by Elliot Joyce
“Why would I do that?” Felipe asked, standing up as Wren pulled on his arm. “I want you to always be able to find your way home.”
“I’ve got GPS and a full iPhone battery. I’m good,” Wren said, still not sure what Felipe was saying.
Felipe rolled his eyes and knocked shoulders with him as they headed back to their tent. Kyle and Travis were already there, though it was a toss-up whether they were actually asleep or not.
“When you get lost in the woods with no iPhone and no GPS, then don’t come crawling back to me.”
“I won’t be able to because I’ll be lost,” Wren pointed out.
Felipe rolled his eyes again. “I’m glad one of us is an actual Boy Scout.”
“Yeah, how’s that working out for you?”
“Pretty damn well. I have something extra to add on my college apps, I know a bunch of really random information, and….” Felipe stopped walking and spun Wren around until the two of them were standing face-to-face, a few inches between them. Felipe’s hands were suddenly in Wren’s. “I got to meet a really cute boy.”
Wren froze. He didn’t know what he could say to that. So he didn’t even try. He just carefully reached up and pulled Felipe into a kiss.
“HAVE YOU told Mom and Dad?” Chris asked the next morning, as everyone was waiting for Travis’s famous campfire pancakes.
“Not yet,” Wren replied slowly.
Felipe was off brushing his teeth with some of the others, and he gave Wren a little wave when he noticed he was being watched. Wren blushed and waved back.
Chris made a noise. It was hard to tell if it was out of disgust or just annoyance.
“Are you going to tell them?”
“Yeah. Let me do it, okay?” Wren wasn’t too concerned about his parents finding out, but he knew he should do it.
“I guess.” There was a moment of silence. “When did you two get together?”
“Like…. A few months ago? Why?”
“Oh. I thought it had been going on for a while.” Chris coughed. “I’m, uh, happy you two are happy, I guess. Just don’t be all gross and couple-y where I can see you.”
Wren figured he would have said the same thing if he was dating a girl, so he let it slide. “I will endeavor to be incredibly gross and romantic in front of you.”
“Fuck you,” Chris said. “God, is this what I have to look forward to when Blair and August get older?”
“Probably.”
WHEN THEY got back, Wren realized life was going well for the first time in a while. His therapist was someone who specialized in LGBTQ youth, and she agreed with him that hormones were a good idea and had started to talk to his parents about getting him on a low dose. It was still a process, but it was one that was moving forward and Wren couldn’t help but be glad that it existed at all.
When he did come out to his parents as officially gay, they hadn’t been surprised at all and Mom had just made him promise to invite Felipe over for New Year’s. Unfortunately Felipe had to celebrate with his family, but the two of them sent texts exactly at midnight. There would be more opportunities in the future. More times they could kiss.
It was a little hard for Wren to believe he was planning that far ahead, especially when they had only been dating for a few weeks, but something told him this relationship was good. There was something real here, something solid and reliable and good. It was hard to describe it any other way. Wren didn’t know if he was just being stupid, but he knew that as long as they handled everything well, things would be fine.
“How do you know that?” Luke, one of Wren’s only friends at Independence High, asked. “I mean, the guy sounds great and everything, dude, but you only met him like a few months ago.”
“I only just met you and I have a pretty solid handle on your personality,” Wren pointed out.
Luke raised his hands. “Okay, okay, if you wanna go there, that’s fine. But I’m just saying, you two aren’t gonna be going to the same college. Even if it is in the same state, that ain’t easy. There’s a lot of fish to fry in college, especially in the big ones.” Luke winked even as Wren made a face.
“Well, I’m glad I know where your priorities are.”
“Listen, I’m just being honest, man. We might not be as tight as you and Felipe are—which, like, good, because no offense, I’m not into guys—but we’re still friends, yeah?”
“Yeah, we are.” Wren didn’t spend as much time with Luke, considering Luke had other friends he had known longer, but the two of them sat together at lunch and, honestly, Wren was just glad there was someone at Independence who didn’t ignore him.
Luke nodded. “So I’m just saying you should talk to him. Make sure you DTR before it’s too late.”
“DTR?”
“Define the relationship.” Luke slapped Wren on the back. “Once you’ve got that down, everything’s fine.”
Wren didn’t think that Luke, who had more acne on his face than most people had in their life and had probably never kissed someone before, was the best to ask for advice in any circumstance, but he couldn’t help but think that Luke might be right, just this one time. Which was why that night he sat down and struggled to write a text for about thirty minutes before giving up.
Hey, we should talk about what we’re gonna do with college and everything. Just whenever you have free time. Let me know.
It occurred to Wren, as he hit Send and his message shot off into the air, that he might be coming on too strong. January was still a long way off from March, when most acceptances were coming out for major schools that weren’t ASU or U of A, and even farther from May, when people had to declare where they were going.
Belatedly, Wren wondered why he hadn’t just thought about going to U of A. It wasn’t like he had strong feelings toward ASU, besides it being closer to home. And maybe being farther from home wouldn’t be a bad thing in this case. But was it too weird to change colleges just for a guy?
Yes, yes, it is, Wren told himself. He stood and walked over to his desk, determined to bury himself in homework so he wouldn’t think too much about it. But quadratic equations weren’t very good at distracting him, and he kept looking at his phone, waiting for it to go off. It remained silent, and after about an hour of staring at homework like it had the answers to his life problems, he gave up.
Wren let out a groan, grabbed his phone, and fell back onto his bed, scrolling through Facebook as he attempted to focus on something else. All he saw were Kyle and Travis posting about basketball, Blair sharing a music video by some K-Pop band, and nothing that showed that Felipe was on.
Ugh. This is stupid. I shouldn’t have said anything. Wren stared up at his bedroom ceiling. Why hasn’t Felipe texted me back yet? He glanced at the time stamp. It was a bit obsessive, but he was used to Felipe not really having any commitments other than class and Boy Scouts. That meant they were texting all the time, making Wren’s parents quite thankful that they had invested in unlimited texting.
It had reached the point where Wren knew he was just as bad as August in terms of being glued to his phone, but he had a boyfriend. She had a few hundred Instagram followers and too many Snapchat friends. He thought that the circumstances allowed for slightly different judgments.
Still, Wren told himself that there was nothing to worry about, even though he didn’t get a reply that night either, and when he woke up, he still had no alerts. He checked Facebook, wondering if maybe Felipe got grounded and wasn’t on his phone or laptop at all, but just two hours ago, Felipe had shared some stupid meme from one of the hundreds of pages he followed.
Wren frowned. Was this grounds to freak out? Was he allowed to be concerned, or was that too controlling? They were close enough to the point where texting all the time was just normal. It wasn’t unhealthy, really. They talked about lots of things, from video games to Boy Scouts to whatever strange fantasy novel with dragons that Felipe was trying to get Wren to read at the time. In fact, racking his brains, Wren couldn’t rem
ember a day where they hadn’t texted at least once.
It hasn’t even been a day. Calm the fuck down. Maybe I should ask Dad for advice? Wren thought about it. No, that’s stupid. I should be able to handle this by myself. I’m sure it’s nothing. Felipe probably saw the text and forgot to respond. We all do it.
Just in case that was the circumstance, Wren sent another text before class to make sure Felipe saw he had one.
Wren shoved his phone in his pocket and forced himself not to check it constantly throughout class. Not like that would have helped, since it vibrated whenever he got a message. Throughout the day, it remained suspiciously quiet.
He managed to stop himself from sending anything else up until that evening, by which point he was freaking out. Wren knew that he was probably overreacting, that Felipe was bound to have a million and one reasons for why he was ignoring Wren, but he just wanted to know that things were okay.
And if Felipe wanted to break up with him, well, Wren would deal with that later.
Hey, please text me back. I don’t know if I did something wrong or if you’re mad at me or what. I just want to know what’s going on. Just let me know.
Wren sent it and then threw his phone on his desk. He hesitated, then got up and turned the ringer up. That way he would know, even if he was asleep, when he got a message.
That didn’t mean that he expected to get one at two in the morning, but Wren still jolted awake as his phone went off. Groggy, Wren rubbed at his eyes as he rolled out of bed and checked it.
Sorry, some stuff happened and I had to deal with it. We’re still good. See you on Thursday.
Felipe didn’t have any explanation or any real apology for what happened. Wren stared at his phone, his stomach churning with anger and depression.
But his brain mostly felt like Jell-O, and he turned his phone off, set it down, and went back to sleep. I can deal with that in the morning.
In the morning, he still had no idea how to handle it. He could tell Dad knew something was up, and so did his siblings, because they all were suddenly nicer to him and Dad didn’t give him any grief for putting a ton of cream cheese on his toast. Mom looked like she wanted to say something, but she was running late to work and just gave him an extralong hug instead.
Wren wished all he needed was a hug.
Thursday couldn’t come fast enough. He and Felipe traded maybe a dozen texts at best, all of them surface-level questions while they avoided the real ones that hung around like the oliphaunts in the room. When it came time to go to the troop meeting, though, Wren found himself dragging.
“We’re going to be late!” Chris shouted, annoyance seeping into his tone as he banged on the bathroom door. “Come on, brother. I’m sure you look fine for your stupid boyfriend. Hurry up!”
That night they were supposed to go over tentative plans for the spring camping trip. Wren had been excited, hoping they’d go back to Aspen so things would be a little easier, but now he felt sick to his stomach.
“Shut up,” Wren called back, though his heart wasn’t really in it.
“No one cares that you look weird,” August chimed in from her room down the hall.
“No one cares about you,” Chris told her.
“Don’t talk to your sister like that!” Mom shouted up the stairs. “But do hurry up, Wren. Your father is waiting.”
Knowing that there was no more putting this off, Wren sighed and left the bathroom.
Chris gave him a look and slugged him on the shoulder. It wasn’t nearly as painful as it could have been. “Come on, dickhead. Let’s go before we’re even more late. With your luck we’re going to be stuck in traffic.”
“With my luck?” Wren asked, not sure what that meant and not sure he wanted to know.
Chris didn’t bother explaining, just dashed down the stairs and out to the garage as Wren followed.
His mom and dad were waiting, both of them with poorly concealed concern on their faces. Wren let Mom hug him tight and kiss him on the head before nodding toward Dad and heading for the car.
Chris tried to claim shotgun. Wren wasn’t in a good enough mood to properly fight. He just threw the door open and glared until Chris got up and switched seats, muttering the whole time about stupid big brothers. It probably said something about their relationship when Wren didn’t even take it personally.
He was quiet the whole car ride over. Chris didn’t have anything to say either, or he at least recognized how tense it was in the car even if he didn’t know why. Instead, KJZZ played soft jazz as they drove down the sixty. It wasn’t bad, but it was different than what Wren was used to hearing in a car. He realized he kept waiting for something more intense to begin playing, something that would make him want to get up and save the world.
It didn’t come.
They pulled up to where Troop 901 met, and Chris barely waited for the car to stop before jumping out and going to find Nico. Wren and his dad waited in the car, neither of them speaking for a minute.
“Do you not want to go?” Dad asked.
“No,” Wren immediately replied. “I want to do this. I just….” He sighed. “I think Felipe is going to break up with me.”
Dad frowned. Wren frowned back. He didn’t want pity necessarily, he just… he didn’t know what he wanted.
“You know, your mother was not the first woman I fell in love with,” Dad said. “There was someone before her. Monica Bells. Beautiful blonde. Tall. Played volleyball. I dated her for three months and we called it love.”
“What happened?” Wren asked, not sure if he cared.
Dad shrugged. “We realized that we didn’t want the same thing. She wanted to play professionally and that meant traveling. I was looking for a place to put down roots, to start a family.” He squeezed Wren’s shoulder. “You’re almost eighteen. You need to think about what you want, even if it seems like it’s very far down the road.”
Wren guessed his dad was right.
He got out of the car and walked up the driveway to the house. Kyle was waiting in the doorway, though Felipe was nowhere to be seen. There was an uncharacteristically serious expression on Kyle’s face, but he brightened a little when he saw Wren.
“We thought you ditched us for a second,” Kyle said. “Come on. Felipe’s driving himself crazy pacing around in the back.” He walked off, expecting Wren to follow.
And, well, he was right. There wasn’t much else Wren could do.
Kyle brought him to the backyard, which was dominated with a swimming pool, just like everyone else’s yard. Felipe was indeed walking back and forth, and he barely even glanced up when the patio door opened. When he saw Wren he froze. Suddenly it was way too hot to be wearing a binder and a shirt, even though it was still a crisp January night.
For a moment Wren thought Felipe was going to run away. It definitely looked like he wanted to, the tension in his body visible. But he took a deep breath and swallowed, nodding at Kyle.
“See you inside,” Felipe said.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll talk to you two later.” Kyle slunk back inside, leaving them out there alone.
Wren didn’t want to start the conversation, but he didn’t trust Felipe to either. When he opened his mouth, though, nothing came out. Wren didn’t know what to say, how to explain how he felt. No one had ever prepared him for this sort of a conversation. There were lessons on how to interview for jobs and internships, but there weren’t any on how to have emotional discussions with your boyfriend. Were they still even dating? Wren assumed they were, seeing as Felipe hadn’t officially broken up with him.
“I’ve been acting like a piece of shit this week, and I’m sorry,” Felipe said.
Wren nodded. He needed more than that, but it was a start.
“I have an excuse, not a reason, but it… I mean, I just didn’t think this would ever be a problem. And if you want to break up with me because of how I’ve been handling this, I totally understand, but also I… I promise that I’m going to do better.”
“You still haven’t said what happened,” Wren pointed out.
“Yeah. That.” Felipe rubbed the back of his neck. He did that when he was nervous, Wren knew, or when he was embarrassed. “I—I got my letter back from Stanford.”
“So?”
“I got in.”
“What?” Wren blinked. He hadn’t expected that.
“I got in, and they’re offering me practically a full ride.” Felipe stopped walking back and forth, but he still couldn’t look Wren in the eyes. “I can’t say no to this, Wren. And I know that it’s all the way in California and I freaked out because you mentioned making plans for college the same day I got my letter and I—”
“You thought I’d be mad?” Wren asked.
Felipe gestured vaguely. “I don’t know what I thought. I just freaked out, okay? I really don’t want us to break up, but I don’t know why you’d want to stay with me.” He hung his head. “Especially after this disaster.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. “I’ve never dated anyone, Wren. You’re…. You’re special, okay? And I get that I fucked up. But if you’re willing to give me another chance, then I’m going to take it and I won’t fuck it up this time.”
There was silence. Inside the house, Wren could hear Percy get up on a chair and tell everyone to be quiet. Outside, crickets chirped and there was the distant sound of someone driving. Even that faded away until Wren thought he could hear himself breathe.
“Wren?” Felipe’s voice was soft. “Please say something.”
“I thought you hated me,” Wren said. “I thought that you were going to break up with me for thinking so far ahead.”
“No, never,” Felipe promised. He stepped forward, almost as if a greater force compelled him to. “I want this. I’m fucking terrified every day, Wren. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t know if we’re going to get yelled at or attacked for holding hands because we live in a disaster state. I don’t even know if all the guys are chill with us or if they’re just pretending to be because Travis will knock their heads in if they aren’t. But I know that I don’t ever want to hurt you.”