“Why is that true for him and my dad, but everybody acts like me and Bren were so messed up?”
“I couldn’t give a shit about you and Brennon, but then, Tean and I don’t always see things the same.What Idocare about is you making my boyfriend feel bad.And you making my life harder in every fucking way imaginable.And oh yeah, youbitme.”
Daniel was silent for a moment.He wiped his nose.When he spoke, his voice had softened.“Bren’s the first person who didn’t want me to be somebody else.”
Jem waited.
“You’ve met my mom and dad,” Daniel said.“My whole life, you know what they did?They took me to church, and people told me how bad it was to be gay.I went to Mutual, and people told me how bad it was to be gay.We had Family Home Evening, and my parents told me how bad it was to be gay.We’d go to family parties, and my uncles would make jokes about fags, and my grandpa talked about his friend’s grandson who came out, and how he would have taken any of us who tried that into the woods and shot us, and it wouldn’t be a sin.
“And then Uncle Tean would come around, and my parents would act like they were all friends, and nobody ever explained why they were friends with him if he was such a bad person.Until I was like thirteen or fourteen, they told me that he just hadn’t found the right girl.”Daniel made a noise that was somewhere between disgusted and disbelieving, and it was so unexpectedly adult that Jem grinned in spite of himself.Daniel flashed him a startled smile in return.
“I guess technically they’re right?”Jem said.
Daniel made that sound again.“I knew something was wrong with me.I could tell.And I hated it.I hated being different.Hated myself for being different.And they kept dragging me to these—to these fucking therapists, and they’d ask me if I was depressed or if I was thinking of hurting myself.One of them asked me if I could identify any patterns in relationships with my family.And I’d sit there, wanting to scream that I wasn’t depressed or bipolar or anything, I just wanted to suck a dick.”
He glanced at Jem, obviously hoping for shock, but Jem shrugged.“It happens to the best of us.”
“They put me on all these meds.I felt like a zombie, and that was worse.But when I didn’t feel like a zombie, I just wanted—I just wanted it to stop hurting, and all I could do was—” He cut off, and he didn’t continue.
“Did you try talking to them?”Jem asked.“Your parents, I mean.”
Daniel shot him a look.
“I’m not saying it would have been easy,” Jem said.“It’s not my life; I’m not saying I would have done anything differently.I’m just asking.”
“I told my dad,” Daniel said softly.“He was driving me home from a church dance.I hadn’t danced with anyone all night, but there was this guy there, and I’d seen him before, and he was so—” Daniel cut off.“It was just the two of us in the car.And I kept telling myself they still loved Uncle Tean even if they thought he was a bad person, and it would be okay, and I could do this.”
“How’d it go?”
“He listened.He didn’t shout or anything, like I thought he would.It wasn’t a long drive, but he didn’t say anything for a while.I felt like I was going to explode.Then he said a lot of guys think that when they’re my age.They get confused.They don’t know what they’re feeling.And it’s okay, and he was glad I told him, but he didn’t want me to rush into anything, because I had the rest of my life to figure things out.And maybe we could talk about it again in a few years and see if I still felt the same way.And then we went inside, and he acted like nothing had happened.”Daniel stared off into the darkness of the garage.“It wasn’t even a whole year later when he left.Because he was going to be ‘true to himself.’”
Jem settled onto the curb.Next to him, Daniel breathed raggedly, wiping his eyes again.
“I’m sorry,” Jem said quietly.
Daniel shook his head.
“That was super shitty,” Jem said.
“Fuck him.Fuck him.Fuck.Him.”Daniel broke off, sniffled, and put his head in his hands.
The murmur of voices that, until now, had registered distantly—all the people who had been displaced from the hospital by the fire alarm—was gone.Everyone must have gone back inside.The emergency was over.Nothing to see here.The wind went through the parking garage with a hollow note, like an enormous chime.
Jem put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.The boy was still—sostill.“Okay,” Jem said.“Now it’s time to tell me about Brennon.”
Daniel shivered, but he raised his head.When he blinked red-rimmed eyes, they looked sticky with drying tears, but his voice was surprisingly steady.“He’s in my ward.In my parents’ ward.”
“That’s how you met him?”
“I didn’t meet him, really.I’ve known him my whole life.But we started seeing each other when he was my Young Men president.”
It was the way he said it:seeing each other.
“You know what I want to know,” Jem said.
The silence lasted until Jem thought he might have to ask again, but Daniel said, “I kissed him.”
“Out of the blue?That must have been a surprise.”