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As I watched Everett, I once again wondered how things had gone so terribly wrong for him and Reese. But since I couldn’t bring Reese up, I decided to tackle another topic that’d had me curious from day one.
“Can I ask you something?”
Everett nodded. The three of us were lying on our sides. Everett was facing me and had Nash at his back. Nash was asleep, but he was curled so tight around Everett, like he was afraid the other man might try to escape his hold while he slept, that I had to wonder if Everett was actually comfortable.
“When did you know you were gay?”
“I started to suspect it when I was twelve. I had this best friend, Joseph, that I wanted to spend more time with than anyone else. We did all the typical boy stuff – rode our bikes, went fishing, played basketball. But I also knew there was something different about the way I liked him. Whenever I touched him, I’d feel things that I didn’t feel when I touched a girl. But I also didn’t know it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t until I held his hand at my thirteenth birthday party that my mother educated me on that matter.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Everett sighed. “Lots of prayer… lots and lots of her and me begging God to forgive me for my sin. It beat the alternative, though,” he murmured.
“Your father,” I said knowingly.
“Mom liked prayer, Dad liked his belt.”
I shook my head. As someone who’d had a near-perfect coming out experience, it was hard for me to fathom any parent doing that to their child. Even the idea of someone laying a hand on my daughter that way… or leading her to believe she wasn’t normal because she might not feel the same things other little kids did – was enough to have me seeing red.
“I’m sorry, Everett.”
Everett shrugged. “It was what it was. If it’d just been the gay thing, I probably could’ve figured things out when I was older… broken ties with them or something.”
“What do you mean?”
“My life was planned out for me from the moment I took my first breath. My father was a coal miner and he swore his kid would do better than him. He’d be somebody. I don’t think he necessarily thought I’d end up where I did, but political office was always in my future. I didn’t even dare question him. He picked what college I’d go to, what degree I’d pursue, what electives I’d take, what woman I’d marry and when. My only job was to execute the plan.”
“What happened if you didn’t?” I asked.
“Never found out. That belt was a pretty damn good motivator,” Everett murmured. “Even when I was old enough to hit back, I wouldn’t have dared. I didn’t exist outside of my father’s world. After college, it was grad school. Then an internship at the governor’s office. State Senate, U.S. Senate, V.P., Presidency… he won those, not me. He died shortly after I started my second term as vice president. My mother was gone by then, too. I could have put an end to it then and there, but it never even occurred to me to do anything different. I needed to execute the plan.”
Nash shifted against Everett and let out a little whimper. Everett dropped his hand from my hair and covered the hand Nash had pressed up against Everett’s chest. He rubbed Nash’s fingers until the other man settled and drifted off again. I watched as Everett shifted his body so he could pull his other arm from beneath his pillow. My heart swelled when he used that hand to cover Nash’s and then returned to toying with my hair.
“I didn’t even know how far gone I was until I met Pierce.” Everett shook his head. “The things he changed in me… but as much as he loved me and I him, I still couldn’t overcome my fear of disappointing my father. I always thought I’d have time, you know? To be the real me? But when I lost Pierce, I didn’t see the point.”
“Of coming out?” I asked.
“Of anything,” he said quietly. He was silent for a moment before saying, “I was proud of being given the honor of leading this country for so many years, but even if I’d never met Pierce, I think I would have been okay with being out of the spotlight for the rest of my life. People always ask why I don’t write a book or give motivational speeches…”
“Why don’t you?” I asked.
“Because it would just be perpetuating a lie, I guess. I was like one of those people who are content with their life… their cubicle job, comfortable marriage, focused on saving for retirement and taking a vacation once a year… it’s a perfectly acceptable life, one that most people would kill for. But to stand up in front of a group of college grads and tell them to shoot for the stars seemed hypocritical. Pierce and I had this grand plan of buying a house in the country somewhere, maybe having a couple of chickens, a dog or two… we’d have absolutely no obligations but to sit on our porch swing and watch the sunset. We were just going to wing the rest… I would have been so fucking good at executing that plan.” Everett’s voice was thick with tears at that last part.
