“No. Like…you wouldn’t ask a German shepherd to suddenly become a toy poodle.”
“I am not a dog.”
“Okay. Terrible metaphor. But what I mean is why waste time trying to change who you are? Trust me. I’ve spent a ton of time trying to change me. Pray away the gay, so to speak. But it didn’t work. Some things about us are just how we arrived here on earth.”
“Yeah.” Voice coming out weak, I had to lean against the car.
“And I don’t think that makes us imperfect.” He put a hand on my shoulder. Not a hug or even a squeeze, but there, warm and present. His conviction, the way he seemed to deeply believe his words, made my knees wobble, body not sure it could withstand this much compassion all at once. “I’m not trying to say that being gay is the same. And I can’t say that I know what you’ve gone through. But I do know what it’s like to believe you’re broken when really all you are is…you. And I’m sorry that your moms maybe can’t see that.”
“Thanks.” My eyes burned in a way they hadn’t in years, hot and tingly and dangerously close to welling over. I wanted to believe him, wanted to trust that he wasn’t feeding me some positivity mantra out of pity. For the first time, maybe ever, I felt seen. Heard, like maybe I hadn’t ranted in vain. I turned toward him, still searching for the right words to say thank you with, and our eyes met. Held. His were full of compassion. But not pity. I’d seen pity plenty of times, and this wasn’t that. It was understanding, and it was potent. I leaned in to his touch, soaking it in.
Right as I was about to say something—probably the wrong thing, but at least something—the beep of a horn made me jump. Conrad’s hand dropped as if he’d been burned. A tow truck pulled up in front of us.
“Someone need a rescue?” the driver, a gray-haired woman, called out her open window.
Oh, lady, you have no idea. And even as Conrad rushed toward her, I couldn’t help feeling as though she’d interrupted something significant, a moment I might never get back.
Chapter Seventeen
Conrad
Our rescuer was named Mary from Mary & Blue’s Auto Repair, and she was a strapping woman who was easily almost as tall as me, with shoulders that rivaled many linebackers. But her voice was all gingerbread and hot cocoa—a caring grandma who wanted to cluck over us as much as the car.
“Oh, this car is a beaut.” She circled Black Jack. “But you poor boys. What rotten luck. Did you have to wait long?”
“No,” Alden said softly, still sounding a little dazed. “Not long.”
Weird answer because to me it felt like years had passed since the tire blowout—as if we were most definitely in a different place and time now, the very air around us changed. It wasn’t simply the argument or Alden’s confession. Rather, something had happened inside me, some unearthing of tender places I hadn’t been aware of having. And in telling Alden that he wasn’t broken, I’d reminded myself that this applied to me too. It had been so easy to feel like damaged goods the past year, but when I’d told Alden that we weren’t imperfect, I’d actually believed it myself.
And I’d meant it when I said that I didn’t see Alden as imperfect—I never had. If anything, I’d been guilty of some unrealistic golden-boy assumptions. I’d always seen him as supersmart, super competitive, and yeah, maybe a little quirky. But everyone has idiosyncrasies. And whether his stemmed from neurodiversity or anxiety or some other cause, I didn’t think that made him flawed.
“Well, good. Wouldn’t want to keep you waiting. My first call out in a few days.” Mary slapped Alden on the shoulder before bending to inspect the damaged tire. “And yep, you’ve got a bent rim. Fixable though. Luckily, with a sedan like this, even a luxury model, we probably have a tire that will work back at the shop. We’ll tow you in. Should have you back on your way in a few hours.”
“Hours?” Alden, keeper of the schedule, groaned, and for once, I had to join in. We couldn’t afford to lose that much more time.
“By dinner,” Mary assured us. “You’re lucky it’s a slow day at the shop.”
I had a feeling most days were slow in this tiny blip of a place. Mary’s was the only other vehicle I’d seen since taking the exit ramp. I couldn’t see any town yet, but the sign on the tow truck advertised some place I’d never heard of.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t help my sigh, but we really didn’t have any other options. “And uh…how much?”
“The tow is covered by your friend’s Triple A. And unless we’re looking at an alignment, it’ll be the rim repair and the new tire. Hard to estimate on the fly, but two fifty? Maybe three hundred. We’ll try to keep it down.”