Free The Fight by Elizabeth Karre Page B

and the GSA probably wouldn’t involve a ton of work or meetings.
    The GSA was new at Southside, I thought. There had been some big deal about it last year, but I hadn’t really paid attention to it. I mean, when I first heard about it, I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. And these seniors, Carmen and Scott, who had been in charge of it or something were kind of scary. Carmen rolled her eyes at me in the bathroom once because I was putting on lipstick.
    But now I thought I should check it out. Maybe I’d see Dominic there. I could see if he was OK. We used to be friends, kind of. Our families went to the same church. During confirmation a couple of years ago, our moms had carpooled sometimes. And we’d just ended up hanging out during the class (which could be pretty boring). We knew each other from school, and neither of us knew the other kids very well. But we didn’t have any classes together this year so I hadn’t seen him much.
    And seeing Matteo always reminded me that I should do more extracurriculars and work harder in class. He, of course, had done everything in high school from sports to theater. And he got good grades. I was less stellar. I didn’t want to worry about scholarships and stuff yet, but my mom was starting to drop little hints.
    I had barely seen Matteo the rest of the weekend. He had been out with his friends or in his room talking or texting or something to that Casey girl. And I have a life, of course, too.
    So checking out the GSA was just my idea. I was kind of proud of it—and nervous.
    I thought I remembered posters about the GSA meetings, so all morning I kept scanning the hallway walls. Nothing. Well, lots of other stuff like the next dance, tryouts for whatever, blah-blah.
    So at lunch I tried to ask my friends about the GSA casually.
    â€œI think it was shut down,” said Kim. “Or didn’t, like, start. Wasn’t that guy, the cute senior, trying to start it or something? Is he gay? I thought he had a girlfriend.”
    The others shrugged. I guess, like me, they hadn’t paid much attention because it didn’t seem like something for us. We all liked guys, not girls. So for the rest of lunch, we just talked about who were the cutest boys in our grade.

I
    t was a regular week. I couldn’t remember all the writers Matteo said were gay, but I don’t think Ms. Weller mentioned any of them. But I liked some of the stuff we were reading.
    My friends were trying to set me up with this guy, José. He and his friends ate lunch with us sometimes, but he didn’t seem too interested in me. I thought he was nice but not much more than that. I’d had a boyfriend at the end of last year, but he graduated. It seemed stupid to try to keep dating while he was in college, and I had two years of high school still.
    But I missed the attention. And making out. We seriously kissed for hours straight. Or it felt that way. It was pretty awesome. Even though he was older than me, he never pressured me. And we didn’t really date long enough for a lot to happen. So I had some experience but not enough to ever feel like I really knew what to do around guys or how to make one like me.
    Keesha and I were walking to health class on Thursday when we passed José at his locker. Keesha nudged me and called out, “Hiiiiii, José. Whasup?”
    He just nodded at us.
    After we’d passed him, Keesha smacked my arm. “Did you even smile at him? Girl, we can’t do all the work for you, you know!”
    I shrugged. “I don’t think he’s interested. And he’s nice but—” I broke off because June was approaching the classroom just as we were. My stomach flipped over, and I could feel my face get super hot.
    â€œHey,” she said locking eyes with me (because I was staring at her) as she walked past me through the door. I watched as she tossed her long hair out of the way to slide her bag off