“That’s okay. Really, it is.”
I look at him in his Star Wars T-shirt and anchor-print boxers, clutching a pillow on this bed we have spent so much of our time in, and what I realize is that somehow, without even knowing it, I have stepped out of love with him, and where I’ve stepped instead may end up being the better place. I have to step out of love with him, because the ground I’ve always wanted to be there was never really there. He is capable of giving that ground, but I am not the one he wants to give it to. Instead I have the ground we’ve grown all these years. I love him indestructibly, and I care about him at a root level, but in this three-breath-long moment I can understand that the two of us will never be boyfriends, never be husbands, never be everything to each other in that way. I can let that go, and hold tight to everything else.
It should feel like a retreat. It should feel like my love is diminishing and my feelings are contracting. But instead I have a sense that they’re expanding. And they are doing it because they have to.
I am sure that later on I will doubt this. I know that I will regret it, that I will wonder if this sudden understanding was just a trick of the light. But there are no illusions here. Today is finally today. We are no longer what we were. We are now what we’re going to be.
“I know you’re not ready,” I tell him. “I’m not ready, either. But you know what? It’s happening anyway. And we’re going to be okay. We’ll risk the good thing for the better thing. We’re really, truly going to be okay.”
I feel nearly empty as I finish this sentence. I’ve pulled out as much of myself as I can, and I am offering it to him now, no longer a part of me but not entirely relinquished. And in return, he lets go of the pillow. He opens his arms and says my name over and over, as if at long last he’s found me, as if at long last we understand that this is what we needed to learn.
*
Katie is still waiting for me outside.
Of course she is.
I get into the passenger seat, but I don’t close the door. I don’t want her to drive away.
“How’d it go?” she asks.
“I don’t think either Mark or I will be going to school today.”
“Oh wow. Meaning…?”
“Meaning that although for some reason National Coming Out Day is not, in fact, a part of Pride Week, we are rearranging the calendar so Ryan can have his own Coming Out Day. Movies like Pride and old episodes of Glee will be watched. Ice cream will be eaten. There may be some wild dancing to Robyn and Rihanna. You never know.”
“Ice cream? Is that really part of the coming-out process?”
“Hells yes. Ben and Jerry have lasted so long together—they’re our role models.”
“And then…?”
“And then we might invite Taylor over. So I can get to know him, since it looks like he’s my best friend’s boyfriend.”
I try to say this casually, but I stumble a little. After all, it’s the first time I’ve ever had to say it.
“Oh, Mark,” Katie says, concerned. “Is that really smart? You don’t have to do that.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m told that if you’re going to fall in love with someone, it’s always best to fall for someone who’s going to love you back. That’s never going to happen with Ryan, and I am strangely okay with it. At least for now.”
“The heart is a treacherous beast.”
“But it means well.”
Katie smiles. “Yes—the heart is a treacherous beast, but it means well. That just about sums it up.”
“What they never tell you is that it’s actually the friendship part that’s harder. Kissing is easy. Kissing has its own politics, but at the end of the day, it’s kissing. It’s the real stuff—the being-part-of-each-other’s-lives piece of it—”
“—being close to twins without being twins—”
“Yes! That is both the challenge and the reward.”
I look at Katie and know that sometimes it isn’t all that hard, that sometimes you can just fall into step with someone and keep pace for a good long time. Again, it amazes me that a week ago we barely knew each other’s names. Now we’re on this journey together. I know I can only help her so much and she can only help me so much—ultimately, we have to solve our own problems. But it helps to have someone else in step. It helps to have someone to talk to when it’s time to take a break from solving everything.