sort of drifted away from Sunday service. And honestly, it was for the best. We wouldn’t have been welcome anyway. But this little place doesn’t seem so awful. Maybe a church that hosts a support group for parents of queer kids can’t be all bad.
The door around the front of the building creaks and I hold my breath in anticipation of who it might be.
“Hiya,” Clem says as she turns the corner. “Not who you were hoping?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Yes.”
She takes the squeegee from my hand. “I wipe. You spray.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and knock my hip into hers.
“Spill it,” she says. “What’s the deal with you and this guy?”
“I think we hate each other. Or I thought we did. And then I saw him that night at the Hideaway and—”
She gasps and in a whisper voice, says, “Oh my God! I knew that was him. I saw him from across the room and tried pointing him out to Hannah, but he was gone.” She leans back, arms crossed. “Huh. Tucker Watson is into the menfolk? I had no idea! He’s so . . .”
“Straight!” I finish for her. “Or not, I guess. I don’t know.”
“Well, did you talk to him about it?”
I shrug. “Sort of. But I didn’t really know how to be like, so were you just spectating at the gay bar or were you participating?”
Clementine stares at me dumbfounded. “I guess he could have been there . . . to be there, but what eighteen-year-old straight boy goes to a gay bar to just . . . go?”
“I know. And he’s been really hard to read . . . but sometimes, for just a moment, he says the exact right thing, and it makes me feel like . . . my whole body is glowing.” I hate myself a little bit for even saying that out loud, but there it is.
“Waylon,” she says, her voice soft and patient. “I want you to be happy. I want you to fall in love and find something and someone that brings you the kind of joy you only see in movies. But I can’t watch you fall for another guy who’s still in the closet.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I won’t. Everyone’s on their own time, but I think I might finally be finding my place, and it’s definitely nowhere near any closets. Unless it’s an immaculately organized closet Marie Kondo style with my dream wardrobe.”
“I love mess,” Clem says solemnly, quoting the goddess Marie Kondo herself.
“But we don’t love other people’s half-in-the-closet messes.”
“Amen,” she says.
“Besides, I won’t have you here to pick up the pieces.”
Her lips puff into a frown.
“No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean that in a passive-aggressive asshole way. I meant it in a literal way. I don’t want to say the idea has grown on me, but . . . I think you should go to Georgia.” The words are out of my mouth before I have too much time to think about them. I’ve felt this moment slowly dawning on me for a little while now. “Not that you needed my permission.”
She drops the squeegee and throws her arms around me. “I’ll visit. You’ll visit. We’ll FaceTime every day.”
I wrap my arms around her and press my face into her shoulder. “Don’t forget me,” I say so quietly that I almost hope she doesn’t hear.
“Impossible,” she squeaks.
I step back and take her hand. I can’t imagine who we would be without each other and I never want to know, but it’s time for us to take a few steps apart. Just enough space for us each to grow a little broader. A little stronger. A little brighter.
“Besides,” I say, “if anyone can survive being half a country apart, it’s us.”
She bites down on her lip, tears welling as she nods. “What will you do?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “But when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
A knock on the window startles us, and I let out an embarrassingly dramatic scream.
From inside, Hannah waves and sticks her tongue out.
I spray the spot over her face with window cleaner and blow a raspberry.
I still feel uncertain, and part of me might always think that this is Clem choosing Hannah over me, but no matter why she’s going or what I think, I have to let her go. I have to try.
Twenty-Three
“Can you please explain how exactly you got us all volunteering at a church?” Amanda asks Hannah as