Page 157 of Something Like Winter

Tim had a few himself. They hadn’t shared any kisses today or any other sign that they were more than old friends. Their reunion might have been fueled by dwindling flames of nostalgia and nothing else. For Ben at least. What Tim felt was so much more.

“I know where we’ll go,” he said, turning down the street.

“No!” Ben laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope!” Tim pulled into the high school parking lot. “Memory lane!”

“More like death row,” Ben said. “We’re not going in there, are we?”

“Why not? If anyone stops us, we’ll just say we’re picking up our kid.”

“We’re not that old! Besides, what’s the point? It’s not like you and I have many memories here. Not together, at least.”

“True.” Tim considered the school. “Maybe I want to walk down the hallway with you, hand in hand, like I should have done a long time ago.”

Ben’s eyes softened. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.”

Their hands didn’t touch until they pushed open one of the doors and stepped into an empty hallway. Ben was right. The place didn’t hold a lot of memories for them. Tim had only attended this school his junior year, but the universal smell made it feel like every school he’d been in. Dingy lockers, cheap carpet, textbooks, and a touch of desperation. That was the smell of institutionalized education.

Tim reached over, the side of his hand bumping Ben’s, whose fingers responded by tangling up with his own. “So, can I walk you to class?” Tim said.

Ben laughed nervously. “We can leave now.”

“Come on, just down to the end of the hall and back. We’ll be gone before anyone notices.”

That seemed to be the case until they had started heading back. Then the bell rang. As much as Tim said he wanted to do this, when countless teenagers swarmed into the hall around him, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. Not really because of the gay thing—even though they heard plenty of laughs already—but because the students made him feel old while reminding him of how awkward those school days had been.

He scanned the crowd as they walked, looking for the new Stacy Shelly or Bryce Hunter. And of course they received plenty of stares. Girls giggled and guys glared, but a few students they passed looked at them with a mad sort of hope in their eyes. Tim grinned at one of them, nudging Ben after they walked past him. Ben nodded, having seen him too.

“Oh man!” Tim said, laughing with nervous relief when they were outside again. “Could you imagine two guys walking down the hall holding hands when we were in school? I would have freaked.”

“I would have loved it!” Ben said. “Besides, it’s not so unusual anymore. One of my coworkers at the hospital, her son came out when he was fourteen and took his boyfriend to homecoming.”

“Seriously?”

“The times, they are a changin’!”

“Would you have gone to prom with me?” Tim asked.

Ben snorted. “Are you kidding? I would have followed you to the moon.”

Their next destination was even less a part of their history than the school was. Tim had wanted to revisit the past with Ben, but he hadn’t realized until now how much of their relationship was restricted to their teenage bedrooms, hidden away from the world. Tim drove to their old neighborhood, parking near one of the bike trail entrances a few blocks over from either of their houses.

“Go for a walk with me?” he said.

Ben was quiet as they strolled into the trees, but he took Tim’s hand, gripping it tighter when they reached a small man-made lake. Walking around it, they took another path that led to a small playground. The scene had changed, the jungle gym and swings replaced by new equipment, but neither had forgotten what had happened here. The night the police had nearly caught them, quite literally, with their pants down.

“Want to pick up where we left off?” Tim teased, but when he looked over, Ben wasn’t smiling. So maybe this wasn’t the best idea. They did have memories outside of their homes, but few of them were happy. Tim checked his watch. His parents would still be at work, probably. The den, or his old bedroom, those were happy places. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

During the walk, Ben’s posture relaxed a little. “It’s crazy. How many times do you think I snuck over to your house at night?”

“Hm.” Tim pretended to do some mental calculations. “Once, maybe twice.”

“More like one or two hundred times. I used to hide behind a tree whenever I saw a car coming, like the cops were doing a sweep for forbidden lovers. It was always so quiet, especially in the winter when all you would hear was the wind or a few lonely leaves skittering along. Just me and the stars above, on my way to Tim Wyman’s house.”

“And then you’d crawl into my bed with frozen hands,” Tim said. “You remember my technique for getting them warmed up?”