In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals. I know this is hard for people to do, but I don’t understand why it’s so hard, when it’s so obvious.
I remember Rhiannon’s hesitation to kiss me longer when I was Kelsea. I am hoping this reason was nowhere near the heart of it. There were so many other reasons in that moment.
One of the protestor’s signs catches my eye. HOMOSEXUALITY IS THE DEVIL’S WORK, it says. And once again I think about how people use the devil as an alias for the things they fear. The cause and effect is backward. The devil doesn’t make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.
Predictably, Austin stops to kiss me in front of the protestors. I try to oblige. Philosophically, I am with him. But I’m not inside the kiss. I cannot manufacture the intensity.
He notices. He doesn’t say anything, but he notices.
I want to check my email on Hugo’s phone, but Austin isn’t letting me out of his sight. When William and Nicolas make a move to get some lunch, Austin says he and I are going to go our own way for a little while.
I assume we’re going to get lunch, too, but instead he pulls me into a hip clothing store and spends the next hour trying things on, with me giving my outside-the-changing-room opinion. At one point, he pulls me into the changing room to steal some kisses, and I oblige. But at the same time, I’m thinking that if we’re inside, there’s no way Rhiannon is going to find me.
While Austin debates whether the skinny jeans are skinny enough, I find myself wondering what Kelsea is doing at this moment. Is she unburdening herself, going along with it, or is she defiant, denying that she ever wanted help in the first place? I picture Tom and James in their rec room, playing video games, not having any sense that their week was disrupted. I think of Roger Wilson later tonight, preparing his clothes for church tomorrow morning.
“What do you think?” Austin asks.
“They’re great,” I say.
“You didn’t even look.”
I can’t argue this. He’s right. I didn’t.
I look at him now. I need to pay more attention.
“I like them,” I tell him.
“Well, I don’t,” he says. Then he storms back into the changing room.
I haven’t been a good guest in Hugo’s life. I access his memories and discover that he and Austin first became boyfriends at this very celebration, a year ago this weekend. They’d been friends for a little while, but they’d never talked about how they felt. They were each afraid of ruining the friendship, and instead of making it better, their caution made everything awkward. So finally, as a pair of twentysomething men passed by holding hands, Austin said, “Hey, that could be us in ten years.”
And Hugo said, “Or ten months.”
And Austin said, “Or ten days.”
And Hugo said, “Or ten minutes.”
And Austin said, “Or ten seconds.”
Then they each counted to ten, and held hands for the rest of the day.
The start of it.
Hugo would have remembered this.
But I didn’t.
Austin senses something has changed. He comes back from the dressing room without any clothes in his arms, looks at me, and makes a decision.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. “I don’t want to have this particular conversation in this particular store.”
He leads me down to the water, away from the celebration, away from the crowds. He finds a somewhat secluded bench and I follow him there. Once we sit down, it all comes out.
“You haven’t been with me once this whole day,” he says. “You aren’t listening to a word I say. You keep looking around for someone else. And kissing you is like kissing a block of wood. And today, of all days. I thought you said you were going to give it a chance. I thought you said you were snapping out of whatever it is that’s been afflicting you the past couple of weeks. I am sure I recall you saying there wasn’t anyone else. But maybe I’m mistaken. I was willing to bend over backward, Hugo. But I can’t bend over backward and walk around at the same time. I can’t bend over backward and have a conversation. I guess when it all comes down to it, I’m just not that damn flexible.”
“Austin, I’m sorry,” I say.
“Do you even love me?”