Nathaniel Jean's Senior Year

4: Nathaniel Jean's Burning Question

"It's because what you are is permanent."

     Lucas turned to face me slowly, blinking rapidly as if something had taken him aback. He narrowed his eyes in obvious confusion and I stared back at him, silently asking why he was looking at me like that. "Um, what?" He said.

     For a moment, I felt as confused as he did. Then I realized what must have happened and I mentally cursed myself over and over; I had said that out loud, hadn't I?

"Nothing," I said, too quickly. "Never mind. Get out of my car."

     We were parked in front of Lucas' house. I silently prayed that he would let it go and get out. No such luck. He glanced at the car door, then back to me, and said, "No. what did you mean?"

     "Lucas, get out of my car or I swear I'll—"

      "You'll what?" Lucas challenged. "Leave me here? Push me out of the car at 60 miles per hour? I'm already home, Jean, and the car's not moving. Spill."

I hesitated for a moment, racking my mind for some sort of distractor. I blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Tough game tonight, huh?"

I wanted to slap myself. If the earth opened up and swallowed me right now, I'd be grateful. That had to be be the worst, least convincing subject change I could have gone for. Lucas stared at me with one eyebrow raised; we both knew that I would never willingly start a casual conversation about soccer with him.

"You're kidding, right?"

I felt more than a little embarrassed. I'd been thinking out loud, and I didn't want to admit that I was still pondering Lucas' words from weeks ago. There was no going back now, though. Lucas had his arms crossed and wore a determined expression. "You're really not leaving until I tell you?"

Lucas shook his head. "Unless you want to unbuckle my seatbelt and haul me out of the car yourself—which I can promise I will not make easy—you might wanna tell me what you were talking about."

I sighed in defeat. Lucas obviously wasn't budging, and I definitely didn't like the idea of dragging his screaming ass onto the driveway. "Remember when you talked about how everyone in this town is really hypocritical?" Lucas opened his mouth to respond, but I held up a silencing finger and spoke first. I wanted to get the embarrassment over with. "You asked why people stopped giving Katy Holman crap for what she did but still give you problems for being who you are. I think it's because your sexuality is, you know, a part of you. It will never go away or end. But Katy got her abortion and it was over with, so once it was done everybody had time to recover and move past it. There's no opportunity for that with you, because your . . . situation, is constant."

Judging by his expression, I'd taken Lucas by surprise. "I didn't know you were actually listening when I said all that."

That was what he took out of my spiel? That was in equal parts annoying and reliving.

"Yeah, well there're a lot of things you don't know," I grumbled. "You ready to leave now?"

He pursed his lips and stared at me in the analytical way he sometimes did. "One question, then I'll go," he promised. His intense gaze made me uncomfortable. "Do you think that that's . . . okay?"