I couldn’t keep from laughing when I described how Daryl, one of the program teachers, had asked me out for a drink to tell me about what had happened with the kids one day. “He was so upset, I was worried he was going to quit.”
“Why?” Xander asked. “What happened?”
“Apparently when he told the kids they were going to the park for a painting class, some of them assumed he meant graffiti. So, they brought spray paint and were prepared to start tagging shit. You should have seen the look on his face when he told me.”
I put the back of my hand across my forehead the way Daryl had and sighed dramatically. “‘But Bennett, the police. What if the police had seen us? I’m too pretty to survive a night in central lockup,’ he said. I thought I was going to choke on my beer.”
“Did he quit?” Xander asked.
“Nah. I sweet-talked him into staying on and treated him to a nice dinner. He’s been teaching that class now for six months and the kids love him.”
“What else do you like to do besides work and volunteering?” he asked as we approached the top of the pass. “Do you spend time with your family?”
I looked over at Xander and saw him looking at the ground in front of him while he walked. It was unusual for him. Throughout the trip, I’d noticed that Xander always looked ahead or around him, taking in the views and his surroundings like it was the very air that sustained him. But when he was unsure, he kept his eyes down.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
He looked up at me then with a quirked brow, so I explained. “Well, I mean, I work with my dad, so I see him a lot. And I have plenty of obligations to see them at company functions. But they also expect me for family things like birthdays and holidays.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” he observed.
I sighed and looked away, trying to put my thoughts into words. “You know how they are… were,” I began, glancing at him to make sure he was okay with what I’d said.
“You always felt trapped,” he said softly. “Is it still like that with them?”
I shrugged. “Can you be trapped if you’ve never actually tried to escape?” I asked absently. I shook my head and said, “I think I keep waiting for that moment, you know?”
“What moment?”
“You know… the moment.”
Xander smiled. “Ah, the moment. I’d forgotten about that.”
“No,” I cried, clutching my heart dramatically. Xander laughed and I gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “You said you loved those movies just as much as I did.”
“I never said that. I said I loved that you loved them.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that I didn’t stay up night after night memorizing the lines from those moments and force you to act them out over and over again.” He had me there. I’d had a weird obsession with movies when we’d been thirteen. I’d honed in on the moments where the big gesture happened. Whether it was the hero telling the heroine he was sorry for whatever folly had befallen the couple or the poor bullied kid turning the tables on his tormentor… it hadn’t mattered. I’d waited breathlessly each time for “the moment” and the ones that had left some indelible mark on me, I’d forced Xander to reenact with me, which he’d done so without question. My favorite had always been about the kid at odds with his parents. It was pathetic, but every time the parents had wrapped their arms around their kid after some near-death experience or event that had made them appreciate their child more, I’d dreamed it was me. That it would be my mom and dad hugging me so tight I could barely breathe and I’d feel their tears against my skin as they told me over and over how much they loved me.
“So you never got it?” Xander asked, pulling me back to the present. “Your moment?”
I shook my head. “You think there’s a use-by date on those things?” I asked jokingly, but he didn’t smile. “Anyway, as you can imagine, the gay thing didn’t go over well.”
“Shit, Bennett,” he said. “What happened?”
“Well, I kept putting off telling them. Didn’t even consider coming out until I had my first real boyfriend in college, and even then, I chickened out. Finally, I knew I had to tell them because the stress of keeping it a secret was making me sick.”
“How’d you do it? What did you say?”
“I was all set to tell them. We were going to be having dinner together one Friday night at their house, and I knew it would be the perfect chance to tell them in private. That way I could leave if things got tense. But right when we sat down at the table, my dad beat me to the punch. Looked right at me and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing.”