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“Ignore her,” a boy whisper-shouted from two desks over. “I knowthreegay people, and they’re my best friends. I could get them to help you, since you’re just coming out.” He looked earnest when he added, “Which is, like,sobrave of you. I mean, no homo, but congrats.”
Nick threw up his hands. “I’ve been out for years! I have aboyfriend.”
The boy shrugged. “Good for you. It Gets Better or whatever. Anyway, my friends would love you, and they’re all really gay. Their names are Gabby, Jizz and …” He frowned. “Oh!” he said as he brightened. “Serf. No, wait. That’s an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on his lord’s estate.”
“That’s exactly right,” the teacher said. “I’m glad what I’m teaching you is sinking in. How wonderful to see young minds expanding with knowledge.”
“Oh my god,” Nick muttered. “It’s Gibby and Jazz and Seth, and they’remybest friends, not yours. In fact, who are you? I’ve never even seen you before! And Seth isn’tgay. He’s bisexual, so take your hetero nonsense somewhere else, because I won’t allow my boyfriend’s sexuality to be erased.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” the teacher said. “Get back to your tests, everyone. Leave Nick alone and let him focus.”
“Thank you,” Nick said loudly.
Satisfied, Nick turned back to his test.
Only to be interrupted a minute later by the teacher passing by his desk, sliding a folded piece of paper underneath the test sheet. He waited until she left before he opened it.
You’re doing great work! If you need to talk about anything, please don’t hesitate to come to me. My door is alwaysopen. Being a teenager can be hard, but I’m hip and cool and willing to talk aboutanythingyou need. Some examples: boys, relationships, academic futures, identities of superheroes, parental struggles, drug prevention, Pyro Storm, peer pressure, self-confidence issues, Extraordinaries’ real names and addresses, and I make a mean quiche if you should ever need the recipe!
Nick raised his head slowly to stare at the teacher.
She brought her finger to her lips and winked at him.
“I hate everything,” Nick grumbled, slumping low in his seat.
By the time the lunch bell rang, the following had occurred:
• Nick had been asked to prom by nine different people: five boys (all straight) and three girls (all straight), and the lady who worked in the front office, who told him everyone would think he was the coolest for bringing an adult to prom, to which Nick replied she really didn’t understand what it meant to be thecoolest.
• Three teachers—two of which Nick didn’t have a class with—pulled him into their rooms, all of them telling Nick he shouldn’t have to carry the burden on his own, and that they were willing to listen to whatever he needed to get off his chest. One of the teachers, an older woman with perfect teeth that had to be fake, turned a chair around and sat down on it, hands dangling down the back, saying, “Man, teenagers, right? It’s hard out there for a pimp. Let’s chill, my dude. Say, I got a question for you, since you’re here. What isupwith all these Extraordinaries, am I right, my man? My guy? Bro? Bro, where are you going? Bro, you don’t need to leave, I’m not—the door opens the other way. No, you have to pull, not—Nick. Seriously. Stop screaming and justpull the door open.”
• Seventeen different students—including the guy who moved to Nova City from Venezuela named Santiago, who had the mosterotic jawline ever given to mankind—invited Nick to house parties. And birthday parties. A bar mitzvah. A quinceañera. An orgy, though Nick might have misheard that one. One enterprising girl even told Nick that she’d always wanted a gay best friend to take shopping, since all gays had the best tastes in clothes. He might have given her the benefit of the doubt had she not been glaring at his clothes, which consisted of his beat-up Chucks, frayed jeans, and a green hoodie missing the string around the neck. He then proceeded to explain to her how problematic her views on queer men were, and that he didnotexist to feed into her terrible stereotypes. She nodded solemnly and said, “Thank you for educating me. I’m taking the time to listen and reflect on my biases to become a better person. So, shopping, or …?”
By the time Nick collapsed onto a seat at the lunch table, he was convinced humanity was a mistake and that getting sent to a boarding school in Switzerland might not be a bad thing, even if he, like Jazz, had no idea where Switzerland was.
“That awful, huh?” Gibby asked, patting him on the top of the head.
“Everything is terrible,” Nick mumbled. “I know now what it feels like to be used, and honestly? Not as big a fan as I thought I’d be.”
“You thought it’d be a good thing to be used?” Jazz asked.
Nick lifted his head. “If it meant being popular, sure, but at what cost, Jazz?At what cost?”
“Popularity is overrated,” Jazz said, opening her Tupperware, which was filled with beef cutlets over a bed of bone-marrow pasta. “Popularity in high school doesn’t matter in the real world. People are fickle. What’s important today won’t be important tomorrow.”
“Where’s Seth?” He looked around, trying to find the familiar mop of curls.
“He was talking to a teacher when I saw him before lunch,” Gibby said. “Didn’t look like it was going well.”
Nick blinked. “What? Why? He’s almost as smart as you are.”
“I dunno. I was going to wait for him, but he waved me off. He’ll be here when—there he is.”
Seth pushed his way through the crowd, scowling at everyone who bumped into him. He practically threw his backpack on the table as he sat down next to Nick. “What in thehell?” he growled. “I just spent ten minutes talking to Sewell, who told me that I needed to be a good boyfriend to Nick and listen to everything he says, and if hehappensto talk about Pyro Storm, to let her know so she can—and I quote—‘Make sure you two are safe and making good decisions, and if that leads to a financial windfall, remember how much I’m helping you because teachers are vastly underpaid.’”
“Money makes everyone stupid,” Nick muttered.
Seth looked around to make sure no one was listening in. He dropped his voice and said, “It’s getting worse. I got a notification on the app last night. Someone reported an incident in progress, and I—”
