engage with him anymore, because I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. But I could tell he was both hurt and confused.

I didn’t know what else to do.

There was a small, cowardly part of me that hoped Ocean would realize on his own that I wasn’t an option worth exploring. He seemed fascinated by me in a way that felt familiar but also entirely new, and I wondered if his fascination would wear off, like it always did in these kinds of situations. I wondered if he’d learn to forget about me. Go back to his friends. Find a nice blond girlfriend.

It was confusing, I know, how I’d gone from wanting a new friend in this school to suddenly wishing I could hit undo on the whole thing. Though, to be fair, I’d been looking for a platonic friend, preferably female. Not a boyfriend, not anything even close to that. I’d just wanted, like, a normal teenage experience. I wanted to eat lunch with friends, plural. I wanted to go to the movies with someone. I maybe even wanted to pretend to give a shit about the SATs. I don’t know. But I was beginning to wonder if a normal teenage experience was even a thing.

“Hey, can we go? I’m starving.” It was Navid, tapping me on the shoulder.

“Oh. Yeah,” I said. But I was still staring at the door through which Ocean had disappeared. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

16

Sixteen

I showed up to Mr. Jordan’s class the next day, as promised, but my return was weirder than I’d expected. I hadn’t realized that everyone would’ve known—or even noticed—that I’d walked out of class and hadn’t been back most of the week. I didn’t think anyone would care. But when I took my normal seat, the kids in my little cluster looked at me like I’d sprouted wings.

“What?” I said. I dropped my bag on the ground next to me.

“Did you really try to drop the class?” This, from one of the girls. Her name was Shauna.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“Wow.” The other girl, Leilani, was staring at me. “That’s crazy.”

Ryan, the fourth member of our group—a guy who always talked at me and never looked me in the eye—chose that moment to yawn. Loudly.

I frowned at Leilani. “Why is that crazy? Mr. Jordan made me super uncomfortable.”

Neither of the girls seemed to think this was an acceptable answer.

“Hey, why did Ocean follow you out the other day? What was that about?” Leilani again.