He looked at himself and then at me. “Don’t you get it? I’ll never know if you want me to change because my shirt is messed up or if you want me to change because you’re worried I won’t fit in.”
“Of course you fit in,” I told him.
“Do I? I know I can hold my own academically. It’s the one place where I feel confident. Where I don’t have to feel ashamed,” Hayes said. I shook my head. I hated that he felt that way. I knew how lonely and desperate that felt, albeit from a different angle. Still, the force of the feelings was so strong that I didn’t know what to say. Hayes kept going. “Earning that scholarship on my own would have meant I had a fighting chance in your world. That I brought something to the table. I’ll never feel like I fit into your world and we both know it.”
I told him it didn’t matter. That I didn’t want him to fit anywhere except with me. But something had changed for him. I think what happened made him feel exposed and embarrassed and he couldn’t find a way to talk about it.
I had never known he felt shame over his background. I knew it was complicated and connected to the way close-minded people made him think about his sexuality. I wanted to tell him that I was the one who was ashamed of who I was because of how I handled this. But he was completely closed off and I couldn’t find a way back in. Once shame took over it was hard for either of us to crawl out from under it.
He continued packing up. I tried to get him to slow down and talk to me, but he was determined to get out of there. Why wouldn’t he give me the benefit of the doubt? He knew I hated it when he shut down like this. He was doing all the calculations about our relationship in his head without me, and that meant he thought I wasn’t smart enough to be let inside the great mind of Hayes Carter.
“You’re being childish. Aren’t we at least going to talk about this?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. We live in two different worlds. I can’t live in yours and I’m working too hard to change mine.” He finished shoving everything into his bag and zipped it closed with so much force the zipper pull came off. He paused, caught his breath and turned to me. “You know what I liked most about this spring break trip and being with you? It felt like we were a team. Partners. It felt like we were in it together. I never felt that before.” He threw his bag over his shoulder and headed toward the door.
“Hayes, please.”
“Brady, thank you. I mean that. Thank you for everything.”
And he left. I sat frozen on the couch, trying to piece together what had happened, surrounded by decorations for a year of holidays we would never celebrate together.
I spotted him at Clarkson from across the quad the first week we got back, his broken backpack slung across one shoulder. Then again at the dining hall, one hand eating his usual Cheerios and chocolate milk, the other copying notes from his anatomy book. Each time my body froze and before I could even pretend to be okay, my head would turn away and my feet would move in the opposite direction.
I couldn’t bear to face him because I couldn’t face the truth. That maybe he was right. Maybe it would never work. Maybe we couldn’t travel the distance between us. Still, I never stopped thinking about that moment at the hotel, his hand on the door, his eyes searching mine, looking for a path forward that had to exist somewhere.
Poznan 24-hour Forecast
The unexpected storm that moved in last night forcing flight diversions across the region will move on by morning, leaving beautiful clear skies, warm temperatures in the upper 70s, and refreshingly low humidity. Light winds and high visibility will make for an almost perfect day.
Chapter 32
Poznan
Brady
The island of Capri is one of the most beautiful spots on the entire planet. Lemon groves cling to cliffs where a blue sea stretches across the horizon and melts into a hazy sunset.
However, we are not there.
Hayes and I are in Poland. Poznan, to be exact, which I am told is part of Wielkopolska, in west-central Poland, which under normal circumstances may be interesting. Chopin was Polish, but I only know that because I had a Polish piano teacher. After an emergency landing at the Poznan–Lawica Henryk Wieniawski Airport due to extreme weather and walking across the tarmac in rain so intense we might have been wading across a swamp, I’m sitting in the lobby of a rundown Soviet-era hotel hoping a room for the night might be available soon.
All airports in the area are closed until tomorrow at the earliest. Which means we are stuck in the middle of Poland for the next twenty-four hours, at the Royal Poznan Boutique Hotel. Which is as far fromroyalas you can get and a stretch of any definition of the termboutique. That said, it is a hotel, and it is in Poznan.
Hayes has gone out in the rain to find us something to eat and I’m swiping through screens and entering luggage claim numbers trying to locate our bags in the airline’s app. The diversion from our itinerary has helped melt the ice that was growing by the second in Berlin. We’ve had to work together to make it through the detour and deal with the situation in front of us before anything else.
When Hayes walks in the door of the lobby, he pauses to shake off as much water as he can before coming over to me. Even though he took a jacket and an umbrella, he’s still soaking wet when he returns.
“Did they say when the room might be ready?” he asks, using his hand to wipe water off his nose and cheek. I’m sure he wants to go upstairs and change. I’m only a bit drier than he is at the moment but I can’t wait to get out of these clothes. Hopefully our bags will arrive soon.
“They said twenty minutes. Again. Like they’ve been saying for the past two hours.” I look over at the woman behind the front desk on her cell phone, giggling and painting her nails. She wiggles her finger at me. I wiggle mine back.
Hayes digs under his jacket and reveals a mostly dry paper bag. He sits down in the bright green plastic chair next to me. The lobby is clean and straightforward. Some dated but comfortable office furniture in lime and royal. Two elevators. A grey tiled floor. Dead ficus plants next to dusty fake plants. A decrepit coffee maker with a sign that says, “Brokin.” I saw worse on our road trip in college. I actually find it strangely charming. It’s a stark contrast to the elegantly designed repurposed buildings where we’ve been staying.
“You know what this hotel used to be?” I ask Hayes. He looks around, trying to figure it out, and then shrugs. “A hotel,” I say, and he chuckles, and I feel better about the fact we are on a detour neither of us expected. At least he still has a sense of humor.
“What’s in the bag?” I ask.
“It’s something calledzapiekanki. The woman at the shop spoke a little English and she said it’s like a Polish pizza.”
