soon we were swapping pictures and mp3s and telling each other about how everything pretty much sucked, but of course the ironic part was that while we were talking about it the world didn’t suck as much. except, of course, for the part at the end when we had to return to the real world.

It is so unfair that he lives in ohio, because that should be close enough, but since neither of us drives and neither of us would ever in a million years say, ‘hey, mom, do you want to drive me across indiana to see a boy?,’ we’re kind of stuck.

grayscale: i’m reading about the mayans.

boundbydad: angelou?

grayscale: ???

boundbydad: nevermind. we skipped the mayans. we only read ‘american’ history now.

grayscale: but aren’t they in the americas? boundbydad: not according to my school. **groans** grayscale: so who did you almost kill today?

grayscale: and by ‘kill,’ i mean ‘wish would disappear,’ just in case this conversation is being monitored by administrators

boundbydad: potential body count of eleven. twelve if you count the cat.

grayscale: . . . or homeland security

grayscale: goddamn cat!

boundbydad: goddamn cat!

I haven’t told anyone about isaac because it’s none of their business. i love that he knows who everyone is but nobody knows who he is. if i had actual friends that i felt i could talk to, this might cause some conflict. but since right now there’d only need to be one car to take people to my funeral, i think it’s okay.

eventually isaac has to go, because he isn’t really supposed to be using the computer at the music store where he works. lucky for me that it doesn’t seem to be a busy music store, and his boss is like a drug dealer or something and is always leaving isaac in charge while he goes out to ‘meet some people.’

I step away from the computer and finish my homework quickly. then i go in the den and turn on law & order, since the only thing i can really count on in life is that whenever i turn on the tv there will be a law & order episode. this time it’s the one with the guy who strangles blonde after blonde after blonde, and even though i’m pretty sure i’ve seen it like ten times already, i’m watching it like i don’t know that the pretty reporter he’s talking to is about to have the curtain cord around her neck. i don’t watch that part, because it’s really stupid, but once the police catch the guy and the trial’s going on, they’re all

lawyer: dude, the cord knocked this microscopic piece of skin off your hand while you were strangling her, and we ran it under the microscope and found out that you’re totally fucked.

you gotta know he wishes he’d worn gloves, although the gloves probably would’ve left fibers, and he would’ve been totally fucked anyway. when that’s all over, there’s another episode i don’t think i’ve seen before, until this celebrity runs over a baby in his hummer and i’m like, oh, it’s the one where the celebrity runs over the baby in his hummer. i watch it anyway, because it’s not like i have anything better to do. then mom comes home and finds me there and it’s like we’re a rerun, too.

mom: how was your day?

me: mom, i’m watching tv.

mom: will you be ready for dinner in fifteen minutes?

me: mom, i’m watching tv!

mom: well, set the table during the commercials.

me: FINE.

I totally don’t get this - is there anything more boring and pathetic than setting the table when there are only two of you? i mean, with place mats and salad forks and everything. who is she kidding? i would give anything not to have to spend the next twenty minutes sitting across from her, because she doesn’t believe in letting silence go. no, she has to fill it up with talk. i want to tell her that’s what the voices in your head are for, to get you through all the silent parts. but she doesn’t want to be with her thoughts unless she’s saying them out loud.

mom: if i get lucky tonight, maybe we’ll have a few more dollars for the car fund.

me: you really don’t need to do that.

mom: don’t be silly. it gives me a reason to go to girls’ poker night.

I really wish she would stop it. she feels worse about me not having a car than i do. i mean, i’m not one of those jerks who thinks that as soon as you turn seventeen it’s your god-given american right to have a brand-new chevrolet in the driveway. i know what our situation is, and i know she doesn’t like that i have to work weekends at cvs in order to afford the things we need to pick up at cvs. having her constantly sad about it doesn’t make me feel better. and of course there’s another reason for her to go play poker besides the money. she needs more friends.

she asks me if i took my pills before i ran off this morning and i tell her, yeah, wouldn’t i be drowning myself in the bathtub if i hadn’t? she doesn’t like that, so i’m all like ‘joke, joke’ and i make a mental note that moms aren’t the best audience for medication humor. i decide not to get her that world’s greatest mom of a depressive fuckup sweatshirt for mother’s day like i’d been planning. (okay, there’s not really a sweatshirt like that, but if there was, it would have kittens on it, putting their paws in sockets.)

truth is, thinking about depression depresses the shit out of me, so i go back into the den and watch some more law & order. isaac’s never back at his computer until eight, so i wait until then. maura calls me but i don’t have the energy to say anything to her except what’s happening on law & order, and she hates it when i do that. so i let the voicemail pick up.

me: this is will. why the fuck are you calling me? leave a message and maybe i’ll call you back. [BEEP]

maura: hey, loser. i’m so bored i’m calling you. i figured if you weren’t doing anything i could bear your children. oh, well. i guess i’ll just go call joseph and ask him to do me in the manger and begat another holy child.

by the time i care, it’s almost eight. and even then, i don’t care enough to call her back. we have this thing about calling each other back, in that we don’t do it very much. instead i head to the computer and it’s like i turn into a little girl who’s just seen her first rainbow. i get all giddy and nervous and hopeful and despairing and i tell myself not to look obsessively at my buddy list, but it might as well be projected onto the insides of my eyelids. at 8:05 his name pops up, and i start to count. i only get to twelve before his IM pops up.

boundbydad: greetings! grayscale: and salutations! boundbydad: so glad u’re here. grayscale: so glad to be here

boundbydad: work today = lamest! day! ever! this girl tried to shoplift and wasn’t even subtle about it. i used to have some sympathy for shoplifters

boundbydad: but now i just want to see them behind bars. i told her to put it back and she acted all ‘put what back?’ until i reached into her pocket and took the disc out. and what does she say to that? ‘oh.’

grayscale: not even ‘sorry’?

boundbydad: not even.

grayscale: girls suck.

boundbydad: and boys are angels? ☺

we go on like this for about an hour. i wish we could talk on the phone, but his parents won’t let him have a cell and i know my mom sometimes checks my phone log when i’m in the shower. this is nice, though. it’s the only part of my day when the time actually seems worth it.

we spend our usual ten minutes saying good-bye.

boundbydad: i really should go.

grayscale: me too.

boundbydad: but i don’t want to.

grayscale: me neither.

boundbydad: tomorrow?

grayscale: tomorrow!

grayscale: i wish you, too.

this is dangerous because as a rule i don’t let myself wish for things. too many times when i was a kid, i would put my hands together or squinch my eyes shut and i would devote myself fully to hoping for something. i even thought that there were some places in my room that were better for wishing than others - under the bed was okay, but on the bed wasn’t; the bottom of the closet would do, as long as my shoebox of baseball cards was in my lap. never, ever at my desk, but always with the sock drawer open. nobody had told me these rules - i’d figured them out for myself. i could spend hours setting up a particular wish - and every single time, i’d be met with a resounding wall of complete indifference. whether it was for a pet hamster or for my mom to stop crying - the sock drawer would be open and i would be sitting behind my toy chest with three action figures in one hand and a matchbox car in the other. i never hoped for everything to get better - only for one thing to get better. and it never did. so eventually i gave up. i give up every single day.

but not with isaac. it scares me sometimes. wishing it to work.

later that night i get an email from him.

I feel like my life is so scattered right now. like it’s all these small pieces of paper and someone’s turned on the fan. but talking to you makes me feel like the fan’s been turned off for a little bit. like things could actually make sense. you completely unscatter me, and i appreciate that so much.

GOD I AM SO IN LOVE.

Chapter three

Nothing happens for a week. I don’t mean this figuratively, like there is a shortage of significant events. I mean that no things occur. Total stasis. It’s sort of heavenly, to tell you the truth.

There’s the getting up, and the showering, and the school, and the miracle of Tiny Cooper and the desk, and the plaintive glancing at my Burger King Kids Meal Magic School Bus watch during each class, and the relief of the eighth period bell, and the bus home, and the homework, and the dinner, and the parents, and the locking the door, and the good music, and the Facebook, and the reading of people’s status updates without writing my own because my policy on shutting up extends to textual communication, and then there’s the bed and the waking and the shower and the school again. I don’t mind it. As lives go, I’ll take the quietly desperate over the radically bipolar.

And then on Thursday night, I go home and Tiny calls me, and some things start happening. I say hello, and then Tiny, by way of introduction, says, “You should come to the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting tomorrow.”

And I say, “Nothing personal, Tiny, but I don’t really go in for alliances. Anyway, you know my policy on extracurricular activities.”

“No, I don’t,” Tiny says.

“Well, I’m opposed to them,” I say. “Just the curricular activities are plenty. Listen, Tiny. I gotta go. Mom’s on the other line.” I hang up. Mom’s not on the other line, but I need to hang up, because I can’t get talked into anything.

But then Tiny calls back. And he says, “Actually I need you to come because we have to get our membership numbers up. Our school funding is partly decided by meeting attendance.”

“Why do you need money from the school? You’ve got your own house.”

“We need money so that we can stage our production of Tiny Dancer.”

“Oh. My. Sweet. Holy. God,” I say, because Tiny Dancer is this musical, written by Tiny. It’s basically Tiny’s slightly fictionalized life story, except it is sung, and it is—I mean, I don’t use this adjective lightly—the gayest single musical in all of human history. Which is really saying something. And by gay, I don’t mean that it sucks. I just mean that it’s gay. It is actually—as musicals go—quite good. The songs are catchy. I’m particularly fond of “The Nosetackle (Likes Tight Ends),” which includes the memorable couplet, “The locker room isn’t porn for me / ’cause you’re all too damned pimple-ey.”

“What?” whines Tiny.

“I just worry it might be, uh—what did Gary say the other day—‘bad for the team,’ ” I say.

“That’s exactly the kind of thing that you can say tomorrow!” Tiny answers, only a hint of disappointment in his voice.

“I’ll go,” I say, and hang up. He calls back, but I don’t answer, because I’m on Facebook, looking at Tiny’s profile, paging through his 1,532 friends, each cuter and trendier than the last. I’m trying to figure out who, precisely, is in the Gay-Straight Alliance, and whether they could develop into a suitably nonannoying Group of Friends. So far as I can tell, though, it’s just Gary and Nick and Jane. I’m squinting at Jane’s tiny profile pic in which she appears to have her arm around some kind of life-size mascot on ice skates.

And right then, I get a friend request from her. A couple seconds after I accept it, she IMs me.

Jane: Hey!

Me: Hey.

Jane: Sorry, that might have been inappropriate exclamation point use.

Me: Ha. All good.

I look at her profile. The list of favorite music and favorite books is obscenely long, and I can only get through the A’s of the music list before giving up. She looks cute in her pictures, but not quite like she looks in real life—her picture smile isn’t her smile.

Jane: I hear Tiny’s recruiting you to the GSA.

Me: Indeed.

Jane: You should come. We need members. It’s kind of pathetic, actually.

Me: Yeah, I think I will.

Jane: Cool. I didn’t know you had a Facebook. Your profile is funny. I like “ACTIVITIES: ought to involve sunglasses.”

Me: You have more favorite bands than Tiny has ex-boyfriends.

Jane: Yeah, well. Some people have lives; some people have music.

Me: And some people have neither.

Jane: Cheer up, Will. You’re about to be the hottest straight guy in the Gay-Straight Alliance.

I have the distinct feeling that flirting is occurring. Now, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy flirting as much as the next guy, provided the next guy has repeatedly seen his best friend torn asunder by love. But nothing violates the rules of shutting up and not caring so much as flirting—except possibly for that enchantingly horrible moment when you act upon the flirting, that moment where you seal your heartbreak with a kiss. There should be a third rule, actually: 1. Shut up. 2. Don’t care too much. And 3. Never kiss a girl you like.