Will Grayson, Will Grayson(32)
Author: John Green

tiny: hey – i don’t even know your name. me: will grayson.

with that, tiny jumps off the bench, nearly knocking me to the grass.

tiny: no!

me: um . . . yes?

tiny: well, doesn’t that just take the cake?

with that, he starts laughing, and calling out

tiny: i kissed will grayson! i kissed will grayson!

when he sees that this freaks me out more than sharks do, he sits back down and says

tiny: i’m glad it was you.

I think about the other will grayson. i wonder how he’s doing with jane.

me: it’s not like i’m seventeen magazine material, right?

tiny’s eyes light up.

tiny: he told you about that?

me: yeah.

tiny: he was totally robbed. i was so mad, i wrote a letter to the editor. but they never printed it.

I have this deep pang of jealousy, that o.w.g. has a friend like tiny. i can’t imagine anyone ever writing a letter to the editor for me. i can’t even imagine them giving a quote for my obituary.

I think of everything that’s happened, and how when i go home i won’t really have anyone to tell it to. then i look at tiny and, surprising myself, kiss him again. because what the f**k. completely, what the f**k.

this goes on for some time. i am getting totally big-boned from kissing someone big-boned. and in between the making out, he’s asking me where i live, what happened tonight, what i want to do with my life, what my favorite ice-cream flavor is. i answer the questions i can (basically, where i live and the ice-cream flavor) and tell him i have no idea about the rest of it.

nobody’s really watching us, but i’m beginning to feel that they are. so we stop and i can’t help but think about isaac, and how even though this whole tiny thing is an interesting development, all-in-all things still suck in a tornado-destroyed-my-home kind of way. tiny’s like the one room left standing. i feel i owe him something for that, so i say

me: i’m glad that you exist.

tiny: i’m glad to be existing right now.

me: you have no idea how wrong you are about me.

tiny: you have no idea how wrong you are about yourself.

me: stop that.

tiny: only if you stop it.

me: i’m warning you.

I have no idea what truth has to do with love, and vice versa. i’m not even thinking in terms of love here. it’s way, way, way early for that. but i guess i am thinking in terms of truth. i want this to be truthful. and even as i protest to tiny and i protest to myself, the truth is becoming increasingly clear.

It’s time for us to figure out how the hell this is ever going to work.

Chapter eleven

I’m sitting against my locker ten minutes before the first period bell when Tiny comes running down the hallway, his arms a jumble of Tiny Dancer audition posters.

“Grayson!” he shouts.

“Hey,” I answer. I get up, grab a poster from him, and hold it against the wall. He lets the others fall to the ground and then starts taping, ripping off the masking tape with his teeth. He tapes the poster up, then we gather up the ones he dropped, walk a few paces, and repeat. And all the while, he talks. His heart beats and his eyelids blink and he breathes and his kidneys process toxins and he talks, and all of it utterly involuntary.

“So I’m sorry I didn’t go back to Frenchy’s to meet you, but I figured you’d guess I just took a cab, which I did, and anyway, Will and I had walked all the way down to the Bean and, like, Grayson, I know I’ve said this before but I really like him. I mean, you have to really like someone to go all the way to the Bean with them and listen to them talk about their boyfriend who was neither boy nor friend and also I sang for him. And Grayson, I mean really: can you believe I kissed Will Grayson? I. Freaking. Kissed. Will. Grayson. And like nothing personal because like I’ve told you a gajillion times, I think you’re a top-shelf person, but I would have bet my left nut that I would never make out with Will Grayson, you know?”

“Uh-hu—” I say, but he doesn’t even wait for me to get through the huh before he starts up again.

“And I get texts from him like every forty-two seconds and he’s a brilliant texter, which is nice because it’s just a little pleasant leg vibration, just a reminder-in-the-thigh that he’s—see, there’s one.” I keep holding up the poster while he pulls his phone out of his jeans. “Aww.”

“What’s it say?” I ask.

“Confidential. I think he kinda trusts me not to blab his texts, you know?”

I might point out the ridiculousness of anyone trusting Tiny not to blab anything, but I don’t. He tapes up the poster and starts walking down the hallway. I follow.

“Well, I’m glad your night was so awesome. Meanwhile I was being blindsided about Jane’s water polo-playing exboyf—”

“Well, first off,” he says, cutting me off, “what do you care? You’re not into Jane. And second off, I wouldn’t call him a boy. He is a man. He is a sculpted, immaculately conceived, rippling hunk of ex-manfriend.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m just saying—not my type, but he is truly a wonder to behold. And his eyes! Like sapphires burning into the darkened corners of your heart. But anyway, I didn’t know they ever dated. I’d never even heard of the guy. I just thought he was a hot guy hitting on her. Jane never talks to me about guys. I don’t know why; I’m totally trustworthy about that sort of thing.” There’s enough sarcasm in his voice—just enough—that I laugh. Tiny talks over the laugh. “It’s amazing what you don’t know about people, you know? Like, I was thinking about that all weekend talking to Will. He fell for Isaac, who turned out to be made up. That seems like something that only happens on the Internet, but really it happens all the time i-r-l, too.”

“Well, Isaac wasn’t made up. He was just a girl. I mean, that girl Maura is Isaac.”

“No, she’s not,” he says simply. I’m holding up the last of the posters as he tapes it to a boys’ bathroom door. It says ARE YOU FABULOUS? IF SO, SEE YOU NINTH PERIOD TODAY AT THE AUDITORIUM. He finishes it up and then we walk toward precalc, the halls beginning to fill up.

The Isaac/Maura namescrewing reminds me of something. “Tiny,” I say.

“Grayson,” he answers.

“Will you please rename that character in your play, the sidekick guy?”

“Gil Wrayson?” I nod. Tiny throws his hands up in the air and announces, “I can’t change Gil Wrayson’s name! It’s thematically vital to the whole production.”