“Okay.” Rafe’s out of the shower, his hair braided back. I’ve never seen him wear a braid like that before. He sits down next to me and settles a hand gently on my wrist, turning my hand to examine the cut.
“It’s swollen, so this is going to hurt. Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital?”
“Naw, man, just do it.”
The sting of the alcohol takes my breath away and makes my stomach clench.
“What’d you do?” Rafe asks, probably trying to distract me.
“Oh, I leaned onto a saw blade that was next to a truck I was working on.” Yeah. Because I was thinking about you and your comment the other night. Stupid.
He threads a curved needle with ease.
“They have this glue now,” Rafe explains, “where you can stick the edges of the skin together, but I don’t have any. These are the dissolving kind, though, so they’ll just melt after a week or two.”
“Seriously, how do you know how to do this? Do they just sell this stuff at the drugstore?”
“Nah. I learned at a workshop on radical nursing.”
“Uh, what?”
“Radical nursing. It was about basic home care, like sutures, remedies for the flu, how to pack wounds, bind sprains, treat infections, that kind of thing.”
“Sorry, radical as in, like, hey, man, far out, or….”
“Radical as in invested in a break from traditional hierarchies of knowledge and embracing modes of transmitting knowledge other than the official, sanctioned ones.”
“Whoa.”
“Okay?”
I blow out a breath. “Okay.”
Rafe puts on gloves and rests my hand on a paper towel on his knee. “Let me know if it’s too much.” His concentration is intense.
I look away when the needle pierces my skin with a punching sound that makes my stomach heave, and try to distract myself by naming every sound I can hear. The hum of the refrigerator. The buzz of the overhead light. Neighborhood kids playing. A car driving past that has an exhaust problem. The sound of Rafe’s deep, calm breaths.
“One more,” he says. It’s not so much the pain that’s getting to me; I just feel queasy.
“All done.” He strips off the gloves and peers at me. “Shit, you’re green. I should’ve had you eat first.”
I shake my head. “I’m okay.” The stitches are in a perfect line, uniform and straight. “Wow. You should be a doctor or something.”
He smiles and bandages my hand, then squeezes my shoulder. “All set,” he says softly, moving his hand up to my neck. He clears his throat. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got cheesesteaks.”
“That’s fine. Thanks.”
Rafe unpacks the food but doesn’t say anything. I can’t stand the quiet. The wet sounds of chewing and swallowing.
“That kid, Anders. He reminds me of my little brother, kind of,” I say into the silence.
“The one you work with at the shop?”
“No, the one who just moved away.”
“The professor. How so?” He’s turned back to the food, but I can tell he’s interested.
“Um, just, like, last week, the way he was really into Harry Potter. Daniel was like that—always wanting someone to read to him. My dad always babied him, you know. Treated him like he was delicate or something.”
“I think that happens a lot with youngest kids.”
“Nah. It’s like he didn’t expect him to be as tough as the rest of us. Like he knew even before Daniel told him.”
“Told him…?”
“That he was gay.”
“Wait, Daniel’s gay?”
I nod. “After he told Pop, Pop coddled him even more, you know. Like, he was so polite to him. He’d never be that way with me.”
“You mean if you were to come out to him?”
“What? No! Just, in general.”
“So, your dad was fine with Daniel being gay?” Rafe asks. He sounds confused.
“Well, no. I mean, he thinks it’s disgusting—freakish. But once Daniel told him, Pop started treating him all… I dunno. Like a girl or something.”
“Like a girl?”
“Just—you know, not wanting to offend him or hurt his feelings or something. Like he was a—”
“What?”
“A sissy. A faggot.”
Rafe’s eyes flash. “I don’t like that word, Colin.”
“Sorry, sorry. I just mean, you know, he started treating him like he wasn’t a man.”
“I see.” The silence feels like it lasts hours but is probably only minutes.
“So, um,” I say, trying to break the silence. “You said people know about you?”
“That I’m gay? Yeah.”
“Like, your family and stuff.” He nods. “And they’re cool with it?”
“Cool.” He laughs a little bitterly. “No, not cool. My sisters are fine with it, though they don’t quite believe it because I’ve never brought a boyfriend home or anything.”
“Not even Javier?”
Rafe’s face goes instantly blank.
“Javier wasn’t my boyfriend,” he says. “We were never lovers. Though—” He shakes his head, like he’s embarrassed. “My mom has come to accept it, I think. It’s gotten easier for her. Especially once she had grandchildren to worry about. I know she wishes I would just settle down and have a family of my own, but….”