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“So you’re ready,” he says.
“Yeah.” I squeeze Miller’s hand. “We’re both ready.”
“You want to come out in the New York Times?” Dirk makes a bug-eyed face like he thinks we’re insane.
“Umm…” I laugh, and Josh says, “We do. We’re both out to everybody personal. I told my dad last week, and that went okay,” he says.
Dirk asks—discreetly, and with hesitation—if the football program is okay with it, and I’m relieved to tell him I came out to them after the Rose Bowl.
“Ahh,” he says. “Because Josh went out on the field.” His eyes widen. “I need to hear that story.”
I refill his tea three times over the course of our story. It’s not the whole story, but I hit most of the high points. I’ve been rehearsing what to say about Alton, so I know how much I want to reveal and which parts I’d rather keep private. By the time he’s wrapping up, he’s got three crumpled tissues in his lap, but he looks…brighter.
“This is all very inspiring. I don’t mean that as a platitude. Just…the amount of courage it takes to speak about this rather than keeping it hidden. You didn’t have to add your name onto the lawsuit.”
I nod. I think of myself on TV sometime in the future, talking about Alton. On a talk show or something. Telling people that conversion therapy is like torture. It makes my stomach nose-dive, but I breathe slowly and the feeling goes away.
“I didn’t have to. I know. But I want to.”
Dirk smiles at me, and then Josh. “Why do I have the feeling he’s just getting started?”
Miller wraps an arm around me, squeezing tight. “Because he is.”
Two
Ezra
June 16, 2020
I think I’ve come full circle. It doesn’t look the way I thought it would.
What’s my view? I’m on a bed with a big window right beside me. Out the window, trees are streaming by, dappled in sunlight but mostly in the forest’s shadow.
I’m not in a school bus this time, but an RV. And the driver? My Josh Miller. I’m looking at the back of his head- the way his hair sticks out underneath my peach ball cap, which he pulled on this morning when we woke up in Portland, Maine, beside a lighthouse.
The sun was so bright on the water, we both needed caps. I’ve gotten kind of fond of his old camouflage one. Miller usually takes the peach, which I think suits him. He’s got a juicy peach, and also- is a peach. Nobody sweeter than Josh Miller. Even when his only shower for two days has been the ocean and I’m pretty sure he’s got sand in his butt from…things that happened behind some rocks.
Anyway- we’re going back to Alton. I am. Miller’s never been, of course. But we can both go there now, and we can go alone. Because-
Luke owns this place now.
Yeah. It feels weird to even write that. Luke McDowell bought Alton. Actually, his church’s charity, The Rainbow Initiative, bought it. The sale just went through about ten days ago. Miller and I had planned to take the summer off from school and do the RV thing- start on the East Coast, head up, cut across the Midwest and dip down into Yellowstone, then onto Evermore to be there for the first of the conversion therapy survivor groups. We got our RV early, though, so we could be the first ones here since the police did their thing.
The place is guarded by private security. For the next year or so, Alton is just going to sit and collect dust, while we wait to see if the court will want evidence from there. Once all that is over- we’re not sure yet, but the thought is maybe Luke will tear it down. He’s done a few polls of Alton survivors- there’s not many of us rounded up- YET- but several of us, including me, like the idea of razing that shit to the ground and re-building the gayest camp the Allagash Wilderness has ever seen- and let kids come there in the summer. Gay kids? Other kids? Luke doesn’t know yet. But it’s beautiful land, for those who didn’t go through the things I did. It should be enjoyed, and it should be a gay as fuck place- just to exorcise those homophobic vibes.
I just now blew a long breath out, and Miller’s eyes looked for mine in the rearview mirror. I gave him a smile and a thumbs up. I held up this journal, and his eyes got kind of wide. He knows what this journal is. He’s read those entries from a long time ago. He knows everything about me now. And he loves every part of me.
He was the first one to love some of the parts. For a few months I didn’t see it- but Greeley said they thought I had a lot of anger built up towards myself. For how I treated Josh when we met. For- being fucked up or whatever.
