The Redneck's poem. I snatch the page from her hand. "You didn't see that."

"You're not going to publish this, are you?"

"He submitted it," I say.

"I just don't think it's a good idea. It's really personal."

"Look, Eden, I gotta go," I snap, not wanting to get into the details. Then I grab my stuff and shoot out of the classroom faster than if it were on fire.

"Jamie!" someone calls after me.

I don't want to talk to Eden, or anyone else for that matter, so I pretend not to hear. But that doesn't work for long, because Challis's legs are as long as mine. She catches up in an instant.

"I've got it!" she says, breathless.

"Got what?" I ask.

"The graphic short! For Gumshoe!"

Relief douses me in the face. Challis isn't here to ask me about the art-geek girl whisperfest. "Oh, yeah."

Challis holds out a folder with translucent marker paper spilling out on three sides.

I shift my books so I have a free hand to take it from her. "Thanks."

"I hope you like it," she says, a twinge of mischief in her voice.

But I can't promise her I will.

NINE.

I love it.

I hate her.

But I love it-how she turned a mean prank upside down, how on the very last page there was one blip of color in the heart above the boys' hands. I'm already imagining it as the only color in the whole magazine-even if I have to color that heart red in every copy. I stare at the hearts on the page, each saying so much with so little, each bringing a little hope to my own heart.

But first I tell myself, I have to get the other Gumshoes to agree with it. Seven pages is a lot of space, longer than our best short stories. Then I have to get it past Dr. Taylor-an English teacher-when it's mostly art, and a comic at that.

Who am I kidding? That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about what everyone will think-specifically, what everyone will think about me when I tell them I want it included in Gumshoe. I might as well march down Capitol Boulevard waving a rainbow flag.

I hate her.

I hate having to bring this to the meeting. I hate that I like it. I hate that I told her I'd fight to get it in.

Oh God, what have I done?

I signed myself up to champion Gumshoe's first gay comic. Damn it.

TEN.

Lia's stack of submissions isn't as tall as we had hoped, even with the contributions from Challis and the Redneck, plus the poem I found in my locker, which I snuck in at the bottom. She sorts the pieces into piles, and when she gets down to the comic, she adds it to my pile of drawings.

"It's a short story," I say. "Give it to Michael."

With that, Lia hands a pile of submissions to each of us. I watch as Michael opens Challis's folder and peers inside. He turns the pages right side up and begins reading.

I pretend that opening InDesign on my computer takes intense concentration. I angle the screen up and slouch down behind it. Dr. Taylor catches my eye for a second but then goes back to grading papers.

The silence in the room makes the rustle of turning pages deafening, and the dull taps of my fingers on my keyboard sound like footsteps in an empty hall. So when Michael puts the folder on the table, it sounds like a clap of thunder. I jolt in my seat before I remember to play it cool.

"Crap," he says.

"What?" Lia and Holland ask in unison.

"We finally have a graphic short-but it's not very good."

My mouth drops in disbelief.

"Bummer," DeMarco says. "Let me see."

Michael pushes the folder across the desk to him. DeMarco reads the first page, passes it to Holland. Holland passes it to me, and I take it. I scan each frame slowly, as if I haven't seen it before, and then pass it to Lia.

When we finish, Michael collects the pages again. "It might just be me, but there's no plot. Right?"

This is when we all look at one another.

DeMarco shrugs. "Maybe it'll sell copies. Manga's popular."

Holland stifles a giggle. "It's a little fluffy, but gay boys are popular."

I sink even lower behind my computer, wishing I had a larger screen.

Michael shakes his head.

"What do you think, Jamie?" DeMarco asks.

"It's a love story," I say casually. "It's supposed to end happily ever after." I've read enough princess-meets-Prince-Charming picture books to my sisters to know this is fact.

"Romeo and Juliet is a love story," Lia says to prove me wrong.

"A morbid one."

"At least something happens."

"Yeah, they both die. Real exciting." I loop my finger in the air, then wonder if I should be looping it by my ear. I'm not a literary buff-I read only what's assigned-and I'm arguing the literary merits of a gay comic? There's something seriously wrong with my brain.

"It's called conflict," Lia informs me.

"There's conflict," I jab a finger at Challis's drawings. "This girl bullies the boys into kissing."

"But, yuck, that's what they wanted to do."

"Not in front of everyone. Not like that," I snap back, and realize that words aren't coming from some logical explanation I learned in English class. They're coming from my heart.

And maybe Michael can tell, because he cuts Lia off. "But if it were about a boy and a girl, there would be no story."

"But there is a story!" I say. "It's about two people finding each other."

Michael sighs like I missed his point.

"And it's a story about being picked on," I say. "It's about feeling different from everyone else. Everyone feels that way." At least I think everyone feels that way. I feel that way.

The others are silent, as if they aren't convinced.

So I continue, the words tumbling out as they short-circuit my brain, "It's not about being gay or straight. It's about finding an ally in a sea of bullies, finding love in a storm of hatred."

Holland nods.

Michael shakes his head.

DeMarco shrugs.

Dr. Taylor comes over and helps himself to the comic.

I watch his face as he reads.

"Yeah," Lia says. "And there's another problem."

"A problem?" I ask.

"Yeah," Michael says. "We're not in the most open-minded school district. People might get upset."

"All it takes is one parent complaining and we could lose funding," Dr. Taylor says.

"And Gumshoe is toast," Michael adds.

"We just resurrected Gumshoe from the graveyard," Lia says. "It'd be a shame to dig it a deeper grave."

"Yeah," DeMarco agrees. "This is gonna be my magazine next year. We got to keep it around."

I look at Dr. Taylor, hope he'll jump in and say something about freedom of speech-about gay rights, about banned books, about anything!

But he's nodding right along.

And so is Lia.

"But it is good!" I say. "And it shows diversity. Represents students in our school."

"I dunno," Holland says. "Maybe people would like it."

"People would like it," Lia repeats, "if the characters weren't gay for each other."

"That d-doesn't-" I sputter, my anger rising.

"It does matter. If it were a boy and a girl, it'd be fine," Lia says as if she solved our problem.

"Fluff," Holland says.

"And we're back to no plot," Michael reminds them.

"No," Dr. Taylor says. "It's not within our purview to change anything about the story."

Thank you, Dr. Taylor.

"It's either in or it's out," he continues.

"We should vote," Michael says.

I close my mouth so I don't look like a carp and choke down the lump in my throat. Challis is going to kill me. I said I'd get it in. And more than that, I want it in. I want someone, somewhere, to not feel alone and lost just because they read that story, and feel okay about coming out despite the odds stacked against them.

Dr. Taylor takes a sheet of paper and starts ripping it into squares. "Majority this time," he instructs, because we often go with a unanimous decision. Then he passes out the squares.

I write IN, fold it up, and pass it back. I want a million squares of paper. I want to write IN on all of them. I want proof that I didn't let Challis down, proof I voted for what's right, proof we didn't censor her story.

Dr. Taylor collects the papers. Then he opens one and reads it. "No."

Another, mine this time. "In."

Then another no.

And a third.