Our Way

“Promise me.”

“Fine.”

“Kiss me.”

“Just spit it out.” I snap in frustration.

He exhales heavily as if he’s walking to the execution chair. “I know Stephanie quite well.” He pauses. “We worked together on a few cases, and when she was having trouble with her husband—”

“She’s married?” I gasp.

“Ex-husband,” he corrects himself. “She talked to me about a few warning signs she had about him cheating on her with a man. He’d started hanging out with someone and going on trips away with him. He was wanting things they’ve never done before in the bedroom, and so on. She knew that I was… ”— he pauses—, “the way I am.”

“Gay.”

“I’m not gay, Eliza,” he corrects me.

“Why do you hate that title so much?”

“I don’t identify with it.”

“So, what…. you’re bisexual?” I frown as I try to understand. “Explain this to me, Nathan, I don’t understand.”

He shrugs. “Elliot thinks I’m pansexual. Although, I feel totally fucking straight when I’m with you.”

“What does pansexual mean?”

“It just means that I fall in love with a soul rather than a body type.”

“Oh…” I’ve never heard of that before.

“Anyway, we talked over lunch one day in the cafeteria about her husband, and I told her I thought he was probably having sex with men.”

“What made you say that?” I ask.

“He wanted her to wear a strap-on and fuck him.”

My eyes widen.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “In your words: red flag.”

“Right.” I listen intently.

“I didn’t see her for ages. She worked out of a different hospital, and months later I saw her again alone at the cafeteria. She told me that her husband had just left her for this friend. She was distraught, and we just started talking casually. Not super close or anything, but we had this open line of communication between us, you know? We had talked about subjects that you don’t talk about with the average person.”

“You crossed the line?” I ask.

“Perhaps, but not in a sexual way. Kind of in a therapist-like way, if that makes sense.” He shrugs. “This sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.” He pauses and exhales heavily as he prepares himself for the next part of the story. “When my feelings for you started changing, I was terrified that I was going to lose you. I needed someone I could talk to about it from a female’s perspective.”

I clench my teeth as I watch him.

“I talked to Stephanie.”

Jeez, I fucking hate this story.

“You have to understand, my biggest fear about opening up to you was that I was going to profess my love and then we had sex and I didn’t like it. I didn’t know if I would like a vagina, Eliza. I had no idea how I was going to perform or if I could even get it up.”

I close my eyes in regret. “You talked to her about this?”