Chapter Five #2
But she remembers anyway. “Well, I am a person of my word, so I’m going to throw my hat in the ring: Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan.
” Ravi looks around, and he doesn’t see any sparks of recognition.
Yael takes a deep breath. “Okay, well, it was a huge deal when it came out. I found it a few years later, when I was in middle school, maybe. It’s what it sounds like: a rom-com about a boy meeting a boy.
But it’s at this utopic high school where basically everyone who wants to be is out—the quarterback is the prom queen, and the cheerleaders are butch.
I remember being totally enthralled, and I think it would be interesting to see what about it still feels subversive so many years later and what doesn’t.
I read it after absolutely inhaling everything the author had ever co-written with Rachel Cohn, and it was my personal introduction to queer YA romance.
Also, it’s only one hundred eighty-five pages. ”
Everyone is quiet for a moment, and then Jackson says, “Yeah, let’s do that one.”
Others nod along, and Ravi watches Yael’s gaze pause on each person in the circle, as if giving them the opportunity to disagree. Even him.
But nobody does, and it’s not long before the students are heading for the door and Ravi’s dragging chairs back into place alongside Yael, still not bothering to say anything to her. He pulls on his overshirt, and then she says, “You were quiet today.”
“I thought you didn’t want me here,” Ravi says.
Yael looks stricken. “I—I mean, I might have preferred—”
Ravi laughs through his nose. “Yeah, me too.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. Please don’t quit the club,” she says. She takes a deep breath, looking at the ground. “Charlie is one of my two closest friends in the world, and I … You know what? I don’t really want to relitigate this.”
“I’m not relitigating; I don’t think you’ve ever let me get a word in edgewise.”
Her expression changes, but before Ravi can really get a read on it, Yael steels herself into that same teeth-baring look she’d given him earlier. “My apologies, Ravi. I hope you’ll consider staying on, but I understand if it doesn’t work out. Have a good night.”
Ravi nods in response, feeling a little chastened and a lot uninterested in assessing why he feels that way, and heads to the door.
He puts in his earbuds and presses play on the early episode of The Sophomore English Agenda he’d been listening to on the way here.
He only gets two more sentences into Elle’s analysis of The Great Gatsby (she seems to really hate this one, with a depth he can’t fully understand but finds entertaining regardless) when his muffled name cuts through the noise cancellation.
It’s one of the kids from the club. Taller than Ravi already but doesn’t seem to be done growing, floppy curly hair, braces, nervous smile. The two things he’s said this week before today were his name and pronouns on Tuesday, and Ravi can only remember one of those.
“Hey,” Ravi says.
“I’m Leo, from book club.” Ravi smiles, trying to assure him. Leo continues, “You said you’d read The Song of Achilles, and I was just wondering if you liked it?”
“It was a long time ago now, so I don’t remember all of it, but, yeah, I did.” Ravi gets the sense that that isn’t what Leo stopped him to ask, but with the way the kid is biting his lip, he guesses that a blunt “Anything else?” will scare him off.
“Did you read it in high school like Ms. Koenig?”
Ravi shakes his head. “University. I, uh, got a copy from my first boyfriend.” That’s not who Cole was to him, but he can be forgiven for the revision, he thinks.
“Is that when you came out? When you had your first boyfriend?”
There it is. “For me, coming out wasn’t just one moment. I told my brother before that, but a lot of other people in my life I told more gradually. But starting to see people publicly who weren’t women was a big part of it.”
Leo’s nodding along, and it seems like he might want to say something else but ultimately decides against it. “Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks, Ravi. It’s cool that you’re … yeah. Thanks. See you Tuesday?”
“Yeah, anytime, Leo. See you Tuesday,” he says, and he decides that he means it.
IF THERE’S ANYTHING to be said for Ravi’s apparent change of heart, it’s that it makes telling Charlie a whole lot easier. Yael spent her walk home practicing what to say, and the Anyway, I’m not even sure he plans to stay she’s planning to throw in is especially helpful.
She unlocks the door to her apartment, hangs up the yellow New York Public Library tote that Sanaa bought for her birthday, and bends to yank her feet out of her floral embroidered Chelsea boots. “Charlie?” she calls out. “You home?”
He emerges from his room, clearly fresh from a postwork nap. His wolf cut is all over the place, and all his clothes are wrinkled. “Hey, Yael. A new season of Selling Sunset finally dropped. Sound good for tonight?”
“I will never say no to Chrishell Stause. But I also have something I want to tell you.”
Charlie frowns. “Good news first, please.”
“There’s no good news,” Yael says, and Charlie’s face falls farther. “I guess there’s no bad news, either. Or, at least, no terrible news. Like, I don’t think—”
“Yael.”
She laughs. “Sorry. Anyway, you know how I said Sherine found a volunteer for the club?”
“Yes…?”
“Well, Charles, that volunteer turned out to be Ravi.”
His brow furrows for a half second before the realization dawns, and Yael takes that as a good sign. Like the hesitation means that it hasn’t been weighing on him as much as she worried it might. “Ravi, from last weekend? Seriously?”
She nods, raising her eyebrows emphatically. “Right? Apparently, he saw one of my flyers on his way out.”
“What are the odds?”
“That’s what I said!” Yael’s Pops has always said that Portland was a big city but a small town, and growing up she never fully got what he meant until she couldn’t go to a coffee shop or Salt we were just kind of ships in the night and then I completely forgot to bring it up yesterday over dinner. ”
Charlie smiles, and Yael feels relieved. “That’s because you were emailing with Kevin.”
She pretends to balk at the suggestion. “I was giving you my utmost attention.”
“Sure you were,” Charlie says.
“Well, Charles, now you know the big news of the week,” she says.
Charlie rolls his eyes. “I gave a hot British man a more sophisticated version of my name. Sue me.”
Yael shakes her head. “Not British.”
“I wasn’t that drunk, Yael. He definitely had an accent.”
She can’t hold back her laugh. “Yes, from Trinidad.”
“God, I’m an idiot.”
Yael pats his arm. “It’s endearing.”
“Okayyy,” Charlie says. “Well, thank you for telling me, but I’m doing fine. Ego’s lightly bruised, and the hickey on my chest is almost faded”—Yael drops her jaw in delight at this proffered detail—“but I’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
He nods. “Yeah. You’re not gonna befriend him and start bringing him around all the time or anything, right?”
“Of course not! And anyway, he was kind of in a mood at club today. I’m not even sure he plans to keep volunteering,” she says. His mood may have been partially her fault, but she’s trying not to feel any sort of guilt about it.
Charlie nods again. “Chrishell?” he asks.
“Chrishell,” Yael agrees.