There were, I also thought, other means of coercion. I was almost afraid to sit with Kanesha at lunch. I was also afraid not to – she wasn’t much of a deterrent for him, but she was a bit of one. Sometimes a girl does need a wingman.

But it was Kanesha who solved that problem. When I headed over during lunch, the table was already full except for one seat.

“I told a few people you were having persistent boy trouble.”

I laughed in relief. “Thanks.” If he tried to push in now, one of the monitors would spot him. They might not do anything, but he’d think twice about hassling an entire table full of girls.

Prue was one of them. The others I barely knew, but in that moment I could have hugged every one of them. And I doubted they were in any real danger, either.

“We need to talk later,” I told Kanesha, then glanced at Prue.

“He’s hot, but…if he won’t take no for an answer.”

“It’s more that he’s the type to expect me to put out on the first date,” I explained. “I’m not going to be that kind of girl.”

I’d put out, I knew that, but not with him…and probably not on the first date. It just struck me as smart to make sure the person wasn’t any kind of monster first.

“Ah. Okay. I was starting to question your taste,” she quipped.

Prue knew about fairies, but she apparently couldn’t see through Martin’s disguise. I thought that a good thing. “I have taste. Nice abs aren’t the only thing that matters, right?”

“Right.”

“I thought of telling him I’m a lesbian, but that would get around the school and then if I did want to date a boy I’d be screwed,” I quipped.

“I sort of thought you were. I saw you hanging around the GSA,” one of the other girls said.

I shook my head. “Uh…no.” No, I wasn’t.

“And I thought…” She glanced at Kanesha.

“Nope.” Not because I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t about to say that. “I’m definitely not gay.”

The problem was I definitely wasn’t straight either, but I didn’t want to talk about it, the confusion, the complexity.

The having to choose and not having to choose and maybe one day I’d have to choose a person, and was that the same thing?

I really needed to find somebody else who seemed to swing all ways to the middle to talk to about this. Somebody not Loki.