This was a ten-word challenge. The words or phrases are as follows:
art center. find a parking space. 1,000. hair problem. that wasn’t funny. causes cancer. baloney vs. bologna. Castro street. crying brat. milkshake

My cousin was going to get my ass kicked.

He was thee most shamelessly flametastic queen and as much as I loved and ultimately respected every camped-out moment with him, he simply could not walk through the gangsta-hard-ass halls of Truman High and treat it like it was Castro street.

“Quit worrying - it causes cancer,” was his flippant reply when I told him exactly that. A guy walked by that I kind of knew, and ignoring what I had just said, Cy lifted a hand gloved in what I’m sure he must have bought at some kind of queer art center, and gave a coy, three-fingered wave. I wanted to die. Or kill him.

“That wasn’t funny,” I said. “And it especially won’t be funny when I have to explain to somebody why he shouldn’t get his posse on you for trying to check him out. Every year, the freshmen roll in here like they know what’s going on, but they don’t. Trust me - just lay low around here till you get it.”

“Ricky, I don’t think you get it,” he replied, stopping with me when I stopped in front of my locker. “How oblivious you are, babe, and this is your - what? - third year?” He gave a mischievous smile. “They love it.”

“They don’t. You make them visibly nervous!”

He laughed. “Honey, people like me will always make some of them squirm. Because I dare to be open about what they themselves won’t admit. But the ones I look at? They're all looking right back.”

“Barely anyone here is gay,” I tried to explain to him. He wasn’t listening, but rather, watching a guy across the hall.

“See the hottie over there? Not the one with the hair problem, the other one. Isn’t he cute?”

“I-I don’t-”

“Yes you do,” he said, in a way that was gentle, understanding. “...I can see it. You don’t have to admit it to anyone else, but admit it to yourself, and me.”

I was a bit stunned, but shouldn’t have been. This was Cy I was dealing with, and there’d been an understanding between us even as crying brats in our mothers’ arms all those years ago. I now felt pretty ridiculous trying to front around him.

“Fine. He is,” I said, as if I could take or leave him. But Cy’s grin, part adoration of me for telling the truth, and part, the look of mischief anybody gets when they’ve just found out ‘who you like’, made me want to spill the rest. “He’s been cute since like... eighth grade.”

Cy’s eyes widened. “Oh Jesus, you’ve liked the kid for three years?!” He gazed at the guy with a new respect. “I’ll bet you 1,000 I can get him interested in you by lunchtime.”

“I’ll bet you a milkshake he’s hetero.”

He laughed. “Okay. Both bets are on.”

I of course regretted my deal with Cy as soon as I had made it. Chris - that was my crush-since-eighth-grade’s name - had been just a faraway secret wish for me that I had long accepted would never happen. Cy sort of... promising him to me, and by lunchtime no less, well that shook me. A lot of different things could happen, the most likely being that Chris would find out I like him, be completely grossed out, and tell the whole school I was a fag, where I would thereafter be harassed until graduation. I couldn’t just get away with things like Cy, couldn’t just throw around air-kisses and have people leave me alone. By lunch, I was pretty convinced disaster would ensue, and was so angry with Cy for whatever meddling I was sure he’d done, that I didn’t even want to speak to him.

“Find a parking space and just plant yourself in it,” was the first thing said to me at lunch time, as I surveyed the cafeteria for a place to sit.

“Sitting down is not rocket science,” he added.

“It is, when you’re trying to avoid anyone who talks to Chris, and might treat me like I’m going to give them my ‘gay germs’.” I realized I’d said ‘gay germs’ kind of loud, and looked around for a moment, but only saw Cy’s completely serious, and pissed, expression.

“Do you really think I would out you?”

And with that I felt guilty because it was true - Cy knew what lines not to cross. I often felt that he was the older and wiser of us. “I know,” I said. “Sorry. Let’s eat.”

We sat at a table chosen by Cy, and I pulled a sandwich out of my lunch bag, causing him to wonder why bologna was spelled that way instead of ‘baloney’. I interrupted his ‘baloney vs. bologna’ speech before he could get too into it, and reminded him that he owed me a milkshake.

He smirked. “Lunch isn’t over.”

On que, along came Chris.

“Hey.” He sat down very hesitantly beside Cy, across from me. “I, um. I hope it’s okay if I sit here. I’m waiting for someone.”

I sent Cy a ‘see?’ look, but Cy just smiled. “Of course we don’t mind, Sweetie. Who are you waiting for?”

Chris looked embarrassed. “I- well. Somebody left me a note. Like a secret admirer type thing - not that I just do things like this. It was kind of sweet. I don’t know. I just wanted to know who it is. Or whatever.”

I felt all the blood gathering in my cheeks. I could not believe Cy had done that. I tried to play it off.

Chris was still trying to justify what was a kind of blind date, of sorts. “I didn’t want, you know, for the girl to feel all bad or anything, if I didn’t meet her.”

Girl. Who else would he meet here for?

“What if it’s not a girl?”

I would kill Cy.

Chris seemed confused by the question. Then it dawned on him that Cy had actually meant what it sounded like he meant.

“Is it... you?” he asked Cy softly. Nobody could spend two seconds around Cy without knowing he was queer, and in light of Cy’s question, it was an appropriate assumption. However wrong. And I realized something. Cy seemed divinely confident in his gaydar, but on the chance he was wrong, he was throwing himself out there as the guinea pig, just to protect me in the case that Chris would react with anger in his eyes, or disgust in the curl of his perfect kissable lips.

He didn’t.

“I sort of already have a boyfriend, love,” Cy smiled, shaking his head, and I could tell by the way he said it, that between first period and now, he had actually somehow acquired one. The amusement was only momentary.

Chris’ eyes locked with mine. He knew. Oh god, he knew. Suddenly I was overwhelmed.

I simply got up and took off.

“Ricky, wait. I’m sorry.”

This call, from Chris out in the halls a second later, surprised me. I stopped stalking away, and turned to face him.

“I don’t know if it’s me or what, but whatever made you leave... sorry.”

“My cousin just...” my voice trailed, thought lost, as he stepped closer to me.

“I guess we kind of need people like him,” Chris said softly. “To make us stop lying to ourselves. And each other.”

He seemed unsure, as if he’d maybe never done this before, but he came even closer, and lingered a second as if to confirm permission, before kissing me.

And god, it was sweet. Damn, I should have done this three years ago, I realized. His kiss melted away every bit of what had made me want to strangle Cy, and heated, well, everything else.

The bell rang, and I owed my cousin a lot of dinero.

FIN