True Letters from a Fictional Life by Kenneth Logan Page A

this if you promise to never tell anyone I just said that.’ I was sort of sad, because I had such a crush on Topher, too, but I laughed and accepted the apple.”
    â€œWell, you better return it now because you just broke your promise,” I pointed out.
    â€œOh, it wasn’t a secret for very long. He had a boyfriend, Craig, when we were in ninth grade. One of those guys he’s dancing with right now, in fact.”
    â€œThey’re still dating? That’s a long time.”
    â€œNo, no. That one went down in flames after a couple of months. But everyone knew about it. Topher used to complain that Craig laughs and throws like a girl. He said the only thing they had in common was a crush on our soccer team’s goalie.”
    â€œSean Gates.” I nodded. “Yeah, he’s really cute.”
    Kim gripped my arm and bent forward as she laughed, but then she looked up at me, clearly trying to gauge whether I was being serious.
    I shrugged. “There aren’t any apples lying around for me to offer you.”
    The gym doors burst open as though the speakers had exploded. Theresa tottered out in her heels, looking worried and peering down the corridor in the wrong direction. When she turned and saw us, she fixed her smile. “Hi!” she called, hesitantly, and stood staring at us, frozen. I couldn’t blame her for misinterpreting the expressions Kim and I must have worn.
    â€œWe’re regaining our hearing,” I called to her, and jangled my plastic cup. “Come have some ice.”
    Theresa can’t walk well in heels. I love that about her. I don’t know why she insists on wearing them. “Left, right, left, right,” I commanded as she teetered toward us. She gave me the finger, and when she arrived, I put my arm around her. “We were going to go back in when our ears had stopped bleeding,” I explained.
    â€œThey are in a state of shock,” agreed Kim.
    I ignored her and hoped Theresa hadn’t picked up on her tone. “What’s happening after the dance?” I asked. “Is there a party?”
    â€œNo one’s having a party in the Upper Valley ever again,” Theresa replied.
    â€œDon’t say that,” I groaned.
    â€œJames, it’s true,” Kim agreed. “After the Aaron Foster incident, only a complete idiot would invite a crowd of strangers to his house.”
    That complete idiot, that hero, turned out to be a kid named Steven, who I never actually met. It took some persuading, but Theresa eventually agreed to go for an hour. Her parents wanted her home by midnight that night, and she was driving. “You’re allowed one beer,” she told me. Kim rode with us so she could navigate. We had to drive only a couple of miles from Kim’s school, but we were on back roads and twenty miles away from where Theresa and I lived.
    Cars already lined the muddy road when we arrived at the house of Brave Steve, as I called him for the rest of the night. Or Sucker Steve, as Theresa and Kim said. We entered the house through the garage, where a bunch of shivering kids were playing flip cup on a Ping-Pong table. As I walked past, a kid yelled, “Hey, Liddell! No fisticuffs!” The jokes about our school had begun.
    As soon as we walked into the house, I saw Topher perched on the kitchen counter. His pals from the dance stood talkingin front of him, but he didn’t seem involved in their conversation. When he saw me, he straightened up, raised his beer, and grinned. I smiled and put up a finger. One minute. He nodded and looked pleased.
    I sat on the arm of a couch right next to Theresa’s friends, so I was excused from being an object of gossip, more or less. My outfit got a thumbs-up. My dancing a thumbs-down. Nothing new.
    So it wouldn’t be obvious that I was counting the seconds, I glanced at Theresa’s watch instead of taking out my phone. I also kept one eye on the garage door,