Page 19 of Sam & Justin
“It made sense to me. I spent a night looking back. I remembered other guys I had the same reaction to and realized that my roommate was right. Then I had the whole panicmoment, because I liked girls too. I’d had a few girlfriends by then, and I’d felt the same way about them.”
“So, you’re bi?”
“Pan.”
I never really got the difference between the two. Maybe I could’ve asked, got some clarity, but I didn’t see the point really. Labels had never been all that important to me anyway. “How long did it take you to tell anyone?”
“Well, I told my roommate the next day.” Shit, I couldn’t imagine realizing it and then telling people right away. I let that secret eat away at me until I was nothing more than a hollow skeleton. “He was pretty cool with it, but I didn’t expect him not to be. He was the one that made me realize that I had a crush on the guy, after all.” Guess that made sense. It was more confirmation than news. “He helped me work up the guts to talk to that guy, too.”
Shit, he’d actually talked to him? That was ballsier than I’d ever been, especially at that age.
“What happened?”
“We became friends, and then a few months later, we started dating.” I must’ve had some kind of look on my face, because he grinned a bit too wide. “We were together for about two years. It didn’t work out in the end, but it was pretty good for what it was.”
I thought for a moment. Seemed like he had a good coming out experience. It was nothing like what I’d gone through. Of course he hadn’t mentioned how his family reacted. I didn’t know how to ask it, because I never did like talking about the way my family acted when I came out, and there was a good chance he’d want to know about mine if I asked about his. Sometimes, I closed my eyes and I could still hear my dad’s reaction. I hoped he didn’t have to go through that shit, but then I doubted he did. He’d said something about how his family made his life worth living, gave it purpose, and I figured if they’d cut him out for being into guys, they wouldn’t have made that list.
“What’s that look?” Justin asked as he studied me.
I guess my thoughts were written all over my face. Actually, I doubted that. I’d always had a good poker face. Axel commented on it all the damn time. Maybe he was just good at reading people. Must have come in handy working in politics the way he did. I could still feel his eyes on me, waiting for an answer, so I knew I had to bite the bullet and ask. “How’d your family take it?”
He was still looking at me when I asked. Like he could see all kinds of childhood trauma written on my face. Maybe he should have been a therapist like me, because you had to be able to see through the bullshit.
“They handled it pretty well,” he answered. “They just want me to be happy. It’s all they’ve ever wanted for me and Soph.”
“Different from my folks,” I grumbled.
“I take it they didn’t take it well?”
That was the understatement of the century. “Why do you think I don’t come back here all that much?”
I don’t know what kind of response I expected from that. Back when I used to talk about my family, most people showed some kind of pity when they heard that shit. I stopped talking about it after a year or two, because I hated the way people looked at me when they found out. Hated the way they acted like I should be handled with kid gloves.
Fuck that.
But Justin, he didn’t. He leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t like the kisses we were sharing earlier. It wasn’t full of fire and heat, wasn’t an appetizer to something else. It was just a kiss, the kind you gave to someone you cared about. I hadn’t had a kiss like that in a few years, and I sure as hell didn’t expect to get one from a one night stand in Gomillion. Of course, I didn’t usually talk about the deep shit with my one night stands. There was something about shared history that made it easier to open up.
The kiss lingered for a few moments before he pulled away.
“You deserve better than that.” I snorted. I’d been around people I’d gone to high school with all night, and not a one of them would agree with him. “You do,” he insisted.
“Might be the only one to think that.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow. “You really think that, don’t you?”
“Ain’t ever had much said to make me think otherwise. Especially around here.” I sighed. That wasn’t the whole truth. I was just in my head, because being back here, it made me feel like I was seventeen again, and not in a good way. “You notice most people looked right through me at the reunion?”
He nodded. “I also noticed that you weren’t going out of your way to talk to anyone.”
Damn. I didn’t really like being called out, even when it was valid. Now I knew how some of my clients felt, when I said shit they didn’t want to hear. The truth hurt sometimes. I shifted in his arms, and I felt them loosen to let me wiggle free. But the moment I laid on my back, he shifted around to rest his head on my chest. I put an arm around him, because it felt right to do. I liked the way he fit in my arms, just the way I liked the way I fit in his.
“Thought about it, a few times. But then I saw the way they’d either look through me or see my name tag and give me a look.” I sighed, shaking my head a little. Because I didn’t know what else to say. Some things didn’t change. Especially not in a small town like Gomillion. Reputations stuck. What people thought of you when you were younger didn’t change.
Especially not when you did what I did, which was skipped town right after graduation and didn’t come back except when I couldn’t avoid it.
“You were like that in high school, too,” he commented.
“Think I was worse in high school,” I admitted. “Didn’t give a shit back then.” He looked at me again, the same way he did earlier. Like he could see right through my bullshit. There was something about that piercing stare that made me feel the need to tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “At least, I liked to pretend I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about me.”