Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [33]
Grabbing a handful of snow, I molded it into a ball and hurled it at a tree. It hit with a satisfying splat, leaving a white star on the trunk. I pictured Sage’s head splattering against the tree, her brains spewing everywhere.
The thought gave me no pleasure. I’d spent nearly two months thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about Sage. If I was going to hate her, it would take some work.
I threw another snowball, nailing the tree inches from my first hit. Sage had said she liked me. If that was true (and I was very close to not believing anything any girl ever told me), then she should have left me alone. But hugging me and fixing me food and making me a present—she had to realize what that was doing to me.
Maybe she assumed I’d never find out. Or that I’d somehow understand. But I didn’t understand. I’d never be able to erase the memory of kissing a guy.
I looked down at the crumpled, wet blanket in the snow. I started to pick it up, then stopped. I ground the black-and-yellow fabric into the mud with my foot.
I wish I’d never met you, Sage.
chapter twelve
I HADN’T BEEN so scared to go to school since my first day of junior high. I thought about pretending to be sick, but I needed to be there. What if Sage decided she wanted to cause trouble? I had almost hit her, after all. What if she wanted revenge? She could tell any sort of lie about me, knowing I’d never be able to admit the truth.
Sleep hadn’t come that night. I kept having nightmare visions: Sage’s shirt accidentally being pulled off (hey, it could happen). Someone in the office realizing her birth certificate said male. A thousand scenarios that ended with Sage’s secret exposed and me branded as a homosexual. If word of her true gender got out, it wouldn’t matter that I didn’t know. No one would believe it. They’d think I knew Sage was a guy and didn’t mind. Or liked it! Shame never dies in a small town. Everyone would think I was gay. Jack, Tim, Brenda, even my mom.
I was relieved to see Sage wasn’t in biology that morning. Maybe she’d changed classes like she’d said. Tim had already eaten himself into a food coma, so I was free to internally panic as Mr. Elmer discussed the boring botany unit we were starting.
I didn’t see Sage at all that day; she must have skipped school. Tammi wasn’t around, either. She was probably home consoling her “sister.” Maybe this incident could work to my advantage. Sage would come to her senses and realize how stupid she’d been for trying to attend school as a girl. She could go back to being homeschooled, and I’d never have to see her again.
My entire future rested on what happened in the next few months. If Sage didn’t get found out until we were both out of high school, then I was safe. Provided I never talked to her again, so no one would remember how we used to hang out. I promised myself I would just play it cool. Be smooth. Not let on that I was more scared than I’d ever been in my entire life.
I didn’t blow it until the end of the school day.
Jack and I sat in the commons after the final bell. Mr. Bloch, the principal, was casting a wary eye on us from his office, so Jack wasn’t attacking the soda machine. I’m not sure if Mr. Bloch knew of Jack’s vandalism, but at six feet two inches, and three-hundred-plus pounds, the principal was not a man you deliberately antagonized. Rumor had it that the only meth dealer ever to find his way onto the Boyer campus left in an ambulance.
Jack was making an elaborate paper airplane out of the school newsletter.
“Hey, Jack?”
“Yeah?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask this, but I had to know.
“Did you, um, ever notice anything kind of … strange about Sage?” If Jack had even the slightest inkling that Sage was a boy, I was completely fucked.
Jack threw the airplane. It did an impressive loop-the-loop and bounced off the glass-fronted office. Mr. Bloch glowered but apparently had other things to do than