Page 37 of Catching Kyle

The next time I look up, I’m halfway through the book. It’s raining again, steadily tapping against the window. There are fewer customers than before,and most are different than the ones that were here when I arrived. It feels like I’ve been transported through time.

I look down at the book again, unable to believe that this random person named Cat is telling me my story.

This baseball player? He’s me. He’s struggling to keep up his reputation as a professional player, and even the conversations with his mother mirror the ones I’ve been having with my own. There’s a reporter who both comforts him but also makes him question himself. Every time I read in this other man’s voice, I can’t stop thinking of Michael.

I dive into the book again before I overthink it.

As their love gets stronger and stronger, I get that familiar heartburn. But I don’t stop. The more I read, the more I seem to understand: about myself, the world around me. How my whole life I’ve been living in the dark, and how this book is like a flashlight shining through the darkness.

By the time I reach the end, I’m teary-eyed, and my chest feels like it’s on fire. For so long, I’ve attributed this sensation as something purely physical, as heartburn or sore muscles or whatever. But this is more than that. I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but I know it has to do with the feelings I get when I think about Michael or being with a woman for the rest of the life. For a while, it all seemed disconnected, but now I understand it all orbits around one idea. One truth. And if I’ve learned anything today, it’s that, just as mama said, that I need to be true to myself.

I close the book and look out the window. As it would be, the rain has stopped, and light now shines through the clouds again. Like God is telling me it’s alright.

I breathe in, then breathe out.

I, Kyle Weaver, am a gay man.

Chapter 15

Michael Cunningham

AfteranAl-Anonmeeting,my sponsor, Susan, and I agree to eat at a nearby pizza place. Ever since my argument with Kyle, I’ve gone to at least two meetings a day. I’ve felt off since seeing David at the bar, and I’m trying to get my serenity back. But it’s eluded me.

On the drive there, I bite on my knuckles. Susan will probably think that I was an idiot for going to a place I suspected David might be. Or she’ll criticize me for staying and talking with David, or for leaving Amani behind. I know she’ll definitely have something to say about how I reacted to Kyle.

Kyle. The gorgeous man I’ve been keeping a secret from everyone, including my sponsor. He’s said to tell no one that we’re meeting regularly, but I need to get what I’ve done to him off my chest. I guess I just have to speak in broad terms or anonymize him.

By the time I reach the pizza place, I’m simultaneously relieved and frightened. I no longer have to keep this all my head, but that means someone else will hear about what happened. Susan has yet to judge me harshly, but I always fear that this will be the time that I finally break her.

We take our seats and order our drinks.

“How was your week?” she asks, chipper.

I sigh. “Is it okay if I say it was bad?”

“Of course it is,” she says after a sip of water. “That’s how you feel. What’s going on?”

My heart racing, I take a deep breath, and I spill what happened: drinks with Amani, running into David. Of course, with my luck, the waiter comes to take my order just as I’m describing how I had sex with Greg. I had to stop just before he arrived so he wouldn’t hear the details. And, of course, I describe how I exploded on my anonymous friend—Kyle—for saying I’m a bad romance writer because I’m incapable of loving correctly.

“Oof,” she says. “Sounds like you had a rough week.”

I sigh. “Tell me about it.”

A year ago, I chose Susan to be my sponsor. I heard her speak in a meeting, and despite what a harrowing childhood and life she had with her first husband, she smiled and laughed. She had a peace that I wanted, and since she agreed to help me work through the twelve steps, she and I have grown close. I now see her as one of my closest friends.

Our pizzas arrive—meat lovers for me, margherita for her—and I immediately dig in. Even the act of just saying all that out loud has taken a burden off my shoulders, but the effort alone left me famished. I just hope that Susan takes pity on me and isn’t too harsh.

“So,” she says after taking a couple bites from her pizza. “What really bothered you about seeing David last week?”

I shrug, still hungry after gobbling down two slices. I pick up my third. “It was like, shouldn’t I be better than this by now? Shouldn’t I not be so swayed by my ex? I should be over him right now.”

She clears her throat, and I’m worried she’s about to answer in the affirmative to all my questions.

“Stop ‘shoulding’ on yourself,” she says, the ‘should’ sounding like ‘shit’. “There’s nothing you ‘should’ be doing at all.”

Tension melts from my shoulders, and I lean back into my chair. “You’re right,” I admit. And, as usual, what she actually says is far kinder than what I anticipated.

“But you say you ‘shouldn’t have feelings for David’,” she says. “Doyou still have feelings for him?”