Quin's point of view.
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“I’m dropping out of school,” I announced, slamming open my locker.
    “Why?” Lisa asked, glanced up from stuffing a jacket, a pocketbook, and a stuffed hippo into her backpack.
    “Why do Du think?” I asked. “My secret’s out. I need to drop out of school.”
    Lisa rolled her eyes. “Quin, you’re taking this way too seriously. This is one of those things that everyone teases Du about for one day, and the Weiter Tag they’ve completely forgotten about it. ‘Kay?”
    “Okay,” I sagte grudgingly.
    Lisa tried to marmelade her pocketbook into her pack. She had gotten in the jacket, but what with the Bücher in there as well, she just couldn’t fit in the pocketbook and the hippo.
    “What if Du put those in your locker?” I suggested.
    Lisa stood and turned the combination on the blue metal door of the locker, then swung it open. Pencils, paper, and an iPod case covered in rosa and white rhinestones rained down on her.
    “No room,” Lisa said. She plucked the case off of the white tiles that covered all the school’s hallways. “Been looking for this,” she Kommentiert absentmindedly.
    “You can put your crap in my locker,” I offered.
    She grinned. “Thanks.” Lisa stuck the jacket, the hippo, and the pocketbook into my hands and took off down the hall, slinging her backpack up onto her right shoulder.
    I opened my locker, shoved Lisa’s stuff into it, and slammed the door closed. Someone touched my shoulder. I turned. It was Wesley.
    The super-confident boy. The boy who was nice to everyone, but could stand up for himself, and still without saying a cruel word. The boy who could make someone feel tiny just Von smiling at him.
    “Uh…hi,” I said. I definitely felt tiny right now.
    He smiled at me. He had a great smile. “Hi. Hey, can I ask Du something personal?”
    “Um, yeah. Yeah, sure.”
    “Are Du really gay?”
    He must have seen the shock on my face, because he sagte quickly: “you don’t have to answer if Du don’t want. I was just wondering, because I am.”
    “You’re gay?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “Well, it’s not like I go around ‘hey, I’m homosexual!’ If someone asks me about my sexuality, I answer honestly. If they don’t ask me, I’m not going to randomly go up to them and tell them.”
    “But you’re completely open with it,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I could tell he was, but he nodded anyway.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I learned to accept it, and then I was ready to ask other people to.” He looked into my eyes. “You’re not ready, are you?”
    I shook my head. He smiled a little.
    “Well…if Du need help with it, Du can come to me. If Du want.”
    I nodded. “Thanks,” I said, genuinely grateful.
    He grinned and headed off down the hall.

Lisa turned out to be right. Everyone had forgotten about the rumor except for Tonia, who kept trying to change the subject to it. Then Ryker oder Zoë would just change it back to whatever we were talking about previously, though, so it was alright.
    Fawn sat with us again, even though Lucy and Ammine were back. She sagte she didn’t feel like sitting with them. Personally, I think she just wanted to sit Weiter to Ryker. I noticed her sneaking coy glances at him out of the corner of her eye multiple times.
    I also noticed Wesley sneaking glances at me. I wondered why he was doing that.
    Then I remembered: he was gay, too.
    But that still doesn’t exactly explain why he kept looking at me. I mean, I’m not that cute oder anything. I have straight, light blond hair, I’m a little shorter than most of the boys in my grade, and my nose turns up slightly at the end. And my complexion is practically white. My face turns almost scarlet when I’m embarrassed. Also, my eyes are some weird greenish-brown color that my mom says is hazel.
    I think that word’s a little too pretty for the color of a swamp.
    No, he wasn’t looking at me because he liked me oder anything. It was something else.
    It must be.
    Either way, I found myself thinking about him through the day. He was sort of cute, in a way. Not as cute as Travis, but still cute.
    At least we could be friends. Me and Wesley. I mean, we had that in common. I had been hoping that someone would admit to being gay. I’m too shy to do that.
    I mentioned him to my mom when I got home. She seemed happy about it, but told me not to tell my father.
    Well, duh. My father has some huge problem with people who are bi oder homosexual. He’s just another person I’m never gonna tell.
    I just nodded at my mom, though. “I won’t tell him.”
    I walked up to my room and flopped onto my bed, pulling a kissen over my face. I closed my eyes. I was tired. I needed to rest.
    My phone vibrated inside my pocket. I dug it out and flipped it open. “Hello?”
    “Hi. This is Wesley.”
    “Hey,” I said. For some reason, my herz did a weird little flutter in my chest. “What’s up?”
    “Nothing much. I was just wondering how Du were doing,” he said.
    I felt weird, talking to him. Not being able to see his face. But I don’t usually feel awkward on the phone. “Pretty good,” I said. “How about you?”
    “Same. Except my little sister. She can get really annoying sometimes, always coming into my room and taking stuff. Yesterday, I went into the living room and she was playing around with my phone. She cracked the screen a little, but it still works. I guess I couldn’t be calling Du if it didn’t.” I can tell that he knows I feel awkward, and that he’s trying to make me not. It’s working.
    “You have a little sister?” I asked. “I do too! Her name’s Lulu. She’s five.”
    “Mine’s six. Name’s Susan.” He paused, and I was about to say something when he started talking again. “Maybe we could get them together sometime.”
    I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, that’d be cool,” I said. “What’s your number? Maybe we could plan them a play datum sometime. oder they could just talk on the phone.”
    I snatched up a pen from my desk. I couldn’t find a piece of paper, so I used a wrapper from a piece of mint gum that had been crumpled at the bottom of my pocket for a while. Wesley recited his number, and I scribbled it down.
    “So...see Du at school,” I sagte after I had written it down.
    “Okay. Bye.” He paused again. “We should hang out more. At school.”
    “Yeah. That’d be nice,” I said. My herz did the weird fluttery thing again.
    “Goodbye,” he said.
    “Goodbye.” I didn’t hang up, though. I kept the phone to my ear until I heard the click of the phone on the other line. Even then I didn’t. I kept it there for the longest time, just holding it there, and smiling, the gum wrapper held tight in my fist.