Chapter 6: Life is too important to be taken seriously

I am not young enough to know everything.

Another English class off to a good start.

"Who can tell me anything about this quote?" the professor asked. No one answered. "Stella?" he asked, calling on curly haired sorority girl.

"It's by Oscar Wilde, right?" she asked.

"It's often attributed to him, but no. Actually, this is from JM Barrie's play, The Admirable Chrichton. Most people know Barrie as the guy who wrote Peter Pan."

"Oh," Stella breathed a sigh of understanding, "that makes sense."

A dark-haired boy sitting next to Stella raised his hand. "Professor?" he asked "Is this in the Isaac Newton sense that the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know, or was Barrie under the impression that children are actually more intelligent because they are more open to new ideas and less distracted by the trivial notions of adulthood?"

"What do you think, Grayson?"

Annoyance flashed across Grayson's face, an annoyance that I was sure pretty much every student understood. When teachers throw your own questions back at you. No, I don't know the answer. If I did, I wouldn't be asking you, now would I?

"I-" Grayson stuttered, "I'm not sure which one he meant. That's what I was hoping you would know."

"And what makes you so sure that he only meant one thing? Or even that author's intent is important to the way the reader interprets the text?"

"But-" this puzzled Grayson. He glanced over at Stella and I realized this boy must be the one Rose and Grace's roommate Ally was dating, the one Stella thought was cute and Juliet decided was adorable but not manly enough. Just in case you were interested in how squealy sorority girls rate him. I'm going to avoid rating him, but I can confirm that he has dark hair, green eyes, and absolutely no facial hair, so maybe I guess he was cute.

I saw a new message appear on my phone sitting on my desk. In high school, phones were strictly banned. They had to be locked in lockers and turned off if you didn't want it confiscated by the teacher. In college, no one really cared too much as long as you didn't have them out during a test and they didn't start making noises disrupting class.

It was a text from Alexander.

'EMERGENCY LITERARY ASSISTANCE!'

'?' I typed back

'Help me with a paper? ? Please. I know it's last minute, but Nikola (who was supposed to be helping me) decided he had better things to do.'

'Uh, okay sure. 2pm work?'

'Absolutely! ?Thank-You! ? You're a lifesaver!'

"What do you think, Henry?" The professor asked, probably somewhat annoyed that I was on my phone. Maybe some teachers care. Luckily, I had been paying attention.

"I think that Barrie probably meant that kids are just better than adults because they're innocent and not, like he said, caught up in adult stuff. Barrie kinda had at thing for kids." Rose gave me a raised eyebrow. "No! Not like in pedophile way, he just liked kids. He liked playing games with them and making fun of grown-ups and stuff. He pretty much was a kid on the inside."

"Okay, so that may be what the author meant, but is that also what you think the quote means?"

"Are they not the same thing?"

"Not necessarily. A story is a message from the author to the reader. It can be largely influenced by the author, but sometimes it can take on a life of its own and mean something entirely different to the reader, or mean different things to different readers."

Alexander looked so relieved when I knocked on his door later that day.

"Oh, Henry, I am so glad you're here." His usual air of elegance was dropped and he seemed more frantic and stressed than ever. He thrust a laptop into my hands. "This needs a lot of work."

"Okay, yeah."

"Thank you so much again for helping me this. Nikola was supposed to help, but he decided to ditch me for Juliet again," there was a bit of resentment in his voice for his best friend. "And it's due tomorrow." The panicked tone was back. His head was in his hands.

"Hey, hey, hey," I waved my hand to try to calm him down. "No big deal. I said I could help you with English and writing stuff, remember? And you got the math covered."

"Covered in red," he mumbled, and I smirked.

The paper talked about how Frankenstein's monster met Foucault's model of what a monster should be, as something combining both the impossible and the forbidden. Alexander had a lot of the work done already, but I was able to help him make his arguments more clear and coherent.

Strangely enough, this was one of the few times since I've gotten my author powers that someone gave me a piece of writing to read, and I wondered why I did not see or sense anything about Alexander in my mind. Perhaps because the paper was not about him, or perhaps because it was not finished, or perhaps because he had given me the power to change it, to put a piece of myself in it as well.

Finally, when we were mostly done, Alexander's phone buzzed and a grin splashed across his face as he read the text. I raised an eyebrow as he tapped out a reply.

"Who ya texting?" I asked, in the playful way you tease your friends about their crushes.

"Elliot," he said, as if I was supposed to know who Elliot was.

"And Elliot is…"

"Oh, just this cute b-" he hesitated, "person." He corrected himself. "This cute person named Elliot that I met in Queer Club."

"And do you like him, like in a-"

"Them," he corrected me.

"Them?" I asked, wondering how Elliot suddenly became multiple people.

"Elliot identifies as nonbinary, meaning he—I mean they—don't identify with male or female and prefer to use gender neutral pronouns like they/them. I keep messing up his—I mean their—pronouns and I feel really bad about that, so I'm trying to get better. It's easiest talking one on one, because then it's just you/your, you know?"

"Huh," I wasn't really sure what to say.

"Listen, Henry. Can I tell you something personal?"

"Sure."

"Okay, so I'm gay-"

I interrupted him laughing. "I never thought you'd be nervous about coming out, especially to people who already know."

"No, that's not what I'm trying to say." He smiled a little bit, trying not to laugh, but his tone was serious. "I like boys, and I've liked boys for a while now. There are some people who tell me that it's wrong for me to like boys, and for the most part, I've told them to just shut up and let me live my life, ya know? They've tried to tell me that maybe I'm just confused and that girls are actually pretty appealing and can't I just be normal? And I responded with a flat out no. Maybe girls are cool for you, but not for me. Anyways, Elliot's not a boy, but I think I like them, and I don't want to upset Elliot by making them feel like a boy so that I am liking a boy, but I've been constantly saying how much I like boys and I don't want to tell myself that I don't."

I had to take a few moments to process this and come up with an appropriate response.

"Wow," I said finally. "That's a lot. Okay, um, I guess just live your life I guess. You know, just do what makes you happy. I mean, you originally came out so that you could feel free to like who you want, so I don't think you should feel like you have to like somebody or not like somebody based on their gender. Just, I don't know, be you. I mean, I know being gay is a big part of your identity, but it's not the only thing."

"Thanks Henry," Alexander said. "That was surprisingly good advice from a straight boy."

As cool as it was to sense people's feelings, it felt good to hear people confess them to me, like they actually want me to know their story.

"No problem," I replied

"Henry," Alexander started. "When Nikola started dating Juliet, the two of them became completely inseparable. They have ceased to be Juliet and Nikola and are now 1 singular Juliola. Like they started dating two week ago, and I haven't seen one without the other in well, two weeks. She lives here now, and Nikola won't give me the slightest attention when she's around. I have no idea how Elliot feels about me, but if they like me and we end up dating or whatever, I want you to slap me hard in the face if I ever become a Juliola."

I chuckled.

"I'm serious. Slap me as hard as you can."

"Alright I will, I promise."

"Okay," he grinned at me, and I felt lucky to have such a friend.