by Phil Stamper
Shane winks, and I just roll my eyes. “Be serious! You had me freaked.”
“Yes, let’s do it,” he says with a smile.
A silence passes over us, and I look around the train to see bright colors all around. Queer people of all ages flood the car, some quiet, some excitedly cheering, some already drunk. Okay, a lot of them are drunk.
But everyone is so happy.
“Seriously, Shane.” I keep eye contact, which is a challenge. But I have to keep it. “I’m sorry about being MIA this summer. And for not taking your advice about Pierce. And for … scaring you.”
“You don’t have to apologize. Boys make us do stupid shit. But thanks.”
This is where we’d probably have a touching bro moment, but it gets cut short by us getting to our stop. We finally make it out of the station with the other thousand queers, and head to our meeting spot: Trafalgar Square, the fourth plinth.
Sophie and Rio lean against it, hand in hand, waiting for our arrival.
“We come bearing face paint!” Sophie announces as a hello.
Rio laughs. “And stickers!”
I give each of them a hug and take the paint from Rio. “I’ve got a shit ton of glitter. But, uh, let’s get through this audition first. Has anyone seen Dani yet?”
While we wait, we settle into conversation. How Sophie interacts with everyone is different than it was earlier in the summer. She’s more relaxed, less guarded. Sure, I could be her one friend that she wanted. But she doesn’t need one friend. Like me—like all of us—she needs a family, and she’s got one.
Rio lifts up to give her a kiss on the cheek.
Dani taps me on the shoulder.
“Ready?” she asks.
I turn, but my gaze slips past Dani, right through Ajay, and on him. Pierce. I knew I’d have to be around him again, with my growing friendship with Dani, but I didn’t know it’d be this soon. Too soon. He has bed head; he hasn’t shaved. He looks like he’s running at ten percent, and his gaze misses mine and scans the ground.
Dani comes up to me and pulls me into a cheek kiss, whispering, “Do you want him to go? We were hanging out today, and he asked to come. I said that he could, only if you approved. Do you?”
My eyes haven’t moved. With each passing breath, I feel more tense, and I feel the awkwardness levels rise within me. Do I approve? How could I? It’s a public space, so I can’t stop him from being here. Plus, how could I turn him away and not be an ass?
And I remember, vaguely, what Sophie told me about Pierce when I first met her. They were cliquey and standoffish, and clearly didn’t make Sophie feel comfortable or invited.
It’s that memory that makes me tell Dani, “Yeah. He should stay.”
He’s here because, for some reason, he wanted to be. And if he wants to celebrate pride with me, as a friend, with his other friends, I can’t stop that. Rather—I could stop that, or I could run away, but I won’t do either.
Because I’m a hell of a lot better than he is.
“Pierce,” I say. I take slow steps toward him, and I feel the eyes of the others burn into my skin. “How are you?”
“Feeling pretty rubbish right now, if I’m honest.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I mean, you don’t have to. We’re all friends here.”
He laughs, then says, “I wasn’t great to you.”
“I know. And I’ve recovered. So, things are good.” I bend down to make eye contact, and he gives me a light smile. Vulnerable. And I know it’s the only chance I’ll get to ask this question.
“How—” I clear my throat. “How much of this was real?”
“I liked you. But I used you.”
“Let’s take a quick walk,” I say before leading him farther away from the group.
With each breath I strengthen. I stand straight, pull my shoulders back, relax the tension in my face, and put on a neutral expression. I have the control in this situation, and I should relish it … but the dynamic makes me feel uneasy.
“Shane showed me your audition video once, before you even got here. You were so good. You asked me early on whether I liked you as a person or as an oboist, and the answer is still both.” He sighs. “But the harder Dr. Baverstock pushed me, the more I focused on Marty the Oboist.”
“I know,” I say. “It wasn’t a great feeling.”
“I wasn’t ready for a relationship, especially after what happened with Colin. But I really saw something between us. I had this vision of us as this power couple that pulled off wild duets.”
Despite myself, I chuckle. All this time, he thought of me as a duet partner, not a boyfriend. And I don’t think he even knew it.
“I wish you’d have liked Marty the Person more,” I say.
“I certainly could have treated you better. I’m sorry, truly.”
It doesn’t excuse much. From the beginning, he wanted Marty the Oboist to make him look good, to up his street cred in this school. Maybe he doesn’t even know how much he used me, how far he tried to push me that night.
“I feel like an idiot.” The confession weighs me down. “I wasted this whole summer because I was trying to please you or be with you. Pierce, if there was ever a part of you that really liked me, you’ll find a way to make me trust you enough to be friends with you.”
“Right,” he says. This time, his gaze doesn’t fall. He keeps eye contact. “You deserved better. You really are—”
I throw up my hand to cut him off.
“I’m going to join my friends, crush this audition, and have the most epic pride the world has ever seen.”
“I suppose I’ll just …”
He turns to leave. Each step he takes resonates within me. The tension inside me is intense, but I know what I need to do, to start to get over this.
I do the strongest thing I can think of.
“You should join us.”
When we return to the group, Dani rushes to meet us.
“Everything okay, boys?”
There’s a nervous edge to her voice, which I try to calm with a smile. Pierce still trails me, and I speak without looking back to him. “No, but we’re working on it.”
The crowd has doubled in size, in density, since we started our little heart-to-heart. High-energy music pumps through a giant speaker as two drag queens have a lip-sync dance-off. Cheers come from all around, making my spirits lift instantly. Sophie takes my hand, and we look out on a sea of rainbow, full of pure energy.
“I’m so sorry to do this to you,” she says, before throwing a handful of glitter up in the air and letting it cover us completely.
Rio comes up behind me and gently slaps a rainbow sticker on my face. I turn to her and shake some of the glitter out of my hair before looking back at the rest of our group. Ajay’s donned the bi flag as a cape. Shane and Pierce start painting pride flags on each other’s faces.
Dani appears next to me, dripping in glitter. I turn to her, and she shrugs.
“Let’s hope the judges like a little sparkle,” I say.
“If they’re going to schedule an audition during London Pride, they should expect nothing else.” She picks up her flute case, now covered in Rio’s stickers. “You ready?”
“Let’s do this!” I shout.
We make everyone promise not to have too much fun while we’re gone, and then we head out to the audition, our friends cheering for us the whole way.
12 MONTHS AGO
DIARY ENTRY 10
I’m still not turning in this diary, but I wanted to finish the project anyway. The assignment was ten journal entries about an experience you had over the summer, which sounds easy enough. Actually … I stand by my earlier point that it’s a little juvenile. Regardless, I’m finishing this project with the real story, for me.
When Megan has to take this class, she’ll flat-out refuse to do it. When Skye has to take the class, he’ll spend the day before school starts writing up these diary entries about a real event that happened over the summer. But
I’ll try something new: I’ll write the diary entries, but about a fake experience.
I’m not a liar, but I need to do this.
So I’ll redo the London trip through my journal entries. They’ll be through a rosy lens where everything is all right. Where we stumble upon a pride parade, and my parents show me who they are—but “who they are” turns out to be accepting, loving, and understanding.
Maybe I’ll refurbish the story. Mom didn’t pick up that discarded rainbow flag to throw it in the garbage; maybe she started waving it around. Dad will find us the best spot to stand so we can see the floats, so the colors can be absorbed into my soul and I know I’m welcome somewhere.
Maybe in this version I didn’t bomb my audition, which means I’ll be on my way to London in eleven months. On my way to London, one of the only cities where I’ve found true acceptance—from pride, sure, but also from Shane and Aunt Leah.
Because otherwise, I’d have to turn in this diary. One that shows a guy who doesn’t have a future. In music or in the real world. But that’s not going to happen, because I think I have a plan. And until I can leave this place, and find my own family, make my own life … I’ll just lie. Smile. Keep my head down. And get out of here.
I may be gay. I may be flailing.
But I won’t suffocate.
THIRTY-EIGHT
After avoiding it for literal months, I decided to fix the one thing still sticking out from everything that happened this summer. The email I sent Megan was short, yet took hours to write. I could feel things resolving around me. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Megan,
You know me better than any person on this planet. Sometimes that’s good, like how you’d choose the perfect playlist to match my mood whenever you picked me up for school. Sometimes that isn’t as good. You know how to get a rise out of me, you know how to make me uncomfortable.
You like making me uncomfortable.
I’m trying to be someone else. A better version of myself. Someone who’s more present, happier. The person you always wanted me to be.
But that couldn’t be my story. I ended the email with a few lines that took seconds to draft and hours to make right.
But I have to do it for me. Not for you.
Oh, and I really love the scrapbook. It’s something that I’ll look back on many times in the next few years and remember how much fun we had together.
Marty
Had.
That word tripped me up. Because we’re in the past tense now. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, and you don’t have to hold on to friends who aren’t great for you. According to the internet. Even ignoring the fact she’s the reason I still get “IS IT TRUE?!?!!” messages, though it’s been a couple of months, she isn’t a good person to have in my life right now.
I’m seeing Skye tomorrow. I didn’t want everything to end with him, but I know it won’t be the same. We’ll talk about all the things we used to, and we might talk about Megan. I’m preparing for it, at least.
Airports are more manageable now. But that’s because there are fewer unknowns this time. I’ll land in Kentucky at the awkward hour of four in the afternoon, so by the time I get settled at home, it’ll be bedtime in London. And when I wake up, it’ll be time to face life in Kentucky as an openly gay man.
Even if it’s just for a week, until I’m back on a flight to my new home in London, I’m ready for it.
My new life: a shitty two-bedroom apartment with Shane, a part-time job, busking in the underground with Dani, fitting auditions in where I can. It still seems impossible. I just turned eighteen, but I’m not nearly old enough for this. Or mature enough. But I’m doing it. New Marty is committing to his new life.
Megan is in the past, but Pierce is back in the present. We can manage it. I don’t think I judge him for doing what he did, and I don’t care if he judges me. There was once a day when I wanted him to have all my firsts, but there are many I still hold on to. I’m just waiting for the right one to share them with.
I hold the phone up to my ear.
“Hi, Dad. We’re boarding the plane now.”
“Marty! Can’t believe you’re coming back so soon.” He laughs. “Nah, it’s been ages, really.”
“It feels like it’s been years. I’m excited to come back, even though—well, you know.”
“Don’t worry about that. Your mom and I won’t let anyone be weird around you.”
They’ve been better, but it will take some time to put things behind us. There’s so much we need to talk about, but we have time. And for once, it’s like we’re all on the same page. I’m even a little excited to see their new church. (Though I may have booked my travel specifically so I’d miss Sunday service—oops!)
I board the plane, take my seat, and put in my earphones. When the cabin doors shut, the anxiety creeps back in. It’s the normal kind, I think. If there is such a thing. It’s a beast of a flight—ten hours, over an ocean.
And this time, I have a two-way ticket.
A week in Kentucky will do me good, but I’m going to miss Sophie, Shane, Dani, maybe even Pierce. And I have the rest of my life, theoretically, to hang out with them.
With trembling hands, I take a book out of my bag and clutch it to my chest. It’s a journal, one I picked up shortly after everything went down this summer. I’ve been writing my experiences in it, and it’s been helping. Aunt Leah introduced me to all these great meditation and breathing apps. Nothing’s perfect, and it might never be, but it helps.
I write the date in the top-right corner, and start to fill out a page of fears, of joy, of everything in between. Airplanes have a way of bringing all the emotions out of you.
On my last transatlantic flight, my dream was to escape. Get as far away from there as I could. But despite the hitch in my breath and the tension snaking down my shoulders, I’m ready to go back.
A wave of excitement washes over me as the plane accelerates down the runway. My heart rate kicks up, and my breaths become shallow as the front wheel lifts off the ground.
London shrinks beneath me, and it finally hits me. I never wanted to escape from Avery. I never wanted to disappear, or fade into the background. I wanted to go someplace I could conquer my fears and become my own person.
And I freaking did it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
When I was a senior in high school, my friends won superlatives like Future Leader of the World or Class Clown. Me? I won Most Musical. This was fitting, because, from choir to marching band and everywhere in between, music defined my teen years. That continued well into college, where I studied music and joined every ensemble I could find. As Far as You’ll Take Me is, in every way, a love letter to music and the sense of family you get when you fall into the right ensemble—in music, or in life.
Unsurprisingly, it’s also my love letter to London. Not long ago, I went to graduate school in the UK and saw firsthand just how overwhelming and wonderful an international move can be. My husband and I traveled some while we were there—to Florence, Cardiff, and a few other cities that might seem familiar after finishing this book. I wanted to give voice to that rural American teen who dreams of traveling the world and also capture the joy, wonder, and, yes, anxiety that travel brings. Giving these experiences to Marty was one of my favorite parts of writing this book.
Marty’s story may be fiction, but it’s underscored by the real lived experiences of queer teens, including my own. In The Gravity of Us, I showed an aspirational world where two boys could fall in love without any blatant homophobia or issues with identity holding them back. In this book, things don’t go quite as smoothly. But between the family Marty was born into and the family he finds along the way, he knows he’ll be okay.
Like Marty, I struggled with anxiety and disordered eating while trying to find my place in the world. As a queer teen, I was always looking for love and acceptance, and when I couldn’t find it, I thought it was ea
sier to change myself than to change the world around me. I always discuss mental health in my books, in part to destigmatize conversations about it, but also to show queer teens who share these experiences that they’re not alone, and that the fight to survive and thrive is so worth it.
If you’re struggling with disordered eating, call or text the National Eating Disorders Association’s helpline at (800) 931-2237. If you’re a young LGBTQ person in crisis, don’t hesitate to call TrevorLifeline at (866) 488-7386. These resources, and many more, are just a call away whenever you need them.
As always, it’s an honor to be able to write the books I’d have needed most as a teen. Thank you for reading.
Until next time,
Phil
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many people who helped bring this story to life, from my friends who taught me what “found family” really meant when I needed it the most, to my publishing team and industry friends who gave me the courage to tell this incredibly personal story to readers across the world. Some special thank-yous are in order:
To my agent, Brent Taylor, who is the most fabulous, joyful, kind, and wise (not to mention the hardest-working) person in this entire industry, and to my editor, Mary Kate Castellani, for having such a clear vision for each of my projects, and for always finding a way to bring out the joy in every scene I write.
To my publishing team in the US, including Claire Stetzer, Lily Yengle, Phoebe Dyer, and Ksenia Winnicki, for everything you do to help get my books in the hands of more readers. To Diane Aronson, Erica Barmash, Jeff Curry, Beth Eller, Alona Fryman, Melissa Kavonic, Cindy Loh, Donna Mark, Jasmine Miranda, Daniel O’Connor, Valentina Rice, Teresa Sarmiento, Chris Venkatesh, and Katharine Wiencke for putting in a ton of work behind the scenes to make this book a success. Extra-special thanks to illustrator Jeff Östberg and designer Danielle Ceccolini for their work creating this beautiful cover.
To my international team—Hannah Sandford, Ian Lamb, Mattea Barnes, and Tobias Madden, to name a few—for getting my books in the hands of readers all over the world, and to Patrick Leger for illustrating the UK cover.