Lucy Schraan is Gay

chapter one

playlist of the right-now: i am not panicking you are panicking

Here goes nothing.

I keep saying "here goes nothing," and then not going. Literally, nothing is going here. It then becomes this chant of next time, next time, next time, inside my head. Lunch would be the best time for this, I know. It's when the whole crew is assembled, and we're pretty much the only people who eat in Mr. Tuohy's classroom, so it's not like anyone would overhear.

Just say it, Lucy. I'm gay. Shouldn't be hard.

Alistair is standing on top of his chair, waving around his most recent crime novel. A Very Dark Night by some unknown suburban mother. His movements are sporadic, frantic. "And it's so smutty," he says. "I am appalled."

"How smutty?" asks Moira, leaning forward. Her lips are quirked as she pushes her black, thick-framed Ray-Bans back up on her nose. At his desk, Mr. Tuohy sighs but says nothing. He's used to our lunchtime parleys by now. Any minute now, he'll spend a minimum of ten minutes in the teacher's lounge under the guise of refilling his coffee thermos. I don't blame him. We are a lot sometimes.

I'm on my school-issued laptop, pretending to scroll through my online AP Bio syllabus. This shouldn't be too bad. I'm terrible with math, so Bio seemed like the best option for me and my anti-algebra brain. It's a nice distraction as Alistair goes on to tell us (in shockingly graphic detail) about how many breasts were in this book and how "naughty scenes" involving the main character and her friends' murderer were about every other chapter. It's an even nicer distraction from thinking of how weird coming out is going to be.

"It's Fifty Shades of He Has a Knife," he finishes, and plops back down in his seat with a flourish. There's unanimous applause. Izzy goes so far as to wolf-whistle.

The only one who doesn't clap is Clay, nose-deep in some book by a NY Times author he hates. When he's reading, no one else exists. "Got any booby smut in there, Clayby?" Alistair asks, leaning forward on his hands. He's the only one who calls Clay "Clayby," but it's just their thing, I guess.

"Alistair," Mr. Tuohy warns from his desk. He doesn't look up from his microwaved ramen or his sticker-covered laptop.

"No," Clay grunts. When he's reading, everything is a grunt. He does glance up at Alistair, though. Alistair is the only person he'll look up for, next to Izzy. "No booby smut, unfortunately. Just Thomas 'Big House' Friedman hating on Russian tractors with his Jeff Bezos bias."

"You make zero sense to me, and I love it."

Next to me, Moira pushes her cuticles back. She's got one earbud in, listening to the playlist I sent her last night. It's still nerve-wracking, sharing music with her. When we were in the eighth grade, she found out we were both obsessed with Of Monsters and Men. Now, we're constantly shoving new and favorite music in each other's face. We're not best friends, but it's our Thing. It's nice to have a Thing with someone.

Izzy flops back in her chair. "You guyyyys, I'm bored."

"Oh noooo," says Mari Jude, carefully repacking her sack lunch, "whatever shall you do?"

Now would be a good time. The conversation is dying down, and so long as North doesn't make another joke about the disturbing warmth of his soggy hot dog, it'll be pretty much dead in a minute. Here goes nothing. Here. Goes. Nothing.

"Hey, guys?" My voice, in all its softness, cracks. "I, uh, I wanted—want—to talk to you guys about something."

Five heads turn towards me. Clay follows after a second, dog-earing his page and then sliding a bookmark in for good measure. Oh gosh. Okay, so like, I said the thing. Kinda. I said the thing that will make it to where I can't get out of it without looking weird. Thankfully, Mr. Tuohy takes the hint and stands. "Coffee time," he mutters. I'm grateful.