Gradually the window fogged up and the front of my T-shirt grew damp with tears. Still I kept crying. Sniffs and sobs came out of me, then a couple of straight-out wails. This time there was no stopping it—I couldn’t seem to get anywhere
close
to a grip, and soon my body ached from crying, I was raw from the inside out. At some point I felt something touch my knee and looked down to see Keelie staring up at me, wide-eyed. A little later Dad came into the room, sat down on the window seat and put an arm around me. That felt okay so I scooted closer, and he put his other arm around me too. Then I just kept crying. Mom brought me some green tea, but by that time I was so tired that my hand was too shaky to hold the mug. So Dad took it and
blew on it to cool it, while I leaned against his chest and sobbed some more. When I’d finally calmed down enough, he held the mug to my lips, and I was astonished at how smooth and warm the tea felt sliding down my throat.
“This is amazing,” I croaked.
“I asked your mom to put lots of honey in it,” said Dad. Slowly I slurped down the rest of it, then lay my head on his shoulder and snuffled my runny nose against his sleeve. With all the tears and gunk I was leaving on his shirt, he was going to have major laundry to do. Sighing heavily I glanced past him, out the window. To my surprise it was dark, which meant Dad had to have been sitting here with me for at least an hour, completely clueless as to what was going on, just waiting while I cried myself out. And now that I was finished he was still here, waiting for an explanation.
What should I tell him? Should I make something up, use the experience as a practice run for the story I was going to have to start spinning Monday at school? But this was my
dad
, not the phone patrol. And he was here, sitting beside me in the dark, not even complaining about missing his supper because he loved me so much. Maybe I could tell him something...part of the truth, a little tiny
teeny
bit of it.
Burying my face in his shoulder, I mumbled, “Cam and I broke up.”
Dad’s arm tightened brief ly around me and he asked, “Why?”
“Because...,” I muttered, working my way slowly through various options and ditching them one by one. “Well...,” I said, still hanging on to being in between, nobody knowing. “Because...well...”
“Because, well...why?” prompted Dad.
Deep inside I could feel something untwisting itself in a long
gulping sigh—something that wanted to breathe easier, something that wanted
space
.
“Well, because,” I repeated, letting it untwist a little farther, then farther yet. “Because...I’m a dyke, that’s why.”
Dad sucked in his breath, and I could almost feel his thoughts moving carefully in the silence. Finally he laid his cheek against the top of my head.
“Good for you,” he said quietly. “It took courage to say that.” Emphatically I nodded.
Monster courage
, I thought, blinking back a fresh batch of tears.
The mother of all courage
.
“Don’t worry,” I muttered into his shirt. “Danny will give you lots of grandkids. So will Keelie, probably.”
Dad gave a short laugh. “Grandkids!” he said. “Heck, I’m too busy trying to keep up with my kids to worry about grandkids.”
“Well, I wanted to have kids,” I said. “With Cam. And he’s upset. I hurt him really bad.”
“How did you hurt him?” asked Dad.
With a sigh I pulled back, and Dad took his arm from my shoulder. The cool air came in around my face, patting it like gentle hands, and I sat staring out the window into the dark, thinking my way word to word.
“I lied to him,” I said hoarsely. “I should’ve told him a lot sooner. I mean, I’ve known the way I am since—y’know, since my body started changing and all that. But I pretended, I dunno, because I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like you and Mom, and get married, and have kids, and be happy. How can I be happy if I’m a dyke? And Cam’s so great, he would’ve been a great father, and—”
“Dylan,” said Dad. Taking my face in his hands, he turned it toward him. “Listen to me, sweetie,” he said. “This isn’t all your fault. It’s partly mine and your mother’s. When we first told you about sex, we didn’t mention the possibility that you might be
lesbian, and we should have. We should’ve mentioned it right at the start, so you had that possibility in your mind from the very beginning. No one ever talks about being lesbian or gay in this house, do they?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I can see how that would make you want to hide it,” said Dad. “It’s completely understandable. And don’t you worry too much about Cam. Lots of couples break up in high school. He’s a smart strong boy, he’ll work his way through it. No matter how much you cared about each other—”
“
Care
about each other,” I interrupted.
“Yes, you do,” Dad said firmly. “But you probably wouldn’t have ended up marrying Cam even if you were straight. People rarely marry their high school sweethearts. They go on to university and meet someone else, or get out and do some traveling and come back changed. I had several girlfriends before I met your mother, remember? Dating different people is an important way of finding out who you are and what you like. It’s not wise to marry your first serious boyfriend.”
He paused, then added quickly, “Or girlfriend.”
“Oh,” I said weakly. Then I just sat there, staring at his soggy shirt. I mean, it had never occurred to me that Cam and I might have broken up for
another
reason—that if I’d been straight, we still might not have gotten married. A weight lifted off me then, and I glanced quickly at Dad’s face. It was shadowy, but I could see him smiling at me.
“I feel like such a shit,” I said, my voice wobbling. “Like no one else will ever love me as much as Cam did.”
“Just you wait,” said Dad. “They’ll be lining up. You’ll be fighting them off.”
I had to smile a bit at that. I mean, he was obviously still thinking guys, not girls.
“So you’re not...disappointed because I won’t give you grand-kids?” I asked.
“Sweetie,” he said, touching my cheek. “I’m going to get to meet some very wonderful girlfriends that you’re going to bring home to meet your family. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you have great taste in dating partners. And I think you’re going to lead an unusual life, different from most people. An important life and a unique one. And I’m going to be right here watching you live it.”
Jeeeezus, he was really making me want to bawl now. But I didn’t. Instead I took a shaky breath and got a grip.
An unusual life
, I thought, staring out the window.
Important and unique. That sounds interesting.
Slowly I stood up, wincing at the stiffness in my muscles. Then I reached down and took Dad’s hand.
“This important and unique person is very hungry,” I said. “Let’s go eat.”
Dad grinned, then made a face. “Fair warning,” he said. “It’s Danny’s night to cook. Maybe we should stop in at the bathroom and dose up on some Alka-Seltzer before we go down.”
He waited outside the door while I washed my face and did my thing. Then, giggling like two maniacs, we opened the medicine cabinet and snuck a few Alka-Seltzer tablets into our pockets. And
then
Dad put his arm around me, and we went downstairs to join the rest of the family for supper.
For a week I didn’t do much of anything except sleep, eat and stare out my bedroom window. If there were
Foxfire
rumors going around at school I didn’t hear them, but that was probably because I was avoiding
everyone
. No way was I going anywhere near Cam’s usual haunts, and when it came time for English, I slouched down in my seat and kept my eyes fixed on whatever
page we happened to be on in
1984
. The hurt inside me was too big, I guess—I needed to go deep into myself and just be there for a while, waiting the whole thing out. Sometimes it’s important to let yourself hurt and find out what sadness means.
But not forever. Gradually, as Tuesday and then Wednesday plodded by, the dullness began to lift. My body didn’t feel like such a dead weight anymore, and it no longer seemed impossible to pick up my hairbrush. By Thursday food had a taste again, and I could smell the air coming into my nose. So when I woke Saturday morning to find Keelie’s face poked into mine, her little voice saying, “Wake up, Dylan. It’s going to be a busy
busy
day today,” a tiny crouching smile crawled onto my face and I actually felt like getting out of bed.
Keelie sure noticed the difference because she stuck around while I got dressed, chattering like mad as she picked out socks and a T-shirt for me to wear. Then, when I was dressed to her satisfaction, she led me triumphantly downstairs and pulled out a chair, saying, “Sit here, Dylan. I’m going to make your breakfast now.”
Well, I was willing to trust her with my socks, but not my french toast. So we did a quick role reversal, and I plunked her into the chair and tied a bib around her neck. Soon she was chowing down some fairly decent french toast, and the smell was dragging everyone else downstairs, still sleepy-eyed and mumbling. As I fried them up a few slices, I could feel Mom and Dad watching me carefully, obvious relief on their faces. Even Danny kept giving me ear-to-ear grins and actually volunteered to do clean-up.
So I left him to it, threw on my jacket and went outside. Over the past week I’d been too depressed to pay attention to the weather, but now I noticed that it had gotten noticeably
warmer. For a moment I just stood with my jacket open, looking around the yard. After my week in the land of the dead, it felt as if I was coming back to a place I hadn’t been in quite a while. And during that week, while I was lost wandering around in my thoughts, things seemed to have changed in some mysterious way. I mean, the sun was up in the sky the way it always was and the trees were growing in the same places, but at the same time everything felt completely new. Moving slowly around the yard, I started touching things—a tree, a large rock, even the side of the house—just feeling how alive the world was, how it opened to color and softness.
Abruptly the back screen door slammed open and Keelie came tearing down the porch steps. Hurtling around the yard, she started hollering at the top of her lungs. “I want to go swimming!” she yelled, spinning a pirouette. “I want to go to the zoo, I want to fly Daddy’s big kite.”
As I watched her spin another pirouette, bellowing about all the things she wanted to do in the next five seconds, it hit me— the million dollar question:
What do
I
want to do?
In the next five seconds, the next three hours—what do
I
want, more than anything in the world, to do?
The answer was as obvious as heartbeat. Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I hauled open the door, called Keelie back inside, and told Mom that I was going for a bike ride. Then I grabbed my bike out of the garage and took off down the driveway. As I sped along the street, the neighborhood was just a smudge of colors going by. So I didn’t have time for second thoughts before pulling up at the curb in front of the Hersches’ place, and the relief that hit me when I saw Tim’s car was gone was massive. I mean, we’re talking sky-wide here.
“Thank you, thank you. Whoever you are, I love you God,” I whispered. Still, to be on the safe side, I wheeled my bike around
the side of the house and locked it to the back fence. Then I ran up the front porch steps and knocked on the door.
Ms. Hersch answered, a newspaper in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. “Dylan,” she smiled. “I haven’t seen you for ages.”
“Is Joc here?” I asked, trying not to pant absolutely all over her.
“In her room,” said her mom. “She’s had breakfast, so she should be civil.”
Kicking off my shoes, I took off down the hall. And then, suddenly, I was standing in front of Joc’s closed door, wondering what to do next. I mean, I could do
anything
.
With a deep breath I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, eased it open. The curtains were still drawn, but in the dim morning light I could see Joc lying on her bed, wearing headphones. Her eyes were closed, her lips moving, and she was balancing a lit cigarette on an ashtray that sat on her stomach.
A wave of longing hit me. I mean, we’re talking hypersonic sweetness here. So I waited, riding it out, then slipped into the room. As I closed the door Joc’s eyes didn’t open, but it would have been impossible to hear anything over the volume she had going on those headphones. Taking hold of her dresser, I shoved it slowly across the door. When I’d gotten it levered into place, I turned toward the bed to see that she’d finally opened her eyes and was watching me.
She wasn’t smiling, but she was definitely interested. For a long moment we stayed like that, just looking at each other. Then, without saying anything I walked across the room, climbed onto the bed, and straddled her hips. Joc still didn’t smile, just quirked an eyebrow and held up her cigarette, offering me a drag.
Shaking my head, I leaned forward and took off her headphones. Sound blasted from them, vibrating my hands. Just like I’d thought, it was “Fear of Bliss.”
“I quit,” I said, keeping my expression in neutral, to match Joc’s. “I figured that would make me healthier, and
that
would improve my sex drive.”
Joc raised her other eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.
“Are you drunk?” I asked, leaning forward slightly.
Joc’s eyes glimmered. She shook her head.
“Are you stoned?” I asked, leaning forward a little more.
Again, she shook her head.
“When was the last time you brushed your teeth?” I asked, and finally,
finally
a grin hooked one corner of her mouth.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” she said. “Nature’s Gate toothpaste. Wintergreen flavor.” Pursing her lips, she puffed some air at me.
“Wintergreen,” I said. “My fave.” Then I leaned through the last few inches that separated us and kissed her. It was a soft slow kiss, a whispering, wanting, question-mark kind of kiss, and Joc definitely answered the question, her lips opening gently against mine. So when we finished that kiss, we started another and another. After the fifth, Joc put a finger to my lips and pushed me away. Stubbing out her cigarette, she set the ashtray on the floor.