Page 108 of My Own Kind of Person

“Your argument for getting back together is so you can practice giving blowjobs?”

“There are worse reasons.”

“That’s true. You could only be interested in receiving them.”

“And I’m not!” I hop over a pair of metal basement doors. “My true sexuality is I’m a giver.”

“It’s unrelated to gender and bodies?”

“If the other person is having a good time, preferably near my mouth—”

He lets out a cackle. “Stop.” He waves his hands. “This is irrelevant to why we broke up anyway.”

We pause at a corner so cars can pass.

I raise a finger. “Technically, we never broke up.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“There was no breakup text or statement.”

“Not attending your show was a statement.”

“Not a breakup statement.”

The crosswalk sign is still showing the red hand, but Elijah glances down the street and crosses anyway. “What’s your point?”

“You may have to break up with me officially. If you want to move back to New Jersey and never respond to another text, you’ll have to tell me our relationship is over.”

He gives me the look he and his mother exchanged.

“But—” I stop and check a street sign. “We still have twenty blocks until we get to Penn Station, so.”

Another held-back smile. “So you have a little longer to make your case,” he says.

I shift the conversation, though, asking Elijah about what he eats while in the city. Does he bring dinner with him, or does he stop somewhere? He leads me into a small place and orders two “bowls,” and I watch as veggies I’ve barely heard of are piled on grains I’ve never heard of. The price is baffling, and I’m relieved when Elijah pays for both. We eat at the counter at the glass storefront and comment on the outfits of people passing by.

Soon we’re walking under the enormous screens of Times Square, through thick crowds, Elijah pointing out the musicals he’s been to and the musicals he wants to go to.

I clear my throat and say, “I think it’s worth the risk.”

“What do you mean?”

“How did you get so good at ballet? Did you never fall?”

He rolls his eyes and dramatically stumbles.

I raise my voice. “Ya never got hurt?”

“I’m constantly getting hurt in ballet, but that’s not a logical comparison for being in a relationship, so move on to your next argument.”

I don’t really have a next argument, so I tell him about The Greenroom. I tell him about Joe Johnson saying we’ll have to perform together again soon. I tell him about my mom setting up a therapist for me. I tell him I am learning to love myself.

I ask him what it’s been like staying with his dad for two nights. I ask him about his skincare routine. I ask him about that first time he tried dancing and found he could be himself.

“That’s the story I was thinking to share in English,” he says, and he tells me about how there was an afterschool ballet class when he was in the third grade, and it was in his classroom with the desks pushed to the side, and it changed what he saw was possible with the space and with himself in that space. All he had to do, he says, was reimagine everywhere this way.

He looks around. “Why did we stop?”