Will Grayson, Will Grayson(17)
Author: John Green

The buses let off, and the lawn starts to fill up with freshmen, none of whom seems particularly impressed by me. And then I see Clint, a tenured member of my former Group of Friends, walking toward me from the junior parking lot, and I’m able to convince myself that he’s not really walking toward me until his visible breath is blowing over me like a small, malodorous cloud. And I’m not going to lie: I kind of hope he’s about to apologize for the smallmindedness of certain of his friends.

“Hey, f**ker,” he says. He calls everyone f**ker. Is it a compliment? An insult? Or maybe it is both at once, which is precisely what makes it so useful.

I wince a little from the sourness of his breath, and then just say, “Hey.” Equally noncommittal. Every conversation I ever had with Clint or any of the Group of Friends is identical: all the words we use are stripped bare, so that no one ever knows what anyone else is saying, so that all kindness is cruelty, all selfishness generous, all care callous.

And he says, “Got a call from Tiny this weekend about his musical. Wants student council to fund it.” Clint is student council vice president. “He told me all the f**k about it. A musical about a big g*y bastard and his best friend who uses tweezers to jack off ’cause his dick’s so small.” He’s saying all this with a smile. He’s not being mean. Not exactly.

And I want to say, That’s so incredibly original. Where do you come up with these zingers, Clint? Do you own some kind of joke factory in Indonesia where you’ve got eight-yearolds working ninety hours a week to deliver you that kind of top-quality witticism? There are boy bands with more original material. But I say nothing.

“So yeah,” Clint finally continues. “I think I might help Tiny out at the meeting tomorrow. Because that play sounds like a fantastic idea. I’ve only got one question: are you going to sing your own songs? Because I’d pay to see that.”

I laugh a little, but not too much. “I’m not much for drama,” I say, finally. Right then, I feel an enormous presence behind me. Clint raises his chin way the hell up to look at Tiny and then nods at him. He says, “’Sup, Tiny,” and then walks away.

“He trying to steal you back?” Tiny asks.

I turn around, and now I can talk. “You go all weekend without logging on or calling me and yet you find time to call him in your continuing attempts to ruin my social life through the magic of song?”

“First off, Tiny Dancer isn’t going to ruin your social life, because you don’t have a social life. Second off, you didn’t call me, either. Third off, I was so busy! Nick and I spent almost the entire weekend together.”

“I thought I explained to you why you couldn’t date Nick,” I say, and Tiny’s just starting to talk again when I see Jane, hunched forward, plowing through the wind. She’s wearing a not-thick-enough hoodie and walking up to us.

I say hi, and she says hi, and she comes and stands next to me as if I’m a space heater or something, and she squints into the wind, and I say, “Hey, take my coat.” I take it off and she buries herself in it. I’m still trying to think of a question to ask Jane when the bell goes off, and we all hustle inside.

I don’t see Jane at all during the entire school day, which is a little frustrating, because it’s even-the-hallways-are-freezing cold, and I keep worrying that after school I’m gonna freeze to death on the walk to Tiny’s car. After my last class, I race downstairs and unlock my locker. My coat is stuffed inside it.

Now, it is possible to slip a note into a locked locker through the vents. Even, with some pushing, a pencil. Once, Tiny Cooper slipped a Happy Bunny book into my locker. But I find it extraordinarily difficult to imagine how Jane, who, after all, is not the world’s strongest individual, managed to stuff an entire winter coat through the tiny slits in my locker.

But I’m not here to ask questions, so I put my coat on and walk out to the parking lot, where Tiny Cooper is sharing one of those hand-shake-followed-by-one-armed-hug things with none other than Clint. I open the passenger door and get into Tiny’s Acura. He shows up soon afterward, and although I’m pissed at him, even I am able to appreciate the fascinating and complex geometry involved in Tiny Cooper inserting himself into a tiny car.

“I have a proposition,” I tell him as he engages in another miracle of engineering—that of fastening his seat belt.

“I’m flattered, but I’m not gonna sleep with you,” Tiny answers.

“Not funny. Listen, my proposition is that if you back off this Tiny Dancer business, I will—well, what do you want me to do? Because I’ll do anything.”

“Well, I want you to hook up with Jane. Or at least call her. After I so artfully arranged for you to be alone together, she seems to have gotten the impression that you don’t want to date her.”

“I don’t,” I say. Which is entirely true and entirely not. The stupid, all-encompassing truth.

“What do you think this is, eighteen thirty-two? When you like someone and they like you, you f**king put your lips against their lips and then you open your mouth a little, and then just a little hint of tongue to spice things up. I mean, God, Grayson. Everybody’s always got their panties in a twist about how the youth of America are debaucherous, sex-crazed maniacs passing out handjobs like they were lollipops, and you can’t even kiss a girl who definitely likes you?”

“I don’t like her, Tiny. Not like that.”

“She’s adorable.”

“How would you know?”

“I’m g*y, not blind. Her hair’s all poofy and she’s got a great nose. I mean, a great nose. And, what? What do you people like? Boobs? She seems to have boobs. They seem to be of approximately normal boob size. What else do you want?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

He starts the car and then begins banging his tetherball of a head against the car’s horn rhythmically. Ahnnnk. Ahhhnk. Ahhhnk.

“You’re embarrassing us,” I shout over the horn.

“I’m going to keep doing this until I get a concussion or you say you’ll call her.”

I jam my fingers into my ears, but Tiny keeps headbutting the horn. People are looking at us. Finally I just say, “Fine. Fine! FINE!” And the honking ceases.

“I’ll call Jane. I’ll be nice to her. But I still don’t want to date her.”

“That is your choice. Your stupid choice.”