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throwing your weight around, badgering him, that’s not going to be good. Not for him, that’s for sure.’
    ‘I don’t badger,’ I said.
    ‘How about throw your weight around?’
    ‘Not that either.’
    ‘Well I’m going to make sure you don’t. Do you have any idea what Chandler and Mike put him through?’
    ‘I know what they did, but I can only imagine the impact it would have had on him. Was Mike a bad kid? Is Chandler?’
    She glanced at me. ‘Bad? No. A lot of kids at that age do bad things, but I don’t think that makes them bad kids. They do things without thinking of the repercussions. They don’t consider how what they do will affect others. They haven’t developed a strong sense of empathy yet. They’ll go along with what the rest of the crowd is doing, even if it’s hateful, because they need so much to belong. I think we all did things as teens that we wish we could go back and undo. Cruel, thoughtless things.’
    ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but some kids are bad and stay that way.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Tell me about what they did to Joel.’
    ‘After they took that picture of him, they posted it in the usual places, and then others reposted it, and before you knew it, everyone in the school, and probably thousands beyond, had seen it. Joel was humiliated. People wrote things like “faggot” on his locker. His home got egged. He didn’t come to school for a week. His parents threatened to sue the boys, their parents, even the school. Chandler and Michael agreed to a full public apology. They were required to put it all in writing. There was a face-to-face sit-down. Joel’s parents agreed to drop their threats of a lawsuit. Things settled down after that, but that hardly made up for what Joel went through. At one point, I’m told, he was thinking of taking his own life, he was so humiliated. I’m sure he’s getting some kind of counseling.’
    ‘Do you think the boys were genuinely remorseful?’
    ‘I’d like to think so,’ Lucy said. ‘I don’t think they foresaw how quickly things would get out of hand.’
    ‘No wonder you looked stunned at the idea that Joel would write a story for Chandler,’ I said, heading toward the address we had for the Blakelock home.
    ‘Even if Joel were able to find it in his heart to forgive them for what they did, it’s quite a stretch to think he’d help either one of them do their homework.’
    ‘Unless Chandler isn’t telling it the way it happened,’ I said. ‘Maybe he threatened Joel, intimidated him into doing it.’
    But even if that were true, it didn’t explain the story’s content, or how prescient it was.
    ‘Who was the other boy?’ I asked. ‘How did this affect him?’
    ‘He couldn’t be seen in the picture,’ Lucy said, ‘and Joel never revealed who it was.’
    ‘You think it was another student from your school?’
    ‘Most likely. You’d think by now that people would have moved past this.’ She shook her head. ‘But you’d be so wrong. The country’s still split on same-sex issues. There are still people who think it’s a sickness or a choice. Some people are just born the way they’re born.’
    There was something in the way she said it that suggested this was personal.
    ‘Is there someone close to you who’s gay?’ I asked.
    Lucy glanced my way. ‘No, actually. I mean, I have a cousin. She’s gay, but she’s cool with it and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. It’s just I was thinking that so many of us are born wired a certain way. It’s who we are, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. Sexual orientation is just one thing. My daughter …’
    When she didn’t continue after a few seconds, I said, ‘What about your daughter?’
    ‘Crystal. Her name is Crystal. She’s eleven. And she has … sometimes I don’t know if it’s a learning disability, or a tremendous gift. But she’s not like the other kids. She’s withdrawn, very much in her own world. And she draws all the time. Like comic