Sprout

not Ty. Holly with his silent mouth and blank eyes, his stick figures and his dirty feet. Holly at the bottom of that shallow pond, sleeping on his side, like a baby.
    And then one night he showed up. The moon was full, or almost, and Ty said the forest was like a black and white Tinker-toy planet, all lines and shadows, nothing flat except for the glittering frosty ground. A wild smile framed his chattering teeth and his cheeks were tinted pink like an orphan in a Dickens novel who’s just about to die of tuberculosis. He hadn’t put a coat on because he was afraid the zipper might wake his dad but he didn’t care, it was exhilarating, he said—“Yes,” he said, “I know the word ‘exhilarating’”—and a part of him had wanted to stay out there all night, wanted to clamber over the moon-dark shadows of the trees until he melted into them and disappeared. But another part of him—the stronger part, he said—had wanted to see me even more, and so here he was.
    That was the only time we ever had sex in a bed. Afterward he looked out my window through the lattice of vines for a long time. I thought he was contemplating his walk home until he said, “Your dad’s the stump man? I always thought he was apocryphal. And yes,” he added with a sigh, “I know the word ‘apocryphal.’ ”
    After that, all that was left was the janitors’ closet.
    Don’t think this was some huge coincidence or something. The janitors’ closet was pretty much notorious at school. I mean, one time Ian turned the knob, only to find the room already occupied. Fortunately the guy was a jock, and he and Ian touched fists like, Yo, bro, wassup? “Just here for a smoke,” Ian said, flashing his pack, which looked like a wadded-up washcloth after two years in his pocket. “Guess we’ll take it outside.” There was even a rumor that one of the custodians had gone up to a pregnant senior and said, “I hope you plan on naming him Lenny,” and tapped the nametag on his chest to make sure she knew what he was talking about. How the teachers never figured it out is anybody’s guess, and how Ty did is equally mysterious, since he was even more out of the loop than the faculty.
    “That floor has more jock jizz on it than the locker room. This is as close as I’ll ever get to lettering.”
    The closet was just smells at first: bleach and Lysol and that magically repulsive substance the custodians sprinkle on teenage vomit. There was a single lightbulb, some thirty-or forty-watt thing that hung down off a frayed cord, and when you pulled the chain the room seemed to get darker rather than lighter. Drying string mopheads hung from hooks like scalps mounted on a lodgehouse wall, plastic gloves were folded over an iron pipe like a line of severed blue hands. We got into a push-pull match to see who would be in charge. A pole slid to the floor, a half-empty plastic bottle tipped over and rolled around with a hollow, sploshing sound. I felt Ty’s hands on my butt. “It’s my turn,” was the last thing Ty said to me before the door opened.
    “It’s my turn” was the last thing Ty said to me.
    “Sprout!” came the familiar, conspiratorial whisper. “I knew you’d come—”
    Ian Abernathy broke off, stood there blinking as if he was the one who’d just been in the dark, not us.
    “Ty? What are you … ?” He trailed off again. “Sprout? What is he doing? Here? ”
    Oh, but it was worse than that. So much worse.
    “Ian! What the heck are you doing ?”
    Ruthie Wilcox poked her head around the corner of the
    Ruthie Wilcox poked her head around the corner of the door. I saw that she’d dyed her hair black, frizzed it up into an Amy Winehouse beehive, and immediately felt guilty for noticing.
    “Well well well. The truth finally comes out.”
    The fact that we were actually in a closet seemed lost on Ruthie. Or, who knows, maybe not. She kicked a bottle of borax and said,
    “Time to come clean, Sprout. What’s the deal with you two? Are you in love or what?”
    I should have looked at Ty, right? Not at Ruthie, with her smug, smiling (and, to be fair, not at all condemning) face. Not at Ian either, who looked even more guilty than if it’d been someone opening the door on him. I should’ve reached for Ty’s hand the way he reached for mine, but the truth is I didn’t even feel his fingers. Didn’t hear him scream “Yes!” until after I’d said,
    “Um, duh . We’re just fucking.”
    Did I just write that? So much