And while I spent the next fifty minutes talking to that counselor about anything but being gay, my mom called Frank.

To this day I don't know how he pulled it off. But when we came home, the kitchen was decorated. Decorated! With two dozen balloons, rainbow streamers, and pink heart-shaped confetti. There was an ice-cream cake with rainbow sprinkles and Way to go, Jamie! written on it.

I was mortified.

I couldn't tell him that coming out was private-to me, anyway-and celebrating it made me cringe inside. So I tried to sneak upstairs to my bedroom and crawl back in the closet, but Frank cajoled me into staying with a stack of brightly wrapped presents.

I should have gone upstairs.

They were books. Embarrassing books with titles like The LGBTQ High School Survival Guide, Your Sexuality and You, and Queue: Authors Line Up Tell Their Coming-Out Stories. My mom got Parenting Your Gay Teen, and for Frank, The Dummies' Guide to Stepparenting an LGBT Child. He must have bought the whole shelf at the bookstore.

I grabbed Frank's book and paged through it furiously. I was looking for the idiot box where it told him to throw me a party. I didn't find one. And my heart sank. I would have felt better if he had done this because some dummy told him to.

But he came up with it on his own.

imagined -E. K. O.

there's this boy in my class who's matt-damon adorable, with idaho summer-sky blue eyes, the same turned-up nose smattered with freckles, and lips quick to reveal his famous, nervous smile.

all the girls are in love with him, but he doesn't know it, and perhaps this is what we love about him.

or maybe we love how he and his best friend are perfect for each other, only they don't realize it.

and maybe, just maybe, this is what we love about him.

the idea of them together- walking side by side, hand in hand under an idaho blue summer sky, across an emerald hayfield smattered with wildflowers, his lips quick to say a nervous "i love you."

SIX.

I find a poem in my locker when I get to school. And even though I know it's someone's Gumshoe submission, I don't read it, but rather pretend for a minute that it's for me from a secret admirer and slip it into my pocket. I imagine it's full of intimate details, like how he likes my hair or my ridiculously childish freckles. It ends with a clue-there'd have to be a clue-of where to meet and when. We'd both show up, of course, and sit on a blanket under the stars, the warm April air having nothing to do with the shiver running down my spine.

Too bad imaginary secret admirers don't make viable prom dates.

In art, Ms. Maude has the lights off and the projector on, and we're flying through art history at breakneck speed. We started the semester with the cave paintings in Lascaux and, with three weeks of classes to go, we are up to Marcel Duchamp and his urinal. Ms. Maude is certain we'll get up to present-day art by the end of the term, but the class has a bet going-most of the girls say she will and the guys say she won't.

I write $1 in my notebook and slide it across the table to Eden.

In my pocket, she writes back.

I'm about to write No way when Ms. Maude leaps ahead half a decade and sums up Dadaism in one sentence. No fair. She segues to the Bauhaus, and I know I should be listening. Those Bauhaus dudes are the founding fathers of graphic design.

But I'm not listening. You going to prom? I write. Again I slide my notebook to Eden.

She looks at me, an are-you-crazy? expression on her face.

I gesture at the note.

She writes something. Slides it back. No.

Why not? I scribble.

She doesn't wait for me to pass the notebook; she just reaches over and writes. No date.

Be mine.

She looks at me again then writes: I thought you were gay.

I freeze. How the hell does she know?

Eden takes the paper back before I write anything. And you want to go to prom with me?

Yes.

Not possible, she scribbles.

Why not?

Ms. Maude glances our way, and Eden pretends she's taking notes on the lecture. When she slides my notebook back, it reads: You're out of my league. Not to mention the wrong gender.

The wrong gender? I try not to look surprised and I ignore that part. What league?

The popular one.

I'm not popular. I'm in band.

Eden sighs as if I'm clueless, and she pushes my notebook back at me without an answer.

Please, I write. I didn't know dating involved so much persuasion.

Why?

Because you're cool. I offer her the notebook.

She reads my note and shakes her head.

I try again. Because I want to get to know you better.

She fake gags on her finger.

Because I'll have a good time if you're there.

Eden smiles.

And I have a prom date.

"Here's the thing," Eden says as we pack up our stuff after class. "My parents are berstrict about stuff I do-they don't usually let me go to school dances."

All that work and she can't go? Dang it.

"But since it's prom and you're a guy, I think it'll be okay."

Phew.

"But before I can go anywhere with you, you'll have to prove you're an upstanding citizen."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"We'll start with just my mom. You come over, and we'll go somewhere like we're dating."

"Yeah," I say. "That's how prom works. I pick you up. We go to prom."

"Before prom. Like, today. Or tomorrow."

"Okay," I agree, because if finding one prom date was this difficult, finding a second one is out of the question. And besides, Eden and I are sort of friends. We could do stuff outside of art class.

Eden takes my hand, turns it palm up, and writes down an address.

"Four thirty," she says.

When I find the address that Eden wrote on my hand, I'm relieved not to see her brother's truck parked in the driveway. Seeing him once a day is about my limit.

After I've answered no fewer than twenty questions for Eden's mom, including if I have taken the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior-which, well, I might have lied about-Eden and I are seated in a booth at a Shari's.

"When did you know?" Eden asks me, her emphasis implying everything.

"Huh?" I play dumb. If she thinks I'm going to come out to her just so she'll go to prom with me, she's going to wait until the second coming.

"Oh," she says, suddenly interested in the menu. "Sorry, I just thought we had something in common. I can totally relate, you know?"

This is why I don't date girls. They're weird. They talk about everything and assume you want to too. I don't get it. It's as if their bras are filled with words.

"In sixth grade I had a crush on a girl in Sunday school," she offers up as proof to my theory.

"How'd that work out for you?" I ask.

"Not good," Eden says. "This other girl squealed when she saw us kissing behind the boathouse at church camp."

"Bummer."

"Nothing brings down the wrath of God faster than two girls kissing," she says.

I wonder about two boys kissing, but I don't say anything.

"I haven't been allowed to go to church camp since."

The waitress comes to take our orders. I get a burger and fries. Eden just orders a soda.

"So you're out with your parents?" I ask when the waitress is out of earshot.

"Tried to be," Eden says. "But they don't believe in lesbians-for them, it's something I did, not something I am. And, well, their daughter can't possibly be one."

"That's pretty weird," I say.

"I've tried to educate them, but every time I bring it up, my mom gets really upset."

I nod sympathetically.

"So Nick can do whatever he wants-as long as he goes to church on Sunday. Has his own truck. And me? They won't let me out of their sight. They wouldn't want me to be tempted by the she devil."

The waitress brings us our drinks.

"Yeah," I say. "You wouldn't want a girl like you to step out the house. She might drink a soda at Shari's."

Eden laughs. "I know. I am such a rebel."

My burger arrives, and we share the fries and gab about prom-the limo plans and who is going with whom.

An hour later I pull into Eden's driveway behind the Redneck's truck. She doesn't open her door right away, as if she's waiting for something.

"You okay?" I ask, following her gaze and feeling a flicker of worry in my gut.

She's watching her house.

Then I see what she sees. Her mom is watching us from a window.

Eden turns her head quickly-catching me off guard-and plants a lip-gloss-sticky kiss right next to my mouth.

"Ew!" I reach up to wipe off the strawberry-scented slime.

"No, you don't," Eden says, catching my hand on its way to my face.

"Why'd you do that?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes and juts her chin toward the house.

I don't see her mother anymore, and I imagine she's telling Nick to unlock the gun safe and drop a bullet into the chamber of a shotgun. I imagine him storming out the door, ready to take aim at the boy who appears to be taking advantage of his little sister.

"Don't do that again," I say, touching my cheek. My fingers get sticky with lip gloss. "It's-" I stop myself before I say "gross," because I don't want to sound like a little kid.

"Come on, Jamie. I didn't even touch your lips."