“I don’t really have a choice. Amanda cornered me today and I—”
“What’d she say?” Evan’s forehead creased indignantly.
I briefly filled Evan in on my confrontation with my ex. “I don’t know who she’s going to tell or if she’ll say anything at all, but I won’t let her take my story away from me. It’s mine.”
“So you’re going to come out?”
“Yes.”
“And what about Gabe? You aren’t doing this alone, are you?” he asked, his forehead creased in confusion.
“Coming out isn’t a team sport, Ev. It’s personal and it has to feel right and be right and…”
“You’re not ready, are you?” Evan whispered.
“No. I’m so fucking scared.” I swallowed around the grapefruit in my throat as tears welled in my eyes.
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay.”
“Maybe.…My parents are going to be weird, and my grandmother might not talk to me again. She’s super conservative. Then there’s my team. Those guys are like brothers to me. Maybe it’ll be fine, but you never know. Sometimes people tell you they’re cool but they aren’t really and”—I paused to suck in a deep breath—“everything’s gonna change before I’m ready, and I might lose it all.”
“You’re not gonna lose me, man. I’m here for you. I always will be.” Evan put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. I’ll walk in to that locker room with you and kick ass if I have to. Don’t think I won’t,” he said menacingly.
I chuckled and pushed him away. “I believe you. Thanks, Evan. But I’ve got this.”
Who was I kidding? I didn’t have shit. I had no idea how to come out. I spent that night Googling coming out stories for ideas. There were so many ways to go about this. I could update my status on social media, post a video on YouTube, write a letter, bake a cake…the options were endless. None of them were for me. I wasn’t flashy enough to pull off fabulous. I thought about getting Mitch’s number from Chelsea and asking his story, but that would entail so much…talking. If there was a way to do it once and get it over with, I was on board. If not, I had to take one bite at a time. And I might as well start with the hardest piece first.
The following day I put together a short itinerary that went something like this: Skip practice, skip class, eat lunch, make banana bread, skip class and skip practice again. Make a brief appearance at the end of the second practice, come out, field questions. Go to the market, buy chocolate, and eat feelings.
I thought about telling my folks sometime during the day, but it seemed like the kind of message that required a more personal touch. I wasn’t sure I could handle an awkward phone conversation in my current headspace anyway. It was better to mentally prepare cutting myself open in front of a fierce group of college-age athletes. My peers, my teammates, my friends. With any luck, I’d still have a few who wouldn’t look at me differently when I assured them I was still me. Just a more honest version.
Like it or not, my quest for a new start couldn’t begin until I confronted my fear and dishonesty head on. I had so many speeches racing through my head. Hopefully this first one would go well. I sat on a bench under a tree outside the social ecology building and stared at a leaf stuck to the bottom of my shoe. The pointed edges were wilted and torn. I lifted my foot to dislodge it just as a shadow fell over me. I glanced up and nodded a greeting before patting the empty space beside me.
“Hi,” I said.
“What do you want, Derek?” Amanda asked in a hollow-sounding tone.
“This is for you.” I handed her a loaf of banana bread wrapped in foil.
“You made banana bread.” She stared at the seam in the foil for a long moment before looking at me with tears in her eyes.
“I want to apologize. You were right. I owed you the truth. Not yesterday but…in June. I couldn’t be honest with you because I wasn’t honest with myself. I hurt you and…I’m sorry.”
“So you are gay.”
“I’m bi.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she pushed her long hair over her shoulder and regarded me curiously. “I would have been okay with that. We could have been okay.”
“Thanks for saying that, but it’s not true.”
“It is true. I loved you. And you loved me…at least for a while. If you’d just told me—”
“Mandy, it wasn’t that easy. It’s taken me a long time to say the word ‘bi’ out loud. I wasn’t ready then, and I couldn’t have been the real me with you until I was out. I guess our timing was off. That’s my fault. You said you agreed we were over, but I should have noticed that you weren’t. I should have been more sensitive. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I was too self-absorbed. I didn’t mean to be callous or cruel. And I never meant to hurt you. I swear. I want you to be happy. You’ll find the right guy. I’m sorry it’s not me.”