AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Avery spends toomuch time deciding what to wear. Not just because he wants to look good for Ryan, but also because he’s going to be a sixteen-year-old in a space populated by queer college kids. He feels like he’ll be auditioning for the role of his future self.
It’s a beginner’s mistake, to think queerness has a dress code. Queerness is coding-optional. Avery hasn’t figured this out yet, but he’s close.
Because it’s sure to be a cold night at the drive-in, Avery layers up. It relieves some pressure on his T-shirt (Tegan and Sara, predictable yet personal) to know there will be a striped sweater over it.
Ryan texts that he’s five minutes away. Avery takes one last look in the mirror and heads downstairs. His parents have made it clear they want to meet Ryan, but Avery hasn’t relayed this to Ryan yet. Instead he’s bought some time by telling his parents Ryan will come inside on the way home. There isn’t any way to do it now, if they want to make it to the movie on time.
Avery’s parents give him some popcorn money before he leaves and don’t say anything besideshave a good time. They know he’ll be embarrassed if they wish him luck. They are happy he’s going with a boy to a drive-in, and in this way, they are old-fashioned and new-fashioned at the same time, the two combining to become something that might be calledgood-fashioned.
Meaning: They’ve let their son fashion himself while keeping a safety net beneath him. They are doing the best they can.
—
Ryan and Averyboth smile when Avery slides into the passenger seat, because at this point, physical presence is the most reliable evidence for everything that’s been playing out in their heads. It hasn’t been long since they last saw each other, rowing on the river. But in the intervening days, both boys have doubted that things could really be going this well. Avery is the dream that Ryan is having, just as Ryan is the dream that Avery is having. Now that they are together, they get to share the dream. And what is more astonishing than a shared dream?
Two hours in a truck is a long time for two boys who haven’t yet found the comfort of a togethering silence. Avery is a better master of solo silence, so his barometer doesn’t measure a lack of conversation as acutely as Ryan’s. Fortuitously, their destination lends itself easily as a topic of conversation. The movie they are seeing,You and Me,is thefirst nonbinary love story to reach movie screens in their part of the country. (The title comes from the idea that in a relationship, the only binary should be you/me…and even that becomes a bit of a blur.) Ryan and Avery have been poring over interviews with the young writer-director, whose unabashed desire to make the love story that they most wanted to see in the world is itself a love story, as far as Ryan and Avery are concerned—a love story between the writer-director and the audience they want to reach, a love story between the writer-director and their younger self, who felt the absence of a movie likeYou and Me,and a love story between the forces of creativity and necessity. The writer-director has created something bigger than themself that still manages to represent themself, which is something that Avery and Ryan both aspire to, even if they have no idea how to get there right now.
They talk about this, and talk about the times they’ve seen themselves on the screen, knowing that the tragedies are important, but not the entirety of how they want themselves to be mapped onto the world. They’d rather step intoMoonlight, intoBooksmart,into the wish fulfillment ofLove, Simon. There aren’t enough stories like theirs. Which, on the one hand, makes their lives and their love feel more original. But it would still be nice to see how other people deal with the things they have to deal with and navigate the feelings they find themselves feeling.
That’s what they’re hoping for tonight.
Especially Avery. Because Hollywood’s still put manymore jelly beans in Ryan’s (cis, white) jar than in his. He knows there are plenty of filmmakers out there like him. But he’s also keenly aware of how little power they’ve been granted to tell their stories.
“I want the trans superheroes,” Avery requests with a sigh.
“I want the gay spies,” Ryan says. “There have to be gay secret agents. I mean, duh.”
“And animation!”
“Yeah—we get a male frog that, like, bats its eyelashes at another male frog for a nanosecond, and they call that progress.”
It isn’t fair, especially because it pretends to be fair. Ryan and Avery feel that so deeply, it’s part of who they are.
They start talking about other movies—mostly what they feel are queer-adjacent movies, like anime or musicals. (Avery adds another item to his wish list: “I want a queerHamilton.” Ryan knows better than to admit the full depth to which he’s never gotten intoHamilton. But he does wonder aloud if a queerHamiltonwould win him over. And/or a gender-bent version. Let Janelle Monáe play Hamilton and Lizzo play Burr. That, he’d watch in a second.)
For two hours it goes like this. They share what they love and what they want that isn’t there, and in doing so, they bring themselves a few steps closer to understanding each other, which is just another way of saying they bring themselves a few steps closer to falling in love. They don’t have to agree on everything, but they find themselvesagreeing enough that it matters, in ways both unexpected and delighting. (Ten minutes spent recounting aSpongeBob SquarePantsepisode; five minutes disclosing theirAvatar: The Last Airbenderelements; fifteen minutes singing along to Ariana, including her cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing,” which contains notes neither boy can attain, but they reach for them anyway and crack up when they miss.)
It’s only when they hit the outskirts of the college town that the focus must turn to the far more mundane task of direction. They are led down the all-American alley that loops all major and minor cities—BurgerKingExxonStarbucksSubwayWalmartin excelsis—until they see the punctuation of a marquee, rainbow-lit even though it’s a far cry from June. There’s a long line of cars waiting to make it inside, so Ryan and Avery content themselves by watching the Morse code of brake lights spelling out a welcome until it’s their turn.
The ticket-taker looks like she was born in the booth, and plans to die there in the very near future. She doesn’t cheer at the sight of a blue-haired boy and a pink-haired boy sharing a pickup, nor does she scowl. The only thing she considers is their cash, and the only change she requires comes in coins.
Avery has never been to a drive-in before. Ryan has, but never as a driver. He follows the car in front of him and hopes whoever’s inside is making good choices. The theater itself is a parking lot organized with poles at the front of each space, the screen looming above like a gracious overlord. They endup about seven rows from the front, and Ryan reverses into the spot so the back of the pickup faces forward. The air has reduced itself to dusk, and the people spilling out of the cars react to it like neon. As soon as Ryan turns off the ignition, he and Avery hear a concord of laughter and happy anticipation, the merrymakers merrymaking as snacks are shared and viewing positions are staked out.
As Avery fumbles for his phone and wallet, Ryan steps around the pickup and opens the door for him. He offers Avery a hand down, even though Avery doesn’t really need it, and then, in a movement that feels as essentially human as putting one foot in front of the other, they hold hands as they make their way to get popcorn. The handholding is not just because it’s a safe space—if you are defining a space by its safety level, there is still a certain amount of fear involved in the measurement. This opening night at the drive-in is a joyous space, a holiday from the world. For the first time in their lives, Ryan and Avery are using a queer default in an adult crowd. That alone is joyous, and more than a little surreal. If there are any straight people around, they’re doing their best to blend in, and as a result Ryan and Avery feel a collective kinship toward everyone they see, a feeling of having something in common that isn’t very common at all.
Which isn’t to say that Ryan and Avery are seeing the same people in the exact same way. Ryan is still playing the guessing game in his head, reaching for the words to spell out each person’s identity. Avery, meanwhile, is trying todismantle that part of his mind, to see everyone with the termlessness he feels each of them deserves, at least until they themselves ask to be seen a particular way.
From the glances Ryan and Avery are getting, Avery understands that people aren’t looking at them and thinkingqueerorgayortrans;no, they’re looking at the two boys holding hands and thinkingyoung. Even though the bystanders are mostly college students, Ryan and Avery represent what they once had, or never did. Most of the glances are accompanied by smiles; only occasionally do people turn away.
Avery notices how he and Ryan are among the only solo couples around. Most of the other queerfolk are here in groups, setting up lawn chairs behind their cars as if it’s a cookout or a family reunion. Avery has had a couple of queer friends over the years, but never in the same constellation. It’s reassuring to him to know that such a sky is only a two-hour drive away from his home. He feels silly for thinking it, but it’s almost like the spaces he’s found online have come to life for the first time in a physical place. Which is also strangely reassuring.
Ryan looks out into the crowd with a little less confidence. It feels like every queer person from a hundred miles around is here, so he’s started to wonder if he’s going to run into Isaiah, the one boy on the face of the earth who he’d legitimately be able to call an ex. Of course, the primary reason they stopped seeing each other was because Isaiah said he felt pretty sure he was straight, but Ryan has monitoredIsaiah’s social media for long enough afterward to know that Isaiah’s actions don’t always anchor to this particular conviction. When he and Ryan were seeing each other, Isaiah would never have been caught dead watching a movie likeYou and Me,not even in private. But that was a year ago, and Ryan can’t help but wonder if the year has brought Isaiah closer to being the sort of person who would let himself be here.
Avery notices Ryan scoping the crowd and asks, “See anyone you know?”
Ryan slips his mind back to the boy he’s brought and answers, “Nope. I saw one girl who I think might have gone to my school—she was a senior when I was a freshman and was the first person I ever saw with a pink-triangle nose ring. But I’m not even sure it’s her.”
They get in the popcorn line just as there’s an announcement that the movie will begin in ten minutes. The trio in front of them is arguing over whether popcorn at movie theaters is the most site-specific food in American culture.
