The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door Read Online Free PDF Page A

undergrowth to the same horizontal log we had populated the day before. It felt familiar to me already as we each settled in across from each other on a smooth and barkless section of the tree trunk.
    The more time I was spending with Drake, the more I found myself noticing how truly handsome he was. When he smiled, his jaw formed a set of ninety-degree angles, and his mouth sat in the middle like it was framed. He had brown eyes and exceptionally long eyelashes for a boy. His hair was styled to point up in the middle, a short faux-hawk. Drake’s lips, particularly the bottom one, were plump. If you sat close enough, you could count the creases in the pulpy flesh. I counted fourteen, sitting on the log.
    “Celia,” he said, snapping me out of my crease-counting daze. I turned away from him to fumble awkwardly in my backpack, so I had an excuse to hide my face. “Yeah?” I responded distantly. I pulled lip balm out of my bag and made a show of putting it on.
    “So, do you date guys or girls?” asked Drake. “Or both?” He asked me casually like we were talking about bowling. “Still using duckpins?” he might have been saying. “Or have you graduated to ten-pin bowling?”
    “Um, I guess . . . guys,” I answered, trying to match his casual tone. I hesitated because in order to date guys, you actually have to go
on dates
. I had never been on an
actual
date.
    I do have an interest in guys. In fact, I have so many love interests, I’ve organized them by genre. My classic crush is Mr. Darcy from
Pride and Prejudice
. For fantasy, I’ve chosen Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. Sci-fi is a tie between Peeta and Gale from
The Hunger Games
, and my favorite contemporary fiction bad boy is Holden Caulfield from
The Catcher in the Rye
. Maybe they aren’t exactly real boys, but I feel like I know them all, their deepest thoughts and desires. It’s not like I’m going to go get a crush on some boy in Hershey High when I’ve got Howl from
Howl’s Moving Castle
at home.
    I wasn’t about to tell any of that to Drake, though, and I didn’t know why was he asking me. Was he checking my sexual preference before telling me he liked me? Was this a New York thing? I held my breath to listen for what Drake would say next, hoping he would ask me out or ask me to be his girlfriend or whatever boys ask when they like you.
    “Well, I . . . like guys,” Drake said in a voice that sounded abrupt and professional. Then he softened and added, “
A guy
, actually.”
    I was suddenly aware of all the little noises around me. There was the textured, white noise of the leaves rustling and falling, at least three types of birds calling to one another from high branches, the distant hum of the highway. It had never crossed my mind that Drake might like boys. There were two older men at my church who were a couple, but I had never met anyone my age who was gay.
    Drake stood up off the log, put his hands on his head, and said, “Wow. That felt
so
good.” He wiped his palms off on his jeans like they had been sweating. “I have never said those words out loud to anyone before.”
    The best response I could come up with was, “Um . . . congratulations.”
    “Thanks, Celia,” he said sincerely, putting a hand onto his chest. “I needed a test run. I needed to tell someone who just met me, who I knew wouldn’t judge me. I’ve been nervous about it all day.”
    I sat on the nurse log trying not to wish he had said something else. I kept crossing and uncrossing my legs, looking for a position that didn’t seem awkward.
    “I just feel like it’s time now.” Drake started to walk carefully over the roots around the log. “Ninth grade, high school, new opportunity to define yourself.” Drake used his hands to talk. “I wanted to tell someone before I go back to New York this weekend and come out for real.”
    “For real?”
    “You know, like tell the people who really know me. My parents and Japhy.” Drake sat back down