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

Living History Day at the Black House, helping kids play nineteenth century games, like walking on stilts, or running around pushing a big hoop with a stick. We volunteered because of Key Club, and because the Black House, this museum that was really just a preserved big, brick mansion, always needed help.
    I was holding this little girl up on the stilts when this man came and yanked his little boy away from the hoops. He was this stereotype guy, beefy, angry, with hair short in the front and long in the back, a wardrobe from another decade.
    “What the hell are you doing?” he barked at the boy, holding his little arm at a wicked angle.
    The little girl on the wooden stilts stopped walking across the perfectly manicured lawn and sucked in her breath. I grabbed the stilts so she wouldn’t fall over and Dylan, Dylan gave this beefy father guy the evil eye.
    The guy didn’t notice, just yanked on his son more, pulling at him so hard that the little boy stumbled on his own feet. I had no idea what made him so mad, just that he was mad. The boy fell over and scraped his knee. He started crying.
    The dad stood there, hands in fists. Dylan rushed over to the little boy with a first aid kit, washed off his knee.
    “Leave him alone,” the dad said like a growl. “Serves him right. Such a freaking sissy.”
    Dylan put on the Band-Aid, stood up, and said, “Sir, he’s not a sissy.”
    The man huffed. “Like you’d know.”
    Dylan stood up straighter then. I sucked in my breath.
    “You want me to prove it?” Dylan stared at him.
    I helped the little girl off the stilts and took her hand. She whispered to me, “My daddy didn’t want to come down here. We live in Bangor. He’s been grumpy all day.”
    She let go of my hand and ran to where her brother, father, and Dylan stood on the perfectly manicured grass. “Daddy! We should go. We gotta get home for supper.”
    She grabbed his arm and yanked on it, once, twice, another time.
    From behind the house came the splash and screams of someone going into the dunk tank.
    The father’s posture eased. He nodded. “Let’s go.”
    But Dylan wasn’t ready to let it go. He yelled after them, “Children are gifts, Mister. Treat them with kindness.”
    The man turned for a moment, gave him the finger, and then walked away.
    Dylan shook his head and I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, “I’m proud of you.”
    He nodded. I could hear his heart thunder beneath his shirt, his skin. “There’s no such thing as a sissy.”
    How could I not have known?

    While my mother sleeps, I wander the house again and stop in the kitchen, open the fridge, pull out the hummus container. In the fridge light, I stand there and I take the knife and spread the hummus on a cracker. Muffin jumps up on the counter and I scream, drop the knife. It clatters on the floor.
    My mother yells in her sleep voice, “What is it? What is it?”
    “Nothing!” I yell back, scooping the knife up off the floor, into my hand. “Just making a snack. Go back to sleep.”
    Some sort of combination growl/slumber noise emits from her mouth, while I stand in the light of the refrigerator, caught, knife on the floor, bruise on the heart.

Since sleep was not an option last night, I scramble out of the house as soon as it’s dawn. I prop up a note by the coffeemaker on the counter: Gone Riding . I’ve put in my mom’s required eight-and-a-half cups of water and three heaping coffee scoops of Folgers Hazelnut. That’s what she needs before she heads out to work. She’ll be all set.
    I chug off up the hill with my wheels spinning, wool hat trapping my hair against my head. It doesn’t do anything to keep the cold from hitting my teeth. The shrill pain of it is what I want, anyway.
    Tom’s dad, the police chief, drives by in his cruiser. He honks and waves, then he stops ahead of me and rolls down the window. I stop next to him, wondering if I’ve broken some sort of bike road rule.
    He leans