“But not the romance novels,” I offered.
Christopher shook his head sharply. “They made me want something I knew I could never have.”
“Love?” I suggested.
“A happily ever after,” Christopher responded. “I couldn’t risk dropping my guard, and I knew that reading those books would cause me to do exactly that, especially once I got to college.”
“What about your undergraduate work here in Seattle?”
Christopher shrugged. “It was pretty much the same as high school. I did as much work as I could online. I only left my dorm to go to classes. Uncle Micah or Con would pick me up to go grocery shopping so that I wouldn’t have to eat in the cafeteria.”
“What happened when you left home for school in North Carolina?”
“I kept doing everything I’d been doing. I got my own dorm room instead of sharing, I scheduled my classes for during the day so the campus would be busy when I walked to class, I ordered groceries online and only ate in my room. I didn’t participate in any activities, I didn’t go to parties, I never left my room after it got dark, and I became hyperaware of my surroundings.” Christopher paused before adding, “It became like this twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job.”
“That kind of life couldn’t have been sustainable,” I said. I was horrified at the prospect of the sweet, smart, kindhearted Christopher locking himself away from the world.
“I needed it to be,” Christopher responded. “I figured I’d eventually get to a point where I felt more comfortable with the campus and the other students in my nursing program, but things got worse. By the end of my first semester, I was borderline agoraphobic. I’d stopped sleeping because I was convinced someone would come into my room. I was lying to my family about everything, and I’d stopped going home, even for holidays and the summer. I told everyone I was taking extra courses. Uncle Micah and Con came to visit a couple of times, and I managed to convince them I was loving college life each time. I was able to keep my grades up with no problem, but the stress was starting to make me sick. It was hard to keep food down, and after a while, I just wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t hide my appearance from my family, so I just cut off contact more and more. I blamed it all on school and studying. Last fall when I started the second semester of the program, I tried to start taking better care of myself. The curriculum included classes with a lot more hands-on training, which meant working with patients and shadowing other nurses.”
“How did you do it?” I asked. I was still trying to make sense of the isolated life Christopher had forced himself into.
“It was hard at first, but having a routine helped. Most of the other students in the program were women, so it was easier to be around them. Several of them lived in my dorm, so I would walk to and from the hospital with them, and it didn’t take long for them to start inviting me to things like coffee after class, study sessions, stuff like that. I hadn’t really realized how lonely I’d become until I started hanging out with them.”
“What happened?” I asked after several minutes of Christopher going silent. He looked tired. Instead of prodding him to respond, I stood up and went around the island. I held out my hand and waited.
It took Christopher a painfully long time to make a move. When he finally did, I let out a sigh of relief. Christopher tucked Pip in the crook of his right arm and took my hand with his left one. Neither of us spoke as I led him up the stairs to his room. When I pulled the covers back off the bed, toed my shoes off, and then got in it, I fully expected Christopher to panic. But to my surprise, he crawled in next to me. When I urged him into my arms so he could rest his head on my chest, he did it without hesitation. Pip ended up on my chest too, though he had Christopher’s hand to support him so he wouldn’t topple off during his nap.
“His name was Peter,” Christopher began on his own. “He transferred into the program a few weeks into the second semester. The girls I hung out with immediately accepted him into their circle. Our circle, I guess. I told myself I needed to keep my distance from the group, but I really didn’t want to. It felt like the group was the only normal thing in my life. Peter wasn’t a big guy or anything, so I guess that helped. It was clear that he was gay early on because he’d talk to the girls about his past boyfriends. He was pretty much an open book, and he seemed to know that I needed him to keep his distance. Eventually I started to feel safe enough to participate in the conversations, but I made sure I was never in a situation where I was alone with him.”