Strong Enough

“Give me one second. I was just leaving, so let me say goodbye to my friend.” She patted my arm. “Be right back.”

A moment later, she returned and ordered a cup of coffee. “So catch me up with you. What’s going on?”

I studied her for a moment. She looked pretty, no makeup on, hair in a ponytail, relaxed and happy. I envied her. “Let’s talk about you first. What’s new?”

She chatted about her marathon training, her new niece, her job, and then she blushed, a girlish smile brightening her face. “And I met someone.”

“You did?” My food had arrived and I paused with my fork halfway to my eggs. “That’s great.”

“He is great,” she gushed. “He’s a runner too, and we met at the shoe store. He just moved down from San Francisco. We have such a good time together.”

“Wow.” I poked at my potatoes. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

“Thanks. I have a good feeling about him. But enough about me.” She waved a hand in the air. “What about you? How’s work? How’s life? You look a little down.”

I lifted my shoulders, terrified of opening my mouth.

“Derek, what is it?” She took a sip from her coffee, then set down the mug and touched my hand. “Look, I know things didn’t go the right way for us, but I’d like to be friends. And I’m a really good listener. If you—”

“You were right,” I blurted. “About me. And Maxim. You were right.”

Her mouth fell open. “I was?”

“Yes.”

She took it in, eventually nodding. “Okay. Well. That explains some things.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled, then felt her hand on my wrist. “Hey, I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s more of a relief for me. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I knew that, rationally.” She gave me a shy smile. “But women fret about these things. I’m very happy to hear it wasn’t something I did or didn’t do.”

“It wasn’t,” I assured her.

“So what’s the problem?” She picked up her coffee again. “He doesn’t have the same feelings?”

“No. He does,” I said glumly.

She blinked at me. “So…you should be together. Try it out.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said irritably. “I can’t just suddenly be gay. What would people think?”

“Fuck people!” The outburst was surprising, coming from her. “If they’re not happy for you, then fuck them! Maybe they don’t realize how hard it is to meet someone you like that likes you back the same way.”

I thought about that, shoved food around on my plate. “People will talk about me.”

“Let them talk. You know who you are.”

“They’ll say mean things. They’ll turn what he and I feel into something ugly.”

“Who. Cares.” She set her cup down hard. “I’m serious, Derek. You can’t live your entire life trying to please other people. You’ll go crazy. You’ll never be happy. And you know in your heart it’s not ugly.”

“But it’s…it’s how I was raised. To think of it as wrong. To think of it as a defect. To think of myself as off in some way. It made me work that much harder to be right.”

She leaned forward in her chair, her arms folded on the table. “So what do you want? To be right in some meaningless, outdated, unfair, inhuman way? Or to be happy?”

“But I want a family,” I said. “I want to be a father.”