Free Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones Page A

fist. Em’s so cute, everyone forgives her everything. Except for Mimi Cote, who could not get over the time Em took a picture of her leaving the girls’ bathroom with the back of her skirt tucked into her thong. You can’t really blame Mimi for that. Em says it’s all in the name of art. I don’t know what kind of art you call it to see Mimi’s butt hanging out of a thong, but whatever.
    Anna leans over and whispers to me, “I’m sorry about Dylan.”
    “Yeah,” I nod.
    She sniffs in again, pushing her long black hair over her shoulder and says, “Is he really gay?”
    “Yeah.”
    Right then, Em’s eyes meet mine. I move my hair in front of my face in case she’s thinking about taking another picture. My eyes start to tear up. Anna pulls me into the side of her fluffy sweater, her hugging me this time.
    “You poor baby,” she says. “It sucks to be you.”
    “It sucks to be a lot of people,” I say.
    “Yeah,” Anna says, letting go of me. Our sad eyes meet. “Yeah.”

    Monday night
    I try not to call. I want to call. The phone waits and waits for me to cradle it against my face like a long-lost baby, like a lover, like a teddy bear. Gabriel leans against the wall and waits and waits for me to wrap my arms around her and make her sing.
    I pick up Muffin instead. She mews but decides it’s more comfortable to sit on my shoulder than my arm. Dylan would flip her upside down and hold her like a baby and even though that’s got to be an uncomfortable position for a cat she always purred and purred anyway.
    She trusted him.
    I wait and wait and wait but he does not call me.
    He always calls me every night.
    It was hard coming home today without him. My bed looked angry at me. It wanted him there. I plopped myself on it, but it wasn’t the same. The bed knows that the weight of one is not the weight of two.

    In my room, I pull out last year’s yearbook from its place on my bookcase.
    This is what he wrote in his chicken scratch writing. This is what he wrote.
    Belle,
    What can I say to tell you how I feel about you? I want something you can remember. I could say I love you, but would you remember that since you’re reminded every day. I could say we will get a St. Bernard when we get married, or I could say that you’ll make me happy forever. But what would really stand out in your memory?
    Our love will last forever!
    I think they all go hand in hand, those things I wrote up there.
    No, I’m not done and I know I’m slow but I needed something to say to the one I love. Okay. I’ll get off your back now.
    I love you very much.
    Dylan Alley
    I want to know why he signed his last name. Did he already know then? Did he know the St. Bernard and the happy forever were lies? Did he know that when I’m thirty or forty I might have not talked to him for decades and even remembering the first letter of his last name would be a struggle? Did he know?
    I shove my yearbook under my bed, where Muffin’s been sleeping with the dust balls. She scoots out, zips across the carpet, and out the door, abandoning me. I reach under and take the yearbook back and read what he wrote again. And again. Then I try to remember what I wrote in his yearbook. I can’t, but I know it was happy, chirpy, something about making music together and singing Barbra Streisand songs forever. I don’t even like Barbra. She’s so showy.
    I clamber off my bed, pull the CD out of the player, and stare at its shiny, perfect circle. My two hands grab each side and that’s when I twist and bend the Barbra CD, trying to break it, but I’m not strong enough. Instead, I unlock my window, open it, open the screen, too, and whirl the CD like a Frisbee into the blackness of the night.
    “Have a horrible flight,” I whisper. “Don’t remember to fasten your seat belt. Emergency exits cannot be found to the rear and front.”
    It’s a shiny silver UFO glinting over my lawn and then it drops and it’s gone.

    One time we were volunteering at