We leave the store together and walk half a block to the nearest coffee shop. I think I’m still in shock a little. My childhood best friend is standing next to me for the first time in who knows how many years. It’s surreal.
Inside the coffee shop, Vanian tells me to find a table while he orders, confirming my iced coffee order the same way I used to drink it as a teen, two shots caramel syrup, one shot cinnamon, and two-percent milk. It amazes me he remembers that.
I watch him at the counter, smiling and confident as he always was. He used to work out heavily in high school, and even though he’s still pretty toned, he’s more lean than bulked up now. I think it suits him.
He’s wearing jeans with holes and tears in them, his ubiquitous Vans sneakers in a checkerboard black and white, and a black t-shirt that says “The horrors persist but so do I” with an opossum under the words. It’s the same casual look he’s always had. Now I wonder how many times he’s come to Madison without reaching out.
He returns a few minutes later with our drinks and sits across from me. An awkward silence lingers between us until I break it.
“How long are you in town for?”
“Probably gonna head back since my sister is out of town.”
I nod, sipping my coffee. “Still in Chicago?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you come to Madison often?”
“No, actually.” He shakes his head. “I don’t remember the last time I was here. Normally, my work keeps me too busy. I guess that’s why it was easy for Reagan to forget I was coming.”
“Just for a visit?”
He glances down at his drink for a second. “I needed a little break. My work can take an emotional toll on me sometimes.”
“I bet. You’re still working with kids?”
“Yes. It’s fulfilling, but it takes a lot out of me. I thought a change of scenery might be nice. Reagan lives over in Janesville now.”
“Her and Chris doing well?”
“Yep. Three kids now, can you believe it?”
I smile, remembering his bossy older sister. “She hated my guts when we were kids.”
“She hated everyone when we were kids. She’s actually not so bad now. Having kids mellowed her.”
“That’s good.” I slide my straw up and down in my drink. “What about you? Married? Kids?”
He practically chokes on his coffee. Coughing to clear his throat, he shakes his head. “None of that. Not that I wouldn’t be open to it, but again, my work keeps me so busy my social life is pretty much nonexistent. You? I figured you’d have a pretty wife and two-point-five kids by now.”
I squirm in my seat. “I was never going to have a pretty wife.”
“Oh, come on, Nantes. You had to beat the girls off with a stick in high school. You could’ve had any one of them.”
I never told him. I was too afraid of how he might take it. He used to make scathing jokes about things he perceived as gay, and even though I trusted him with everything, I was just too chicken to admit it.
“Because I’m… um, I’m gay, Vanian.”
His expression goes blank for a moment, then twitches with different emotions as he processes my words. “Gay?” he finally asks. “Like, only into dudes?”
“That’s what it means, yes.”
“Since when?”
“Technically forever, but I figured it out in…” I pause as my nerves tingle. “In high school.”
“High school,” he repeats. “But we were friends in high school. Best friends. Why didn’t you tell me?”
