Ivy’s score always stays at zero.
There was a time when Cam and I used to be on the same team. We were the only two people on our team, really. Us against “the fascist, bootlicking world,” as Cam liked to say.
Then, right before sophomore year, I came out as gay.
Andthe thinghappened.
That’s when everything between us came unglued.
We were hanging out at Duboce Park, one of Cam’s favoritespots for treasure hunting. All we did that summer was look for treasure. Once we realized that some of the clues inGay Treasurespointed to San Francisco, we were hooked. I was in charge of research. Cam was in charge of digging. And even though we kept coming home empty-handed at the end of each day, we knew we were getting closer. We could feel it. Or at least…we could definitely feelsomething.
That afternoon we were taking a break and lying together in the grass. I remember the way the leaves fluttered in the trees above us. I kept picturing their shadows as little hands shooing me over and over.
Do it. Do it now, the leaves kept saying.It’s time.
I turned onto my side and looked at Cam, whose eyes had been closed, soaking up the warmth of the sun. But as soon as I turned, Cam looked back at me, already grinning. Like whatever I had to say would be something good.
“What is it?”
I took a deep breath. It was going to be okay. Everything would be okay.
“I’m gay,” I whispered.
Cam blinked. And blinked again. “What?”
“I’m gay,” I said again.
I guess I could have added something. Maybe explained how long I’d known or why I hadn’t said anything before. When you look back, there are always a million things you could’ve done differently. To be honest, I didn’t realize I would have to explain anything. There was this stupid part of me that thought…that wassocertain that if I could just find thecourage to come out, Cam would come out too. And then things would be different between us.
But Cam didn’t come out.
Instead, Cam shifted away from me. It was a gesture I should have been used to. The two of us were exclusive, smartass nerds, so we didn’t mind when classmates at school gave us extra space. But with Cam, the motion physically hurt. It was like our friendship had turned upside down in an instant. I thought that moment was the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Then Cam muttered the four worst words I’ve ever heard. And walked away.
And we didn’t talk a single day the rest of sophomore year.
If you want to know what loneliness feels like, it’s not when you’re sitting at a table with no friends. Loneliness is sitting at a table and watching your ex–best friend across the room, doing everything possible to avoid eye contact with you. Loneliness is hiding in the metaphorical closet for another six months because the first person you told completely dumped you from their life.
Luckily, the deepest wounds have a way of hardening into the thickest scars. Pain makes for good armor. After a while I stopped second-guessing everything I had done wrong when Cam and I were friends. I stopped thinking about our friendship completely. When I finally came out in the spring, I didn’t whisper it tentatively to a few classmates. I took over the intercom at morning announcements and shouted it to everyone. Ijoined the Genders & Sexualities Alliance club at school and promptly named myself as chair.
I made being gay feel like a kingdom, and I made myself its queen.
Then, after ghosting me for an entire year, Cam had the audacity to show up to Sunset High junior year and pretend like none of it had ever happened. Cam joined GSA the first day of school and came out as transgender, with he/him pronouns. Suddenly, he was the one shouting about how cool it was to be queer. All the members loved him immediately. Because of course they did. Because everyone loves Cam the second he decides they’re worth his time.
Less than a month after joining the club, he made a motion to take over as chair. I argued that the role wasn’t a popularity contest; it was about organizing meetings and fundraisers, something he had absolutely no idea how to do. Someone in the room suggested we could both be co-chairs, and for the first time in over a year, Cam turned and grinned at me.
Except it wasn’t his real grin. It was a Cheshire Cat grin, the kind of grin that told me instantly that this was a battle he had just won.
Cam, one point. Ivy, zero.
The game had officially begun.
Cam’s been racking up points on me ever since. He somehow crashes almost every date I go on. He tanks nearly every group project we get roped into together at school. He usurps all my roles, questions every position I take, and generally thrives on being an enormous pain in my ass. But the biggestcon of all is the fact that no one else at school even realizes what he’s doing. They still think—after everything that’s happened—that the two of us are somehow conspiring together, like a fully out Bert and Ernie.
“Gay royalty,” I’ve heard people whisper whenever they find us sitting outside the principal’s office becausesomeonedecided I was serious at the GSA committee meeting when I said we ought to black out every bathroom door label so they’d all be gender-neutral.
But despite what the rest of the student body wants to believe, Cam and I are not some superpowerful queer duo. And we never will be. Which is why, after months of putting up with this new, fake-friend version of Cam…I’ve finally discovered a loophole in his game.
