I Know It's Over by C. K. Kelly Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

everyone. It’s…can I ever like anybody and show it or…” Nathan’s voice hollowed into nothing, then began again, so soft that I had to strain to hear. “Do I have to be this neutral, sexless thing all my life?”
    Silence stretched out uncomfortably between us. I hadn’t thought about it like that, the way other people’s restrictions could limit you. Then Nathan, sounding so close he could’ve been standing right next to me, said, “Did you know?”
    “I wasn’t sure.”
    “I was, but I didn’t know what to do about it,” he said wearily.
    “So what’re you gonna do now?”
    Nathan laughed. “Maybe I’ll try the news out on Keelor as a test run for my dad. What do you think?”
    “I think Keelor might’ve guessed too.”
    “Good,” Nathan declared. “That should make it easier.”
     
    I never mentioned Sasha or the lake to Nathan. I didn’t forget, but I figured no further action was required on my part. Surely Sasha would run into Nathan and ask him herself eventually. Maybe he’d drop by and tell her everything, the way he’d told me, or maybe he’d keep it between the three of us awhile longer. He didn’t seem to have decided on a course of action yet. He spent a lot of time at this gay and lesbian teen message board, reading about other people’s issues. He told me about a different one every time we talked: the Pakistani guy whose thirteen-year-old sister came to visit him every week although his family had disowned him, an eighteen-year-old girl who was having threesomes because she had more fun with the other girls than with her boyfriend, a fourteen-year-old who’d made out with his best friend when they were drunk and was too scared to talk it out with him.
    Keelor confided that the whole thing was freaking him out, that it was “a tough weight for Nathan to be dragging around, but I don’t know what to say to him.” Personally I didn’t think it mattered so much what we said as long as we were listening. I admit some of the details were too much for me, and Nathan appeared to sense that and censor himself, like the time he started describing Xavier—how his gypsy looks and the strong Quebec accent that rolled around in the back of his throat gave Nathan the impression of “sexual ferocity.”
    “You said he was an asshole,” I reminded him.
    “He is,” he admitted, then abruptly changed the subject.
    Nathan’s revelation was only the second surprise of the summer (Dani’s change of heart being the first). I had some summer day shifts at Sports 2 Go, filling in for people on vacation. The days were lazier than the nights. There was time to restock the shelves and take extended breaks (whenever Brian, the manager, wasn’t around). That probably sounds like a good thing, but in actuality it was pretty boring. Too many hours to make stupid chitchat with customers and listen to Grayson lay out the details of his latest sexual adventure. Sometimes you think you like someone only because you haven’t spent enough time around him or her to learn otherwise.
    Grayson was giving me the lowdown for the second time that week, oozing with overconfidence and eyeing the female customers like half the world was his to conquer. Sasha would hate this guy, I thought, nodding and frowning at him at the same time. I don’t act like this. I hadn’t even told anyone, aside from Keelor and Nathan, about Dani and me.
    “You never tell me anything, man,” Grayson said, as though he was reading my mind. “You’re getting something somewhere, aren’t you?” His nose twitched. “Don’t let me monopolize the conversation.”
    “I keep things quiet,” I said, matter-of-fact-like. “That’s just how it is.”
    “Yeah, you like to be all mysterious and shit, huh? That’s okay, though. It’s all good.”
    Mysterious and shit. Yeah, that’s me. I was really starting to hate Grayson. I scanned the store, searching for customers in need of mystery, etc. My eyes locked onto a female form