Page 7 of Don’t Let Me Go

When I get home from the carnival, Dad is waiting for me in the living room practically vibrating with excitement, like a

kid on Christmas morning.

“What do you think?” he asks, his eyes twinkling behind his thick glasses as he thrusts a cobalt-blue suit in my face. I’m

starting my internship at the ACLU in a week, and this suit is obviously intended as a bribe to get me amped about a long

summer of paralegal work.

“Um. Wow. Thanks,” I say, doing my best to muster the appropriate level of enthusiasm. With its slim lapels and subtle pinstripe,

the suit is admittedly quite stylish. It’s also, however, an unfortunate reminder of just how much a person’s taste can change.

Case in point: When I was ten, Dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and because he was my hero, I told him that

I wanted to be just like him—I wanted to be a lawyer.

To clarify, Dad isn’t the gross kind of lawyer who spends his days helping corporations avoid paying taxes. He’s a civil rights

attorney. And for the past twelve years he’s worked for the ACLU, fighting for criminal justice reform, free speech, immigrants’

rights, voting rights, and (of course) LGBTQ+ rights.

I still remember as a kid eagerly listening to him talk about all the cases he was working on and all the people he was trying

to help. He was so passionate about his work and even more passionate about instilling that passion in me, his one and only

child. And for a while, I shared his passion.

To my ten-year-old brain, my dad was Superman.

Only instead of tearing his suit off before heading out to fight injustice, my dad put one on.

Even after all these years, Dad’s enthusiasm for his work is still infectious.

And as cheesy as it sounds, he’s still my hero.

The only trouble is, now that it’s my turn to don a suit and help save the world from injustice, I’m having second thoughts. More than second thoughts.

I know I don’t want to be a lawyer. I’ve actually known this for quite some time. I just haven’t found the right opportunity to

tell my dad and break his heart.

“Do you like the color?” he asks, noticing my hesitation. “I know you’re more into blacks and grays, but I thought something

with a little color could be fun.”

“The color’s great,” I say as a fresh wave of guilt washes over me. “You really didn’t need to do this.”

“Of course I did! It’s not every day that my son comes to work with me.”

I force myself to smile, and Dad laughs one of his good-natured laughs.

“Don’t worry, I’ll try not to embarrass you too much at the office,” he jokes, slapping me on the back. Though, to be honest,

I’m far more concerned about embarrassing him.

I’ve inherited a lot of things from my dad (his curly black hair, his aversion to tomatoes, his love of classic Doctor Who ), but an unwavering optimism about the world isn’t one of them. But that’s Greg Iverson. He goes to work every day believing

that he can make a difference.

Me? I’m not so sure.

Given everything that’s happened over the past few years, it seems to me that America is one giant dumpster fire, and things are only getting worse.

Especially for people like me and my friends.

And while I know it’s important not to lose hope and to keep fighting prejudice and inequality, most days it feels like my time would be equally well spent banging my head against a large rock.

Because for every Greg Iverson fighting for queer rights, there are a hundred lawyers and politicians on the other side of the aisle trying to take them away.

It’s exhausting. We might be on the right side of history, but most of the time it feels like we’re also on the losing side.

And honestly? I’m not sure we’ll ever win.

But how do I tell my dad that? How do I say, Hey , you know everything you’ve spent your entire life fighting for? Well, I think it’s all been a waste of time, and this country

and humanity are doomed. But thanks for the snazzy suit!

“Why don’t you head upstairs and try it on?” Dad suggests, still grinning with pride. “Make sure it fits.”

“I’m actually kind of tired,” I lie. “I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

“Oh,” he says, unable to hide his disappointment.

I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so I shoot him a conciliatory smile and add, “I’m also kind of sweaty and gross from the

carnival. I don’t want to stink up the suit. But I’ll try it on first thing tomorrow. After I’ve showered.”

Dad nods, accepting the compromise. Then, feigning a few expertly crafted yawns, I carry the suit upstairs to my room and

promptly shove it into the back of my closet.

Almost immediately, though, my guilt overtakes me. Even if the suit is a reminder of the potentially exhausting future that

Dad has laid out for me, it’s still a thoughtful gift. A thoughtful gift from a kind and compassionate father to his thankless

child who’s a terrible son and an even worse homosexual.

Seriously, how many queer teenagers would kill to have a parent who’s this excited for their child to follow in their footsteps and work alongside them to fight for queer rights?

I hate that I’m so ungrateful. But sometimes I feel like I answered a question when I was ten, and that answer determined the entire rest of my life.

It’s like what Jackson said at the carnival tonight. If the story of your life has already been written, can you even call

it your life?

With that depressing thought, I decide not to wait until morning to wash up and head to the bathroom. A hot shower is one

of the few things that can lift my spirits when I start to sink into one of my existential black holes. And a few minutes

later, with the warm water washing the sweat and stress of the day down the drain, I do feel a little less fatalistic about

my future.

I also find myself thinking about Jackson.

I still can’t figure him out. On the one hand, he was exactly what I expected from a walking Ken Doll: clueless, privileged,

awkward around queer people. But on the other hand, he was thoughtful and compassionate and ready to own his mistakes. He

also laughed at my jokes, which indicates a higher-than-average intelligence.

That being said, he looked really uncomfortable when Duy insisted that he save all our numbers in his phone. He clearly wasn’t

ready for that level of commitment.

I bet he’s already deleted us from his contacts. In fact, I bet none of us sees or hears from Jackson Haines for the rest

of the summer.

Not that I care.

Sure, overall, he seemed like a not-terrible guy. I didn’t mind hanging out with him. If I’m honest, I also didn’t mind his

piercing blue eyes. Or his ridiculously toned biceps. Or his strong but surprisingly soft hands. Or...

Crap.

I don’t need to look between my legs to know what the situation is down there. I can feel all the blood in my body rushing

to a certain extremity.

What is wrong with me? There’s literally nothing more mortifying or clichéd than crushing on a straight boy. And yet my stupid body has decided to betray me all because Jackson has a cute smile and a tight ass.

“Traitor!” I hiss at my erection.

There’s no way I’m going to indulge my body’s problematic taste in boys. Instead, I turn the water temperature down as low

as it will go. Sure enough, it takes only about ten seconds of waterboarding my groin with ice-cold water to get my libido

under control.

With my hormones in check, I step out of the shower and dry myself off, thankful for the warmth of my towel. Then I head back

to my room, where I slip on a clean pair of boxers and consider trying on the new suit so I can show Dad that I’m not the

world’s shittiest son. Before I can make it to my closet, though, my phone buzzes. Much to my surprise, I see the group text

has a message from its newest member.

JACKSON: Had fun tonight. Looking forward to skating tomorrow if the offer still stands.

Huh. Okay. Interesting.

Duy must have invited Jackson to Rink-O-Rama. I should’ve expected that.

What I wouldn’t have expected was for Jackson to accept.

Or that I would be so excited that he did. I can feel my heart racing in my chest. Which is ridiculous, because I so don’t

care one way or the other if I ever see Jackson again.

Which isn’t to say that if he wanted to hang out, I’d be against the idea. I could see a future where we might be friends. Maybe. We do sort of seem to

have a connection, at least when it comes to hating psychics and predestination.

Is that why I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve met before? Because he’s some sort of kindred spirit?

Oh my God, what the hell am I saying? Kindred spirit? That’s ridiculous. I literally just met the guy. I barely know him!

But if that’s true, why did I have that very inappropriate dream where I was going on and on about how he was the other half

of my soul?

Somehow chalking it up to physical attraction doesn’t seem like a good enough explanation. Not for such a vivid and elaborate

dream. There must be a practical reason why Jackson seems so familiar.

I know this mystery is going to keep me up all night unless I get to the bottom of it, so I grab my laptop off my desk and

flop down onto my bed, hoping that a quick search of his socials might provide me with a clue as to where I’ve seen him before.

There are three people named Jackson Haines on X but none of them are high-school students. Next I try Instagram, but he doesn’t

seem to have a profile there either. Same for TikTok and Snapchat. In fact, as far as I can tell, Jackson Haines has no social

media presence whatsoever.

Which is odd . Even serial killers have fan accounts.

I decide to try an old-fashioned Google search, but it turns out Jackson Haines is an annoyingly common name (as well as a

nineteenth-century figure skater). I narrow the search parameters to Jackson Haines and Tallahassee and football (which are the only things I know about him), and the first result that comes up is a link to a news story from December

with the headline “Friday Night Lights (Out).” Next to it is a thumbnail of Jackson in a football uniform with the rest of

his team, the Tallahassee Wolverines.

I click the link, and it takes me to the website of a Tallahassee newspaper. I start to skim the article, but I don’t need

to read more than the first few paragraphs to realize two very important things.

One, I definitely know who Jackson Haines is.

And two, I was right not to trust him.