I listened to these scenarios daily as I trudged over to my spot outside Mount Pleasant. Even on Christmas Day, I haunted the pavement while little kids wobbled their new bikes around me. And though I bumped into Julia a few times, who always said you were ill, always avoided my gaze, I never once saw you. I didn’t think then that I could ever be more miserable.
I was wrong.
The day after New Year I was sitting on Mike’s bed, beheading vampires, when I tossed the controller onto a pile of pillows and turned to him.
“Mike?”
“Yup?”
His tongue was clenched between his teeth as he executed a sweet headshot. I took the controller from him and he started to complain, then clocked my expression and frowned.
“Are you okay? Mate, what is it?” He turned his body towards me. It was now or never. If Mike ended up hating me, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but I couldn’t get out of it now. There was no revelation about myself that I could substitute and that he’d believe…because, you see, I was crying.
“I’m not straight,” I said.
He laughed, because how I’d said it was perfectly Dylan-ridiculous. Then he stopped abruptly and nodded.
“So you’re gay?”
“I am.”
“Are you sure?” He lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
He puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t know, bro, you are like the least stylish person I have ever met. Plus your dancing is atrocious.”
“Hey.” I elbowed him, grinning. “You know it’s kind of homophobic, presuming that all gay guys are amazing dancers?”
His smile faltered and he gave me a long look. “I’m sorry, Dylan.”
My heart went right through the floor. He was sorry. Sorry he couldn’t be my best friend any more? Sorry I was a freak? Sorry, but he’d pray for me?
“All those stupid jokes,” he sighed. “All that crappy gay banter stuff. Christ, it’s making me cringe, thinking back. You know if I’d had any idea, I would never…” And suddenly he was crying too and throwing his arms around me and crushing me in a typical Mike bear-hug. “I’m just so sorry, dude. Me being a complete moron must have made this even more difficult for you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, patting the blond head that was now tucked into my neck. “I accepted you as a complete moron when we were three.”
He laughed and drew back. “You know, whenever you want to come out, I’ll have your back. Any idiot messes with you at school?” He made a slicing motion across his throat. “And…” He made the same motion across his groin.
“You’ll cut their dicks off?”
“Damn straight. Or damn queer. Or whatever you prefer.” Then he dabbed a finger in his mouth and waggled it in my ear. “I love you, bro.”
“Thanks, mate.”
“So.” He let go of a huge breath. “Gay. Cool. Have you told anyone else?”
That was when it all came rushing out about me and El. As I recounted the early days of teasing and flirting and me retreating – or the Dance of the Dylan, as El liked to call it – Mike sat there with this cringing grin on his face. Then I reached our first twelve days of being boyfriends and, in my torrent, I let one or two pornographic details slip. Mike buried his face in a pillow and mumbled, “TMI, dude. T-M-fucking-I!” and I could feel the mother of all blushes sheet my face.
Then we came to the past week. Mike listened and slipped a hand around my shoulder.
“Bud, I don’t know what to tell you. El is a good guy. Honestly, I’ve got to know him a bit on and off the field, and I couldn’t have picked a better boyfriend for you. I just don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us.”
We sat there for a while, listening to Mumzilla downstairs practising for choir. Carol has this amazing melodic voice that I’ve always found really soothing. But not today.
“Dylan,” Mike murmured.
