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“Well, as it turns out, I don’t have time.”
“I know. That’s why—”
“I head back in one day.” I pop another green bean into my mouth, then face him. “So you should probably just say what you want to say before I’m gone.”
“Please don’t force my hand.” Chad’s voice tightens as he bows his head toward me. “What I got to say, it’s something private. We need to go somewhere right now and talk. I can’t even eat.”
I look at him as I chew nonchalantly over the noise of his pals chatting away across the table and laughing.
I don’t get him. “You had all last night,” I remind him. “Out at your big ranch, in your guesthouse. Why didn’t you say what you want to say to me then?”
“Because I didn’t have the courage to. I got the courage now. Can we just step out into the halls outside the cafeteria? Just for a minute? C’mon.”
“What’s the big deal, Chad? These are your friends. Everyone in this room is your friend. You have that lovely privilege to claim. I don’t. So just say what you gotta—”
“Not here.”
“Oh my God, Chad, you’re making me nuts.”
“Just trust me. Please.”
“Why should I?”
“You’re gonna want to hear what I got to say. It’ll make sense out of everything. Please.”
“And why can’t you say it here? I’m enjoying my dinner. Don’t your wrestler buddies know everything about you, anyway?”
He brings his lips to my ear, his words choked and anguished. “Not that I’m gay, you stubborn, infuriatingly adorable punk.”
8
He Said What?
Okay, so that happened.
“See?” he exclaims when we do, in fact, excuse ourselves from the table, and the two of us step out into a semi-dark hallway just outside the cafeteria. “That’s why I wanted to do this in private.”
“You’re gay?”
“Yeah. I said that. Isn’t that what I said?”
Lockers line the long walls. Banners congratulating this year’s graduating class hang over our heads. There’s a stray balloon that must have gotten lost on its way to the reunion dinner, bobbing lazily near an AC vent by the ceiling, appearing as lost as I am.
I stare at Chad, belatedly hearing his words. “Did you just call me a stubborn, infuriatingly adorable punk?”
“I didn’t want it to be this big dramatic … thing.” Chad runs a hand anxiously through his hair. “But I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. You have no idea how long I’ve been workin’ myself up to this. I’ve made myself sick over it. I’ve been thinkin’ about what I’d say, how I would say it, when and where I’d—”
“People are probably wondering why we ran off,” I point out with a bewildered glance back through the opened cafeteria doors.
“And now I’ve finally said it, and you know now, and …” Chad lets out a jagged sigh of relief. “Phew, I didn’t realize it’d feel this scary and good. Damn, I feel so fuckin’ relieved I got that out!”
“In fact, I think it’s more suspicious that we left together.”
“Lance, you’re rambling.”
“I mean, y’know, if you didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and all,” I keep saying, still staring toward the cafeteria, “you and I maybe should have stayed in there with everyone else.”
“Is this shock?” he asks. “Are you in shock or somethin’?”
Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m in shock.
Why do I suddenly have the urge to burst into inappropriate laughter right now?
Chad shrugs. “Well, that’s what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell you my thing so you’d …” He shrugs. “… so you’d know. And so I’d have it off my chest.”
I don’t think I’ve blinked since he said the words.
I’m gay.
That is what he said, right? I’m not making that up? I didn’t somehow hallucinate the words that fell out of his hotheaded, beautiful, full, kissable lips?
I’m so thrown off right now, I can’t even pretend to be okay.
“Lance?”
“I even made the point to Lindsay,” I mumble to myself, still in a daze, “about athletes … and repressed sexuality … and small towns like Spruce … and masculinity-something-or-other …”
How could I not have seen it until now?
A repressed, gay wrestler bullying the out gay kid in school?
Was I as in denial back then as Chad was, the truth so close to my face that I couldn’t even see it?
Chad props a hand up on the wall near me to lean against it, bringing his body all that much more closer to mine. “I ain’t the kind of guy who can easily express his feelings, alright?” His voice is low and deep. “I was goin’ back and forth in my head last night whether to tell you or just … just leave it the hell be. I thought maybe some beers would make it easier on us, but it just made my head weirder. And then you went and saw that prom photo on my bathroom mirror, and everything went to shit.”
