“You said you were never wrong. That your, umm… that your gaydarwas accurate.”
Riley laughed. “It’s not an exact science. You’re a sweet kid.You’ve just got this… not entirely straight air about you. But that doesn’tmean I’m right.”
“Okay, but what if… what if I like girls, right, but there wasthis one guy…”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “So what if you were bi?”
“Does it count if it’s only one guy?” Max asked. “Hypothetically,I mean.”
Riley gave him a look that told Max he knew this wasn’t remotelyhypothetical.
“Hypothetically, sure. There’s no… minimum percentage, orwhatever. Your feelings are real. I’ve been in love with Brent since we wereteenagers, but… there were a lot of girls, and a lot of boys in-between. AndI’m married to him now, and I’m happy, but… that doesn’t change anything,either.”
Max swallowed. He wasn’t sure that made things any clearer at all.
“What I’m saying is… you feel however you feel. Is thishypothetically about Connor?”
“Hypothetically, yeah,” Max said. His stomach clenched atadmitting it out loud, but he trusted Riley.
Riley nodded. “Yeah, kinda saw that hypothetically coming.”
“The problem is that I don’t knowhowI feel. There’s…there’s something, right, but I don’t know if it’s real and I dunno if I’mjerking him around or if it’s okay to need time for this, and I don’t wannahurt him. Not for anything.”
“It’s okay to need time,” Riley said. “Don’t ever let anyone makeyou doubt that. You take every minute you need, and not a second less, okay?”
“Okay,” Max agreed. That took a weight off his shoulders.
“Is he pressuring you?” Riley asked, his tone suddenly serious.“Because thatisn’tokay.”
Max shook his head. “No, no he’s not… he’s been great, and I just…what if I’m faking this, too? What if I’m so caught up in the idea of marryinghim that there’s just all these other feelings and maybe they’re not… real.”
Riley whistled lowly. “To borrow an outdated phrase,heavy, man.”
Max smiled wryly. That about covered it.
“You ever heard of Occam’s razor?” Riley asked.
Max blinked at him.
“I’ll take the look on your face as a no. Dude was a philosopherduring the middle ages, and long story short, Occam’s razor is the principlethat the simplest answer is usually the right one.”
“So…?” Max asked, not sure what Riley was getting at.
“It makes more sense that you’re actually feeling what you’refeeling than that you’re making it up,” Riley said. “Because people have realfeelings all the time, and because worrying that you’re not really bi enough isa well-documented phenomenon.”
“What if I don’t know exactly what the feelings are?” Max asked.
Riley chuckled. “That’s life. Can’t help you there.”
“You’re smarter than you want people to believe,” Max said,feeling as though he’d unlocked one of the great mysteries of the universe.
Riley winked at him, but said nothing.
He wasn’t sure he’d actually learned anything from thisconversation--except that Riley had a surprising working knowledge of medievalphilosophy--but it helped to hear that Riley believed him.
And that what he was feeling was, probably, real.
He still needed time to think about it, but the reassurance meanta lot. Especially from someone like Riley, who seemed to more or less have hislife together.
