Will Grayson, Will Grayson(40)
Author: John Green

Sobutand Tiny calls, and I say, “Hey,” and then I get up and go to my room and close the door behind me, and in all that time, Tiny doesn’t say anything, so I say, “Hello?”

And he says, “Yeah, hi,” distractedly. I hear typing.

“Tiny, are you typing?”

After a moment he says, “Hold on. Let me finish this sentence.”

“Tiny, you called me.”

Silence. Typing. And then, “Yeah, I know. But I’m, uh, I gotta change the last song. Can’t be about me. Has to be about love.”

“I wish I hadn’t kissed her. The whole boyfriend thing kind of like gnaws at my brain.”

And then I’m quiet for a while, and finally he says, “Sorry, I just got an IM from Will. He’s telling me about lunch with this new g*y friend he’s got. I know it’s not a date if it’s in the cafeteria, but still. Gideon. He sounds hot. It is pretty awesome that Will’s so out, though. He like came out to everyone in the entire world. I swear to God I think he wrote the president of the United States and was like, ‘Dear Mr. President, I am g*y. Yours truly, Will Grayson. ’ It’s f**king beautiful, Grayson.”

“Did you even hear what I said?”

“Jane and her boyfriend ate your brain,” he answers disinterestedly.

“I swear, Tiny, sometimes . . .” I stop myself from saying something pathetic and start over. “Do you want to do something after school tomorrow? Darts or something at your house?”

“Rehearsal then rewrites then Will on the phone then bed. You can sit in on rehearsal if you want.”

“Nah,” I say. “It’s cool.”

After I hang up, I try to read Hamlet for a while, but I don’t understand it that well, and I have to keep looking over to the right margin where they define the words, and it just makes me feel like an idiot.

Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That’s me: I’m not that.

I’m lying on top of the covers with my clothes still on, the play still on my chest, eyes closed, mind racing. I’m thinking about Tiny. The pathetic thing I wanted to say to him on the phone—but didn’t—was this: When you’re a little kid, you have something. Maybe it’s a blanket or a stuffed animal or whatever. For me, it was this stuffed prairie dog that I got one Christmas when I was like three. I don’t even know where they found a stuffed prairie dog, but whatever, it sat up on its hind legs and I called him Marvin, and I dragged Marvin around by his prairie dog ears until I was about ten.

And then at some point, it was nothing personal against Marvin, but he started spending more time in the closet with my other toys, and then more time, until finally Marvin became a full-time resident of the closet.

But for many years afterward, sometimes I would get Marvin out of the closet and just hang out with him for a while—not for me, but for Marvin. I realized it was crazy, but I still did it.

And the thing I wanted to say to Tiny is that sometimes, I feel like his Marvin.

I remember us together: Tiny and me in gym in middle school, how the athletic wear company didn’t make gym shorts big enough to fit him, so he looked like he was wearing a skintight bathing suit. Tiny dominating at dodgeball despite his width, and always letting me finish second just by virtue of putting me in his shadow and not spiking me until the end. Tiny and me at the g*y pride parade in Boys Town, ninth grade, him saying, “Grayson, I’m g*y,” and me being like, “Oh, really? Is the sky blue? Does the sun rise in the east? Is the Pope Catholic?” and him being like, “Is Tiny Cooper fabulous? Do birds weep from the beauty when they hear Tiny Cooper sing?”

I think about how much depends upon a best friend. When you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don’t scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it’s not.

It’s stupid to blame the other Will Grayson for something that was happening before the other Will Grayson existed. And yet.

And yet I keep thinking about him, and thinking about his eyes unblinking in Frenchy’s, waiting for someone who didn’t exist. In my memory, his eyes get bigger and bigger, almost like he’s a manga character. And then I’m thinking about that guy, Isaac, who was a girl. But the things that were said that made Will go to Frenchy’s to meet that guy—those things were said. They were real.

All at once I grab my phone from off my bedside table and call Jane. Voice mail. I look at the clock on the phone: it’s 9:42. I call Gary. He picks up on the fifth ring.

“Will?”

“Hey, Gary. Do you know Jane’s address?”

“Um, yes?”

“Can you give it to me?”

He pauses. “Are you going all stalker on me, Will?”

“No, I swear, I have a question about science,” I say.

“You have a Tuesday night at nine forty-two question about science?”

“Correct.”

“Seventeen twelve Wesley.”

“And where is her bedroom?”

“I have to tell you, man, that my stalker meter is kind of registering in the red zone right now.” I say nothing, waiting. And then finally he says, “If you’re facing the house, it’s front and left.”

“Awesome, thanks.”

I grab the keys off the kitchen counter on my way out, and Dad asks where I’m going, and I try just getting by with, “Out,” but that just results in the pausing of the TV. He comes up close as if to remind me he is just a little bit taller than I am, and sternly asks, “Out with whom and to where?”

“Tiny wants my help with his stupid play.”

“Back by eleven,” Mom says from the couch.

“Okay,” I say.

I walk down the street to the car. I can see my breath, but I don’t feel cold except on my gloveless hands, and I stand outside the car for a second, looking at the sky, the orange light coming from the city to the south, the leafless streetside trees quiet in the breeze. I open the door, which cracks the silence, and drive the mile to Jane’s house. I find a spot half a block down and walk back up the street to an old, two-story house with a big porch. Those houses don’t come cheap. There’s a light on in the front-left room, but as soon as I get there, I don’t want to walk up. What if she’s changing? What if she’s lying in bed and she sees a creepy guy face pressed against the glass? What if she’s making out with Randall McBitchsquealer? So I send her a text: “Take this in the least stalkery way possible: Im outside ur house.” It’s 9:47. I figure I’ll wait until the clock turns over to 9:50 and then leave. I shove one hand into my jeans and hold the phone with the other, pressing the volume up button each time the screen goes blank. It’s been 9:49 for at least ten seconds when the front door opens and Jane peers outside.