Cole's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

By fifth period, Cole knew the rumor had legs. Two boys behind him in math whispered about someone in their grade wearing diapers, and one of them laughed like he already had a name picked out. Cole kept his pen moving. Under his shirt, the tape at his hip pulled when he shifted. He had eight hours a day to get through without anyone finding out, and a bladder that had stopped cooperating when he was eleven. Now he had maybe one afternoon before the story reached the only person who already knew it was true. Her name he wouldn't let himself say in his head too often. She was the girl who had opened the wrong bathroom door last Tuesday and seen him halfway through a change. She hadn't laughed. She hadn't spoken. She had shut the door and walked away, and she hadn't told a soul. Since then, Cole had been trying to figure out how to talk to her without making it worse. He wanted her to like him. If the rumor got to her first, she would think he had let it slip himself, and every quiet thing between them would collapse. At lunch he found her where she always sat, on the low wall under the rainbow flag the art club had hung near the side doors. She ate there every day, alone or with one friend, the flag snapping over her head like it belonged to her. Cole stopped ten feet away. In his pocket he had a folded piece of notebook paper he'd been carrying since first period. He had written and crossed out four different openings on it — leave me alone, I vow, in the way — until the page looked more angry than honest. He almost handed it to her anyway. Then he saw her actual face, calm and waiting, and shoved the paper back into his pocket. "Something's going around about me," he said. "By the end of the day it'll be everywhere. I wanted you to hear it from me first. It's true. I didn't tell anyone. I never would have." He made himself look at her. "I know you already knew. I just didn't want you to think I said it." Near the fence, past the kindergarten play structure the little kids used at recess, two girls had already stopped walking to stare. A ginger cat sat on the wall between them and Cole, watching with wide green eyes, unbothered. He waited for her to stand up and leave. She didn't. She slid over on the wall and patted the concrete beside her. Cole sat. She still didn't speak, but this time the quiet felt different — closer, chosen. Behind them the rumor kept moving through the yard without him. In front of them, for the first time in a week, something had opened instead of closed.