Out of Nowhere (Middle of Somewhere 2)

“I… forgot to feed her one day,” I say finally.

Daniel looks up. “Why?”

“I was drunk. It was after Pop died.”

He nods, curling Shelby’s tail around his hand.

“She already didn’t like me very much, though,” I admit. “She loves Rafe. And you, apparently.”

Daniel’s chin jerks up and he comes back to the table. “Rafe. That’s the guy at Dad’s funeral?”

I nod, but I can already feel my throat tightening and more sweat slicks my spine. I hadn’t meant to bring Rafe up at all.

“And he’s the one I talked to. On the phone?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And he’s… and you’re… together.”

I nod and start cleaning up the tea.

“I, um, I didn’t know you were such a neat freak,” Daniel says. I wheel around and glare at him. He holds his hands up. “Clean, I mean. That you were so clean.”

“Look,” I say, leaning back against the counter I just cleaned. It’s exhausting, tiptoeing around each other like this. “What do you want? I mean—” I correct myself when Daniel bristles. “—what are we doing here? Because this sucks.”

And there it is again: that hurt look. But then he shakes it off and squares his shoulders.

“What do I want. Okay. Well, I want to know why you treated me like shit for my entire life for being gay when you’re gay too. That’s what I want.”

My grip on the counter turns slippery. It feels like it’s a thousand degrees in here.

“I didn’t—” I start to say, and Daniel’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair. We’re like dogs with their backs up, circling each other, growling at every word. Daniel sighs and he forces himself to relax.

“Look, let me start again.” He eases a small piece of paper out of his pocket and smooths it out on his knee, hiding it under the table and glancing around the kitchen like he’s not looking at it. He clears his throat nervously, then tries to sound totally natural.

“So, you’re gay right? Or, you know, into dudes? Just to clarify….”

“Are you reading that off a piece of paper?”

“What? Oh, well… um, so, you are, right? Rafe?”

“Yeah, okay, yes, Rafe.” I grab the all-purpose cleaner and start wiping off the table. I pick up Daniel’s tea and move to wash it.

“I wasn’t actually done with that.”

I slam it back down on the table in front of him and tea sloshes over the sides. I grit my teeth and wipe it up.

“Dude,” Daniel says, shaking his head. He glances down at his knees. “Um, so, how long have you known you were interested in men?”

“Daniel, seriously. Are you reading that off a piece of paper?”

“Uh….” He laughs nervously. Then he starts laughing harder, cracking up at something. He spills the tea and jumps up before it can drip onto his lap. “Shit, sorry.”

I shake my head and wipe up the tea. Then I clean the table again. And still, Daniel’s laughing at me.

“Fucking what!?” I snap.

He laughs until he wheezes, hands on his thighs, then holds the paper out to me, incoherent with laughter. It’s crinkled and a little damp, so the ink has bled in places.

“What is this?”

“I… stayed up all night… making a list…,” he blurts out through his laughter, “of questions and… topics of conversation.” He snorts. He used to do this as a really little kid: laugh until he started snorting. Not as cute as an adult.

“Uh, why?”

“Ginger said I should write them down so I didn’t forget,” he says, wiping at his eyes. “Oh god. Sorry. Okay. I’m fine. Shit. You may as well just read it now, I guess.” He shakes his head. “Hey, listen, do you have any food? I’m starving.”

I gesture toward the fridge where Rafe put some groceries earlier while I was cleaning. “I’m not sure what’s in there. Can you cook?”

Daniel starts giggling again. “No, not really. Rex has been trying to teach me, but… I’m kind of hopeless.”

I read the paper while Daniel digs through my refrigerator.

1. Double-check he’s actually into dudes. And since when? Dated other guys? Women?

2. If so, why so freaked about me? (Self-hatred? Hates me? Closet/Fear? Dad? Just a homophobic asshole? AOTA?)

3. You made my life miserable. Why always so cruel?

4. We were kind of close once, right? What happened?

I swallow hard at the last two.

“What does ‘AOTA’ mean?”

“Huh?” Daniel says, pulling something out of the fridge. “Oh. All of the above.”

I lean against the counter, and Daniel puts out an apple and some cheese.

“Can I eat this?”

I nod, frowning.

“Um,” he says, sounding nervous again, “so… you can just go in order if you want….”

He gets out a plate and a knife and proceeds to cut the apple and the cheese into perfectly uniform slices and pile the slices on the plate, which he offers to me, looking pleased with himself for a second. But I definitely can’t eat anything. Why always so cruel?