Natural Selection

10

Earth

Morgan avoided me all afternoon. At dinner—hot dogs this time, with potato chips and a three-bean salad that nobody except the teachers ate—she sat with Zach. I sat at a different picnic table where the other kids didn’t talk to me, but kept sneaking glances at me when they thought I wouldn’t notice. I noticed.

As night fell, we gathered around the bonfire and Mr. Santos led us in telling ghost stories. I didn’t listen. I sat on a blanket and hugged my knees to my chest and wished Zach had never existed. When it was time to get ready for bed, I walked with the other girls to the bathroom, but when we got there they all looked at me and one of them—prissy Kayla Moore—said, “Maybe you should wait till we’re done.”

I glared at Kayla—Morgan was sort of half-hiding behind her—and I was about to say, Afraid I might turn you gay? when I saw Morgan flinch. My anger died, and all I felt was lonely.

I turned away to go back to my tent. I heard them whispering about me as I left.

When Morgan returned a while later, I heard her unzip her tent and toss her bathroom stuff inside. I thought she was going to ignore me and go to sleep, but instead she said in a low voice, “Can I talk to you?”

I sat up, hope crashing through me. “Sure.”

She unzipped my tent and knelt down, halfway inside. Her face was in shadow as she said, “Is what Zach said true?”

I could deny it. Would that make things okay? But I’d already lied to her about so much—about practically everything real about me—and I didn’t want to lie anymore. With this, at least, I could tell her the truth. “Yes,” I said. “What Zach said is true.”

She sighed, seeming to deflate a little. “You know I don’t feel that way,” she whispered.

Maybe I had expected her to be disgusted, because the tone in her voice—the sadness in it—took me by surprise. And then I remembered: This was why I liked her in the first place. She was honest. She was a horrible liar. I always knew exactly how she felt about me, even without my Imrian abilities. Maybe that gave me the idea—false, I now understood—that she was like my people. “I know you don’t feel that way,” I said. “That’s why I never told you.”

“How did Zach know?” she asked.

I thought about it. Josh told me about you, Zach had said. “I guess Josh told Zach that I didn’t want to make out with him when we went to the movies.”

“But not wanting to make out with Josh Taylor doesn’t make you gay,” Morgan said. “Are you sure?”

She wanted so badly for it to be a lie that I was tempted to give in to her.

“Maybe we just need to find you someone else,” Morgan said. “What about Matt Steiger? Don’t you think he’s so cute?”

“Yeah, he’s cute,” I agreed.

This seemed to encourage her. “That’s great! Maybe you’re beyond the boys at school. I mean, other than Zach, they are kind of annoying. Maybe you’ll find a guy you like in high school.”

I laughed in a half-choked kind of way. “Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?” she said, sounding unexpectedly fierce. “How can you know for sure that you’re—that you don’t like boys? You’ve never gone out with anyone except Josh. Have you?”

“No,” I admitted.

“So you don’t know!”

Her denial made me cringe. “But I do know,” I said.

“How?” she demanded.

“How do you know you’re straight?”

She thought about that for a moment but shook her head. “You’re so pretty. All the boys like you. Why would you—? It doesn’t make any sense.”

My heart seemed to stop. I knew that she was basically insulting me. She thought I was too pretty to be gay—as if all gay people were ugly. But the only thing I could feel was a thick, sad wonder at the fact that she thought I was pretty at all. She thought I was pretty. “Morgan,” I whispered. I took a deep breath, preparing myself. “I like girls. I know you don’t, but this doesn’t change anything. We’re both the same people we were yesterday. Are we okay? Are we still friends?” I reached for her, wanting to touch her the way I would touch an Imrian. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help it at that moment. I had to know how she felt.

She pulled away from me, leaving my hand hanging in the air. She crossed her arms. I drew my hand back, and my heart sank.

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

My eyes were hot. I was glad she couldn’t see my face.

“I better go,” she whispered, and before I could stop her, she left my tent and zipped it shut.