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wussies.”
    “I don’t think that’s how it works,” I said.
    “People only say they’re allergic to things because they don’t like them. It’s all a big scam anyway,” he said.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been allergic to lettuce since I was six.”
    “Exactly.”
    I knew, by the time we were freshmen, that Kyle was allergic to girls. It wasn’t in any obvious, stereotypical way, but he was my best friend and I knew him better than anyone. Around the time I started dating Cate, Kyle started acting pretty weird and apologizing for hanging out with us all the time and not having a life of his own. It was strange. Kyle had never been the type to apologize for anything.
    When I was dying, I mean in those last few weeks, Kyle would come over and keep me company until really late at night and sometimes into the early morning. My parents had to work, after all, and he wanted to spend as much time with me as he could. One night we were flipping through the channels and stopped on some of that really cheesy, bad music-ridden soft-core porn on Cinemax.
    “Ah, every dying boy’s dream come true,” I said.
    “Travis,” he said, oddly quiet and reserved.
    “Yeah?”
    “Can I tell you something?”
    “This movie doesn’t do a thing for you, right?” I said.
    “Not a thing,” he said, a sour look on his face.
    “And did you think I would give a shit about that?”
    “Not really. But no one else knows, okay?”
    “Well, I’d say your secret’s safe with me, but that’s sort of a given,” I joked.
    “I’m serious, Travis. I wouldn’t even be telling you if . . .”
    “If I weren’t about to be curtains?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Don’t be. I understand. Secrets will kill you, you know?”
    “You’re a good friend, Travis. Really.”
    “Hey, hey. All right. I don’t care if you’re gay, but you don’t have to go spreading it with all this sappy shit.”
    When this new Kyle, sitting in my kitchen and tellingjokes about all of his former teachers and my soon-to-be-yet-again-current ones, nonchalantly said “my girlfriend,” I suddenly felt like my head had found a way to slightly float just above my new body, barely connected. My parents had been drifting in and out of the room all evening, almost incapable of staying away from us, of seeing us the way we used to be. I nearly blurted out and interrupted him to ask “Girlfriend? Why would you have a girlfriend?” But I caught myself and let him keep going. Maybe he just wasn’t sure if my parents knew about him. Maybe he was just using “girlfriend” as a code for “boyfriend” or “partner” or whatever. He mentioned her again, said she’d been in one of his college English classes. I wanted to know what the hell was going on here. I wanted to know why he was talking to me, me , about a girlfriend five years after he’d told me he had no interest in girls at all. I wanted to know why my best friend was pretending to be someone he wasn’t and why everyone was letting this happen.
    When he eventually had to leave and after my mom had hugged him enough to embarrass us both, I walked him outside. I thought this would be my chance to get the truth out of him. I couldn’t let him leave with this huge thing hovering over us.
    “Kyle, man. You . . . umm . . . said you had a girlfriend?”
    “Yeah. Valerie. She’s cool. You’ll have to meet her soon.”
    “Valerie?”
    “Yeah, Travis. Valerie. I’m actually on my way to see her now. Running a little late.”
    And then I realized I was the only one he’d ever told. There were no secret codes here, no hidden meanings behind his words to protect people like my parents from the truth. The truth was that he was still lying to everyone, including himself. His secret died with me on the operating table, and now it was back staring him right square in the face, scar and all.

CHAPTER SIX
SCAR AND ALL
    Kyle eventually had to go, and I was never brave enough to confront him about his