I understand this about a half second before Cole throws a punch into Royce Bradley’s face.
Chicky
I DON’T GET the chance to tell Junior the sort of embarrassing truth: that if I could be anyone, I’d be the real Selena Quintanilla.
Not the part where she was tragically murdered before her time, obviously, but the talent, and the true love, and the adoration, and the perfect, shiny confidence.
I don’t get the chance to tell him, because at that moment two jocks push through the doorway talking loudly to each other like we’re not even here.
“Did you see that? That spacey scuba suit girl kneed Royce in the balls!”
“I know! She is so wasted!”
“It looked like Cole and Royce were about to get into it too. What, is Kendall dating that freak?”
“I don’t know, man, but we better get outta here before the cops show up. What a party!” They literally high-five.
“Excuse me?” I say, my voice sliding up about four octaves over those two words alone. There’s no way I’m letting these idiots leave without an explanation.
“Oh, hey, Beer Pong,” says the other one.
“Shut up, ugh. Lita’s drunk? What’s going on?” Even as I’m brushing off the new nickname, I can’t deny it’s a hell of a lot better than Ring Pop.
“Go see for yourself,” the guy says with a laugh, gesturing through the screen door at a writhing mass of bodies gathering around the violence like vultures.
“Oh my God,” I groan as they walk away, still laughing. “My sisters are going to kill me.”
We barely make it inside in time to hear Royce use our charming nicknames in the same sentence. Lita is clearly drunk, giggling and swaying a little in my peripheral vision as we all watch Cole’s good fist meet Royce’s face. From beside them, Kendra screams, exposing the electric Jell-O blue of the inside of her mouth.
“Lita!” I yell, worried she’s gonna fall and get trampled, but unable to look away from Royce, who’s clutching his rapidly purpling face.
I have the immediate and intense desire to high-five Cole—a desire only made stronger when he gets to Lita, steadying her on her feet.
“I’ll help him,” Junior says before I ask, smiling and shaking his head as he runs up to take Lita’s other arm.
I mean to follow, but Royce is clutching his face, and I’m so annoyed that I can’t enjoy this moment. How long have I been wanting someone to punch Royce in the face?
“Dude!” he calls after Cole. “You don’t have to slum it like this! You’re not a freak!”
But Cole doesn’t even turn. Clearly Royce’s bruising jaw was the last remark he had to make on the subject. He and Junior are helping Lita toward the door, and I should follow them. I should. But there’s something swelling in my chest, and I’ve never felt more like a Quintanilla than I do when I get between Royce and my friends, blocking his way.
“Fuck you, Royce,” I say, too quietly, and to his shoes instead of his face, but still, people around us go quiet to listen.
“Oh good, Ring Pop, here to avenge her girlfriend the crazy alien. What do you want, loser? Because I know it ain’t this.” He reaches for his junk in a familiar gesture, and when he winces from the pain I let myself laugh.
On their way to the door, Junior, Cole, and Lita pause, watching.
“You’re pathetic, you know that, right?” I ask him, my voice a little louder now, trying to channel Fresa during her marathon porch fights with Berto. “High school is gonna be over in a year for you, Royce, and then what? No one to pick on, no one to humiliate. How are you gonna make yourself feel better about being a jerk who thinks a covenant is a land mass?”
“Oh, so you’re a dyke and a bitch!” he says, looking around for the high fives that usually materialize every time he speaks.
This time though, they don’t come. Everyone’s looking at me, but I’m finally—finally—looking at Royce. Not his shoes, or his left knee, or the space over his right shoulder, but right square in his mean little eyes.
“Bashing people for who they like is so sad it’s barely even insulting,” I say, every time I didn’t say these words adding up, giving weight to what I’m saying now.
“Oh! So you admit it, huh? Lesbo?”
He’s drunk, and his face is sweaty and shiny. His breath is bad, I can smell it from here. Beer and something sour. The look in his eyes is desperate, and I wish I would have looked into them like this a long time ago. Maybe then I would have known there was nothing to be afraid of.
It’s so obvious now, with everything that’s happened. Royce and Kendra were never the real obstacle. They’re jerks, but they never had that power. It was always me. Me, figuring out who I am, and how not to be afraid to let them, or anyone else, see it.
But I don’t feel afraid now.
Everyone is still staring at me, waiting for me to answer. It’s like an out-of-body experience. My realization prickles on my skin, and I glance over to meet Lita’s eyes. They’re a little blurry and unfocused, but she smiles at me from between Junior and Cole. No matter what happens tonight, I have my best friend back, and a boy who might be more, and another boy who really gets it.
I’m a Quintanilla, and my friends are here. I can do anything.
And so, I do.
“Yeah, Royce, when we were in fourth grade I gave Allison Davis a Ring Pop. That’s not the weird part, though. What’s weird is how long you guys have been obsessing over it. Maybe you’re jealous, is that it? That I had game when I was nine and you still don’t?”
“She fucking admitted it!” he says, spit flying from his mouth as he laughs like a braying donkey. “Ring Pop the dyke and her lesbo lover the alien bit—”
“Lita isn’t a lesbian,” I say, finally facing my fear head on, once and for all. “And I’m not a dyke.” I pause, taking a steadying breath. Am I really gonna do this?
Hell yeah I am. But first, I turn to look Kendra in the eye.
“I’m pansexual, okay? And I don’t care who knows, so both of you, get some new material.”
The room is silent, like the entire sophomore and junior classes—most of whom were there on the bus in fourth grade—have turned briefly to stone. Which makes me the snake-haired, coming-out Medusa. And I’ve never been so happy to be anything.
I did it, I think over and over. I did it, I did it, I did it.
“You’re what?” Royce asks, with that look on his face that says he’s confused and pissed off about it. “What kind of freak-ass thing . . .”
Around him, most of the rest of them seem equally confused, but more curious than angry. I’m trying to figure out how to explain it through my haze of relief, but Cole is calling out from across the room, a proud smile playing around the corners of his mouth even as he hangs on to Lita for dear life.
“Pansexual,” he recites. “Of, relating to, or characterized by sexual desire or attraction that is not limited to people of a particular gender identity or sexual orientation.”
I just shrug, my own smile spreading slow like honey as I turn back to Royce. “You heard him.”
Royce seems to have been robbed of words, and beside him Kendra is slack-jawed, equally mute. By my reveal, or by her brother sticking up for me, I don’t know. And I don’t really care. Because for the first time ever, I realize: My secret was always their strength. Now that I have nothing to hide, they have no power. And so I don’t have to wait for the rest of them to react. For the first time, I don’t care what they think.