“I thought you could probably stand to get out of your head for a little while,” he says. “And like I said, neither of us fucking golf. What else is there to do around here? You wanna go bowling? Next week I’ll take you bowling.”
I can’t help but snort at the image of Tristan bowling. It seems sacrilegious somehow.
“I would crush you, just so you’re aware. That’s basically the only family-friendly activity I actually did growing up. My nana was a fucking champ, she used to take us.”
Tristan smiles. “All right then, bowling it is. But I know this is something you used to do for fun, and I’m assuming you don’t keep guns in the house anymore.”
Neither of us speaks, and the mood in the car turns somber. I’m not sure what Tristan is waiting for me to say, but he doesn’t push it.
“Nah,” I answer. “I got rid of Dad’s guns when he left. We needed the money, and it wasn’t worth the risk, with the girls around. And now with Silas… Yeah, it’s not worth it.”
Tristan doesn’t say anything, because we both know what I’m talking about. There are a lot of ways to kill yourself, but a gun is well and truly the most effective. It’s easy to make an impulsive, devastating decision, which is one more reason I want them well away from my family. Even when you’re unsuccessful, Tristan and I have both seen the kind of physical damage that a last-second flinch can leave behind. Surviving something like that doesn’t normally mean you get your life back.
Nope. Not happening on my watch.
It was nice to shoot in a controlled environment, though. Bringing back some of my only happy childhood memories, as fucked up as that is. I felt calm, and distant from the issues in myreal life. Except for that brief moment when we walked in and the clerk first looked at me, though.
“Don’t you get uncomfortable going to places like that?” I ask when I can’t take the quiet anymore.
His brow furrows as he thinks about it. “What? You mean because I fuck men? Well, a man.”
“Classy, as always,” I reply.
“You know what I mean. I don’t really think about it. But I guess that’s my privilege. This kind of place is normal for me, and I’m not going to change what I do based on what some conservative asswipes think about my sex life. I’m not hiding who I am. And maybe if I keep acting like myself, it’ll open their minds to other people who don’t blend in as much as I do. Or maybe it won’t. It’s worth a shot, though.”
He pauses, studying me from the other side of the car.
“Does it make you feel weird? You grew up here. If anything, you fit in more than I do.”
I chew on the words. He seems to be so effortlessly at home in any situation he falls into. I’ve spent nearly every day of my life in this fucking county, but I keep finding more and more things that trip me up sometimes. Make me wonder if I still have the welcome I used to.
“It feels like my life is divided into a before and after, sometimes. Silas, I mean. Like he had such a profound effect on everything about me, that I’m a different person now, and everyone can see it.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Tristan asks, pulling some Big Red out of his center console that immediately fills the car with the smell of cinnamon as he chews.
My answer is fast, but not as fast as I’d like. “No.” I take a breath. “I’m a better version of myself with him, I know that. It’s just weird sometimes. And when shit goes down with my dad, I can’t tell which version of me he’s fighting.”
Now it’s Tristan’s turn to snort, rolling his eyes as he answers. “I think he’s fighting the version that’s throwing punches. That man does not contain hidden depths. He seems to be taking whatever you’re putting up for him to see without a lot of critical engagement.”
Yeah, maybe,I think, but hold my tongue.
“Do you think you’d still be queer, if it wasn’t for Silas? I’m not gonna lie, it’s been kind of nice watching you really get into the whole community aspect of it. It’s not something I ever would have considered at your age. And now I’m too old and grumpy to make new friends.”
That makes me roll my eyes, but I don’t take the bait.
“Oh, I was definitely fucking queer before Silas,” I say, shaking my head at my own stupidity. “I just couldn’t see it. I wasn’t spending a whole lot of time on self-exploration, I guess. I was busy just getting to the next day. But when I look back now, it was all right there, waiting for me to wake the fuck up. It wouldn’t change if Silas, you know…” I trail off, unwilling to even say the words. Unwilling to even think them. Like it would tempt the universe to fuck me over.
“Good. So then, did you really change? If you were bisexual all along and just too hard-headed to realize it? Or does dividing the world into some kind of before and after situation really feel necessary?”
I chew on his words for a minute before I answer. My pulse has ticked up a little, and I don’t like the way this conversation is going, but I feel obligated to at least reply to Tristan after he dragged me all the way out here as a pretense for this little heart to heart.
“Maybe it hasn’t changed. Maybe I just have more to lose now.”
Tristan nods slowly, still chewing that gum, his face set in the grimace he always seems to make when he’s dishing out his little pearls of wisdom.
“What are you gonna do about it?”
“What?” I reply, blinking.
