Page 134 of The Revenge Game
“What do you mean, I don’t know who he is?” I ask.
“I don’t know why you’re looking so worried,” Xander says to Drew. “I’m sure most guys will be stoked to find out their boyfriend is a multi-millionaire tech genius.”
I feel like I’ve stumbled into some alternative reality.
“My boyfriend is a multi-millionaire tech genius?” I repeat.
“His real name is Andrew Yates. Look him up. According to Google…” Xander continues to talk about net worth and stock options and something called Series A funding, which apparently is worth more than the GDP of a small country.
But I’m not listening anymore.
Andrew Yates.
The name snags in my mind. It echoes inside me.
Because I remember Andrew Yates. He’s the main person in all those high school memories I’ve tried for so long to repress.
I remember Andrew Yates by his voice— soft, careful, like someone who’d learned to take up as little space as possible. I remember how that voice would crack when we cornered him in the computer lab, how it would waver when trying to answer questions in class after we’d spent the previous period making his life hell.
I remember his glasses, thick black frames that Connor once snapped in half “accidentally” during gym class.
I remember his fadedStar TrekT-shirts. How they hung loose on his skinny frame. The one with the Enterprise on it that got ruined when we “accidentally” spilled Gatorade all over him in the cafeteria.
I remember the crude gestures that accompanied every chorus of “Handy Andy” when he walked down the halls while I leaned against my locker and forced out laughter that tasted bitter in my mouth.
I remember his locker—the third one from the end in the science wing, plastered with coding competition certificates that Tad used to rip down while I watched. I remember the Pride sticker he put up our freshman year that lasted exactly two days before someone defaced it with a permanent marker.
I remember how he always sat in the back corner of the computer lab during lunch, shoulders hunched like he was trying to fold himself smaller.
I remember everything except his face.
I take a step back. “You’re Andrew Yates?”
Drew looks up at me. His features have frozen like someone’s hit pause on every emotion except panic.
The realization hits me like Bobby Ray’s fist used to—sudden, devastating, leaving me struggling to breathe.
That person who reduced Drew’s self-esteem, who made him think he wasn’t worthy of love.
That wasme.
Those same hands that I watched Connor slam in a locker door have been touching me so gently these past months. That same voice that used to shake with fear recently told me, “I love you.”
“Did you know?” My voice emerges like I’m choking on broken glass, each word cutting deeper than the last.
It’s the most redundant question in the world because, of course, he knew. The expression plastered on his face right now tells me he knew exactly who I was.
“Yes.” Drew’s voice comes out barely above a whisper. He clears his throat and then raises his gaze to mine.
“I saw you in a pub in Oxford Circus a few months before I came to work here. I recognized you immediately, but you didn’t recognize me.”
Xander’s staring at us like he’s watching the season finale of his favorite reality show, torn between horror and fascination at the plot twist that he doesn’t quite understand but gets the feeling is juicy.
The hot chocolate slips from my fingers, hitting the floor with a splash.
The room suddenly feels too small to contain all the versions of us that exist now—Drew and Justin, Andrew Yates and the high school bully, the man I love and the boy I tormented.
I need to get out of here before I shatter as completely as that paper cup, before the weight of every cruel word I said to Andrew crushes what’s left of my composure.
