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Well, I would solve that.

I raced the six blocks home and was heaving by the time I made it to the front door. I slid my key into the lock and quietly closed the door behind me.

My mother and Dorothy would be upstairs asleep. They didn’t mind if I came over and spent the night without calling. But they didn’t like it if I woke them up. Or if the light was on in their bedroom and the door was closed, I had to leave them alone.

I didn’t turn on any lights until I made it into the kitchen. The first thing I did was open the pack and light a cigarette. I leaned with my lower back against the sink and plotted. I had an idea in my head, but I needed to polish the details. I needed to make it foolproof.

Then, as I was staring at the pilot light of the stove, I had the perfect solution. Immediately, I went into the dining room and opened the glass-front bookcase where my mother kept her pens and paper. I grabbed a pen and a small notepad, then I sat down at the kitchen table.

I wrote one draft of the note but my handwriting was awful so I wrote another. The next one was okay, except I signed my name weird, so I did it again. In the end, I wrote the note fifteen or sixteen times before I was completely satisfied.

Carefully, I folded the note in half and slipped it into the rear pocket of my jeans. Then I swiped my keys off the table and left the house again.

But now he had company. There were two girls and a guy, both around his age, in the store with him. He was throwing his head back laughing. I took a deep breath, made a face that I hoped looked casual and friendly and then I walked into the store.

At first, they all just went on talking. But because I just stood there waiting, he finally noticed me and said, “Oh, hey. You again. You forget something?”

I confidently walked up to the counter and his friends moved to the side to let me through. I handed him the note. “Happy Birthday,” I said. Then I smiled and walked out of the store.

I did my crossing-the-street trick again, lurking in the shadows and watching.

I could see him turn the note over in his hand, open it and read it, then turn it over again. He passed it to his friends, who passed it between them.

Then I watched him make a shrugging gesture with his hands.

And then they were all laughing again.

My mortification was total and overpowering. I was suddenly having a very difficult time standing. I experienced a perfect note of utter and true clarity.

He was straight.

This was followed with the sound of my letter being read out loud inside my head, by my own voice:

Hi.

I know this seems pretty weird but . . . when I saw you tonight, I just got a really good vibe. I wanted to say something to you in the store, but I freaked out. I guess I’m kind of shy. But what I wanted to say is, that it was really nice to meet you and I wouldn’t mind seeing you again sometime. The number at the bottom of this note is my mother’s apartment. I live there part of the time and the other part in Northampton. She’s cool, so don’t worry about calling. I really would like to get to know you, but this is NOT a casual sex thing. I’m not into that AT ALL. I guess I’ve been hurt before and don’t want to get involved with that stuff again. I’m 16, but pretty mature for my age. Oh, and my name is Augusten but I probably should have put that first. Anyway, that’s all. Take care.

Augusten.

On the front of the card, I had written the words Happy Birthday! in what I now realized was a dreadfully girly script.

And then at the bottom, I had scrawled my mother’s phone number. Now, as I walked back to her house, I worried that he or his friends would make crank calls. That they would call constantly and my mother would have to have her number changed. Dorothy would be furious and I would have to explain what I’d done. Once Dorothy knew that I did this, that I actually passed this creepy note to a perfect stranger, she would tell everybody and then Natalie would know and if Natalie knew, all