Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

said, mock dejectedly.
    “Oh, well. Sorry, little buddy. Someday your prince will come. C-O-M-E, I mean, because I’m not about the sex innuendo. That’s the lowest form of comedy.” Then Albie appraised my mood. “You are not extremely uncomfortable.”
    “I am not,” I responded.
    “I thought maybe you would be.”
    “It’s not a big deal.”
    Albie seemed to digest this. Then he got mock serious, sticking his hand out at me and lowering his voice. “Welcome to the squad, young man. Good to have you, good to have you.”
    “Um, thank you. Thank you very much,” I said, mimicking his lowered voice. And then we all laughed, and I wondered if these guys might actually be great friends to have.
    In the comfort of our room, anyway.

“Now don’t kill me,” I said when the voice at the other end said hello. “I know it’s been too long. I’ve been really busy settling in.”
    “Who is this?” Claire Olivia said. “I don’t recognize the voice.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
    “Damn right it won’t. What’s with not calling me back for almost a week? What am I, chopped liver?”
    “Are you still going for the whole Jewish grandmother thing? Because I thought we’d talked about this? You’re Irish, girlie girl. It’s not working.”
    “All I know, Seamus Rafael Goldberg, is I haven’t heard your sweet voice in way too long! What’s going on, Shay Shay?”
    “Oh, you know. Got married. Divorced. Became a drunk. Moved to Reno.”
    “You are NOT getting away without giving me a full report. I’ve MISSED you, Shay Shay! Seriously. You cannot not call like that. I’m having Rafe withdrawals!”
    “I know, I know,” I said. “I hate that I’ve been such a suck-ass friend. What’s wrong with me?”
    “We do not even have time for you to get all self-pityish. We have way too much to cover. After all, my life is going to serious hell.”
    I lay back sideways on my bed and kicked my legs up against the wall. I knew Claire Olivia well enough to know that I was about to hear a drawn-out story. And I was glad. It had been too long, really. “Tell me, tell me,” I said.
    She took a dramatic breath. “Thank God. I absolutely have to tell someone who will actually understand. So I’m with Courtney and her boyfriend, Sam, and You-Know-Caleb at the Laughing Goat.”
    Claire Olivia called this guy Caleb “You-Know-Caleb,” because that’s how everyone mentioned him to me. He was the only other openly gay kid in our grade at Rangeview. If I had to describe him, I’d say he was, well, bitchy. I hate to stereotype, but he was. Anyway, almost every day someone said to me, “You know Caleb?” — like we must be close, since we shared a sexual orientation. It made me a little crazy. We definitely didn’t hang out.
    “So this is like Monday, after school, first day. And we’re just hanging out, and this serious cutie is with his friend, he’s wearing a burnt-orange ski hat and has the most insanely beautiful blue eyes and cheekbones up to the ceiling, and he keeps looking over. And it’s like, at me. I mean, he’s looking. So I smile at him, and Caleb, of course, you know he goes over….”
    I looked at my skinny legs and then studied the ceiling. I was used to Claire Olivia going on and on; that was our thing. I did it sometimes too. It was just that so much had happened since the last time we’d done this. Back in Boulder, it wasn’t unusual for me to goweeks talking only to my parents and her. Now I had a lot of people in my life whom I talked to, and it felt different. I imagined her on a raft at Barker Reservoir, floating off into the distance, floating, floating.
    “… And so that night we text a hundred times, and it’s obvious that he likes me and I like him, and he finally says, ‘Wanna hang out Friday?’ And I didn’t even play coy, because it wasn’t needed. I just wrote yes. And he’s like, ‘Cool. I’ll