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He realized he’d been silent for way too long, and he chanced a look up. Raphael had finally eaten some of his eggs, which were probably cold and congealed. But Dmitri knew he’d done it for him. “Sorry. It’s been a weird day.”
“I know change is hard for you, and I understand why you need to do this the way you’re doing it. I’m just going to leave it out there.”
“The…roommate thing?” Dmitri asked, his voice miraculously steady.
Raphael’s lip quirked up at the left corner. “In case you ever need it. In case you’re ever forced to choose—so you won’t be.”
The death of a thousand kindnesses, and Dmitri was powerless against the way it drained him of life, but what a way to go.
* * *
Summer passed in a blur,and Dmitri found himself standing at the entrance to the community college with a backpack weighted down with a handful of textbooks that cost more than his rent over his shoulder. The fact that the park funding had taken care of it didn’t make him feel better though. The pressure to perform to top standards squeezed around his lungs like a vice, and he had half a mind to see about getting a refund and telling Roman he couldn’t do it.
But he’d spent all summer learning the ins and outs of the job. Roman was patient and kind, and never hesitated to repeat himself. He came to work no matter how his body was feeling, and later, he confessed it was because he didn’t trust any of the other rangers to train Dmitri the right way.
In between the lines, he heard the truth:I don’t trust them to care enough about you to really help.
It was mundane though, more than working at Whipped. And he was alone a lot. Dmitri hadn’t realized how terrified he was of his own thoughts—or how quickly they’d lead to gutting self-doubt—until he spent hours by himself wandering the lake and surveying the land. There was a moment of peace though, somewhere between August and September, where his life started to make sense.
Or, rather, his life no longer seemed like a jumble of pieces that resembled a man. He didn’t hate his own sexuality. It felt absurd to dislike something about himself he had no control over. He wasn’t the status quo, and he had never fit into a box, but he didn’t want to be a cardboard cut-out version of a man simply to make other people comfortable. Someone would love him. And it might not ever be Raphael, but there would be others like him.
There would be other people, too big or awkwardly shaped for their own boxes, just like him. And he knew it was mostly fear that kept him from looking for them. It was that fear that sat there and faced him with the cold, dead, concrete eyes of a community college. This new journey stared at him with seven buildings, and too many windows, and people close to his own age who didn’t have the same amount of life weighing their shoulders down.
Dmitri’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he found himself smiling before he got the screen swiped open.
Raphael: You’re going to have a great day.
Dmitri: Bold of you to assume.
Raphael: My great secret—I’m psychic. Knock them all down.
Dmitri: I think the phrase is knock them dead, you foreigner.
Raphael: I prefer not to have blood on my hands. Once they’re down, do with them what you will.
His heart hammered against the inside of his chest, and he hated so desperately the way Raphael made him feel—both like he was walking on air and sinking like a stone. He tucked his phone into his pocket again and felt the weight of the message like a physical thing, and it helped him put one foot in front of the other until he reached building D, the faded, cracked 106 plaque beside the room letting him know he’d made it.
The classroom beyond was dark though, not a soul in the seats, not a flicker of light from the halogens above. Maybe he had the wrong day, or the wrong time. Maybe the class was cancelled and he’d go in and sit there like a moron waiting for no one at all.
He felt a ridiculous urge to check his notebook where he’d scribbled the time, date, and room number like he was some high school freshman in a brand-new city, and he wondered if anyone else was as off-kilter as he was. He’d never been very good at this—at retaining information, at speaking up, at standing out.
And college was supposed to be about that.
Wasn’t it?
Dmitri jolted when someone behind him cleared their throat, and he spun around to see a man there in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and torn jeans. He had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and his face was young, but a sprinkle of gray at his temples belied his age.
“Lost or nervous?” The man’s voice was soft but rumbled deep in his chest, and Dmitri liked it.
“Am I obvious?”
“A little, but I try not to judge,” the guy said. “First days are always the worst. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done this.”
“Well…” Dmitri said, trying not to blush. “This would be my actual first.” The guy smiled softly and reached around him to tug the door open, and Dmitri felt a surge of panic. “There’s no one in there. Can you go in there if the teacher isn’t there?”
The guy chuckled. “I have it on good authority most professors prefer their students to be early.”
“So, you’re not a freshman,” Dmitri asked, taking shuffling steps in after him. The chill in the room didn’t match the heat outside, and suddenly he wished he’d gone with something warmer than his threadbare t-shirt he’d stolen from Wilder the night the mixer exploded globs of butter all over them both. Wilder had sent him home with the shirt, and he was grateful for his forgetfulness because it was like taking a small piece of home with him on a day like this.
