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Dex sat on the floor beside Chowder’s bed, where Nursey sprawled outside his line of sight. Chowder watched them both nervously from his desk chair, about to evict them from his room for arguing again. Dex couldn’t even keep track of every twist in the conversation—they jumped across connections and associations as if they had already broken this path before. Which, Dex thought, was pretty true. They did a lot of things together.
He knew that their fight had gone too far when the shouting stopped. Shouting was normal, even safe, for the two of them, but Nursey came back with a whisper.
“You’re so blind to the struggles of everyone who doesn’t look or feel like you do, as if white, cis, straight, and male is the center and everyone else deviates.”
The ice in Nursey’s voice was so unexpected that he didn’t feel the urge to fire back. Instead, his thoughts took a sharp turn and parked in an unfamiliar location.
“I came out to Ford.”
The room went very, very still.
Dex swallowed, a small noise in an otherwise silent room. Beneath the floorboards, the oven door squealed when Bitty opened and shut it again. Dex will find his can of WD-40 later tonight. Ollie and Wicks hollered, but Dex couldn’t make out the words. He swallowed again.
“I guess I feel kind of bad that I didn’t come out to you guys first. You know.” He cleared his throat, just to prod at the silence. “But yeah, I’m gay.”
Chowder blinked, and Dex could see him realign his assumptions before he took another breath. “Oh! Thank you for trusting me, I mean us, and Ford obviously, with this moment!”
“Thanks, C.”
“Of course!” Chowder opened his mouth to continue, but his eyes skipped up to the bed. Whatever he saw made him close it again, then open, then close. Like a fish. Dex quirked a tingling smile, and Chowder grinned back at him. Dex hadn’t even realized how afraid he had been before that smile. Chowder’s eyes were warm and steady and certain. Dex felt his lower lip tremble, so he looked away, breathing shakily through his nostrils.
Nursey still hadn’t spoken. Dex stared at the door and tracked the air filling his lungs, expanding against his heartbeat, escaping through his nose. He waited, and Chowder waited, like they were playing a board game and it was Nursey’s turn.
Dex waited until his breath started shaking again, slipping out of his careful hold. Game over.
“I’m going to just…” Dex looked up to see Chowder’s smile retreat a miniscule gap from the edges of his cheeks. Dex took a steadier breath, just for him, before standing and moving to the door.
A small sound lifted behind him, and Dex couldn’t stop himself from pausing.
“Dex, I…” A scratch of blankets, a shift of bedsprings. “Will.”
The name broke through the quiet, but Dex had run out of courage. “It’s okay,” he whispered, then opened the door and left.
--
Dex glanced at the door to Lardo’s old room where he and Nursey had set up bunk beds only a few weeks ago. He still thought of it as her room, not yet completely comfortable in the new space. Not yet safe.
He shuffled downstairs instead, where Bitty was still baking and Ollie and Wicks were still yelling at the TV. He considered going into the kitchen, but Bitty’s phone was propped against his KitchenAid and he was giggling as he rolled out another pie crust. Dex felt the muscles in his face relax, and he spared an affectionate ripple of gratitude for Bitty’s happiness before walking out the front door.
The walk to the gym loosened the stiffness in his muscles and cushioned the jagged edges of his thoughts. Humidity and sunshine seeped into his skin, and his awareness settled on his senses. The gym smelled like sweat and chlorine from the indoor pool. He could still taste the lemon custard pie he had scrounged out of the refrigerator that morning.
After 30 minutes on the treadmill and a few sets with a medicine ball, Dex felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He grasped the pulldown bar instead.
He showered quickly to prevent his muted thoughts from reasserting themselves. He pulled on his damp shirt with a grimace because he didn’t have a spare on him. He didn’t want to go back to the Haus for one, either.
Dex wandered the campus, watched a sorority playing frisbee, chuckled at a goose trying to climb a picnic table. The sun began to set, and he walked into Faber to find a troupe of elementary-school kids learning how to skate. A few parents cheered from the stands, and Dex clambered up the stairs to the back row. Pulling out his phone, he swiped across his notifications without reading the text, and he dialed a number without opening his contact list.
He might as well finish what he started.
--
Dex spent the evening in a misty kind of serenity. He came out to his parents, then his sisters, and then his brother. He walked back to the Haus and came out to Bitty after treating the hinges on the oven door. He even came out to Ollie and Wicks, who each gave him a fist bump before returning to their game. His room was empty, so he Skyped Lardo and Shitty and came out to them. His friends and family reassured and grinned and hugged and screeched and offered to set him up with “this guy from my French class, lord!” Chowder came back from somewhere and gleefully tackled him to the floor.
A few slices of pie and a few beers later, Dex excused himself from the impromptu party in his honor. He stared at the bathroom mirror, but his reflection was the same as it had been that morning. He ran a hand over the slight stubble on his jaw and vowed to shave tomorrow. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”
--
Dex was pretending to sleep in the top bunk when Nursey crept back into their room. Nursey knew him better.
“I’m sorry I missed your party.”
Dex rubbed his hands down his face and sat up, the illusion pointless. The streetlamp outside filtered through the window blinds, but he could barely see the outline of Nursey’s body. Dex could usually figure him out by the tone of his voice, but he still turned on the light clamped to the railing of his bunk.
Nursey clutched at his satchel and gently pushed his toes at the edge of their area rug, but he looked Dex in the eyes without wavering, like he’d spent the afternoon practicing his gaze. Dex didn’t turn away either.
“It wasn’t fair of me to assume that I had you all figured out. I should’ve known better. And I’m sorry.” For a moment, Dex admired the way Nursey’s eyes hardened, determined, and he thought about the confidence of an apology. Letting go and holding on at the same time.
“You’re not the only one who’s made assumptions, Derek.” Will had never learned how to say sorry, but he could say this. There were a lot of things he hadn’t learned yet.
Nursey knew that better than anyone, he supposed.
Nursey smiled first, like he knew exactly how to move them forward while Dex was still lagging behind. Dex tried to smile back and failed.
Derek moved to the ladder with grace despite the clothes and books littered across the floor. Nursey, who tripped over the floorboards even when the room was bare, climbed up a few rungs without hesitation, until he seemed to remember that the top bunk would probably collapse under their combined weight. His face, so secure until that moment, settled into uncertainty, and Dex laughed weakly even though it forced a few tears from the corners of his eyes. Nursey looked up again and reached for his hand.
They stilled for a few moments, holding hands, Will looking down and Derek looking forward. The haze around Will’s thoughts cleared, like sunrise, or the tide pulling back from the sand. They held hands, and Will imagined opening the gates of his consciousness, inviting his emotions back inside his head. There was quite a crowd.
He squeezed Nursey’s hand before letting go, but he left it on the bed, their fingers almost touching. Nursey smiled again, small, before setting his feet back on the floor. “Want to watch a movie?”
Dex turned off his lamp and followed him down the ladder without responding. They settled side-by-side on the bottom bunk, Nursey’s laptop balanced across their stomachs and arms pressed together in between. Will took his hand again, and Derek breathed softly into the dark. The rest could wait until morning.
--
Afternoon Poem
by Derek Malik Nurse
We eat sandwiches on the bench beside the water under the tree
I have never tasted bread before today
I watch you waste it on the pigeons, a luxury.
We are quiet, but
You are sated
You experience yourself without words.
We take from the afternoon and from each other
I might have stolen just to eat, in another life
I am hungry most of the time.
We could learn how to bake bread
You could pretend that I need it
You could let me want what I don’t need.