Philadelphia

by L B Winter

  “Well, I don’t think I would eat a goldfish, no. Though…well, maybe on a dare.”

  A broad smile spread over his face. “I knew it. You would eat anything. See? Proved my point.”

  “I would do anything on a dare,” I said, “there’s a difference. I’m not over here eating goldfish for the nourishment of it.”

  He cracked up. “I could eat a goldfish right now, I’m so hungry.”

  I laughed, too. “Sorry, dude. Should’ve had your dinner like a grown-up.”

  He sighed, letting his laughter die out. “I wish we had snacks in our rooms.”

  “I know. Like, even in summer camp you could hide snacks under your bunk. This place is crazy.”

  “It really is,” he said. “Though, I never went to summer camp, so I don’t know about that.”

  I stared at him in disbelief for a second. “Did you really never go? I thought all kids in America had to go to summer camp as, like, a required rite of passage.”

  “Passage into what?”

  I shrugged, smiling as I grasped for straws. “Ugh…I don’t know. Junior high?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, “you mean I’m stuck in middle school purgatory forever?”

  “Evidently you are,” I said.

  “That really sucks.”

  We were quiet for a moment, enjoying that perfect mutual understanding that had begun to grow between us. He was getting tired; I watched him roll over under the covers, pulling the sheet up to his neck. I was still thinking, though.

  “Hey,” I said after a minute. “Want to sneak out and get food?”

  “What? No, we can’t sneak out.”

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yeah, but we can’t leave. Where would we go? We don’t even have any money.”

  “Not out out,” I said, “just to the kitchens. I know there’s more food in there, and we can snag something to hide under our beds, too. Like camp.”

  He looked so on the fence—hunger battling the rule-following he always did. Finally, I said, “Look, I can go grab you something. I’m not afraid.”

  Then he sighed and kicked off his covers. “No, I can’t let you go without me.”

  I smiled and said, “Great. Let ‘operation goldfish’ commence.”

  The cafeteria was right next to the kitchen, and it was all really close to the staircase to the basement where we slept. Really the only complication was sneaking past the other dorm rooms, all of which had windows. Though there were so many windows, I’d never seen any of the leaders from the center walk by. We were pretty isolated, and they relied a lot on our good intentions and guilt to make us fall into line. But, what can I say? I like to make my own rules sometimes.

  Jamie and I slipped out our door and shuffled down the hallway—me in front, and him following after me every time I said the way was clear. He zipped around like a panther, almost silent, and deceptively fast. By the time we reached the stairs, he was in the lead.

  “You could be a professional,” I whispered as I climbed the stairs with him.

  “A professional what?”

  “Uh…I don’t know. Ninja? Thief, maybe?”

  He barked a laugh, and I laughed too, though I tried to shush him simultaneously. “Thief, yes. Lifelong dream right there.”

  I cracked up and said, “Okay, okay. No more joking. We have to be quiet; somebody could be up here.”

  He dutifully schooled his expression and stood close to me as I peered out the closed door.

  “It looks deserted,” I said. “Okay…let’s just run to the kitchen on the count of three.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really? That’s your plan? Run on the count of three?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, why not? We’re fast.”

  He shook his head, smiling. “Yeah, okay. On three.”

  “One…two…three!”

  We took off, sprinting across the empty cafeteria, bare feet pattering along the wax-slick floors, holding our breaths to contain the laughter that threatened to bounce out of our souls and all along the cafeteria walls.

  He was so much faster than me. We reached the kitchen and slipped inside, and he seemed at a loss for where to begin. He looked back over his shoulder at me, and when I stood beside him, he whispered, “Now what?”

  I glanced around and caught my breath. There were only about a million cupboards in here. “Now we search. Quietly,” I added, and I demonstrated myself how softly he would need to open and close the cupboards to ensure nobody heard us. As it was, it seemed pretty unlikely that we would get away with this—but we would sure as hell have fun trying.

  “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered from across the kitchen, “just trays and dishes and—oh! Well, no. This is just salt and sugar.”

  “I think I see something,” I said, finding a cupboard full of large plastic tubs with lids. “Yes! Hey, do you like cereal?”

  Jamie’s face lit up, and he hustled across the room. “Yes. Any and all varieties.”

  “Let’s find something to put it in,” I added, “and we can sneak it to our room to eat.”

  He was already pouring handfuls out and munching on them, though. “Oh, I think I saw some bags over there,” he said between crunches.

  I rolled my eyes, smiling. “You were really hungry.”

  “I know,” he said, and I heard him sigh happily while I dug out the plastic bags. We filled five of them—one for each flavor of cereal—then cleaned up after ourselves and headed out of the kitchen again. But we stopped dead in our tracks when, halfway through the cafeteria, we heard voices in the distance.

  “Shit,” I said, turning toward him. Though we’d run to the kitchen, we were walking out at a much slower pace, and now it seemed we were definitely about to get caught.

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. We looked into each other’s eyes, and I saw the same fear I felt reflected back to me—but then I smiled. Because I wasn’t alone anymore; I had this person, this crazy, up-for-anything person to go steal cereal with me. “Let’s run.”

  We turned and ran to the stairs, stumbling down them together until the voices disappeared into the darkness, and then sprinted to our room and launched ourselves back into our beds. Once there, with the door latched behind us, we both started laughing—and once we started, we couldn’t stop. We both hid under our covers, burying our faces in our pillows, until we could be calm again.

  “Where do we put this cereal?” Jamie finally asked, with the remnants of his laughter still echoing in his voice.

  “Oh,” I said breathlessly, “um…just under the mattress.”

  “How?” he said.

  “You just—here, I’ll show you.” I scooted out of bed and crawled to his side, then helped him lift the edge of the mattress to hang the corners of the plastic bags on the bed frame. “There,” I said, “for a late night snack whenever you need one.”

  “Mmm,” he sighed happily, and I looked up at him and saw his face relaxed and eyes smiling. “Thanks, Paul. I feel way better now.”

  “Good,” I said. I started to stand up, but then he reached out and put his hand on mine.

  “Paul?” I looked at him, so startled and caught off guard that my heart leapt into my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time somebody had held my hand like that; it felt oddly meaningful, and at the same time, calm…warm…natural. It made me panic and feel right at home all at the same time. It was, I realized slowly, the perfect feeling—anticipation mixed with excitement, all tinged with trust. I felt like he knew me in that moment, like we weren’t strangers at all anymore. I don’t think I even breathed while I waited, quietly, to see what he would do, but then he just leaned back on the pillows again, hand withdrawn. “Nothing. Just—thanks.”

  I stood up slowly, knowing I should go back to my bed, but wanting desperately not to leave him. “I couldn’t let you starve to death,” I said. We laughed a little, but it didn’t seem like there was anything else to say.

&nb
sp; I got in bed in the dark, but I couldn’t stop myself from turning to look at him once I was in my bed—and when I did it, I saw that he was still watching me, too.

  “Good night,” I said softly.

  “Night, Paul,” he answered. And that was all we said—but we lay there, just looking at each other, for a really long time. I don’t even remember who fell asleep first; all I know is he was the last thing I saw before I did.

  We always talked before bed after that. If something funny had happened that day, or if he’d told some lie in the group session and wanted me to know it wasn’t true, or if he’d been dying to laugh at something I’d said but had to wait until we were alone—he told me it all. And I lived for it, all day—just noticing the sparkle in his eye and trying to guess how he’d react. He seldom surprised me; I knew if he was lying after a while because he had a tell: one shoulder would twitch up a little bit, almost a shrug. I could always tell when he was suppressing a laugh, too. Then, at the beginning of November, he did surprise me.

  We’d had another monthly check-in, and I just hadn’t had it in me to lie. It seemed so pointless. So everybody shared their progress in group, and when I had my turn again, I said, “Okay, so, maybe I just don’t feel different because I haven’t been tested. Like, I’m here, you know? So that’s probably why I just feel the same.”

  Cal seemed to handle that better, but Jamie actually frowned at me, and when we left group, he didn’t smile at all.

  We were in our rooms that night when Jamie said my name, like he always did. But this time, it sounded much closer. When I rolled over, he was standing beside my bed.

  “What are you doing over here?”

  “Was that a lie in group, or was it true?”

  “What?”

  He knelt next to the bed, eyes earnest. “You said you can’t tell if you feel different because you’re untested, because you’re here. Was that a lie, or was it true?”

  I didn’t know where Jamie got off accusing me of lying when he’d said he was “ready to think about the woman God has in mind for him” during his progress report, but whatever. I lifted up onto one elbow and said, “It’s true that I don’t feel different, but because of your excellent advice to lie, I tossed that little bit in there. I thought it was good.”

  “So it wasn’t true.”

  I shook my head a little, still confused. “No, like—I can tell I’m still gay.”

  “Even though you’re not tested,” he pressed.

  I was at a loss for words for a second. What in the world was he talking about? My mouth was open to reply, but I hardly knew what to say. “It was just a thing I said, Jamie. Like you told me to, to tell them what they wanted to hear.”

  “No, I know,” he said urgently, and he leaned toward me more, one hand hovering near mine on the blankets. “I just want to know if the part about not being tested here was true or a lie.”

  That moment when it clicked—that he liked me as much as I liked him—I’ll never forget that moment. That he wanted to make sure being here did test me, because being here meant being near him. What else could he possibly mean? My first real crush liked me back. I could have jumped out of bed and sang. But I like to think I was pretty cool, considering the circumstances. I smiled at him. “It was a lie.”

  He smiled, too, and sighed such a huge, relieved sigh—and for a moment, he sat back on his heels and turned away from me. But then, a second later, he was on my bed, hands on my face, and he was kissing me.

  Considering I’d only ever kissed one other person, I didn’t have a lot to go off of, but it was easily the best kiss my adolescent mind could have imagined. He tasted like cereal—had he been eating some just before?—and his lips were soft and warm and so confident. I felt like I couldn’t possibly be impressive by comparison, but I’d follow his lead to the ends of the earth.

  When he pulled back, he said, “I can’t believe you like me, too.”

  I actually laughed. “Of course I do. How could I not?”

  He blushed a little and said, “Yeah, but it’s conversion therapy. We’re supposed to be getting better.”

  It was the first time Jamie had actually said something like that to me, thinking about being here as “getting better.” In hindsight, it should have raised a red flag—but I was young and inexperienced, and it didn’t.

  “I don’t know if that’s even possible,” I said, “but…all I know is I’ve never felt like this about anybody before.”

  He smiled so wide before he kissed me again, I thought his face would split apart from it. He seemed so, so happy that I felt the same way he did. We kissed for a while, him still kneeling beside me, me still raised on one elbow with an arm that was tingling and half-asleep, but there was no way I would stop him. I didn’t know what would happen next, but I was up for whatever he wanted. When a light lit up outside our window, though, he finally stepped back and hopped over to his bed. He lay down, and we waited—but nobody came inside or even walked by. Who knew what that light was, but we were still alone.

  Our eyes met again after a few moments, and we both started to laugh.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do in a room covered in windows.”

  But I hadn’t minded. “They’re delusional if they think putting gay teenagers in rooms together to turn them straight is a good idea.”

  He cracked up, rolling onto his back to look at the ceiling. After a moment of quiet, he said, “Maybe you’re right, Paul. Maybe it just isn’t possible.”

  I didn’t have to ask what he meant, and having him confirm what I already thought was a really big deal to me. It cemented what I’d suspected—that I would leave Freedom as gay as I’d been when I’d walked in—but now, I didn’t think I would mind it. Now, I began to feel like being with Jamie would be worth whatever waited on the other side.

  CHAPTER 3

  This is Fine

  __________

  After that, Jamie came to my bed every night and just slid inside with me so we could make out for a while before going to sleep. The light that came on was always our cue that we should split up, but until then, it was pure heaven every night. Rubbing up against him in bed, feeling how hard I made him, knowing that he could tell I was just as hard—I’d never done anything so erotic. I had the strange sensation of wanting more, but also having no clue what that would involve. I just knew that I wanted him.

  We were getting a whole week off for Thanksgiving, but I was actually dreading it. I would have to tell my parents that this wasn’t working, and face all the disappointment and guilt they would definitely lay on thick—especially Dad. But worse than that, I would have to leave Jamie.

  “You seem bummed,” Jamie said the night before fall break.

  “I am,” I answered. He was in my bed with me, kissing me as usual, but I was too sad that we’d be apart for the next week to even enjoy it. “Are you sure you have to go home for break?”

  He laughed. “You have to go home, too!”

  “I know,” I said, smiling. “I’m just…really gonna miss you.”

  “It’s only a week,” he said.

  “Yeah, but…then the program ends in December,” I reminded him. “We’ll only have four more weeks together. And then we’ll have to go back and tell everybody…”

  He frowned, rolling away from me a little. “Yeah.”

  “Do you think our parents would let us see each other?”

  “What?” he looked at me like I was crazy. “No, no way. I am definitely not allowed to have a boyfriend. They made that very clear when they caught me with Dylan.”

  Caught him with Dylan? Yikes—that sounded really bad.

  “Well, maybe we could just text or keep in touch on social—”

  “I don’t use any of that,” Jamie said.

  “Seriously? You don’t have a phone?”

  He shook his head, still looking supremely uncomfortable.

  “Well…I don’t want to just never see you agai
n.”

  “Me, neither,” he turned, smiling sadly.

  “I think my parents would come around,” I pressed, “eventually.”

  He raised his eyebrows like, Keep telling yourself that.

  “My mom would, at least,” I said. “This wasn’t her idea.”

  “Yeah, but if she didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here. And they just want what’s best for you.”

  “If they want what’s best for us, then I think they’ll be happy—”

  “How could our sin make them happy?”

  Whoa. I had never heard Jamie refer to us like that before. I’d always sort of assumed he thought of things like I did—that if it was malicious, it was a sin, and if it wasn’t, then it was just something lost in translation. But maybe he didn’t feel that way. Maybe I was the only one. For the first time since that day when he’d smiled at me in group, I felt alone.

  “Mom and Dad don’t want me around my little sisters,” Jamie added, still pressed against me. “They say I have to fix this. So, like, I don’t see what choice I have.”

  My heart broke to hear the pain in his voice. I said, “My dad wants me to fix this, too, but like—what if there’s nothing to fix? You know? What if this is…fine? I mean, it doesn’t feel wrong, does it? It feels fine.”

  He shook his head, still smiling that tortured smile. “You make me wish so hard that that was true, but…I don’t know.”

  “Maybe nobody knows,” I whispered back. “Maybe that’s the point.”

  He started kissing me again, softly at first, but then deepening it, hands traveling lower and lower as I pressed into his touch. After a couple minutes, I figured out that the talking period of our evening was over. I wasn’t complaining. His hands moved so fluidly, so naturally, that I barely noticed them until they were under my shirt, his palms pressed against my skin, making me shiver.

  “What do you need this shirt for, anyway?” he said with a smirk before pulling it over my head in one smooth motion.

  “Then you don’t need one either,” I said, and he laughed at my affronted tone before ridding himself of his own.