by Eli Lang
Breakfast was easier than I’d anticipated, and I realized that it was this very moment, when we all sat down together for the first time in so long and tried to make conversation, that I’d been dreading more than anything. I loved my parents, I really did, but there was a disconnect in the way we related to each other. They had always expected, wanted, me to be one thing, and I had always wanted to be something else. There was still a part of them, I knew, that wondered why I hadn’t been what they’d imagined I would be. Why I hadn’t finished college and done something normal and banal. Useful. I was different, in so many ways, than they had expected, and I didn’t think they could understand quite how that had happened.
I didn’t even want to imagine what the expressions on their faces would be if I told them about Cara. If I told them about how I’d met a girl I thought was beautiful, a girl who’d touched me in a way that I hadn’t been touched in so long. A girl I wanted to kiss and hold and maybe be with, if things had been different and there had been any chance of that. I wasn’t in the closet, exactly, but my sexuality wasn’t something I talked about with many people, and my parents had never been on that short list.
But maybe I really did look too tired for anything more than a surface conversation, because they stuck to easy subjects. They filled me in on when my cousin was driving up, when dinner with my aunt would be, and what the schedule was for moving my grandmother into the assisted-living facility. Stuff that was simple and that we probably wouldn’t end up at each other’s throats over. Granted, I didn’t ask how my gran was feeling about the whole leaving-her-house thing, and my parents didn’t tell me. Maybe no one had asked her. Maybe they didn’t want to ask because they knew she was bold enough to tell them exactly how she felt, and they could already guess. Maybe no one wanted to allow her to make it real.
I didn’t really know what to do there. My grandmother and I had never been close. I didn’t think my grandmother was disappointed with me the way my parents were. I thought she just hadn’t ever known me, really. We hadn’t taken the time or energy to know each other. It was like we existed on two different planes. But I was here, and I planned to help, and if that meant figuring out what was really going on in her mind about all of this, well, then I would do it. Not right now, though. Not for these few brief minutes when my parents and I were getting along and sitting together at the same table and I could pretend this was a slice of my childhood, before I’d started defying everything they wanted from me.
After, I carried my bag upstairs and closed the door behind me in the guest room. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and flopped down on the bed. I wanted to sleep for hours, just lie here in this room that was completely unfamiliar. But I had people to see, plans to make. I’d have to get up, have a shower, get ready for the day. I could only take a few minutes here for myself, right now.
I sent a text to my cousin Zevi, telling him I’d meet him when he got to town, and asking when he was arriving. He didn’t write back, and I figured he was still driving. Then I checked my own messages. I had two from Tuck—a story he’d heard, that was mostly funny because he was such a terrible storyteller. The next was him saying his girlfriend, Lissa, had reminded him to ask if I got in okay. I laughed at both of them, but then I let myself wallow in being alone. I felt so isolated here. Like I’d been sent to the other side of the planet and I was an alien. The idea of Tuck and Lissa talking about me, him thinking about me, made me feel, perversely, even more alone. I had to put the phone down on my chest, wrap my hand around it, and hide the screen from myself for a few minutes.
I had a message from Micah too, and when I picked the phone back up, I checked it. I hadn’t known Micah long—he’d joined us as a roadie on the second-to-last tour, and he and Bellamy had become inseparable pretty quickly. I liked them together. I liked Micah. He was so good. He felt like a friend I’d known for a long time, instead of only a few months.
I called him, even though it would be stupidly early there, and even though I could have called Tuck or Bellamy or Quinn instead.
He answered on the third ring. His voice was a little gravelly, and I could tell he was trying to keep the sleep out of it.
“Did I wake you?” I tilted my head to the side so I could see out the window. There was a huge oak tree there, something that must have been there before construction had started on the neighborhood. They must have built around it. I’d had a tree like that outside my childhood bedroom too. When I was a teenager, I’d used it to escape, climbing down and sneaking across the backyard, leaving my window open a crack so I could sneak back. I wondered if I could do that with this tree too. Then I remembered that I wasn’t a kid anymore, and if I wanted to go in or out late, I could use my key and the front door.
Micah cleared his throat. “Nah, I’m up. I’m making coffee. Bellamy’s still asleep.”
He yawned into the phone, and I wanted to laugh, but I found myself yawning too. He clinked something around—the coffee maker, maybe—and there was silence on the line for a second, but it wasn’t weird. I liked listening to him being domestic, liked knowing he was taking care of Bellamy, and himself. I liked that they were back home, doing what they always did, their routine the same, even though I was all the way across the country and everything, right now, was different for me.
“You get in okay?” he asked when he’d gotten things settled.
I nodded, not caring that he couldn’t see me. “I miss you,” I blurted out. I could feel my face burning. I ought to give in and wear heavy blush all the time if this was going to keep up. I was just so glad to hear his voice.
He laughed, but it was gentle, like he wasn’t quite laughing at me. “You’ve only been gone a day, Ava.”
I sighed. “I know. But . . .” I lowered my voice. “I don’t want to be here. I hate it.”
There was a long pause, and I thought maybe I’d pushed it too far. When it came down to it, Micah and I didn’t really know each other that well. It only felt like we did.
Then he said, “It can’t be all bad. There must be something good you can tell me.” And I realized he’d only been searching for the right thing to say.
“Is this one of your therapy things?” I didn’t mean to sound so defensive. It just happened. I felt awful as soon as the words were out.
“Therapy’s been good for me and Bellamy,” Micah said quietly. Calm but firm, and I knew I’d hit a sore spot. “Not sure how much Bellamy actually likes it, but it’s a step.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. You convinced Bellamy to go in the first place, so . . .”
“No, that was all Bellamy.” And it had been. I’d nudged him, because I’d wanted him to be happy, and I’d been heart sore at seeing him so sad, but we’d all wanted it to be his choice. I seriously believed it should be. And he’d done it. He’d gotten Micah to go too. I think that had surprised Micah—to think that, the entire time he was trying to get his boyfriend help, he could use help working out his own stuff in the same way.
Micah took a deep breath and what sounded like a sip of coffee. “Okay. So. Tell me.”
My brain went in exactly one direction, and I decided to just say it. “I met a really awesome girl on the plane.”
“Oh yeah? How awesome?”
I swallowed and lay back against the pillow. Cara’s face filled my mind. Had she been as pretty, as graceful, as I remembered, really? I thought she had. But I didn’t know how much of that to tell Micah. I’d never talked to him about this type of thing before.
Maybe that would make it easier. To pretend it was no big deal, because he was someone new in my life. Maybe it would be simpler.
“She was sweet. She let me sleep beside her, and then when I woke up, we talked for the rest of the flight.” I took a deep breath. What could it hurt? I told myself. How could it go wrong? It shouldn’t have been able to, but I was still nervous. I didn’t want to . . . take something that wasn’t mine, or make a big deal out
of this, or anything like that. I didn’t want him to see me differently. “She was beautiful.” It felt like my chest tightened and, conversely, a weight was lifted off me. “I wanted to ask for her number, but what was I gonna do? Date her for a couple weeks and go home?” I tried to be casual about it.
Another long silence. “I didn’t know you were bi. Or pan?” he added hastily. “I didn’t know.”
I hadn’t wanted him to focus on that. But maybe I had. Maybe I wanted it out there, so I could face it.
“Well, it’s not like I go around wearing a sign,” I joked, but my voice was a little tight, and I realized that I was waiting for him to judge me. Even though he was gay, even though he was in a relationship with another man. I was waiting for him to tell me I couldn’t be who I said I was. It was what I was used to.
He laughed. “Well, no. I just feel like I should, I don’t know . . . have some way to . . .” He trailed off, and I could almost hear his embarrassment over the phone.
“A way to recognize us?”
He groaned. “That sounds so bad.”
“It’s so bad,” I taunted. I felt like laughing out loud. Not because of what he was saying, although that was funny enough, but because I was so incredibly relieved. I’d essentially come out to him, and he was concerned only because he hadn’t seen it before. “You’re stereotyping people.”
“I’m not!” He laughed. “Tell me about your girl. What was her name?”
And that was it. He didn’t judge me. He didn’t ask me something ridiculous, like how long had I known. He didn’t tell me that bisexuality was a myth. He didn’t make me uncomfortable. He didn’t tell me I was wrong.
That was why I liked Micah. He liked everyone best when they were themselves. Whether that self was messy or damaged or perfect or strange or awesome. I hadn’t met anyone who saw things quite like that before, and for a second, I was jealous that Bellamy had snagged him. And then I was just glad that he was in my life.
“Cara.” I took a breath. “Micah. Do you seriously not care that I’m bi?”
“Why would I care?” He sounded genuinely confused. “I feel bad I assumed you were straight, though.”
I pressed my lips together and tried not to make a sound. Suddenly, unfathomably, I was afraid I was going to cry. I kept staring out the window, kept the phone pressed to my ear so I could hear the soft sounds Micah was making as he moved around the kitchen.
“Ava,” he said when I’d been quiet for a while. “Do the guys know? Quinn and Tuck? Bellamy?”
I rocked my head back and forth on the pillow. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.” I honestly didn’t. It wasn’t as if I’d kept it a secret. I’d slept with girls and guys in college, and I didn’t think Tuck could have missed that. But I definitely drifted toward the straighter end of the spectrum, if you could use something so simple as that to judge sexuality. The guys I’d brought home outnumbered the women, and it would have been easy for me to . . . hide. And maybe I had a little. Pretended, to make things easier. And I didn’t talk about it. I’d never wanted to . . . be the person who stood in the spotlight. Bellamy had always been so open about his sexuality and what it meant to him. I hadn’t wanted that, and, more importantly, I hadn’t wanted to steal any of that from him either. But now that Micah was asking me and I was actually wondering what the answer was, I realized it sounded an awful lot like keeping who I was locked away.
“I’m not trying to keep it from them,” I said. “I don’t want to hide it.”
“Okay. But it’s yours to tell, all right? Not mine. Definitely not mine.”
I sighed. From downstairs, I could hear the rumble of my father’s voice. I had to get going, get on with my day. “Thank you,” I said to Micah.
“For what?”
I closed my eyes, blocking out the daylight, then opened them and let it flood back in. “Just . . . for talking to me.”
“Any of us would do that, Ava. They love you, you know.”
“I know.” And I did. That was the thing, always the sweetest and the hardest thing, at the same time. I was loved. Bellamy loved me and Quinn loved me, and Tuck loved me too. He just didn’t love me in the way I loved him. “I have to get going.”
“Okay. Call me any time you want, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“And Ava? Next time, get the girl’s number, all right? Don’t . . . don’t worry about what might go wrong. It’s worth it.”
“You saying that from experience?” I wanted it to sound like I was teasing again, but it didn’t quite. I wasn’t sure when this conversation had gotten so serious.
“Yeah, I am. I’ll talk to you later.”
We hung up, and I lay there for a little longer, the phone on my chest. I wanted to absorb the whole conversation—it had been short, but it had felt important. Like it had been something I’d needed and hadn’t known. But while I was glancing at the clock and wondering how much time I could actually kill staring into the green leaves of the oak tree, my phone buzzed with a message from my cousin. He was at my aunt’s place already. We agreed on a time to meet, a little later in the afternoon, and I levered myself up and made myself go take a shower. No more thinking about Micah or the band or Tuck or Cara. Not right now.
I left the house early. I told my parents I was meeting Zevi, but really I just wanted to escape before we could have any conversation deeper than the minor ones we’d had this morning. I didn’t have a destination in mind, other than eventually arriving at the restaurant Zevi and I had agreed on. I took the same back roads I’d come in on, let them lead me through tiny neighborhoods I’d mostly forgotten about. They came out in the weirdest places. A narrow stretch of worn street, meandering through dense trees, suddenly dumped me into the middle of a town, with a busy rotary and impatient drivers. I followed it and it took me past warehouses, through tight clusters of businesses—cafés and hairdressers and art studios side by side. Then I was in the woods again, until the road opened back up and I was in another center of business. I’d forgotten how patched together everything was here, like no planning had ever happened. I’d never noticed how cramped everything felt until after I’d left.
I found myself driving by a club I’d gone to every weekend, when I’d still been living here. It was a shithole—lighting that was dim because the fixtures were old and dirty, rough concrete walls, a sticky floor. Everything you’d expect from a tiny concert venue, except somehow grungier, dirtier, more closed in. I’d loved it, though. They’d always had good bands, good drinks. It had been one of my few oases, and one of the only places I’d missed after I’d moved. I parked on the street and sat in the car and stared at it.
It looked exactly the same. Flyers, hung with strips of masking tape, were stuck to the windows. There was graffiti along the bottom bricks, old swirls of blue and green, and cigarette butts littered the ground outside. It was closed now, so early in the day, but I got out and walked to the door, pulled on the handle out of habit. It was locked, of course, but the smooth metal bar felt good under my hand.
Escaping Indigo had never played here. All our tiny, cramped venue shows, played to a handful of people, had happened on the other side of the country. We’d toured the West Coast until people were actually coming to see us, until they’d started buying the handmade CDs we’d brought with us. By the time we got to touring the rest of the US, we were playing clubs bigger than this one. It made me proud, sure, but it made me a little sad that we’d never stood on the stage here. That would have made me feel, maybe, like I’d really arrived, in the oddest, most backward way ever.
I wandered over to the flyers and read through the bands and dates. There were a few bands I recognized—I liked listening to small bands that were starting out. It felt good, and a lot of the time, the music was fantastic. Most of the people playing here I had never heard of, though. That was okay with me. A show was a show. I tried to find the flyers for who was playing over the next couple of days. Zevi would go with me if I asked. He was always up
for a concert. There were a handful of bands playing tonight, in a local showcase. I took a picture of the flyer with my phone before I hopped back in the car. I was tired already, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it through all of the bands playing, but if Zevi wanted to go, I’d love to at least catch a little bit. Music, especially live music, happening right in front of me, was my safe place. If we went, it would probably go a long way to loosening some of the knots in my mind, reminding me that everything was fine.
When I finally got to the restaurant, only a few minutes past the time we’d agreed to meet, Zevi was already at the bar. He grinned when he saw me, and patted the barstool next to him, like we met up this way all the time.
“Starting early?” I nodded at his drink. I was only joking. The drink was an iced tea. Zevi had been sober for almost seven years.
“Figured I’d wait for you before I got a table.”
I slid onto the seat next to him and leaned back so I could look at him. He seemed the same as always—dark hair, olive skin, a lean build that was just on this side of skinny. He stared back at me, taking me in the same way. It was at once surreal and comfortable. It had been a long time since it’d been the two of us together.
“How’ve you been?” he asked, and it sounded less like a social pleasantry and more like he actually wanted to know.
I shook my head instead of answering. Zevi was a year younger than me, and growing up, there hadn’t been anyone I’d been closer to. We’d lived in the same town then, gone to school together, done everything together. He’d been my best friend. The person I trusted more than anyone. He’d been one of the first and only people who I’d told about my dream to become a musician. He was one of the few people who I’d come out to about being bisexual. He’d known me, the real me, better than anyone else, and I’d thought I’d known him too. Then I’d gone to college and Zevi had gone to work, and it was as if we’d fallen apart. Like a chasm had opened between us. I’d been so wrapped up in my own stuff and trying to get out, get away, that I hadn’t even known he’d been having problems. I’d never seen it. He’d gone to rehab a year after I left. I hadn’t come back, at the time. He’d told me not to, and I’d taken his word for what he wanted, but I still felt guilty about it.