Chapter 32

Chad inquires, “Is it true that you have sex with him?”

Someone kicks Chad under the table and he lets out a little yelp. My apple rolls off the picnic table from the kick and tumbles to the grass.

I reply to his question, “It’s not that I don’t like it. He doesn’t feed me drugs. He doesn’t feed me alcohol. He doesn’t chain me to his queen-size bed. He doesn’t rape me. Yes, we have sex. Does that answer your question?”

They look at me, confused, at a loss for words.

Sometimes the truth stings.

I know it did this time, but they still keep me as their friend.

* * * *

Period 5: “Help me, Nicholas,” this is what I read as a text message on my Chocolate in Miss Suture’s trigonometry class. “Come to my house and help me.”

I bolt out of school and run the mile to Ripley Road. I use my key to enter Mr. Mann’s house. I rush inside, through the kitchen, into the hallway, into the small library with floor-to-ceiling books and two reading chairs and…