Will Grayson, Will Grayson(45)
Author: John Green

Still holding my tray, I spin around and leave. I sit down outside the auditorium on the tile floor of the hallway, leaning up against a trophy case, and I eat a little.

I’m waiting for him. To come out and apologize. Or else to come out and yell at me for being a pu**y. I’m waiting for those dark wood double doors to open and for Tiny to blow through them and start talking.

I know it’s immature, but I don’t care. Sometimes you need your best friend to walk through the doors. And then, he doesn’t. Finally, feeling small and stupid, it’s me who gets up and cracks open the door. Tiny is happily singing about Oscar Wilde. I stand there for a moment, still hoping he’ll see me, and I don’t even know that I’m crying until this crooked sound comes up out of me as I inhale. I close the door. If Tiny ever sees me, he doesn’t pause to acknowledge it.

I walk down the hallway, my head down so far that the salt water drips from the tip of my nose. I walk out the main door—the air cold, the sun warm—and down the steps. I follow the sidewalk until I get to the security gate, then I dart into the bushes. Something in my throat feels like it might choke me. I walk through the shrubs just like Tiny and I did freshman year when we skipped to go down to Boys Town for the Pride Parade where he came out to me.

I walk all the way to this Little League field that’s halfway between my house and school. It’s right by the middle school, and when I was a kid, I used to go there a lot by myself, like after school or whatever, just to think. Sometimes I would bring a sketchbook or something and try to draw, but mostly I just liked to go there. I walk around the backstop fence and sit down on the bench in the dugout, my back against the aluminum wall, warmed by the sunlight, and I cry.

Here’s what I like about the dugout: I’m on the third base side, and I can see the diamond of dirt in front of me and the four rows of wooden bleachers on one side; and then on the other side, the outfield and the next diamond over; and then a large park, and then the street. I can see people walking their dogs, and a couple walking into the wind. But with my back to the wall, with this aluminum roof over my head, no one can see me unless I can see them.

The rarity of the situation is the kind of thing that makes you cry.

Tiny and I actually played Little League together—not in this park, but in one closer to our houses, starting in third grade. That’s how we became friends, I guess. Tiny was strong as hell, of course, but not much good with the bat. He did lead the League in getting hit by pitches, though. There was so much to hit.

I played a respectable first base and didn’t lead the League in anything.

I put my elbows on my knees like I did back when I was watching games from a dugout like this one. Tiny always sat next to me, and even though he only played because the coach had to play everyone, he was super-enthusiastic. He’d be all, “Hey, batter batter. Hey, batter batter, SWING, batter,” and then eventually he’d switch to, “We want a pitcher, not a bellyitcher!”

Then, sixth grade: Tiny was playing third base, and I was at first. It was early in the game, and we were either just barely winning or just barely losing—I don’t remember. Honestly, I never even looked at the score when I was playing. Baseball for me was just one of those weird and terrible things parents do for reasons you cannot fathom, like flu shots and church. So the batter hit the ball, and it rolled to Tiny. Tiny gloved it and threw the ball to first with his cannon arm, and I stretched out to make the catch, careful to keep a foot on the bag, and the ball hit me in the glove and then immediately fell out, because I forgot to squeeze the glove shut. The runner was safe, and the mistake cost us a run or something. After the inning ended, I went back to the dugout. The coach—I think his name was Mr. Frye—leaned down toward me. I became aware of the bigness of his head, his cap riding high over his fat face, and he said, “FOCUS on CATCHING the BALL. CATCH the BALL, okay? Jesus!” My face felt flush, and with that quiver in my voice that Tiny pointed out to Gary, I said, “Suhrry, Coach,” and Mr. Frye said, “Me too, Will. Me too.”

And then Tiny hauled off and punched Mr. Frye in the nose. Just like that. Thus ended our Little League careers.

It wouldn’t hurt if he weren’t right—if I hadn’t known somewhere that my weakness aggravates him. And maybe he thinks like I do, that you don’t pick your friends, and he’s stuck with this annoying bitchsquealer who can’t handle himself, who can’t close his glove around the ball, who can’t take a dressing-down from the coach, who regrets writing letters to the editor in defense of his best friend. This is the real story of our friendship: I haven’t been stuck with Tiny. He’s been stuck with me.

If nothing else, I can relieve him of that burden.

It takes a long time to stop crying. I use my glove as a handkerchief as I watch the shadow of the dugout roof creep down my outstretched legs as the sun rises to the top of the sky. Finally, my ears feel frozen in the shade of the dugout, so I get up and walk across the park and then home. On the way, I scroll through my list of contacts on my phone for a while and then call Jane. I don’t know why. I feel like I need to call someone. I feel, weirdly, like I still want someone to open the double doors to the auditorium. I get her voice mail.

“Sorry, Tarzan, Jane’s unavailable. Leave a message.”

“Hey, Jane, it’s Will. I just wanted to talk to you. I . . . radical honesty? I just spent like five minutes going through a list of everyone I could call, and you were the only person I wanted to call, because I like you. I just like you a lot. I think you’re awesome. You’re just . . . er. Smarter and funni er and prettier and just . . . er. Yeah, okay. That’s all. Bye.”

When I get home, I call my dad. He picks up on the last ring.

“Can you call the school and tell them I’m sick? I had to go home,” I say.

“You okay, bud?”

“Yeah. I’m okay,” I say, but the quiver is in my voice, and I feel like I might start up with the sobbing again for some reason, and he says, “Okay. Okay. I’ll call.”

Fifteen minutes later, I’m slumped on the couch in the living room, my feet up on the coffee table. I’m staring at the TV, only the TV isn’t on. I’ve got the remote in my left hand, but I don’t even have the energy to push the goddamned power button.

I hear the garage door open. Dad comes in through the kitchen and sits down next to me, pretty close. “Five hundred channels,” he says after a moment, “and nothing’s on.”