This Still Happens

Chapter Thirty-Three - Desecration: Gordon

The GSA meeting at lunchtime is crowded with students, including almost as many new faces as came to the last meeting, and have come to this one. Angie's pulled a bunch of her friends into the meeting, and so have the Year Sevens and the Year Eights who Mrs Paulson shepherded into the first one.

I don't actually register much of what happens in the course of the meeting itself, because I spend most of it chatting to Etta and Char and Scott about Scott, about how long we've been together, with Lena occasionally turning around to grin at the four of us.

Lena. Of course Lena knows. Lena's probably known about this for longer than any of us—including Scott. Perceptive, that girl.

As I say, I don't register much of the actual meeting, which is maybe not best reflective of my role as Vice Chair, but I've got to say I'm struggling to care. The whole point of a GSA is that we can feel safe and happy to share parts of our lives we can't discuss outside. Scott and me, dating. Char, being bi. Tim and Etta—and I never saw this one coming—both being aro-ace, and in a QPP as of breaktime today.

"Really?" I sign, grinning, "That's so cool! What are the chances?"

Etta and Tim exchange a look somewhere between relief and incredulity. The chances they had of finding each other—if you think about all the parts of their lives that had to line up—are somewhere below abysmal, when you think about it. So few people are ace. So few people are aro. Even fewer are both, and... blimey, for them to be in the same village? For them to feel the same way about each other? They're even luckier than Scott and I, to have it all turn out nicely.

Just sometimes, life is a jelly that flops perfectly out of its mould. I say this as if I like jelly. Maybe cake would have been a better comparison. But cake usually comes out just fine, because... well... cake-cases exist.

"We found out about it through the Rainbow Room," Tim says, "Or, well, Etta wrote in, and then I read Iris' response, not having a clue that she was in the same boat. Etta, I mean. And I was just about to go to her, freaking out, like, "I need to talk to you about something important," and then she said it first!" He laughs, and reaches for Etta's hands, lacing their fingers together for a moment, just a moment, so that she can still sign.

"So, yeah, um... Char was half­-right," Etta adds, "And half-wrong, but... I mean, the wrong half kind of... made the whole thing right, so..." She grins, and giggles. "And there you were being all, "Ooh, you two should make out in front of your parents, Etta, you're totally in love!""

"I didn't say "make out in front of your parents!"" Char protests. But then she preens her hair, and tosses her head like a cheerful prize pony. "But, yes, I was mostly right."

"Half-right," Etta corrects her.

"The bigger half," Char replies, "Definitely the majority."

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Russ waylays me at the end of the meeting, and gets his phone out of his pocket. "Look, um, Gordon, can I maybe get your number? I've been meaning to ask you something, and, like... I don't know how easy it would be to do it at school, what with your classes and my work, and... you know how it is."

"You go ahead," I say to Scott, nodding him out of the classroom, "I won't be a minute."

"Cool, cool." Scott smiles at the two of us, and strolls out of the classroom with his hands in his pockets. I half expect him to whistle, he looks so jaunty, but, sadly, the world is sometimes a very cruel and wicked place.

"I can't work out what to do with the Rainbow Room," Russell says, "And I know it sounds really stupid, because it's just a website, and I'm sixteen, not sixty, but..." He shakes his head. "I just can't get my head around it. How to navigate it. How to find stuff, how to use it, you know?"