—
“Thank you,” I tell Theo later, on the ride home, as we glide past little houses and minimalls with signs written in Korean and car washes and a vast array of fast-food franchises. A million non-Kobe hamburgers to choose from.
“It was nothing.”
“Well, I appreciate it. You didn’t have to.” I pretend to be deep in concentration as I make a tricky left turn, but really I feel shy. This thank you feels somewhat like an I’m sorry, though I’m not sure why. Recently, my existence feels like everyone else’s burden.
“Gem once called me a faggot,” he says, so low that at first I’m not sure I heard correctly.
“Seriously?”
“Yup. I mean, it was a million years ago, and it was actually the first time I had ever even heard the word. So I went home and asked my dad. I actually said to him, like, ‘Daddy, what’s a faggot?’?” Theo looks out the window, his hand up against the glass, like a child trapped on a long road trip, desperate for human connection from the other passengers on the road.
There’s nothing lonelier than a hand on glass. Maybe because it’s so rarely reciprocated.
“What did your dad say?” I’m curious about Theo’s father, whether Rachel has some sort of type. I picture him as bigger than my dad and more handsome, dressed in shirts with little polo players and pressed-by-Gloria khakis. There aren’t pictures of him around, which would be weird, but then I realize there aren’t very many pictures at all. Like Theo has arrived into almost-adulthood in this current form and shape, nothing to prove he was once a dimply baby.
The walls of my old house were covered with pictures of my family. Each of my school photos were framed and mounted in chronological order, even the ones where I was caught with my eyes closed or with a messy ponytail or in that horrible awkward phase when I had both braces and baby fat. My own personal time line leading upstairs.
Who knows? Maybe Rachel thinks family photos, like color, clash with her decor.
“My dad was great about it, actually. Said it’s not a nice word, that there are better words for boys who like boys. And he said that it would be okay if one day I decided I liked boys too, and it would be okay if I didn’t. That he loved me no matter what—” Theo’s voice cracks. I don’t look over, keep my eyes on the road. Wait for him. “I was really lucky. I mean, I never even had to really come out to my parents. They always knew, and it was always okay. Or not even okay, better than that. Not something that had to be evaluated at all. It just was. Like having brown hair.”
“Your dad sounds like he was really cool.”
Theo nods.
“Have you ever wished it was the other way around?” he asks me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it was your dad instead of your mom?”
“Honestly, all the time.”
“It would like, literally break my mom’s heart if she heard me say that, but he got me, you know? He understood. Just everything.”
“My dad knows I would switch if I could, I think. Maybe that’s why he never wants to hang out with me anymore. Because he sees it on my face.” Even as I’m talking, I realize this is not quite true. I just think he finds Rachel more interesting.
My mom got sick right around the time when I was supposed to stop wanting to hang out with my parents—when the pull was supposed to turn to pushing—and yet that never happened. I didn’t just love my mom, I liked her. And though she was only genetically obligated to love me, I’m pretty sure she liked me too.
“Maybe you remind him of your mom, and he’s trying to move on,” Theo says, which is sweet, him defending my dad.
“Maybe,” I say, even though I don’t think that’s quite true either. My mom and I looked nothing alike, were nothing alike. She was brave and big-mouthed, more like Scarlett than like me. And she used to joke that she wouldn’t have believed I was hers—we were physical opposites in all ways—if she hadn’t seen me come out herself.
I don’t remind my dad of my mom, I know that, but for the first time I wonder if he wouldn’t switch us too—me for my mother—given the chance.
“You and Ethan are friends, right?” Theo asks, seemingly apropos of nothing, and yet I’m happy for the change of topic. I don’t want to think about my parents. About how little control we have over our own lives.
“Yeah, I guess. Sort of. I don’t know,” I say.
“I saw you eating lunch together.”
“We’re partners in English. The ‘Waste Land’ thingy.”
“Right. It’s just that—and not to get all big brother on you—”
“I’m pretty sure I’m older,” I say.
“Whatever. Just be careful with him. I’m not trying to throw shade or anything, but I get the sense that he’s…trouble.”
“In a Taylor Swift way? Or like, for real?” “Damaged” was the word Dri used, which makes him sound like a defective iPhone.