“It’s really not.”
Well. He wasn’t wrong. This time next year? We’d be in college. Still. “I’m going to say it’s so far away,” I informed him. He was free to do the same.
Ryan almost smiled, noting, “Usually I’m the one who attempts to bend reality to my will.”
“I can give it a shot,” I answered defiantly. Ugh. It’s not like I wanted to block it out forever.
We’d worry about it when it was time to worry about. Or we could not worry about it, but no, realistically, worrying would happen. It was penciled in for later, which wasn’t now.
“Wish I had a better answer,” I told him next. “Or that I could make promises, but who knows what’s gonna happen?”
Nope, wait, couldn’t leave that open ended or Ryan would fill in the blanks with the most dramatic, least likely scenarios, so I supplied some likelier possibilities. “Maybe we’ll make long distance work, or we’ll go to the same school or somewhere really close together. Maybe I won’t get in anywhere and then I can just follow you and get a job washing dishes or something.”
That last one made us both frown. “Is that supposed to be a better option?” he wondered. “I want you to get in.”
Aww, once because of the sentiment. Aww again, because I waited a moment, but he didn’t make a suggestive comment about the second part. He wanted me to get into college.
“Me too, obviously,” I said. “I just, uh, I’m not complaining, but why are we doing this now?”
Pop flys? Fine. Pop quizzes? Less fine. Pop important talks about our relationship? Not even anywhere in the neighborhood of fine.
Ryan shrugged, swinging listlessly. “Guess I’m not that great at tuning my problems out.”
“In your defense, I was really surprised I was able to do that at all.” Yeah, that was the important part to focus on. Ugh.
“That wasn’t really a defense of me, but I’ll allow it.” The moment almost seemed lighter, but the future was still hovering persistently, unable to let us calm down completely.
Ryan sighed. “I guess I kinda thought, oh, Dad found someone else after Mom. At first, it was scary because that would just be it.” He grimaced. “Except there was really no reason to think it would be that easy even if now I wish it was.”
“Makes sense that you would want that.” I wanted that too, and Mr. Miller wasn’t my dad, just my boyfriend’s dad.
“Wants, hopes, that’s what everything is.” Ryan swung once, then again, and I’d been distracted, but thankfully he wasn’t going fast, so he only grazed against my side for a moment as he spoke. “Any plans we make, things we think we’re deciding, we can’t really control whether it works out how we say it should.” He got quieter. “Seems so fragile. Wish it didn’t have to be.” His brown eyes met mine. “Especially with important things.”
Huh. I stopped trying to solve the problem. Didn’t seem like that’s what Ryan wanted and wasn’t like I could. I couldn’t promise we would be together forever. There were too many things we didn’t know about the future. There were a lot of changes coming our way.
“Me too,” I told him, sitting down in the swing next to his.
We were quiet for a little while.
Ryan reached out to me. I took his hand in mine.
14.Solving Problems
The trick is not creating new ones.
Thinking about the future was awful. Especially when you have things in the present you really like and want to hold onto. Also, because there were just somanypossibilities. Way too many for someone like me. I had a hell of a time figuring out whether I was gay, straight or bi. And there may have been even more choices, but like I said, three was quiteenoughfor me.
Many of my college related worries centered around baseball. If I’d get to play. What would I do if I didn’t? What if I got to play but no one on the team liked me because bi and boyfriend? And what if I didn’t have a boyfriend? Would I then have to hide who I was so I could fit in?
Oh man. I had effectively lived life as a straight guy for years, but I didn’t know how to do that anymore. My brain was telling me it was easy. All I had to do was loudly announce being straight as often as possible but that didn’t sound right.
Well. Zach was kinda right, guys did like to assert themselves, but there was a way to go about it. Joey could teach me the art of when to say “no homo” except I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn. Homo wasn’t for everyone. That’s fine. I really enjoyed it.
What would I say? Women are so hot, and guys are so not hot because I am straight and therefore do not like guys because I am a guy and a straight one and that is how it works…
Yeah. That was bad.
I wanted to get along with my team but wasn’t college the time when you got more freedom? No parents, more parties, and you got to be yourself. Maybe I shouldn’t even play ball, but I’d always pictured myself playing in college. Oh god.
