know. You were awesome.”
A spark ignited in my chest, and a voice said, What if he’s right, what if I am something special? But just as immediately I rolled my eyes. “Thanks. That’s not true, but it’s a really nice thing to say.”
Dave adjusted the tips of his bow tie. Between us and the school, kids played soccer on the long, damp field.
“So, uhh,” I said. “If we went public, how would you feel?”
“I’d be ecstatic. That’d be awesome. But we should also, like, talk things through. None of this stuff needs to be so fast. I mean, I totally get what you’re saying, but people will like you either way, and we should—”
“Why wait? I don’t want people to say I’m closeted. I’ve never been closeted.”
“Okay, well, so do we just . . . tell people? Or we could do an Instagram post?”
“No, no, no. That’s not how it’s done. You might be college-level in math, but your rumor-spreading skills are stuck back in kindergarten. The way it’s done is that you tell your friends to tell other people. That’s how Hen did it two years ago. He didn’t want the hassle of coming out again and again, so he told me to tell everybody. Now he gets to return the favor.”
“You know I don’t need you to do this.”
“But I want to.”
“And you’re serious?”
I nodded. In that moment, I was absolutely sure.
15
HEN MUST’VE GONE TO WORK immediately, because by that afternoon the coming-out was proceeding with unstoppable force. I’d already gotten a dozen texts about it, and I’d answered none of them. The whole thing—so simple at lunch—had turned into a grotesque spectacle.
After school, Pothan rammed into me on the sidewalk, jumped on my back, and yelled in my ear, “Dude, you and Dave?”
I staggered and rocked back and forth, trying to keep my footing. He hung on to my back, his head tucked into my neck, and said, “My baby Nandan is all growed up.”
Finally, I bashed his body against a telephone pole, and he dropped off and wrangled me into a hug. “You weren’t gonna tell me?”
“Umm . . . ,” I said. “Yeah, I guess I should’ve . . .”
His smile flickered between proud, embarrassed, and smug. “I bet you love the attention,” he said.
That made me laugh. “That is such a microaggression. It’s definitely at least a medium-aggression.”
“Come off it, bro,” he said. “I know you. I know my little Nandy-poo. He’s always working the angles. He knows his shit.”
Now I smiled. “You motherfucker. Okay, okay. I don’t know, maybe . . .”
“You love it.”
“Well,” I said. “Part of me does. But the other part—”
“No, you love it. You totally love it.”
With that, my smile faded. Pothan didn’t want to talk to me about anything real.
“What’re we doing here?” he said. “Should we celebrate or some shit?”
“Waiting for Dave.”
“You told your mom yet?”
“She was fine with it.”
Dave walked up, and Pothan pounced on him too, and we went through the whole thing again, except this time he also kissed Dave on both cheeks and said, “Welcome to the family, bro.”
He wanted to take us for a ride, but we finally managed to leave him at the street corner, still shaking his head to himself.
On the way home, Dave didn’t try to take my hand, thank God. He actually never touched me when we were in public, not even to hug.
In the week or two after the coming-out, only my mom asked the question I’d been dreading: “So how long have you known?”
I said, “As soon as I knew anything, I told you.” And that seemed to be enough.
I thought Avani at least might ask more. Maybe she’d say, Oh, when we were together, were you confused? Or Was this why you couldn’t get it up sometimes?
From her, I would’ve loved those questions, but they never came.
The coming-out (if that’s what it was) took astonishingly little time. Within a week everybody in my life seemed to know. Mr. Radherec, my precalc teacher, was gay, and he stopped me after class to say if I ever wanted to talk, I should come to him.
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”
“But you’re already seeing someone, I hear.” He shook his head. “Kids today. It’s so different. I only ever dreamed of that.”
I thought of Henry, and I wondered if it really was very different at all.
Hen texted to invite me to a GSA meeting. I said maybe, and he was like:
Henry: Yeah, it can be a little awkward, but it’s