"Why Sal?" Russell asked, as they strolled through the mall. "Why did you have to get us kicked out of Youth Group?"
Sal was still seething from the incident. How dare that man tell him off for wanting to live with his hypothetical girlfriend. And if he knew by girlfriend he meant Russell, who knew what he would have said or done. "They're all a bunch of slut-shaming homophobes."
"Now you know why I hate going there." Russell gnawed at his thumbnail, though Sal wasn't sure he had much thumbnail left to chew. "What am I going to do when Pastor Dave tells my parents about this incident? They're not supposed to know you even came!"
"Who cares what any of them think. You worry too much."
"My mom's going to ban me from ever seeing you." Russell tugged at his hair. "I'll never be able to hang out with you again."
"You say that every time I screw something up." Sal's stomach rumbled. "I'm starving. Can we get pizza, since I was robbed of it tonight?"
"And whose fault is that?"
Sal stopped in his track, in front of a booth. Several plain, black rings had caught his eye.
Russell leaned in. "Now what?"
"Ace rings," Sal said softly. Russell gave him a questioning look. "It's a sort of symbol for aces, wearing a black band around the middle finger of the right hand. I've been thinking about getting one."
Despite how upset Russell had been with him, he smiled. "You should."
Sal returned the smile. "Only if we go to Cold Gothic afterwards to get you that pair of fingerless gloves. You need more than just a coffin necklace."
Sal wore his ring with pride the next day, serving as a reminder there were other people like him. The best part was, nobody would know the true meaning behind the ring and its placement, so nobody would ever guess that he was ace. He fiddled with it all the way to English class, and took his usual seat behind Russell. Russell, who wore the usual coffin necklace, along with his new fingerless gloves. Black with studs.
"Is that one of those ace rings?" the girl at the table next to Sal asked.
"Uh-"
"I didn't know you were asexual."
"Well Heather, it's not something I-"
"I have this friend, at a different school. She's asexual too," Heather said. "You'd be perfect for each other. You already have matching rings."
"That's great. But I'm not interested-"
"What the hell is an asexual?" Brad asked.
"They're people who don't like sex," Heather said.
"You don't like sex?" Brad's voice rang loud, causing many students to turn to stare at Sal, who buried his reddening face in his notebook. "What's wrong with you?"
"Absolutely nothing," Russell said.
Brad curled his lip at him. "Nobody asked for your opinion, pan-fucker."
Russell turned back around, ignoring Brad but gripping the textbook in his hands. Sal rubbed his finger over his ring, fire filling his chest over Brad's insult. But defending Russell would make things too suspicious.
"Is this to make yourself feel better about being a virgin," Brad said to Sal, "or are you just looking for attention?"
"I'm not a virgin." Sal raised his chin. "I slept with every girl at my old school. They called me Sexual Sal, because of all the sex I was getting."
Russell snorted, then turned it into a cough.
"Like anyone would ever sleep with you," Brad said. "Well, Russell might. Is that why you hate sex? Because if I only ever did Russell, I'd hate sex too."
Sal lifted up his right hand, the one his ring was on, and flipped Brad off. Unfortunately, Mrs. Norandi walked in right then.
"Sal! If I ever see you do that again, you're going to the principal's office!"
Sal put his finger away and turned around, flushed.
"How long do you think it'll be before everyone knows about me being ace?" Sal asked Russell on their way to the cafeteria. "What with Brad's loud mouth, and all the other students in class who overheard him."
"I give it until tomorrow," Russell said. "That's how long it took for the whole school to know I was pan, anyway."
"How'd the whole school find out?" Sal asked.
"When Terry and I were..." Russell hesitated. "You know."
"Yes, I know." The fact still stung. "Get to the point."
"When we first started dating, everyone thought Terry was a girl, and I was straight. But then Terry came out as agender which pushed me to come out as pan. People were having a hard time taking Terry seriously when Terry was dating a 'straight boy.' I got bugged a lot about it too." Russell glanced over at Sal. "I told a bunch of people so they'd shut up and take Terry's gender more seriously."
"Did it work?" Sal asked.
"Not really."
Once Russell and Sal reached their table and took their usual seats, Terry spoke to Sal.
"I heard the big news. Now we can officially call our table the Queer Table."
Sal cocked his head. "What?"
"You're asexual, Russell's pansexual, I'm agender, and Stewart is... What are you, Stewart?"
"A straight white cis boy," Stewart answered. "But I'm an ally."
"And an ally," Terry said. "So Sal, have you gotten any embarrassing questions yet?"
"I've barely talked to anyone since the news dropped an hour ago at the start of English class. How did you find out already?"
"I overheard Heather telling her friends."
Of course. Sal rested his head in his hand. "I wanted to keep it private."
"And I don't plan on telling anyone," Terry said, picking at their bag of chips. "I've been there before."
"As have I." Russell pulled out his sandwich. "The next few weeks will be rough, but it'll die down."
"Until you get new kids coming around and asking you the same awful questions." Terry raised an eyebrow at Sal. "It never ends."
Sal looked down at his sandwich, face flushed. "I'm... sorry I asked you awful questions."
Terry smiled. "I'm sorry I pushed you into the lockers, and dated Russell two years ago. And lied about Brad stealing my pen."
Sal took a bite of his sandwich. Maybe Terry wasn't so bad after all.
"I guess one good thing came out of all this," Russell said. "You two are finally getting along."
As Terry and Russell predicted, Sal spent the rest of the day dealing with personal questions ranging from how his genitals functioned to if he had been sexually abused. On top of rude comments about asexuality being "fake," and unwarranted advice about how he should get his hormones checked.
"Why," Sal asked Russell after school, "couldn't Heather have kept her fat mouth shut?"
Russell flopped down on the grass next to Sal. "Because Heather doesn't know how to think before speaking."
"Today is the worst day I've had in months." Sal picked at a blade of grass. "The absolute worst. People kept asking if I was sexually abused, which reminded me of how I was physically abused. I finally stopped remembering those memories. I don't want to revisit them."
Russell put his hand over Sal's. "I'm sorry."
"And if one more person says I need to see a doctor, I swear..."
Russell wrapped an arm around him, and Sal rested his head on his shoulder. "It'll get better. Something more interesting will happen, and everyone will move on to that." Russell gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Sal one-upped him by locking his lips with Russell's.
"Oh my God!" a familiar voice shouted.
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