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“I think I’m not straight. Bi. Or gay. Something.”
Zach’s reflection stared back at him, his hair still dripping from the shower.
“Cool, yeah. You know, that’s okay. All good. Liking someone can’t be bad, right? That can’t be wrong, right?” His tone was starting to remind him of one of the many pep talks that he had sat through prior to a baseball game, but he wasn’t sure what he was trying to hype himself up for.
“Zach?” His mother’s voice broke the silence. “Ten minutes until you need to leave for school!”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Thanks, mom!”
His thoughts were a constant barrage of ideas and plans, but none of them seemed to offer a decent solution for him.
Just come out! No one can hold it against you, not with all of the shitty things that have happened. Coming out is like no big deal compared to all of that.
Just stay in the closet. It would be so easy to just stay in the closet. For God’s sake, you had real feelings for Hannah, so you can like girls. A lot. Just wait until you find the right girl. It’s like a perk of being bi… right?
Just tell the truth to a couple of people. See how they react. May is great, and she has to be kind to you. She’s your sister. Justin would be supportive, but he has his own shit going on. Maybe even Alex?
He shook his head, raking his towel through his hair until the motion jerked him back into reality.
Zach offered Alex a smile as he passed by his locker. He was leaning against the wall for support as he entered the combination into his lock. Zach didn’t stop, though, since Alex was accompanied by Jessica, and he couldn’t quite work out how to treat their relationship. He wasn’t even sure if Alex could decipher whether or not he and Jessica were dating, so it seemed pretty futile for Zach to know how to navigate the matter with his friend-turned-PT-buddy-turned-best-friend. The dance had passed a week ago, and ever since then, they had been spending a lot of time together, but they didn’t do anything to suggest that they were a couple.
The worst part of that was that it was cutting into Zach’s time with Alex. They usually still worked on some PT activities after school, but Zach rarely went home afterward with Alex anymore. Alex usually headed off to Monet’s with Jessica. After weeks of spending nearly every day at school, then PT, then at home with Alex, it felt like Zach was missing some essential part of himself, like he was trying to get through a baseball game without a glove or navigate the ocean without a lifesaver.
That lost feeling was only compounded by the state of the rest of his social life. Clay and Justin were nearly inseparable, but he supposed that they were nearly brothers now. He and the baseball team weren’t really on speaking terms anymore, but he didn’t actually see that as much of a loss. He’d never been very close to Tony. Or Ryan. Or Courtney. Generally, his prospects for friendship weren’t great, and neither was the mood of everyone surrounding him. Even though Tyler had gone out of town again to seek help after the incident at the dance, the feeling around the school was heavy and anticipatory, as if tragedy could strike at any moment. And Zach felt like it was starting to kill him.
“Hey man!” Zach said, endlessly perky, as Alex entered the locker room before they worked on PT. “How’s it going?”
“Everything’s peachy,” Alex said, opening his locker. Zach offered him a steadying arm, which was becoming second nature. Quite honestly, Zach would be willing to carry Alex around the school in his arms, but he figured that Alex would be adamantly opposed to that idea. Instead, he offered him stability, trying to make sure that he felt secure, felt like someone was always by his side. Zach didn’t just want for Alex to know that he would be there to catch him if he fell; he wanted for Alex to be sure that he would be by his side always.
Zach was lucky because he had never doubted that he had people in his corner. Even when he was at his lowest during the summer that his dad died, he knew that he could count on his family, his friends, his team. When he considered that Alex had sunk even lower than that at one point, that he had felt so hopeless that he felt like he couldn’t go on, it broke his heart over and over again, every day. And he wanted to help Alex to feel better, but he also wanted for Alex to feel better on his own. Like PT, but for his mind. Something that could lead to long-term healing.
It was all so complicated.
Maybe that was what it felt like to care about someone so much.
Zach cleared his own throat, concerned about how much simply touching Alex was starting to affect him, especially since touching Alex had recently become the norm for him. “How’s Jessica?” he asked.
“Oh, I mean, she’s good,” Alex replied.
“You never give me any details! How are you guys? Did my dancing tips help you win her over for good?” Zach wiggled his eyebrows.
Alex chuckled, making slow work of the buttons on his shirt. Zach imagined himself undoing them, and then mentally chastised himself.
“I mean, sort of? We tried to be together, but it lasted all of like, one weekend. And I’m happy that we’re closer now, but it was just really damn awkward.”
“Man, I’m sorry. What happened?”
“I mean, first of all, dating is really hard in the face of constant tragedy, you know? It felt a little off at the end of the dance when Jessica could race outside to help Clay face off, like, a potential shooter, and I was stuck inside with my cane. I mean, obviously, I didn’t think that I was going to go out and swoop in and rescue her because that’s misogynistic and shit, and Jessica is really capable and whatever, but I just felt pointless.”
Zach glared. “You know I hate it when you say things like that. Negative self-talk—”
“--will only make my situation worse,” Alex finished the statement, mimicking Zach’s voice and giving him a half-smile.
“If this were more like baseball practice, I’d give you extra laps any time you talked down to yourself.”
“Yeah, it’s really too bad that this is so unlike baseball practice,” Alex joked. “Everyone knows that that team was doing nothing but excellent things.
“Maybe I’ll just take all of the bad things that you say about yourself and reply with a compliment,” Zach continued, ignoring Alex’s words. “Wait, here; I’ll start. I don’t think I’ve told you how much I like your new haircut. It’s really lovely.” He could feel his cheeks turning slightly pink. “And I like that you don’t mind that people can see your scar.”
“Oh… thanks.” Alex seemed taken aback by Zach’s words. “I mean, I kind of do care that people can see my scar, but I’m trying to give off the vibe that I don’t hate myself, you know?”
“Fake it ‘til you make it,” Zach said, nodding. “That’s a totally respectable approach. But was that some negative self-talk I detected? You better have been kidding. You shouldn’t hate yourself. In fact, I can’t think of a single reason that you should hate yourself at all.”
Alex shook his head, holding up his hands in surrender. “Nah, chalk that up to a shitty sense of humor. But I won’t say no to more compliments.”
They left the locker room, Zach holding the door for Alex as he made his way to the pool without any assistance.
“You want help?” Zach asked as Alex stepped into the pool, but he waved him off, and Zach slipped in behind him, leaving Alex to his own devices. As much as he enjoyed the little touches, he took even more pleasure in seeing Alex become more independent. When they had started working on Alex’s PT exercises together, Zach had practically had to haul him into the pool.
“Alright, so fifteen minutes on the bike?”
Alex nodded, resigning himself to the somewhat painful work. He rarely openly complained, though occasionally he would try to distract Zach with jokes and conversation. It tended to work, too, with Zach becoming so absorbed in Alex that he would almost forget about the PT altogether.
“So… how are you doing after the dance and everything?” Alex asked, pedaling on the stationary bike.
“Slow down. This is a warm-up, remember?” Zach took in what Alex had asked him. “How am I doing?” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah. I mean, I feel like we talk about me a lot. I want to know how you are. Was May okay?” Alex was watching him expectantly.
The last Alex had seen of Zach at the dance, he was rushing off to check on his sister. As soon as Clay had told the group that something could be going down, Zack’s only instinct was to go and check on May.
“She’s okay. She didn’t know that anything was happening, you know, with the way that things worked out that night.”
Alex touched his arm. “I’m really glad. I was freaked out for you. I can’t imagine having your little sister there.”
“Thanks, Alex.” Zach’s mouth had gone dry, and he felt frozen by the emotions whirring about inside of him. He remembered fear for his sister, fear for himself. But there was a thrill to the idea of Alex thinking about him and tenderness to the fact that he cared about his sister.
Alex paused. “Maybe we should go back to talking about me now, because I didn’t mean to make this conversation that fucking depressing.”
Zach nodded, a solemn expression on his face. “You’re right. You’re like my ray of sunshine. Nothing about you is ever sad or angry or negative.”
“Fuck you,” Alex said through laughter. “And I do like to think of myself as your goddamn ray of sunshine.”
Incredibly, Alex managed to finish PT in the correct amount of time, that day. Usually, their sessions took nearly double the amount of time allotted for them because they got distracted by talking to one another, but Zach helped Alex out of the pool. Alex was slumping a bit, tired from the session.
“We’re seeing a lot of progress,” Zach said, flipping through his clipboard where he made notes about endurance for Alex’s actual physical therapist. “I don’t feel like you need to worry about plateauing anymore, because your times really are getting better.”
Alex smiled up at him bravely. “That’s really good. Thanks, Zach. I mean, I’m always going to be worried about plateauing, but still.”
Zach rolled his eyes as Alex started to change. “We can’t all be great at everything all the time. Your times are making steady improvements, and you give me updates on how well your dick works like every other day now. I think you’re a hell of a lot more successful than you think you are.”
“Thanks for providing the positive self-talk,” Alex said quietly. “Really. I’m not kidding.”
“No problem. I’ll be here to shower you with compliments any time you need them.”
After dropping off Alex at his house, Zach found himself driving around aimlessly. With nowhere to direct his rampant energy, he changed into workout clothes and headed out of his neighborhood, driving for a few miles. He parked across the street from Clay’s house.
Instead of knocking right away as he had originally intended to, he let the anxious feeling in his stomach get the better of him, and he started to run.
Naturally, he got lost along the way and ran for miles. He wasn’t angry at himself, though; the sound of his shoes rhythmically hitting the pavement was lulling him into some semblance of a sense of calm. It was getting dark by the time he arrived at the front door of Clay’s house again.
When he knocked, Clay himself answered. “Hey, Zach,” he said slowly, taking in the sweaty workout clothes and his disheveled look. “What’s up?”
“Is Justin here? I want to go on a walk with him,” he said slowly, mentally chastising himself for being terrible at thinking on his feet. Clay would think that it was bizarre that he showed up in sweaty clothes, asking after Justin like an old-fashioned man who wanted to court someone by taking them on leisurely walks about the town.
“Sure,” Clay said, still scrutinizing him. “I’ll get him.”
Justin appeared at the doorway, and, much to Zach’s dismay, he looked the same as he had been looking for the past couple of weeks, which was to say that he looked pretty terrible. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was roughed up as if he had been worriedly running his fingers through it.
“What’s up, man? Do you want to go on a walk?” Zach asked.
“You showed up here to ask me if I want to go on a walk?” Justin asked, looking at him like he had sprouted a second head.
“Yep!”
That was how he found himself walking along the street at sundown in a suburban neighborhood with Justin Foley. Justin kept shooting him glances that seemed to convey his confusion, but he allowed Zach to lead them along a path, one that hopefully wouldn’t get him lost again.
Justin and Zach talked about baseball and their friends, and all the while Zach was trying to amp himself up enough to tell him what he had come here to say.
Eventually, he bit the bullet.
“Justin, I—I came here to tell you something.”
“Well, thank fucking god. I thought it was really strange that you showed up at the front door of my new house asking to take me on a walk. Without Clay, I might add, who is also our friend.”
He said “my new house” reverently, as if he wasn’t entirely sure that it was true yet that he had been adopted. It put things into perspective a bit for Zach.
“What I came here to tell you honestly might seem kind of silly next to some of the things that we’ve been through. Like next to deaths and threats and worrying about people we love…”
“Just spit it out, Zach.”
“I think I like guys. Like, I think I’m not straight.” The words came out in a rush, as if they needed to escape as quickly as possible once he started to say them.
Justin waited for a moment. “Okay, cool. Yeah, you’re right, it’s kind of no big deal compared to some of the stuff we’ve been through.”
Out of all of the reactions that Zach had expected he might have, his mellow acceptance had not been one of them. “You mean you don’t care? But we were so—the team was so—”
“Yeah, it’s really shitty that our friendship was made up of us telling each other about all of the girls we’d hooked up with. Especially considering how many of those stories were probably lies.” Justin shook his head. “Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t want for things to be like that, man. Anyway, I’m glad you wanted to tell me.”
“You’re the first person I’ve told, actually,” Zach said, a feeling of relief starting to sink in. If he could tell Justin without any negative reaction, then maybe he would be able to tell everyone else, too.
“Well, shit, man. I guess I’m honored.”
“And that’s not everything I wanted to tell you.” Zach paused for a moment, giving himself a second to consider his words. “I’m into Alex. Like really into him. I think I have been for weeks now.”
Justin nodded, his bottom lip jutting out a bit in consideration. “Cool. I mean, that’s not a fucking surprise. You spend every afternoon with him, and any time you choose to hang out with him during the school day, he looks at you like you’re performing a miracle.”
“What?” Zach couldn’t process his words.
Again, Justin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, man, don’t be oblivious. He’s so stoked when you go hang out with him at lunch or whatever that he looks like he’s about to die from happiness.”
“Wait,” Zach said, still computing, “are you saying that you think he may like me?”
“I mean, it’s not like I’ve talked to him about it, but I really wouldn’t be surprised.”
“But I’ve only ever seen him interested in Jessica!”
Justin cocked his head as if considering whether or not to confide something in Zach. “Look, man, I don’t want to interfere in this because I think that you guys need to talk it out on your own. You should probably at least come out to him. But Alex is a good guy. We hung out a lot before I left, and he’s really open and awesome. I still feel like shit because of everything that happened to him. But you’ve made him happy in the past few weeks like no one else could, and you guys have gotten so close that you probably owe it to him to be honest, you know?”
Zach nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Oh man, you’re probably right. He’s really great, isn’t he?’
Justin chuckled. “Yeah, like I said, I think he’s a solid guy.”
“Should I tell him now? Should I go to his house?”
Justin looked him over, his nose wrinkling a bit. “You should shower, but then yeah, you should go.”
As Zach drove to Alex’s, he gave himself another pep talk, but with a tone that was coming more and more desperate, like he was bargaining with himself. “So just come out to him, yeah? Coming out can’t hurt. It’s not like Alex would judge you. He’s cool with Tony and Ryan and everyone.”
He gritted his teeth. “But what if this isn’t what he expects from you? What if it changes how he sees you, and it affects your friendship?”
He paused and then groaned. “Zach, don’t be an idiot. It’s Alex. You trust Alex more than anyone. And he can be sassy and grumpy, but he’s one of the best people you know.”
Before he even felt like he was done with his monologue, he had arrived at Alex’s house. He took deep breaths, trying to replicate his mom’s meditation techniques, and sent Alex a text.
Can I come over?
Dude, it’s like ten at night on a school night.
Is that a yes?
smh
Zach waited. It felt like a win that Alex was even awake. Normally, their late-night texting sessions were cut off around ten anyway because Alex didn’t have any ability to stay up late.
Yeah, come over, I told my mom that we had a project that we forgot to finish.
Wait, we’re in the middle of finals. We don’t have any projects.
I lied. Duh, Zach. She doesn’t know that.
Oh true. Okay I’m here!!!
Alex opened the door after the first knock. “Were you waiting in your car outside of my house?” he asked instead of a greeting.
“Were you waiting by the door for me to knock?”
Alex gave him a playful glare. “Fine. Touché.”
“I like it when you’re excited to see me,” Zach said as Alex began his slow ascent up the stairs.
“Allegedly excited to see you.”
“Um, I think that all of the courtroom stuff has gotten to you. But I have my evidence,” Zach said, nodding back toward the front door.
“Sure, but the jury’s still out on why the hell you decided to drive to my house in the middle of the night.”
“One thing at a time, man. Focus on getting up the stairs before we bare our souls to each other.”
“Baring our souls to each other? You do have a fun Thursday night planned for us. See, this is why I was waiting by the door for you.”
In Alex’s room, Alex slumped on the bed, placing his cane against his nightstand. “So tell me all of your deepest, darkest secrets. But be quick—I think it’s past my bedtime.”
Zach found that he couldn’t bring himself to sit still, so he paced the small expanse of Alex’s room. “So… I think I’m not straight. I like guys. But I also like girls. Like, I did really like Hannah. That wasn’t a lie. So I guess I’m bi? Shoot, that rhymed. Anyway, I just wanted for you to know. It’s been really, really weird these last few weeks because I kind of didn’t know this about myself, but then I realized it, and, like, my whole life made sense. I don’t like girls because they’re girls, you know? I just like certain ones when they’re really pretty or funny or whatever. And guys are kind of the same way, but I like them for different reasons. But I don’t like them in a different way than how I like girls. Does any of this make sense? I’m so sorry to show up in your house and then, like, assault you by rambling about my sexuality. It almost seems silly now.”
He finally made eye contact with Alex, realizing that he had been looking everywhere but at him when he was making his proclamation.
Alex blinked. “Whoa, man. That’s cool, that’s okay. Don’t freak out, alright? And also… same.” Alex’s expression had softened, and he was looking at Zach expectantly.
“…same? Like you…?” He was at a loss for words.
“Like I’m bi, too? Yeah, I was never really in the closet, but it’s also never really come up. And I think that coming out is fucking stupid. It just makes everything harder. I’d rather just like who I like.”
Zach finally sat next to Alex on the bed. “But for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve pretty much only ever liked Jessica.”
“And for as long as I’ve known you, I’ve only ever heard of you liking Hannah. But you’re still bi, right?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Zach quieted, turning to Alex. “I hope this doesn’t change anything about how you feel toward me.”
“No. God, no. Never.”
“So… have you ever, like, been with a guy?”
Alex blushed. “I mean, sort of.”
Zach nudged him. “What do you mean, sort of? Come on, man. It’s not like we don’t share everything else.”
“At my old school, I kissed this guy at a party, but aside from making out with him that one time, no, I’ve never been with a guy.”
“Is he the only guy you’ve been into?” Zach knew that at this point he was fishing, but he couldn’t help but be a bit hopeful, not when he and Alex were seated next to each other on his bed, sides pressed against one another. Not when they were already being so open with each other.
“No. But I have this policy against making moves on guys who I don’t think will ever in a million years be into me.”
“So straight guys?”
Alex’s cheeks had never lost their flush. “I mean, yeah, I’ve fallen for guys who I think are straight before. It’s really tough.”
“Yeah, I’ve done the same,” Zach said, making intent eye contact with Alex. “But… apparently, the guy who I’m into isn’t actually straight.”
“Yeah?” Alex asked, suddenly so close. Zach could feel the ghosts of his breaths on his cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest against his side.
Instead of responding, he leaned forward, breaking the tenuous bit of space between them. He cradled Alex’s jaw in his hand, searching his face for any signs that he wasn’t okay with this. And seeing none, he kissed him.
He kissed him, and he lost himself in it. The kiss wasn’t too intense, but Alex was deepening the initial press of his lips, pressing against him more. Zach was so attracted to this Alex, the Alex who, despite any limitations he had, went after what he wanted. The Alex who had attacked Monty with a cane for him. The Alex who had no boundaries with Zach, the Alex who joked and sassed him and was brimming with vitality.
Zach willed himself to break off the kiss, to stop them from moving into anything too quickly. He mustered all of the self-restraint that he could find within him, and guided Alex’s face away from his, examining his expression for any signs that he wasn’t absolutely into him. In fact, Zach was just having trouble believing that this was really his life, that Alex was really into him. He had to reassess his entire view of Alex—the Alex who was sarcastic and witty and beautiful and unpredictable was also into him.
“Was that okay?” Zach asked, nearly as an instinct.
“What? I… Yes, Zach, it was more than okay.” Alex narrowed his eyes at him. “You aren’t treating me like I’m fucking made of glass, are you? I wanted to kiss you, you idiot.”
Zach exhaled, as if he had been waiting for verbal confirmation. “Oh, God. Okay. Good.” He was flustered, and he scooted back on the bed, thinking that it was probably the least graceful thing that he had ever done. “I mean, I just want to make sure that this is all good because, Alex, I like you so much. Like, I’m kind of freaking myself out right now, and I really want you.” He was sitting with his back pressed against the headboard. Alex seemed to understand the position that he was in and moved up the bed, crawling slowly, since he was still favoring one leg. Zach offered him a hand, tugging him into his lap, and pressing kisses into his hair, which was as soft as he remembered and seemed to be begging for him to kiss it.
Between gentle presses of his mouth, he continued. “And, like, I know you’re going to be mad at me if I treat you like you’re broken, but the thing is, I’ve never thought you were broken. And it makes me mad, too, when people treat you like you are. But I know that I can be really stupid sometimes, and I can be totally selfish, too, so just please call me on it if you think that I’m doing something wrong.”
Alex laughed, and Zach marveled at how he didn’t just hear it, but he could feel it, too. “Zach, don’t worry, I’ll always call you on your shit. But, um,” his voice became mocking and raised in pitch, “is that negative self-talk that I hear? That’s not going to fly here.”
Zach chuckled and pressed a self-indulgent little kiss against the corner of Alex’s mouth. “I don’t sound like that.”
Alex grew more serious then. “But honestly, thank you. All of that means a lot. Especially with all the shit that’s happened. Plus, you’re the one person who has never really treated me like there was anything wrong with me. You’ve only ever pushed me and respected me. Such a gentleman.” Zach could feel him tugging at the hem of his t-shirt. “So like… do you want to take this off?”
“Yeah, I can still be a gentleman with no shirt on,” Zach agreed, assisting Alex in tugging it over his head. Then he continued his exploration of Alex with kisses, mouthing at the shell of his ears. It was a little bit silly, but Zach was coming to realize that he was fascinated with every detail of Alex: his small, elfin features, the slip of his hair in his fingers, the little gasping breaths that he took when Zach was touching him. Zach felt like he needed to file it away mentally, almost like he didn’t deserve it all, and he needed to make sure that the memories would at least be there if Alex realized that he wasn’t really into him.
“I know.”
“Hm?”
“I know you can be a gentleman with no shirt on. I think you spend, like, ninety percent of our time together with no shirt on,” Alex joked. When Zach broke away from him long enough to make eye contact, he saw that he was smiling mischievously.
“Yeah, and apparently you like it,” Zach replied.
“God, yes.” Alex gasped as Zach kissed, open-mouthed, against his throat. “Come here,” Alex comanded, tugging Zach up with demanding hands framing his jaw.
Alex kissed him deeply, conveying everything that he wanted from Zach. He adjusted himself so that he was flush against Zach, and Zach could feel him growing hard. In response, he stirred himself, alight with all of the new possibilities, all of the ways that he could touch Alex, be with him. Zach felt a groan escape from his chest, and Alex bit his bottom lip, teasing him even then.
“Wait,” Zach said, breaking the kiss. “Wait, wait. I had one more thing that I wanted to say.”
Alex groaned, breathing heavily against his mouth. “You’re talking too much.” As if to remind him, he adjusted himself, and Zach could feel how hard he was. God, he was so glad that his dick worked. He suddenly had a vested interest in it.
“I’ll be fast, sorry. I just wanted to say that if… if you wanted to be with me, I would be proud to be with you. It was fucked up that for a long time, I wouldn’t tell people how close we were, and I’m really sorry for that. But if you did want to be my boyfriend, we could tell everybody right away. I wouldn’t care.”
Alex was staring at him in astonishment. “Are you asking if I want to be your boyfriend?”
“Kind of? Yes? I definitely want for you to be.”
Alex kissed him once again, and Zach appreciated their new language of shared touches. “Yeah. I want to be your boyfriend. And you’re serious? You can have more time to think about this if you want. You don’t have to come out to everyone right away.”
“Give me tomorrow morning to tell my mom and my sister. But aside from that, nah. I want to be with you. And I have spent way too long not doing what I really want.”
Zach discovered that emotional vulnerability was some sort of turn on for Alex because they began to shed clothes quickly after that promise. After joking about handjobs with Alex a few weeks ago, he had indulged in some daydreams about jerking off Alex, and the reality of watching Alex orgasm was even better than he had imagined.
As Zach made to move away from the bed to help Alex clean up, Alex stopped him. “Wait,” he insisted. “Let me do you, too.”
Zach would have been lying if he said that he wasn’t turned on. “No,” he insisted though. “We can save some stuff. Plus, it’s nearly midnight, and I really don’t want for your parents to know that I was in here seducing their son instead of doing homework.”
Alex groaned, pouting, and Zach had to force himself away from the bed, tugging his clothes on against his better judgment. As he finished cleaning up, Alex gazed at him.
“Are you still serious about tomorrow?”
Zach pressed a quick peck against his lips. “Yeah. Is it still what you want?”
“More than anything.” Alex responded with a deeper kiss that felt like a challenge.
“Then I’m really excited to be your boyfriend.”
Zach told his mother over a breakfast of fruit and oatmeal. After last night, it felt almost natural to come out to her, and he realized that there was actually a sense of pride when he told her that Alex was his boyfriend.
“Ah,” she responded, placing her spoon delicately on the table. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Of course. And, mom, I wasn’t keeping it from you. I kind of just found out all of this for myself.”
“And you don’t think you’re moving too quickly?”
“Nah.” Zach grinned down at his oatmeal, a sense of happiness blooming in his chest that had felt out of place for so long. “I’m just in a really good place right now. So I don’t think that anything is moving too quickly.”
“I see. Have you told your sister?”
“One sec,” Zach replied, holding up a finger and moving away from the table.
“Hey May?” Zach called up the stairs.
His sister appeared, looking down at him from over the banister. “Yeah?”
“May, I’m kind of gay. Well, actually I’m bi. I like guys and girls. But I wanted to say it that way because it rhymed.” He paused. “Is that cool?”
She considered him. “I mean, yeah. Was that all?”
Zach couldn’t help but drop his jaw in shock. “Did you know?”
“Zach, you’ve spent literally all of your free time helping some guy. And it’s not just a volunteer thing. It’s all of your free time. So yeah, I had an inkling.”
“Oh. Ah. Well, we’re dating now. Me and Alex. So… yeah.”
“Sorry, Zach, I really didn’t mean to steal your thunder, but I saw that one coming. I’m happy for you, though! It’s about time you really dated someone.”
Zach rolled his eyes, overexaggerating the gesture, but he was grinning. “You’re an okay sister, you know?”
“Thanks.” She shot him finger guns, laughing. “You’re alright, too. I’m going to go finish my homework, though, because the algebra isn’t going to do itself.”
“I hate it when it won’t work itself out for you,” Zach said, mostly to her shadow as she headed back to her room. He turned back to his mother.
“Things do tend not to work out until you do something about them,” his mother said to his comment. She was examining him, and Zach couldn’t tell if she was pleased with him or just looking on in disbelief. “You seem happier,” she said eventually.
“I am. It’s not just Alex. This just feels like the first good thing to happen in a really, really long time.”
Zach picked up Alex at his house that morning with the feeling that he was going to spill over with all of his newfound energy and contentedness.
“Hey,” he greeted him, a goofy smile spreading across his face.
“You’re an idiot,” Alex replied, laughing and shaking his head. “You look like I just, like, gave you a million dollars.”
Zach kissed him after he had settled in the car. “New rule: no negative Zach-talk, either. And for the record, now I’m your idiot, so that’s your problem.”
Before first period, they held hands. At the end of lunch, when they could steal away a minute for themselves, they kissed in the hallway. And Zach didn’t care who saw them, which was maybe the most freeing feeling of all. Bryce was still roaming the hallways before transferring, and Zach confidently walked by him with an arm around Alex’s neck.
That day, after determinedly working in PDA between nearly every period, Zach had counted surprised looks from Tony, Sherri, and Ryan, as well as a couple of approving nods from Courtney and Justin. Clay didn’t even seem phased when Zach pressed a kiss on Alex’s cheek before dropping him off for his final period.
“Do you want to go to Monet’s after class?” Zach asked Alex, hesitant to let him go and see him for the last time that day.
“Sure, but, Zach, do you even like coffee?”
“Not at all.” Zach could feel his grin returning. “But I like you.”
“Gross,” Alex replied, but he shot him a smile as well. “But okay.” Zach kissed his hand before he allowed him to leave.
“What do you even get at coffee shops?” Alex asked as they walked along the sidewalk to Monet’s.
“Erm, well, I like those blended things? The ones that taste like vanilla and stuff? My sister usually orders them for me when we go to Starbucks.”
“Frappuccinos?”
Zach nodded, and Alex burst into laughter. “Okay, okay, I’ve got you.”
When they arrived at the shop, Alex directed him to go and find a seat.
“Don’t you want me to pay, though?” Zach asked.
“Nah, you can always pay for the next date.”
“Huh. There are real perks to not having to conform to gender roles within a relationship,” Zach mused, and then Alex’s words caught up with him. “Wait, this is our first real date.”
Alex rolled his eyes, but Zach noticed that the goofy grin he had been wearing all day seemed to have made its way over to Alex, too. “Yeah, unless you count that time that you showed up at my house in the middle of the night to ravish me.”
“I don’t, but you have to admit that that was a good time, too.”
Alex laughed, brushed a kiss over his lips, and pushed him away to find a table. Zach noticed that the table that Alex used to hang out at with Hannah and Jessica was open, but he left it alone, figuring that that friendship wasn’t his to infringe on. Instead, he settled for a booth by the window.
“I see you went for the spot where you could really optimize the number of people who would see us as a couple,” Alex commented when he arrived at the table.
Zach realized that, perhaps subconsciously, he had, and nodded happily.
“You really don’t want to half-ass your coming out, did you?” Alex asked, settling in at the table and tucking his cane against the window.
“Why would I? I nailed my coming out. I started dating this cute guy within, like, the first two hours.”
Alex rolled his eyes dramatically, but Zach reached out for his hand, and Alex took his in return. Zach sipped his sugary drink, thanked himself for allowing this new sense of happiness, and he winked at his boyfriend over the table.