Autoboyography
Page 56

I’m not proud to admit it, but I immediately start crying. It’s not like I break down and crumple onto the sidewalk, but the back of my throat gets tight, and the sting spreads across the surface of my eyes. Maybe I’m crying because I’m terrified that he’s come here to do more damage, to reactivate what I feel only to let me down easy again, missionary style.
He stands, wiping his palms on his track pants. He must have come right after practice.
“I skipped soccer,” he says by way of greeting. He’s so nervous, his voice is shaking.
Mine shakes too: “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” He smiles, and it’s the kind of smile that starts on one side, unsure, more like a question. Are we smiling? Is this cool?
It hits me like a slap across my cheek that I’m his safe space. I get his real smiles.
He’s never had an Autumn, or a Paul and Jenna Scott, a Manny, or even a Hailey, who hates him but accepts him.
I give up the battle and smile back; Sebastian has become quite the truant. God, it feels so good to see him. I missed him so much it’s like there’s an animal inside me, a beastly puppeteer, trying to direct my arms around his shoulders and my face into his neck.
The question hangs like a cloud over my head. “What are you doing here?”
He lets out a tight cough and looks down the street. His eyes are puffy and red, and I think this time he has been crying. “I’m not doing so great. I didn’t know where else to go.” He laughs now, squeezing his eyes closed. “That sounds so lame.”
He came to me.
“It doesn’t.” Reeling, I move closer to him, close enough to touch if I wanted, to check him everywhere and make sure he’s okay. “What happened?”
Sebastian stares down at our feet. He’s got on indoor cleats, and I love them on him. They’re black Adidas, with orange stripes. I’m wearing some scuffed-up Vans. While he figures out his answer, I imagine our feet moving at a dance, or our shoes side by side at the front door.
My brain is such a traitorous beast. It immediately goes from Ouch, Sebastian is sitting right there to happily married dudes.
“I talked to my parents,” he says, and the world comes to a screeching stop.
“What?”
“I didn’t come out,” he says quietly, and it’s such a revelation to even hear him say this much that my knees want to buckle. “But I gave a hypothetical.”
Gesturing that we walk around to the backyard for more privacy, I turn, and he follows.
I wish I could describe what happens inside my chest when I feel his hand slide into mine as we move past the trellis of ivy along the garage. There’s a party in my blood, riotous and electric; it vibrates my bones.
“This okay?” he asks.
I look down at our hands, so similar in size. “I don’t know, actually.”
Autumn’s voice pushes into my head: Be careful. I shift her voice to the front, but I don’t let go of his hand.
We find a spot under Mom’s favorite willow tree, and sit. The grass is still wet from the sprinklers, but I don’t think either of us cares. I stretch out my legs, and he follows, pressing the length of his thigh to mine.
“What should we do first?” he asks, staring at our legs. “My apology, or my story?”
His apology? “I don’t know if my brain has caught up yet.”
“Are you okay—have you been okay?”
I let out a single dry laugh. “About us? No. Not at all.”
“Me either.”
I count out my heartbeats. One, two, three, four. A bird shrieks overhead, and wind moves through the leaves. This tree always reminded me of Mr. Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street. Lumbering and unobtrusive and gentle.
“I didn’t end things because I was over you,” he says.
“I know. That made it worse, I think.”
He turns, cupping my neck in both palms so I look him in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
His hands are so warm, and they’re shaking. I bite my lip so I don’t lose it. Sebastian moves closer, ponderously, never closing his eyes even when his mouth touches mine. I don’t even think I kiss him back. I just sort of sit there, mouth hanging open in shock.
“I love you too.” He kisses me again, this time longer. This time I kiss him back.
I pull away because maybe I need to lose it a little, bending and pressing my hands to my face. Of course, this moment is playing out almost exactly like I wanted it to in every iteration of the fantasy. But there’s a lot of scar tissue there, and I’m not sure how or whether I can cleanly remove it with him sitting there watching. I need about a half hour to figure out how to react to what he’s said that’s slightly more measured than pulling him on top of me on the lawn.
“I need a minute to process this,” I say. “Tell me what happened.”
He nods, cheeks hot. “Okay, so, remember that guy Brett my parents mentioned?” he says. “When we overheard them?”
The guy who married his boyfriend, and Sebastian’s mom worried for the well-being of the parents. “Yeah. I remember.”
“He and his husband moved from California to Salt Lake. I guess there’s some drama in the ward about it.” Sebastian turns our hands over, tracing the tendons under my skin with his index finger. “Is this okay?”
“I think so.” I laugh, because the tone of my voice is the acoustic equivalent of a tail wagging, but I can’t even bother being embarrassed about it.
“So, he moved back, and my parents were talking about it at dinner. My grandparents were there.” He laughs, and looks over at me. “I chose a bad time to do this, I know, but it just sort of . . . came out.”
“So to speak.”
He laughs again. “So at dinner, they’re talking about Brett and Joshi, and I just put my silverware down and asked them point-blank what would happen if one of us was gay.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.” He nods, and keeps nodding like he almost can’t believe it. “I haven’t been okay the past few weeks. I don’t know that I can go back to thinking that it will go away. I tried out all these hypotheticals with myself, like what if you moved on from this, would I stop being attracted to guys? Would I be able to marry someone like Manda one day? But the truth is, I wouldn’t. I felt right with you. In part because you’re you, but in part because . . .”
I point to my chest. “Guy.”
Sebastian smiles his real smile. “Yeah.” He pauses, and I know what’s coming before he even says it, and it’s like the sun chose this moment to press through the dense branches of the tree. “I’m totally gay.”
A gleeful laugh rips out of me.
I throw my arms around his neck, tackling him.
Beneath me, he laughs, letting me kiss all over his neck and face.
“I mean this in the least patronizing way possible: It makes me so proud to hear you say that.”
“I’ve been practicing,” he admits. “I said it into my pillow. Then I’d whisper it while I rode my bike. I’ve been saying it every day since we broke up. It doesn’t feel weird anymore.”
“Because it isn’t.” I let him up, and remember that he was in the middle of a story. “Okay, so you asked them the hypothetical . . .”
“Mom got really quiet,” he says, and both of our smiles fade because no, this isn’t silly, wrestling fun anymore. “Dad and Grandpa looked at each other, like ‘Oh, here we go.’ Grandma focused on cutting her steak into tiny, tiny pieces. Lizzy stood up and gathered Faith and Aaron and walked them out of the room.” He looks at me, pained. “Lizzy, my closest friend, wanted to remove them from the conversation. Like, I don’t think anyone was surprised by this.”