I texted him. Nada. So I called him. He didn’t pick up! Something was going on. Then I remembered—he had an away game for his indoor soccer team. One of these buses had to be his team’s. The buses’ brake lights glowed red in the gray. I didn’t have much time. I ran to the end of the bus line. There he was—about to get on!
“Hey, Dustin,” I said, out of breath. The bus engine revved up, so I spoke louder. “Hey!”
“Oh—hey,” he said. He glanced back at the other guys waiting to get on behind him.
“Did you get my text? And I tried to call you like a minute ago.…”
“What? Oh, no, didn’t see it. Whatsup?” And all of a sudden I wasn’t sure if I believed him.
“Nothing really. I just had a question about Genesis.”
“Now? I’m about to go to a game!” But he moved away from the other guys, let them get on the bus.
“Yeah. She was acting kind of strange today, and, well, how do you know her again?”
“Me?” Dustin stepped further away from the door.
Okay, now I knew something was up. And I bet I knew—duh!—what it was! “Did you two… used to go out or something?”
“Me, with Genesis? Oh, like, not really.”
I gaped at him. “What does that mean? ‘Not really’?”
The coach blew his whistle and yelled, “Hurry up, ladies!” to the guys who were still pushing their way onto the bus. No one laughed. Especially not me.
“So did you or didn’t you?” I pressed, almost yelling to be heard over the engine. Dustin shifted from one foot to the other, looking everywhere except at me. His idiot friend Steve came up and slapped him on the back of his head. Oh, great. Steve. Erin’s manager, apparently. “Yo, buddy. We gotta go,” he said.
I gave him the side-eye. He glared at me and then said to Dustin, “Stop talking to Dora the Explorer and get on the fuckin’ bus, dude.”
I did a double take. “Excuse me?”
“Forget it,” Dustin said quickly, shoving Steve toward the bus. “Dude, just go.”
Steve laughed and jumped onto the bus. I stared after him. Wow. Okay, dude needs to like, go to the marsh or whatever, and stay there. Did he really just call me— “Did you hear what he just said?” I fumed to Dustin.
Dustin grabbed my hand. “He’s an asshole. Listen, can we talk later?” He glanced at the bus. “It’s just—the bus is—”
“No,” I cut him off, pulling my hand away.
“What?”
Now I was the one glaring. “You’re just going to let Steve say that to me?”
“He didn’t really mean… I mean, c’mon… It’s not that big a deal, Lili.” He reached for my hand again—I swung it out of his reach.
“Not that big a deal? Are you serious?”
Steve pulled down a window and yelled, “¡Vámonos, muchacho!”
A roar of laughter followed. I wanted to vaporize. “Great taste in friends, Dustin,” I said, and turned away, toward my own bus, toward a different part of the world.
* * *
On the ride home, my hands were trembling as I sent Genesis a text.
Me: Genesis? U there?
Genesis:
Me: I'm sorry
Genesis:
Me: what happened w/Dustin 4 real?
Genesis:
Me:
Then finally, Genesis: u don't even know
Me: ?
Genesis: call u in 5
To be honest, I didn’t really want to hear about Dustin and her, you know, together, so I was dreading her call. Plus, I had basically knocked her onto her butt. So when my phone rang, I hovered my finger over the red button, but in the end I hit the green one. We both said “Sorry” simultaneously.
Then Genesis told me everything. Including how Dustin and she used to date and how he tried to deny it when his “real” girlfriend—some girl who was at some boarding school—accused him of cheating. Apparently it had been a thing and everyone had taken sides—METCO kids included—until it had become yesterday’s news. Of course I instantly wondered if he still had this boarding-school girlfriend.
“Dustin and I haven’t said a word since,” Genesis explained. “So, let’s just say I’m good with white boys. Like, no más. Feel me?”
Truth, I felt like I’d been sucker punched. Yet I was weirdly relieved, too. It all made sense. Ever since that day when Genesis had first seen me going to the basement with Dustin, she’d been acting all nutso.
“I guess I thought you already knew,” Genesis was saying now. “Everyone else does.” I couldn’t believe how matter-of-fact she sounded.
“But what about Yale?” I asked her.
“What about Yale?”
“Don’t you think there’ll be a whole lotta white boys at Yale?”
“Ha. Well, I got deferred, remember?”
“Like I said earlier, you’ll get in. You’ll see. So be positive!”
“Or what?”
“Or… I’ll send Steve after you.”
“Ew!”
And we started laughing.
For the rest of the bus ride I tried to make sense of it all. Dustin and Genesis… huh. Then Dustin and me. So did he have a thing for exotic METCO girls or something? What the freak? Did he like me for me, or just because I fit his type? Or—did he think he would get further with Latinas or something? Genesis wasn’t good enough to be his real girlfriend, so he’d had her as his little B-side hookup? Was that was I was? My stomach hurt. The worst part was that he hadn’t stuck up for me. Cuz truth, I really liked him. But truth, I wasn’t worth sticking up for. I hugged my knees, trying not to cry. I felt like total crap. And I knew what I needed to do next.
* * *
After dinner, I called him. Dustin. And he picked up. I had taken my phone outside and sat on the stoop despite it being like a hundred degrees below zero out. Or felt like it. “So, here’s the thing, Dustin,” I said, setting my shoulders even though obviously he couldn’t even see me. “I just don’t get how you could, like, stand back while Steve acted mad racist.”
“Lil—”
“No. For real, how could you just… do nothing? I mean, it wasn’t some random person.… It was me.” My throat caught. Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you dare cry.
“It really wasn’t like that. I… I don’t know how to explain it.”
“So why don’t you try? And while you’re at it, why didn’t you tell me about you and Genesis?”
He stayed quiet.
“Is it true? Did you have a girlfriend at boarding school while you were with Genesis?”
This time I could hear his breath, then a long sigh.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” When he said nothing, I said, “Back to Steve, though.… You don’t care, huh?”
“I—”
“You don’t care enough to say anything.”
He stayed quiet.
I squeezed my eyes shut. There was no going back. I didn’t want to go back. “Okay, so I guess this is it.”