In group it comes out that I’m gay—kind of hard to avoid when Seth’s name keeps popping up—and a couple nights later when Ryan can’t sleep, he starts sharing with me how hard it is for him at home. How he doesn’t have too many friends, and he’s really horny all the time, but girls don’t like him because he’s chubby and insecure and has acne. “All they want are jocks,” he says, “or guys who can buy them shit.”
I tell him it might not always be that way and that those girls sound pretty shallow to me, but he still feels pretty bad and even starts crying a little. I can tell he’s trying to hide it, which makes it even worse.
Long story short, I end up giving him head. He asked me to—it’s not like I offered. I don’t even think Ryan’s gay or bi or pan; I think he’s just really lonely. It seems like a small sacrifice on my part if it makes him feel even a little bit better about himself. I don’t even consider it messing around, since it was pretty one-sided.
I don’t know why I have to make that distinction. It’s not like Seth and I are still together.
Anyway, I tell Dr. Denovo about it in our one-on-one. He asks me if I wanted to do it, and when I say,not really, he asks me why I did it anyway, so I tell him I felt bad for Ryan and he says, “Why aren’t your desires as important as others?”
That’s the thing about Doc. You’ll be talking, talking, thinking he’s only half-listening or just being a sympathetic ear, and then he’ll pull out a question like that. He tells me he wants me to do this exercise where before I say yes or no to something, I ask myself if it’s whatI wantand to give that more importance than what the other person wants, even if it feels uncomfortable.
He also tells me he’s going to have to tell administration about the “incident,” but that I won’t lose any privileges, since we’re working through it. Ryan and I both get moved to singles. Strangely, it’s even harder for me to fall asleep without his snoring.
Ryan asks me not to tell anyone about it—me giving him head. I think he’s ashamed. I want to tell him what Dr. Denovo said,We live in a culture of vicious shame,but you can’t just drop that shit on people without context, and I don’t trust myself to explain it correctly. Besides, there’s nothing more annoying than when one of the residents tries to play therapist.
I tell Ryan he doesn’t have to worry about anything getting out. I’ve always been good at keeping secrets.
THEN
On the nights when Seth wasn’t out with his friends, he called me, on FaceTime so he could see me, even if we’d already spent the whole afternoon together. I got the impression Seth didn’t have much homework or student activities to keep him busy. He also didn’t seem to sleep all that much either. Luckily, Mai and my bedrooms were upstairs, so my parents, for the most part, couldn’t monitor what we were up to.
I was laid out on my bed with pillows propped behind my head when Seth asked me if I was out at school.
“No, I’m not out to anyone.”
“Not even your parents?”
“Nope.” I didn’t want to tell him I was still figuring things out. He seemed so confident in who he was while I was still muddling through.
“Would they kick you out?” Seth asked.
“I don’t think so, but it would make things a lot harder around here. Especially with my dad. We don’t have the best relationship.” I’d be happy to graduate high school and move out without ever saying anything to him about it.
Seth probed me on the subject, and I told him a little bit about how it was between Mai and me. How she was really smart and a hard worker and had, like, a photographic memory. She could memorize all kinds of stuff, which meant her test scores were always off the charts.
“I didn’t talk much in kindergarten,” I told Seth. “I was shy or whatever. The teachers thought I had a learning disability, so they held me back. I think that set the tone with my dad.”
“Must be hard living in your sister’s shadow,” Seth said sympathetically.
I told him about how my sister was the district champion speller for three years in a row. My dad went with her to the National Bee in D.C. every time. Then, thinking he was the reason for her success, he tried to mold me in the same way. “I can’t spell for shit,” I told Seth. Seth laughed his ass off at that. I tried to join him, but I could still see my dad sitting across the dining room table from me, drilling me with words and getting frustrated when I made a mistake. My mom finally had to step in.
I said this to Seth, “It’s like he expects the worst of me and even when I do something good, it still isn’t near as good as what Mai can do, so it’s still a disappointment.”
“That’s shitty,” Seth said. “What about your photography?”
I’d sent Seth a few links to my various online galleries. He raved. It shouldn’t have affected me like it did, but I wasn’t confident in my art the way he was. His praise seemed to count for more than any of my other friends.
“My dad’s not really interested in that.” I explained to Seth our immigrant lineage and how the view in our household is that anything that doesn’t translate to a steady job or prosperity isn’t really a priority. My mom grew up in Japan and moved to the U.S. to pursue an accounting degree, so both my parents had similar mindsets on that.
“It’s like they don’t even know you,” Seth said, and in a lot of ways, he was right. He asked me if I wanted to come out at school, and I told him it would just make things harder. I was the only Japanese kid in just a handful of Asians. I didn’t really need another thing that set me apart from everyone else.
“But that’s what makes you so cool,” Seth said. I believed he meant it. Seth was counter-culture, a rebel and an artist. He had tattoos and broke rules and wasnotheterosexual. He also seemed to have a taste for the exotic, which worried me as well because being Japanese was only one part of my identity. I didn’t want to be a fad for him.
My door opened a moment later, and Mai stood there. “Who are you talking to?”
“Just a friend from class.” Seth could still see me, but he couldn’t see Mai.
“You never talk on the phone. To anyone,” she said.
