Now who was getting hysterical? “Okay. But you knew this had to happen eventually, right? I mean, maybe not in so splashy a way, but still. I thought you were just keeping it a secret so he didn’t pull you out of Eli before you could get your degree.”

Malcolm, however, said nothing, so I pressed. “How long were you planning on staying in the closet?”

“To be honest,” he replied in a voice saturated with sarcasm, “I’ve been so busy with keeping up my grade-point average, I hadn’t given it a lot of thought.”

“Well, start now. You can’t live a lie forever.”

“Yeah, but I can’t kiss my family good-bye, either. You don’t understand what it would be like, Amy. There’s nothing you want that would make your parents hate you.”

He had me there, I’ll admit. “So, what are we going to do?”

Malcolm took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for what came next. “She gave me an alternative.”

“Marry her?”

“If only it were that easy.” (Honestly, I wasn’t sure if he was joking.) “She says that she’ll drop the article on me if I provide her full access to the secrets of Rose & Grave.”

I let out a short bark of laughter. “Did you tell her that we can’t even get ourselves into the tomb at present?”

“Of course not!” He looked offended. “That’s not for barbarians to know.”

I considered bringing up the several dozen barbarians in the audience milling around High Street yesterday. Plenty of people already knew it. In fact, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t an article about the commotion in the Eli Daily News right now.

“I told her that Diggers don’t stoop to blackmail.”

“Oh, no?” I mocked. “That’s exactly what the patriarchs are doing to us!”

“Okay, fine. I don’t stoop to blackmail.” Malcolm lifted his chin momentarily, then slumped back in his seat. “But that doesn’t mean I could sleep last night. Oh, God, Amy, what am I going to do?”

Why was he asking me? Go ask one of the real taps. The smart ones. Josh or something. Or one of the seniors. I’m sure Poe could think up some way to have Genevieve disappeared for threatening a Digger.

Of course, since even the Diggers’ governing body had Malcolm on their shit list right now, that quarter was probably not going to be the most helpful providing means-by-which-to-threaten. Those resources were all tied up in making sure I had no summer job. “Who else have you told?”

“No one. I didn’t want to worry them right now, when we’ve got all this other stuff to deal with.”

“Then why come to me? Why tell me all of these things—some of which you’ve already said are supposed to be a secret.”

Malcolm looked down at his hands. “Well, I was kind of wondering if…you’d go out with me.”

“What!”

Malcolm rolled his chair forward and clasped my hands in his. “Amy, don’t you see, that would solve everything! If we told everyone you’re my girlfriend, then her article would come off as just her bitterness over our breakup. I could tell my dad that’s why she did it—which is kind of the truth anyway—and also that she’s all upset because I didn’t tap her. My dad would buy that. He totally would. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that.”

I looked at him in shock. “He wouldn’t think you were just pulling the same mustache trick or whatever?”

“Beard. And no. We’d make sure he didn’t. I can be very affectionate, and very convincing.”

Yeah. He’d been doing it for years.

“He’d have her silly article,” Malcolm went on, “but also have us in front of him. He’d see me being straight with his own eyes. My dad’s really into personal verification.”

“Eww,” I said. “I sincerely hope you don’t mean what I think you mean.” Like, letting him find us in bed. Gross.

“Not unless it’s unavoidable.” He noted my stricken face. “Amy, that was a joke!”

I whipped my hands away. “No!” I stood up, tried to put as much personal space between us as possible. “Absolutely not.”

His face fell. “Amy, please. You don’t understand. If this happens, then my life is over.”

Or it was started. “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise? You won’t have to pretend any longer that you believe all your dad’s conservative Republican crap.”

Malcolm blinked. “But Amy, I do believe it. You know that, right?” (I so didn’t know that.) “Well, not the part about homosexuals and minorities, but the rest of the party platform. I am a Republican. Small government, free trade, go Army. I’m in the NRA, for crying out loud.”

“Oh.” Well, that put a different spin on it all. “You know, there’s a name for people like you.”

“Pink elephant?” He gave me a wry, lopsided smile. “Come on, Amy, please.”

“I can’t, Malcolm.”

“Please. I know you don’t think I deserve any favors right now. I mean, I brought you into Rose & Grave, and you lost your job. But things will get better, I promise. We’ll figure out this stuff with the patriarchs and then, well, you’ll be surprised at the kind of opportunities you’ll get out of this. Isn’t that why you joined?”

“You’re saying I owe you this for making me a Digger?”

“I’m saying you owe me this because of your oath.” He stood a little straighter. “I do hereby most solemnly avow, within the Flame of Life and beneath the Shadow of Death, to bear the confidence and the confessions of my brothers, to support them in all their endeavors, and to keep forever sacred, et cetera? Have you forgotten already?”

“No. And when the society starts treating me like a member, I’ll go back to keeping my promises.” Of course, even I knew that’s not really how it worked. At least, not if the new taps’ argument was going to be: We’re the society. We’re the active members. The current students. You’re just alums.

“I’m treating you like a member,” Malcolm said. “I’ve never done anything else. I’m your brother.”

“Malcolm, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I have a boyfriend.”

He gave me a look of disbelief. “What? Since when?”

“Last night.” I toed the throw rug with the edge of my sneaker, wondering exactly how much he knew about my interlude with George.

“So, clearly a very committed relationship,” he mocked.

I swallowed. “It’s not like that. We are committed, it’s just been a long time in coming. It’s—Brandon.”

“Ah.” He nodded in recognition. “Well, good for him for finally tying you down. You’re quite a catch.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not.” His expression softened. “You are. Why else would I want to date you?”

“Because the fact that I’m female makes me better fit for presentation than most of your lovers?” I scoffed. “Sorry, Malcolm. But I don’t buy that you have any great preference for me. I’m a woman, and I’m available. Same as the reason you put me in Rose & Grave.”

He sighed. “What will make you believe that I want you there, Amy?” He pointed toward the tomb that stood beyond the slate of the Calvin College wall. “Not as a warm body, but for what you have to offer?”

“What is that?” I raised my hands in supplication. “I fit a slot you desperately needed to fill.”

“Sometimes that’s how belonging works.”

“Not good enough.”

Malcolm was silent for several seconds. When he finally spoke, it was in a voice of despair. “So that’s just it, then? You’re quitting?”

“Going to cut my losses, yes.”

He turned away from me. “Then I really did make a mistake.”[5]

Since there wasn’t much to say after that little judgment, I left. Heading back to my room for the second time that morning, I wished (and this one’s a first, let me tell you!) that I could turn my brain off. Just for half an hour. My whole body seemed to buzz with thoughts. Every step brought with it increasingly gruesome forecasts of the consequences of my actions and bleaker visions of my future, which had heretofore seemed so 78 degrees and sunny, with a chance of perfection.