Openly Straight

by Bill Konigsberg

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “What happened?”

  I put my head in my hands. “My lives have officially collided,” I said. “Huge crash. Major casualties.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So what now?”

  I hadn’t told him about Ben. When I stopped by, we mostly talked about books and writing. “I have absolutely no idea,” I said.

  “Write about it.”

  “But what about A History of Rafe?”

  “What about it? Seems like your history caught up to your present. Write about the present. Write about how your attempt to divorce yourself from your past is working today. From what I can see, I’d say it’s not going so well.”

  “It’s not. My best friend …”

  He waved his hands. “Don’t tell me about it. Write it down. I’m pretty sure at this point you’re well past the part where you start with nothing. Just go from where you are. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I am fully aware that I’m not an orphan in Somalia, or an impoverished ten-year-old working in a Chinese factory, or growing up in the slums of New Orleans. I mean it. I really get that I’m far from one of the world’s unfortunates. But that only makes this harder to say, in some ways.

  I feel like I’m cursed.

  I dropped my pen and groaned. “This is bullshit,” I said. “I’m doing it again.”

  I looked around the empty room. It was Tuesday morning and Albie was at class. I was skipping math, because this felt more important.

  “And now I’m talking to myself. Great. This is an excellent sign.”

  Why did it always feel like I was on stage in my writing? Who said shit like “I am fully aware that I’m not an orphan in Somalia?” It was just more bullshit, wasn’t it? That’s what Mr. Scarborough had been saying all this time, but that’s how I was used to writing.

  “Okay, Rafe,” I said to myself. “Try again. Stop writing shit.”

  I don’t think being gay is a curse. Definitely not. But we all know that being open about it comes with a lot of things that make life harder. Even if you have great parents and a school where you’re treated well, it adds stuff to your life. The worst to me is how everybody looks at you differently. I got so tired of being looked at.

  Cut to my life in Boulder. I’d take the trash out, down the alley on the side of our house, and there I’d see my neighbor Mr. Meyers. I’d wave and smile, and he’d wave back, but the smile was so forced. Every time. It was like I could read his mind. I could see him looking at me and thinking that I like boys, not girls. The same way I could see it in the guy tearing tickets at the Lady Gaga concert in Denver, or in the eyes of my soccer teammates. That damn camera, on me all the time. And just because I am gay.

  I got up from the desk and went and got a soda from Albie’s refrigerator. I’d owe him one. I sat back down at the desk and tried to concentrate. Why was I writing about Lady Gaga and cameras? What the hell did this have to do with what I was feeling?

  But that’s what a fastwrite is about, another part of me argued. I re-read the page. The line “I got so tired of being looked at,” stared me in the face.

  The words blended together. Looked at. Lookedat. Igotsotired. What did it all mean? I picked up my pen and took a deep breath. Write until something happens, I told myself. Just go.

  So maybe being openly gay isn’t a curse, but it’s fucking exhausting. Always wondering what people are seeing, and feeling separated from so much of the world, that’s hard. It would have been one thing if I could at least get a boyfriend, but that wasn’t happening. Clay was the wrong guy, and he wasn’t close to ready. After the time when things got physical, he texted me once and asked if I wanted to hang out. I wrote back and said: “Laughing Goat?”

  “Your house?” he asked back.

  I wrote, “Let’s talk. Do something in public.”

  His reply: “I just wanna hang out.”

  I didn’t respond to that. That’s not what I was looking for.

  I got tired of feeling isolated, okay? So I decided to tear down that barrier. I came to Natick, and I made a different choice. Not like gay is a choice, but being out definitely is one.

  And you know what? That barrier did come down. I arrived here, and for the first time maybe ever, that barrier between me and so-called straight guys disappeared. I felt like I was truly seen. Ben. He saw me. He saw who I was inside, and he liked it, and I liked it. I liked who he saw. Me but not the label. I know you don’t know what I’m talking about, but that’s okay. I’m exploring something here.

  I wanted that. I needed it.

  I didn’t tell him I was gay because I didn’t want anything to come between us.

  I picked up the paper and re-read what I’d just written.

  “I didn’t tell him I was gay because I didn’t want anything to come between us,” I said out loud.

  I chewed on the edge of my pen and let those words and their meaning seep into my brain. And I was like, Wow. Did I just write that? I didn’t want who I am to come between us? How could I not have seen that?

  I ran my pen over my top teeth like a percussion stick across a xylophone. I didn’t want anything to come between us, so I withheld a part of me? How hadn’t I realized that doesn’t make sense? How was I expecting to get closer to someone by not being truly me?

  I felt drunk, wobbly. I looked at the Coke can to make sure I wasn’t drinking beer without knowing it. How had I not seen that before?

  I had to keep going. See what other crazy shit was occupying my brain.

  Obviously that’s a crazy idea, and I just realized that. Not brilliant to try to get closer to someone by hiding the truth from them.

  I guess I decided the gay thing was an accessory, not an actual internal part of me. Like a sweater I could take off.

  And I can’t, can I? It’s as simple as that. It’s inside me. And I’ve never really stopped to think about how I feel about that. Maybe I skipped over that part of the process. Because my parents were so cool with me being gay, I guess in some ways I decided I was too.

  How do I really feel about being gay? I always thought I was okay with it. Am I, though? I mean, I stopped being open about it, so maybe I wasn’t okay? I need to get better, because it’s not a part of me I can remove.

  As soon as I tried to remove the label, a lie formed. In the end, that lie created a barrier way worse than the original one. How crazy is that? Ironic, I mean. I created a barrier getting rid of a barrier.

  At the beginning of class, when you said the “You start from nothing and learn as you go” quote, I have to admit I wasn’t listening to you. What I was really doing was plotting out how I could tell you what I already know in a way that would be pleasing to you, the reader. I see that now. Even as I wrote, I was playing to the camera in a way, wasn’t I? I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s new. That’s why I’m writing here. Because it’s new and it’s unrehearsed. Here I am complaining about always being watched, but in reality I just spent a semester writing stuff to you that was really just me on stage. But this is really me, Mr. Scarborough, and I don’t know what the hell I’ve learned but I know that I don’t know everything. So I guess that’s something, right?

  I spent all morning writing. Once I finished, I lay down in my bed and called my mother to tell her what was going on. I knew she wouldn’t say she told me so. That’s just not the kind of mom she is.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said. “Feel my arms around you from across the country.”

  “I could really use that,” I said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I closed my eyes and let the room spin. My brain was tired from all the writing and thinking. “I dunno. I don’t want anything I say to hurt Ben. But I think I probably need to tell people the truth.”

  “How do you think that will go?”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I’m not ashamed of being gay.”

  “I never thought you were. You always seemed to be fine with it.”

  �
��I was. I am. And then I went and screwed it all up. My whole life.”

  She laughed. “You screwed a few months of your life up. Not all of it. You can make it better anytime you want to.”

  I knew she was right, but it pissed me off a little too. Because why do I always have to do the right thing? Around the globe, people do the wrong thing all the time and the world doesn’t end. Then I go and avoid being totally honest for once in my life, and it blows up in my face.

  “Why can’t I just be bad?” I asked, figuring my mom would have no idea what I was talking about.

  “Well, that’s easy, sweetie. You can be anything you want, but when you go against who you are inside, it doesn’t feel good.”

  I let that sink in a little. Yeah. Simple. Funny that I’d never thought of that before. There was no law against not being openly gay. It only hurt me inside. A lot. Because gay was inside me. And when outside didn’t match inside …

  “Earth to Rafe.”

  “I’m here,” I said. “It’s just … Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “Thanks for the coming-out dinner at Hamburger Mary’s.”

  My mother laughed. “That was years ago. Why are you saying that now?”

  “Just because. I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it back then. Thanks.”

  “You are very welcome. Dad and I love you exactly as you are, and we want you to be happy. That’s all.”

  “I know. Thanks, Mom. So can you up my allowance?”

  “No,” she said, laughing.

  “I thought it was worth a try.”

  I had lunch with Albie and Toby, which was reasonably fun, although Toby’s game of Vacation, Move to, Bomb (someone yells out three places, and you have to decide which place you’d like to vacation, where you’d move to, and where you’d bomb) wore thin after about three rounds. Then I went to my afternoon classes, feeling a little better. I didn’t want to see Ben, but I also didn’t want to flunk out of Natick.

  As soon as class was done for the day, I called Claire Olivia, even though I knew it was two hours earlier in Colorado, so she’d still be in school. She answered anyway.

  “So how’s Boulder?” I asked, curling up under my blanket, still in my clothes.

  “It misses you. Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Guess what happened?”

  She sighed, weary. “You repressed your sexuality in the name of boredom, and now you’re sad?”

  “I told Ben. Everything.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Huge blowup,” I said, chewing my fingernail. “Very not good here.”

  “Sorry, Rafe. I really am. I know I gave you shit, but I am sorry. I know you really liked him.”

  “Loved him,” I said. It was the first time I’d admitted that to her. I wondered if she knew how much losing him had hurt me.

  “Loved him,” she repeated. “What are you gonna do?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” I said. “Am I a terrible person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on.”

  “Well, don’t ask questions when you know the answer already!”

  “Okay. So why do I feel like a terrible person? Like you were mad at me for lying, and now Ben is furious at me. If I’m not a terrible person, why have my two closest friends both called me a liar?”

  “Well, it’s pretty simple, really,” Claire Olivia said, and in the background I could hear the noises of Rangeview — lockers shutting, people shouting. “We called you a liar because you were lying. You’re a great person who was lying. Obviously you felt like you had to lie, or else you wouldn’t have, because, as I said, you’re this incredibly great person. And great people don’t just go and lie about things unless they really feel like they need to.”

  The line went silent, but my brain was filled with thoughts. What she’d said reminded me of one of the things my mom always said: “Guilt is about something you do. Shame is about who you are.” Guilt, she’d explained, was useful because a person could learn from it and do the right thing next time. Shame, on the other hand, was useless, she’d always said. What is to be gained from thinking you’re a bad person? I wasn’t bad.

  So I was guilty. Not shameful, but guilty. Guilty of what? Lying. I knew that. But like Claire Olivia had said, I had felt like I needed to lie.

  I pictured Ben, and how hurt he’d looked when I’d told him everything. My heart lurched into my stomach. I realized this was simple, really. I had done something wrong, and it didn’t matter why. And it didn’t make me a terrible person, just a person who had lied to someone he loved and needed to make it right.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just … pondering. What you said.”

  “Good,” she said. “But there’s something else I want to say.”

  “Say anything. I’m listening.”

  “Good, because for a while there, these last few months, I wasn’t sure if you were.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, that’s the thing I wanted to say. Because maybe I wasn’t exactly the best friend I could have been, because I totally didn’t pay attention when you were telling me about all this stuff last year. I didn’t get it, and maybe if I did, you wouldn’t have gone across the country to get away. So who’s the terrible person now?”

  “Not a terrible person. Just someone who maybe could have … I don’t know,” I said. “Anyway, you’re a great friend. Always were. My best.”

  “I just wish I had let you talk about it for once, and not been such a bitch.”

  “Not a bitch. Never.”

  “Well, sometimes.”

  “Yeah, true. Sometimes. But thanks, I needed that,” I said.

  “Anytime, Shay Shay,” she said.

  When the door swung open, six hopeful faces turned and looked to see who it could be. Toby smiled right away, and I smiled back. Mr. Scarborough also gave me a nod, which I returned.

  “Boys, it appears we have a new member!” Mr. Scarborough said. “I’m sure you all know Rafe Goldberg.”

  The other four members of the GSA were people I didn’t know very well. I mean, I’d seen them around. Natick School isn’t so huge that there are too many kids whom I’d absolutely never seen. But they weren’t in my circle. Whatever that was.

  “Hey,” I said, and everyone welcomed me in and Mr. Scarborough pointed to one of the empty chairs in the circle. There were twelve — I guess you’d call that wishful thinking? — and I took the empty one next to Toby, who reached out and squeezed my arm.

  I felt super-self-conscious. These kids could become a big part of my future at Natick, and I wondered if they’d like me. My eyes darted around to the different members, knowing that they were all sizing me up. Was I a good addition, in their minds? I hoped so.

  One of the kids I recognized as a sophomore from the cross-country team. He was blond, with big eyes and smooth, pale skin, and he always wore this black overcoat and a green-and-blue scarf. His name was Jeff and I had maybe said two words to him, but I’d definitely had him on my cute list when I arrived. I nodded at Jeff and he nodded back.

  Toby leaned over and nudged me.

  “You’re drooling,” he whispered. “Is Jeff the next Ben?”

  I looked at him, horrified.

  “Too soon?” he asked.

  “Too soon,” I said, knowing that Toby couldn’t possibly know how much the loss of Ben was still twisting me up inside. I liked Toby a lot, but that wasn’t something I was planning on sharing with him. I tried to put it out of my mind.

  Everyone got settled and the sharing started. Basically, it was like a feather circle back home, only without the feather. (Feather circles may be only a Boulder thing, come to think of it.) This one kid named Ned talked about whether he could come out to his roommate. It was kind of interesting, emphasis on kind of, because he punctuated every sentence with the phrase or so,
which made sense about 6 percent of the time.

  “So I think I might tell him before the break or so. Maybe it’ll be good to give him a chance to think it over while he’s at home with his family or so.”

  I drifted off as he went on, looking around the circle. Across from me was this freshman I’d seen on campus several times, Carlton. It was hard to miss him. His features were so feminine — his mouth framed by pouty lips, his eyebrows arched up like he’d plucked them, which perhaps he had. He was wearing black skinny jeans and a formfitting black blazer that looked like it had been cut for a woman, and his hair was impeccably styled — perfectly tousled like Justin Bieber’s.

  Here was someone who could pass for a girl if he tried. I had never wanted to be a girl; that one time as a rocker chick had been plenty for me, thanks. I imagined me wearing his outfit and thought: Oh my God, how would Steve and Zack react if I walked across campus like that? And then I imagined what it would be like to spend so much time in front of a mirror to look that perfect, and did anyone at Natick really care or compliment him? What did he do it for? Could it ever work for me?

  And those eyes, so hazel. Hazel, was that right? They were looking right at me, and that’s when I realized Carlton was watching me watch him. I looked away. Then I glanced back, and even though he didn’t look offended, I wanted to say to him, Don’t worry, I wasn’t really judging you. I was thinking about myself.

  Oh.

  Wow.

  I was thinking about myself!

  It was like the world opened up to me at that moment, and my thoughts tripped over one another. I was staring at this effeminate kid, and judging my own masculinity, or lack thereof. And was I so different from everyone else? Who was to say what Mr. Meyers in Boulder was thinking about when he looked at me? How come I was assuming his staring at me had anything to do with me? It was probably all about him. Same with everyone.

  And as I thought these things, I realized that I wasn’t listening either. Here Ned was talking, presumably about something that mattered a lot to him. He’d probably spent a lot of time choosing his words and thinking about how it would all sound. And here I was, thinking about myself yet again. Was everyone this way? And if so, did that mean that maybe I was off the hook a little? Maybe I could spend a little less time worrying about what people thought about me, since they probably weren’t thinking about me at all. They were probably thinking about themselves instead.