Fifteen minutes. Raw. Angry. Political in a way that would make anyone at Kingswell uncomfortable. And it was obviously, unapologetically queer—not just the subjects but the vibe. The way Ethan's camera lingered. The intimacy. The tenderness. He wasn't observing from outside. He was part of it.
Something tightened in my throat as I watched. Not just admiration, but recognition and envy. Ethan had done the thing I couldn't do—taken the truth of who he was and made it into something permanent. Something that couldn't be hidden or qualified or taken back.
When it ended, I sat back. The screen went dark.
Ethan was watching me. His fingers pressed white against the table edge—the only tell.
"It's incredible," I said.
"You don't have to—"
"I'm not being polite, Ethan. It's really good."
He looked at the table. "The color grading's off in the second act. The pacing drags around minute eight. And the ending—"
"Stop."
He stopped.
"It's good. You know it's good. That's not why you're scared."
His jaw tightened. Caught.
I raised my eyebrows.
"You're right. I'm scared because it's me," he said. "All of me. Not the version I show at Kingswell. Not the polished, palatable gay kid who makes everyone comfortable." His voice was rising. "This is me saying their whole world is wrong. That the freedom I felt there felt more real than all of this."
"You've got more guts than me."
"Do I?" His voice thinned. "What if people or professors end up seeing it and they—" He stopped. "What if they hate me for it?"
The waitress passed our booth. Topped off Ethan's coffee without asking. He didn't notice.
I thought about the last two days. Kissing Liam against the boat rack. Apologizing for Brackett Lake. Telling him I'd regretted it every day. The terror of all of it—and how the terror hadn't stopped me.
"Ethan. It's a festival in Vermont. What are the chances anyone from Kingswell is sitting in some indie theater three states away watching student submissions?"
"I know… but what if it does well and it gets around?"
"There's that confidence." I smiled at him. "You're in the last hundred meters," I said.
"What?"
"The film. You're almost done. You've built the whole thing—the footage, the editing, the story. You're a hundred meters from the finish line." I looked at him. "You don't stop rowing at a hundred meters."
"This isn't a race, Alex."
"It's the same thing. You made something honest and that's the hard part. Now you finish it and submit it."
Ethan was quiet. Turning his coffee cup in slow circles on the table, the ceramic scraping against laminate.
"Easy for you to say," he said. Not mean. Just tired. "You've never put yourself out there like this."
The words landed. Because he was right. And because they carried the ghost of something older—the thing between us that we'd been stepping for weeks.
"You're right," I said. "I haven't."
He looked up.
