Chapter Fifteen...

Feeling like a hyperactive, gossipy fourteen year old (which I suppose I sometimes I am), I rushed up to Michael at school the next day to tell him about my phone calls the night before. I waited until Lilly had stalked off though, of course.

"You'll never believe what happened!" I exclaimed.

"What?" Michael asked, his tone not sounding as enthusiastic as it should have been for the news I was about to tell him. He was walking along with his head low, facing the ground. I guess he's being self conscious about the whole outing thing. And hey, I would be too. Especially since almost every eye in the school entrance is on him.

"I spoke to..." I started, but stopped when none other than Max Broderick himself walked up to us.

"Hey," he said, falling into line next to me. "What's up?"

"Oh, you know...boring school stuff," I replied, trying, unsuccessfully, to catch his eye. He seemed more interested in catching Michael's eye though.

Michael didn't reply, but I noticed him tense up. Oh yes, this is love. It has to be.

"Um, you're Michael, right?"

Michael looked up, but didn't look him in the eye. "Yeah, uh huh. I'm Michael."

"Oh, great. Because, um," he stopped and winked at me. "Principal Gupta said she'd assigned you to help me out around the school. You know, with directions and all."

I smiled, thinking of those phone calls last night, but I didn't call Max on his blatantly obvious (to me, anyway) lie.

Michael perked up. "Sure," he said. "I'll be your guide or whatever. No problem."

"Great," Max said. "So, uh, can I walk you to your locker? We can talk."

I watched Michael and his new found love prospect, if that is indeed Max's intentions, walk off into the school. It's like watching them walk off into the sunset, except of course, for the people gawking at them and the lack of the actual sunset.

After Michael and Max had disappeared, Lilly came up to me.

"Hey," she said, helping me stuff my back pack into my locker.

"Hey," I replied, even though we got past greetings on the way to school.

"Um, I just think you should know that I appreciate you being a good friend to Michael recently. Normally I'd hate to temporarily lose my best friend to my brother or whatever, but he's going through a tough time right now, and I think you're good for him."

"Thanks, Lil."

"And um, I also think you should know what happened with our parents last night..."

The reason Michael had had to hang up from me. "Go on."

"Well, you know how our parents are psychoanalysts?" I nodded. "Well, they confronted Michael about...you know...and then they asked him if they could use him and his views as an example of how minorities in society are unfairly judged in the book they are planning on writing."

"And what did Michael say?"

"Some fairly colorful words. But basically the gist of it was that no, he wouldn't be interested, and that although he's glad they're not freaking out about this, he doesn't want to talk about it with them. So I think it's important that you be around for him to talk about it with, when he needs to, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Because this could really stuff him up. He's already having problems with people here at school, he doesn't need the added pressure of our parents hounding him for information on what it feels like to be viewed as sub-human in the eyes of societies less open-minded scum."

Having gotten this morning's books out, I shut my locker and faced her, looking her in the eyes. "Lilly, how long have you known for?"

She shrugged. "Ages. I mean, he never actually told me, but there were things he'd do that, even though he had no idea what it could possibly mean, showed me he wasn't exactly like most teenagers."

"And you never spoke to him about it?" I asked.

"No. I didn't want to embarrass him. And I could see that he was still trying to work it out for himself, so I didn't want to confuse him even more."

I nodded. "Did you see him with the new guy?" I couldn't help but ask.

She smiled. "Uh huh. Do you think it's love?"

"Definitely."

Later

I skipped Princess Lessons this afternoon to hang out with Leaves, Lilly and Tina. Leaves insisted that as his guide, I show him around New York a bit. And being scared shitless, I insisted on bringing Lilly and Tina.

Walking up to Lilly's apartment, after Tina and Leaves had left, we talked about how cute it'd been when Leaves was trying to find his apartment building from the top of the Empire State Building. He'd said he wasn't going anywhere until he found it. But when he realised that we were facing the complete opposite direction, he recoiled.

"So you like him?" Lilly asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, trying not to show just how much I like him. "Yeah, he seems cool."

Lilly laughed. "Well I think it's safe to say he likes you. I mean, Principal Gupta assigning you to be his guide is a pretty far fetched story. Gupta never assigns kids to be guides. You've just got to find your way around the school yourself."

"That's what Max told me," I told her. "That it was bull. But then he went and used the same story on your brother."

"See?" Lilly said, opening the door to the apartment. "It must mean...Oh my."

I couldn't see past Lilly to see what it was that had caused her to stop so suddenly, so I just pushed her aside.

Michael was there, sitting on the couch, his school books spread out on the coffee table.

And he wasn't alone.

"Uh, hi, guys," he said, flushing bright pink when he saw us standing, open mouthed in the doorway.

"Hi," we muttered at the same time.

Max waved a hand at us, but we could only smile back.

"Uh, we're just studying, I'm trying to help Max catch up on all the school work he's behind in."

"I'm sure you are," Lilly said suggestively. The fact that Max and Michael were sitting extremely close on the couch hadn't gone unnoticed by her.

"Well, we'll just let you get back to your studying."

Fifteen minutes later I escaped from Lilly's room to get a glass of water from the kitchen. I heard the door open and shut, then Michael came into the kitchen.

"Max just leave?" I asked.

"Uh huh," he replied.

I poured him a glass of water.

"We were just studying," he said after a minute.

"I know," I told him.

"I mean, it's not as if anything else was going on," he assured me.

"Okay, I believe you."

"Because it's not even as if..."

"Michael," I cut him off. "It's okay. You don't have to explain yourself to me. But you can tell me all about it later."

He smiled coyly. "How do you know there's anything to tell?"

Oh, I know. I know.