“Okay, it needs more work,” Micah admitted.
“If you were a horse, you’d be off to the glue factory,” Emma said. “Anyhow, I’m going to have to leave you boys alone for a minute while I run to the loo.”
They sat in silence as she slammed the door behind her, and it was somewhat awkward.
Finally, after what felt like hours, Will rolled his head to look at Micah directly. “I have to say something.”
This was never a good start to a sentence. “What?”
“I just wanted to say I was sorry.”
“What have you got to be sorry for?”
Will adjusted himself slightly, and hissed at the pain.
“Don’t do that,” Micah told him. “What do you want?”
“Can you push my pillow up? I feel like I’m sinking.”
As far as Micah could tell, Will hadn’t moved. He stood and fluffed the pillow, making it more stable between Will’s neck and back. “Is that better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Micah stared down at Will. “What were you saying before?”
“Sit down. I feel nervous with you standing over me.”
Micah did so, but scooted his chair closer. “I’ll say again, what have you got to be sorry about?”
“I have a lot of time to think in here,” Will said. “As you can imagine. And I just keep mulling over last year and everything that happened between us.”
“Will, we settled that last year when you joined GetOut. There’s nothing to apologise about.”
“It’s just… with recent events… I can’t help thinking this is my punishment.”
Micah was torn between wanting to shake him, or pulling Will into his arms and not letting go. “That is such bullshit.”
“Why?”
“If you’re talking about hitting me, for fuck’s sake, I don’t want to sound like I’m condoning violence, but it was a stupid punch that many stupid teenage boofheads exchange every year at high school!”
“It wasn’t, and you know it. I knocked you out. Then I let you stand in that office and take the blame because I was a coward.”
“No offence, but with the way your dad is, I now understand why and I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why, because it bought me a few more months at home?”
“It’s something, at least.”
“It was nothing.”
Micah hated the defeat in Will’s voice. “There is no such thing as karma or divine retribution. Believe me, I would be lying in the bed next to you if that was the case, after all the shit I pulled on people.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Will, one day I will tell you my long sad sorry tale of how fucked up I’ve been. The entire, uncensored, non-Reader’s Digest version of how much I’ve fucked over other people and myself. But today isn’t that day. Today is the day to tell you that you did nothing to deserve this. And you are never to say it again.”
“It won’t stop me thinking it.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“What?”
“It’s 2016. We should be past self-loathing.”
“I don’t hate myself.” But Will’s tone lacked conviction.
“You bullied me online because you hated I wasn’t closeted like you, and I was surviving.” Before Will could start apologising again, Micah grabbed his hand. “And it’s fucked up, but it’s society being fucked up that made you like that because it told you that you were wrong, because your dad told you guys like us were wrong, and you believed it. And I did too, so that’s why I’m not mad at you anymore. The closet makes us do fucked up things. I did stuff, you did stuff, but we can move past that, Will. We have to.”
Will gave a weak smile. “That’s a great speech, Micah.”
Micah shrugged. “I’ve been rehearsing it.”
“You really think we hated ourselves?”
“Part of us did,” Micah said. “And we’re far too modern to keep on doing it. So from today, you stop apologising to me. And I will say sorry to you one last time. Because I wasn’t innocent in that change room either. I goaded you. I wanted you to confront yourself. I wanted you to hurt like I had hurt. And I succeeded. I wanted you to fall under my considerable spell and try to kiss me so I could reject you in the worst way.”
“Apology accepted,” Will said. “I’m too tired to fight your considerable spell.”
Micah grinned. “Yeah. Apology accepted.”
“That day feels like it was a decade ago, not a year. I wish we could somehow go back and tell those kids they were going to be okay, no matter what happened in the future.”
“So you know you’re going to be okay?” Micah asked.
Will hesitated before answering, but nodded. “Yeah. I guess I have to be.”
And Micah leaned in and kissed him.
It wasn’t a pity kiss; just a brief brush across the mouth, with true tenderness to it. Will responded just as sweetly, his hand lightly caressing the back of Micah’s neck.
When Micah drew away there were tears in Will’s eyes.
“Don’t,” Micah said softly. “Please, don’t.”
“Why did you do that?”
“To have a proper kiss, after those aborted, awful ones last year. Closure. Was I wrong to do it?”
Will shook his head. “But we’re friends, now.”
Micah nodded.
“Then shake, friend.”
They shook hands.
“You know,” Will said, “Emma’s been in the loo a really long time.”
Micah suddenly remembered her lack of presence. “I better go and check she hasn’t fallen in.”
EMMA WAS only a little way down the hall, in the awful row of green plastic chairs set aside for visitors. As Micah approached her, she hid her face and he realised she was silently crying.
“Emma, what’s wrong?”
A loud sniff. “Nothing.”
“You know what, I come out of Will’s room, finally having an emotional breakthrough with him, and here you are, hiding something. We’re past that, aren’t we?”
“It’s because of that I’m crying.”
“Huh? You’ve lost me.”
Emma turned to face him, with her nose reddened and eyes watery. “I eavesdropped on you just now.”
“Oh, Emma.” But he couldn’t reproach her.
“I didn’t mean to. You guys didn’t see me at the door, and I stopped when I heard what you were talking about. So I shut the door, but left it open just a little.”