Chapter Text
You’d have thought that after outing my best friend, getting suspended from school, running away from home (well, car), inciting a rebellion against an autocratic rugby coaching despot, and actually caring about a rugby game for the first time in my entire life, I’d have been done with dramatics for the term.
You would have been wrong.
The keen reader will have noticed that I still hadn’t answered Connor’s question. That first one he asked me, right at the start of all this: Was I gay?
The truth was, it hadn’t mattered. There was no point liking girls at an all boys school where the only interaction we had with women under the age of 40 was at the heavily supervised annual Wood Hill College - St Kilda’s Tea Dance. There was no point liking boys at an all boys school where I didn’t have so much as a friend, let alone romantic prospects. And at the point when Connor asked me, the good teachers of Wood Hill College hadn’t seen fit to enlighten us that there might be any other genders out there.
Now it did matter, and I’d ruined it. I hadn’t wanted to be the creepy weirdo who found out his friend liked blokes and immediately thought, wait a minute, I’m a bloke, wayhay. And in a sense I’d got my wish -- instead I was the creepy weirdo who’d found out his friend liked blokes and immediately outed him to the whole school. Still, the end result was the same -- I wasn’t fit to be Connor’s friend, let alone his anything else, and that was that. The fact that he took me back as a friend at all said a lot more about him than it did about me.
Only. So there were a few things I didn’t mention in my essay. A few things like the way Connor’s lips looked when he was singing, or the curve of his arse in his rugby shorts, or the sound of his voice just after he’d been laughing. But also one thing that wasn’t mine to share -- not that that had stopped me before. When we’d been waiting in the changing room to confront Pascal and restore Connor to his rightful place in the rugby elite, Connor had wanted to hold my hand.
He hadn’t said anything -- Connor wouldn’t say anything if his hair was on fire. Thinking about it, he’d probably score a winning try, listen to me whine about my parents, write five essays about the nitrogen cycle and all the time swallow his secret pain like the marble-sculpted martyr he is. (That was good, “marble-sculpted martyr”. I should keep that for an actual essay. Mr Sherry would say it’s pretentious, but Mr Sherry can do one after what he said to Connor. Anyway.) He hadn’t asked, and I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t seen his hand twitch, just slightly, out of the corner of my eye. And I wouldn’t have seen that if I hadn’t been staring guiltily at the floor, thinking about all the ways I’d fucked things up for the only person who’d ever liked me wholly and entirely for who I was.
So Connor had wanted to hold my hand -- for a second, for the whole ordeal, I don’t know -- and he hadn’t asked, even though I was feeling so guilty at that point I’d have done anything to make him feel better, up to and including streaking in front of the whole stadium.
The thing about Connor is every man in his life has let him down. His dad’s a sack of shit with a scrotum for a face, who taught him love is conditional and he’s never going to be good enough. Pascal, enough said. Mr Sherry might have wanted to be our very own Dead Poets’ Society, but right there and then he was actually more of the same -- another dickbag who could have accepted Connor for who he was, but instead told him to hide away. His old school could have found out why he was fighting, given him some support or pastoral care or whatever else it is they’re meant to do, but they’d just kicked him out. And I don’t know if I count as a man in his life, but I had very definitely let him down.
Right. There was Connor, standing there about to confront his worst nightmare, and he couldn’t even ask the total fuckwit who got him into this mess for the support he so desperately needed.
I didn’t hold his hand. I’m not that brave. I’m not Connor. And honestly, I didn’t know if it would be welcome. Maybe he’d decided not to ask for my support because he’d remembered why he needed it in the first place.
But afterwards. This was what I wanted to say to him: “Connor, you’re amazing. You’re brave, inspiring, and kind. I’m so, so sorry about everything, but this isn’t me trying to make it up to you, and this isn’t me trying to take advantage. This is me telling you what I should have told you as soon as I found out about you. I’m bisexual. I want to be your friend. But if you want more, now or ever, that’s what I want too.”
I didn’t say that. Of course. What I actually said was, “Connor.”
And then he looked at me, his whole face and body like that one twitch of his fingers, like there was so much he wanted but he could never ask. And I thought about all the shit Connor’s been through, all the pressure to be a big strong man and take the lead and make decisions and go it alone in a world that should have been much softer and much kinder to him. And I thought: If I get this wrong, we’ll get over it. He’s forgiven me worse. But if I get this right, maybe I can give him something no one’s ever given him before. Maybe I can take that leap for him.
I took his face in my hands and gave him a moment to back away. He looked at me and he looked at my mouth and he still didn’t say anything. His lips are-- I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve either seen them or you haven’t, and that’s all there is too it.
I kissed him closed mouth, my lips against his, my heart beating a mile a minute, his hands falling to my hips like they belonged there. We leaned into each other, breathing together, swapping these chaste little soft kisses, his lips following mine every time I made to pull away. If I could have dipped him I would have, but he’s half a foot taller than me and built like a brick shithouse. So instead I kissed him like we were making our own Suede poster. I opened my mouth against his and it wasn’t like it is in the films, but it didn’t have to be: it was him and it was me and it was perfect.