“Maybe,” Chris says. “Yes. I don’t know. What I really want is them to leave me alone. They told me they would do it again, or worse, if I didn’t ‘stop being gay.’ As if that was an option I could select on the menu.” He stares off at a distant point. “Even if they don’t hurt me again, they’ll hurt somebody.”

She’s chewing on her lip. This is a bad idea. No good can come of this.

Coyne’s face is back to his untouchable, unfazed façade—any sign of tears is long gone. But his hands are still shaking.

Her hands shake, too, sometimes.

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars,” he says finally.

Whoa.

She owes Guy a hundred. The other four would be nice to have.

“Fine,” she says. “Meet me at my house. Today. After school. Shane can bring you.”

Final bell of the day. Atlanta’s at her locker. Shoving in all the books she should be taking home, because she doesn’t give two rats humpin’ in a dirty gym sock what homework she has to do tonight. When she turns around, she sees them down the hall by one of the custodial closets.

Jonesy stands, hips cocked, lips in an amused sneer. Virgil’s next to him. Big beef-cannon arms crossed so hard and tight the skin looks like an overcooked bratwurst, like it might split at any second.

She hasn’t seen them in a week because they were put on suspension for something or other. Getting into trouble like cock-witted assholes sometimes do. But now she sees them.

They see that she’s noticed them, and that’s what they want. Jonesy does a little chin-lift, a little head-nod. He might as well drag a comical finger across his throat and point to her.

Then they turn the corner and go. She hears them laughing. Jonesy. That cackle.

Great. Just what she needs.

“So,” she asks. “What’s it like being gay?”

Atlanta walks along the edge of a barren cornfield, a field nobody plows year after year but whose clumpy rows still feature the dead clusters of long-forgotten corn. Chris Coyne walks next to her. He’s twirling a rolled-up comic book in his hand while Shane wades into the field, poking the ground with a stick, diligently hunting for, well, something.

He shrugs. “I think I’m supposed to answer with ‘fabulous.’ And then I should do a back flip and fire off pink bottle rockets or something.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“What it’s really like is moments of unbridled delight punctuated by long stretches of misery, uncertainty, and oppression.”

She shrugs. “Same as any teenager, then.”

“Say that if you want. And maybe it is. Maybe we all have our own bullshit to deal with. But I can tell you that it sure ain’t easy, sister.”

“Those YouTube videos would like you to know that It Gets Better.”