Game Changer by Neal Shusterman

Author:Neal Shusterman [Shusterman, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Published: 2020-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

14

Here’s the Thing . . .

“Did it happen? I’ve been texting you since last night.”

Katie called just as I was driving away from the Edwards’. It wasn’t that I was avoiding talking to her, it’s just that I was avoiding talking to her.

“I had my phone off,” I told her, which was true. It was off because I knew she’d be trying to reach me.

“So something did happen!”

“Sort of.”

She took that as a yes. “Okay—meet me at the public library at noon.”

“Why there?”

“Because it’s the one place in town where I know I won’t run into Layton.”

The library had a nonsegregation policy. Anyone could sit anywhere they wanted. Unfortunately people tended to bring their predispositions with them, so tables often seemed to divide by race, regardless of policy. Something that often happened in my world, too. When I got there, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t just Katie. Leo was also there. Katie had managed to find him on her own.

“Sit down, Ash,” said Katie.

I sat across from them. Some old guy at another table gave us a glance from behind his newspaper. I couldn’t tell whether the glance was judgmental or just a glance. A moment later, he left. I couldn’t tell if he left because he didn’t approve of the three of us together, or if he just felt it was time to go. That’s the maddening thing about racism. Sometimes you just don’t know.

“Leo and I have been having a good talk,” she said. “About Angela . . . about everything.”

“She helped me remember stuff,” said Leo. “Like being on the team with you. Playing football with the football star’s son.”

“Yeah, well my dad wasn’t a football star where I come from.”

“Too bad,” said Leo.

“Not really.”

The fact that they had been talking about this without me present was a good thing. Three heads were better than one, and with both of them on board, I didn’t feel so alone.

“So how did the world change?” said Katie. “Out with it.”

Interesting choice of words. “The world didn’t exactly change,” I told them.

“Bro, it’s a yes or no question,” Leo said. “Either it did or it didn’t.”

“Okay, yes. Yes, there was a change.”

“And?” prompted Katie.

I took a moment to look at each of them and realized there was just no way around this. So I just told them.

“I’m gay.”

Katie continued to look at me, as if there’d be more. “And?”

“There is no ‘and.’ That’s it.”

“Ash,” she said, with an impish grin, “that’s not really a surprise . . .”

Leo, who didn’t know me at all in this world, had the wisdom to stay quiet and just let this play out between me and Katie.

“Wait—you already knew?” I asked her.

“I suspected.”

I scrolled back through my memories of this world. I thought I had done a pretty good job keeping it on the down-low. “How’d you know?”

“Well . . . maybe because you only dated ‘safe’ girls. And how, at parties, the way you’d always strike up conversations with good-looking guys.

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