Lucas walked back into the room like a man returning from war.
Bandage on his head, scuff on his shoe, the energy of someone who had been chased down a hallway with a stick.
"Just so everyone knows," he announced to the room, "she's gay."
Everyone looked up.
Steven, who had been leaning against the billiard table with the comfortable posture of someone who lived there, blinked. Then he looked at Alice. Then back at Lucas. Then he did the very specific calculation of a person who had recently tried to take someone's hand and was now receiving entirely new information about that someone. His face moved through about five expressions before landing on something that could only be described as a man staring directly into the void.
He put his hand on the table to steady himself.
Ethan had both hands pressed over his face. His shoulders were shaking. He was not helping.
"He," Bryan said, from near the counter.
Lucas looked at him. "What?"
"He," Bryan said again, same calm tone. "Alice is a guy who wears girl's clothes. That's different from being gay."
"That's not even---"
"Two completely different things." Not raising his voice. He never raised his voice, which somehow made it worse. "You can sit with that on your own time."
"Still gay."
Bryan looked at him.
Lucas closed his mouth.
Anna had gone still on the sofa. She looked at Alice with an expression that was working hard to process something and hadn't quite finished. Alice looked back and waited, the way he always waited, with no particular urgency.
"You're," Anna started. Stopped. Tilted her head. Tried again. "Okay but your face. That is genuinely unfair."
Alice blinked.
"No, I'm serious." She leaned forward. "How are you walking around looking like that? Your skin is smoother than mine. What's your routine? What are you using?" She reached out and poked his cheek. "That's not normal."
"Moisturizer," Alice said.
"Which one?"
"My mom picks it. I don't know the brand."
Anna made a sound of genuine suffering. "And the hair. What products?"
"I brush it. A lot."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
She sat back and stared at the ceiling. "Incredible," she said quietly. "Truly unfair. You don't even try."
"Are we not going to talk about the actual thing I said," Lucas said from across the room.
Nobody looked at him.
"I'm just standing here," he said.
Still nobody.
Steven had mostly recovered, though something in his expression suggested this was going to live in his head for a while. He looked at Alice, then around at nothing, then back. "So you're just," he started. "A guy. Who wears the girl's uniform."
"Yes."
"And nobody at school knows."
"No."
Steven nodded once, slowly, like a man accepting a verdict. "Cool," he said. He picked up his drink and went back to leaning against the table.
"This is insane," Lucas said to the room. The room continued to not respond to him. "I'm telling you something important and everyone is just---"
"You were being rude earlier," Anna said, without looking at him. "Also, it doesn't matter."
"It does matter! It's a big deal!"
"It really isn't."
"Steven, back me up."
Steven looked at Lucas and shrugged. Lucas grabbed something off the counter and threw it at him. Steven dodged without changing expression.
"You're all dead to me." Lucas looked around the room for backup and found none. "Anna. Don't get close to her. You hear me? You might---"
"Lucas," Anna said. "There are lines."
He looked at her. She looked back at him with the flat, steady patience of someone who had stopped finding this surprising a long time ago. He opened his mouth once more, seemed to decide against whatever was going to come out, and crossed his arms instead.
Ethan had finally taken his hands off his face. His eyes were still a little watery. He turned to Alice with a smile that was barely contained. "Okay so this whole time. In English lit. You were just. A guy."
"Yes."
"Sitting next to me and not correcting me."
"Yes."
"And ignoring me during class."
"During class, yes."
Ethan paused. "I kept thinking it was something I did. Like you genuinely didn't like me and I couldn't figure out why." He shook his head. "That makes so much sense."
"Sorry for not correcting you," Alice said. "And for ignoring you during class."
"No you're not."
"No, I'm not."
Ethan laughed, a real one. "Fair. I'll stop talking during class. Probably."
"Lucas," Anna said quietly, without looking at him. "Stop."
He'd been muttering something. He stopped.
Alice glanced over at Anna. She had the look of someone working up to something. He turned toward her properly. "What's your relationship to them?"
Anna's eyes moved sideways for a second. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again with the specific energy of someone choosing their words very carefully.
"Lucas," she said, "is my boyfriend. The others are my friends."
Alice looked at her.
Then at Lucas, who was staring at the wall with his arms crossed.
Then back at Anna.
He didn't say anything. His face did the whole thing on its own. Every word of it.
Really. That one. Why.
Anna didn't argue with the face. She turned her head to the side and let out a long, slow breath that came from somewhere deep and tired.
I don't know either.
"Anna," Lucas said, not looking at her. "You're taking their side."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"Lucas."
"What."
"Stop talking."
He did. For about four seconds. Then: "She chased me down a hallway with a stick and everyone is acting like I'm the problem."
"You were rude to him first," Anna said. "That's what started it."
"That's just how I am."
"That's the problem," Anna said. "You were rude. That's what started it. Own that."
"I said thanks or whatever---"
"Or whatever," Anna repeated. "You mean the insults."
"That counted."
"It really didn't."
They looked at each other. Lucas with the expression of someone who wouldn't back down. Anna with the expression of someone who had been doing this for a long time and had run out of surprise about it.
They did look like a couple. Annoyingly, it tracked.
Ethan leaned toward Alice. "He's always like this," he said, in the tone of someone providing a weather report.
"I can tell," Alice said.
"Gets worse, gets a little better, gets worse again."
"Wonderful."
"It really is." Ethan smiled. "You should stick around and see more of it."