Chapter 10
10
Talking about what she wants has never gone well for Elsie. There’s stuff with her family and the store, yeah, but it goes back earlier than that.
When she was nine years old, Elsie went to a friend’s house for a birthday sleepover. They painted their nails and watched YouTube videos and ate too much pizza, then too much cake. Half an hour after they were supposed to go to sleep, they were playing truth or dare in the basement with no lights on.
Olivia had just been made to run around the room naked. There was no way of knowing if she was actually naked, lights off and all, but she definitely ran around the room, tripping over Ava’s feet in her sleeping bag. It made all nine girls giggle so loud they shushed each other, which was not any quieter and didn’t do anything but set them off into another round of giggles.
Once they got their laughter under control and Olivia’s mom hadn’t opened the door to the basement steps to yell down at them that they were supposed to be sleeping, it was Elsie’s turn.
She was not about to run around the room naked.
“Truth,” she said.
“Who do you have a crush on?” Olivia whispered.
Elsie’s first crush had been the year before, in third grade. Every time her brother had Ben over, Elsie suddenly wanted to do everything they did. The only video game she normally liked was Wii Sports, but when Ben was over, watching the boys play Halo became her favorite activity. In the winter, when the boys wanted to build a snowboarding jump on the hill in their backyard, Elsie suddenly didn’t care that she was always cold—she was on her knees packing down the snow for the jump.
She hadn’t even known it was a crush until her brother yelled at her about it one day.
“It’s so embarrassing that you have a crush on my best friend!” Brandon snarled. “You can’t hang out with us anymore.”
That was the end of that. Elsie had been too mortified to play with them again, even when Brandon said she could. Ben wasn’t that cute anyway.
This year, Elsie had started playing basketball at recess. She wasn’t any good at it and no one ever passed to her, but sometimes Kaitlyn high-fived her after a good play—not one Elsie had been involved in, but it was the high five that mattered, not the play itself. She didn’t even know all the rules.
“Kaitlyn,” Elsie whispered into the dark.
It was silent for a moment.
“Kaitlyn?” Olivia repeated.
“Yeah.” Elsie’s face grew hot, but of course no one could see her blush. “She’s really good at basketball.”
“Oh.” Elsie didn’t know who said it, but it didn’t sound like a good oh .
At school on Monday, everyone looked away the second she glanced at them. No one talked to her, but everyone talked about her. She didn’t know what they were saying, but whispers followed her down the hallway. No one made eye contact.
The whole group of girls from the sleepover were huddled around a table in the cafeteria before the first bell rang. Elsie headed over to ask them if they knew what was going on, but Ava moved her backpack to the one open seat before Elsie could take it. None of them looked at her.
“Guys?”
They all pretended not to hear.
Elsie had no idea what was happening.
At recess, there was a crowd around the basketball court, which was weird. It parted when Elsie arrived. Finally, she heard some of the things people were saying.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe she came.”
“She must be, like, obsessed with her.”
Oh, Elsie thought. It wasn’t a good oh .
Kaitlyn was there, but unlike everyone else, she didn’t even look at Elsie.
It wasn’t unusual for Elsie to be picked last. She didn’t care—why would anyone pick her? She was no good at basketball. She was used to hearing I guess Elsie’s on our team. But this time, when there were only two of them left and the other girl got picked, that wasn’t what Jake Corona said.
“I’m not taking the dyke.”
The crowd laughed.
Elsie was made of glass, cracks branching out from her chest. She felt nothing but broken.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t run. Said excuse me to the crowd and waited for people to move out of her way before she left, her head held high.
It wasn’t until she was out of view, across the playground and in the woods, that she let herself shatter. Her back against a tree trunk, she slid to the ground, breath coming in hiccupping sobs she desperately hoped no one was close enough to hear.
She didn’t know how long it took to get her breathing under control. Recess couldn’t go on forever, no matter how much she wished it could. She didn’t want to go back inside and face everyone. Didn’t want anyone to look at her ever again.
“Hey.”
Elsie jumped. She hadn’t heard anyone approach.
“Oh,” she said. At least at this point she’d stopped crying, though she had to rub her hand across her face to wipe away leftover tears and snot. Gross. “Hi.”
Ashley Thompson sat in the pine needles next to her, crisscross applesauce. Her eyes were bright blue behind her wire-rimmed glasses.
“I don’t know why everyone’s being so stupid,” Ashley said. “Being gay isn’t a big deal.”
“I’m not gay. ” Elsie said the word like it was a curse, even though she knew it wasn’t.
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a dick. My moms are gay.”
Being gay wasn’t a big deal, Elsie knew, but just because she liked Kaitlyn didn’t mean she was gay. She’d liked Ben, too.
The bell rang.
“Walk back to class with me?” Ashley asked.
At least she wasn’t alone.
No one but Ashley talked to her all week.
Elsie herself barely talked. She lasted all day in school, head high and tears buried, never cried until she got home. Usually all the Hoffman kids ended up at the store, even though she and Claire were too young to be any help, but Elsie stopped going. Stayed in her room unless someone forced her to leave. If her parents noticed, they didn’t talk to her about it. Her siblings didn’t, either, not even Brandon, who was in the grade above her and must’ve heard the rumors about her by now.
What Brandon did do, though, was get suspended for breaking Jake Corona’s nose.
There were only a few weeks left of school, but they went on like that—Elsie pretending not to be bothered and Brandon getting into fights.
That summer, the family moved. Her parents claimed it was to be closer to the store, but to this day Elsie wonders if it was partially her fault. The new house was closer to the store, yeah, but it was also in a new school district. One where Elsie didn’t talk about her crushes and Brandon didn’t start any fights.
It was easier to move away from the problem than to fix it. Easier to never trust anyone to care about what she wanted, never trust anyone to be kind about it, than to risk vulnerability. Easier not to risk anything than to lose everything.
That was why Elsie said no, years later, when Ginny asked her to the winter formal.