He kissed Andie’s cheek as her ushered her out of Grams’ house, thanking her for her unflinching support. He watched her walk out onto the road and climb into her Saab, smiling and waving through the darkness. She’d surprised him tonight; all this time he’d thought she felt, like his father, that his transgressions were unforgivable.
Grams appeared in the hallway and stood with Jack, watching Andie go. She stood behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder, holding just tightly enough to make him feel safe.
“I hope you didn’t mind that I let her in earlier.” Grams’ soft voice broke the silence gently.
He turned toward her, shaking his head. “Don’t worry. She was actually . . . a big help.”
Grams nodded.
“Did my sister, uh – did she tell you anything?”
She nodded the affirmative. “But I didn’t ask.”
Jack concentrated on the floor, choking back fear and self-loathing.
“That’s Andie for you,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.
Grams moved away from him momentarily, then returned to his side with a cup of milk. She ushered him to the small kitchen table. Rubbing the side of her coffee cup for warmth, she gingerly asked him how his date was.
Bitterly, he shook his head. “It was no date, believe me, Grams. I can . . . hardly say the word ‘date,’ much less actually have one. I walked away. I just – I just walked away. I was a coward.”
“No. You are no coward, Jack.”
“Then why do I feel like one?” he asked her.
“Because you’re scared.”
“I,” he said assuredly. Then, suddenly, his voice broke. “I’m so scared.”
“I know,” she told him, placing her hand over his.
He looked up at her, surprised by her sympathetic reaction. She could read his thoughts as well as Jen and spoke to directly to them, just as Jen did.
“You thought I would be angry?”
He shook his head, then stopped, shrugging. “I don’t know. I guess. I never know what to expect. It seems like everyone has something to say . . .”
She squeezed his hand reassuringly, telegraphing to him that he should go on talking.
“Everyone has something to say about me – about all this – and I’m not sure anymore. I’m not sure whose opinion matters and whose doesn’t. I used to assume that my father did matter and now I’m certain that he doesn’t. Or at least,” he paused, thinking, “with things the way they are now, I hope he doesn’t.” He waited a moment, then continued. “I never thought I should let my sister matter, but after tonight, I want her to matter. Jen has always mattered, but I’m even more afraid because she hasn’t been around lately.
I know that my mother matters, but she doesn’t have any idea what I’m going through.”
“Would it make you feel better if I said nothing?”
Jack shook his head vehemently. “No. I mean, I am scared and most of the time I am unsure of whose words should be allowed to pierce my own thoughts, but Grams – your opinion matters more to me than almost anyone. I need you to tell me . . . I need you to show me what I’ve done wrong.”
Silently, she scooted her chair closer to his, putting her arms gently around his shoulders. “Oh, dear. You have done nothing wrong.” She paused. “You don’t understand, do you? You don’t understand that your imperfections make you only more perfect in my eyes.”
“And what’s more,” she continued, “none of those imperfections have anything to do with your . . .”
Jack looked up, waiting for her to finish.
“. . . being gay,” she finished, attempting to say the word as if it meant nothing, but not quite succeeding. “And none of your imperfections have anything to do with the fact that you couldn’t enter that coffee shop. Please believe that, Jack, and know that. For knowing that is the only way that you’re ever going to be able to enter some coffee shop somewhere down the road. I’m an . . . I’m not a young woman, Jack, but I think that makes me all the more capable of judging what’s right with the world. And dear?”
“Yeah?”
“You are what’s right in the world. And the people who make you forget that, well, they’re what’s wrong in the world.”
Tears streamed down his face more quickly now, but Grams couldn’t see them because she had his face firmly placed beside hers in a comforting embrace.
“How do you always know what to say, Grams?”
“It must be all that practice I had last year with Jennifer . . . saying the wrong thing.” She shook her head, regretting.
He leaned against her, crying freely as the soft light splashed the sides of the room.
“She’s in your room. She told me she would wait up for you.”
He didn’t have to ask who Grams was talking about.
He smiled and got up from his chair and turned to go.
“Grams?” he said over his shoulder.
“Yes, dear?”
“Thanks.”
She smiled. He felt her eyes on him as he followed the flower-wallpapered hallway to his bedroom.
Jen lay on her stomach across his bed, numbly hitting the remote control, scanning though the channels. She heard him enter the room and flipped off the television.
“You look great, by the way,” she glanced at him quickly. “Love that shirt.”
He looked down at his clothing, noticing himself as if for the first time.
“Thanks. So do you,” he said absent-mindedly. She was wearing her pajamas.
Grinning at him ironically, she said, “Gee, thanks. I’ve had a heavy night of ballroom dancing and . . .” she almost finished ending my sex-only relationship with our mutual friend, Pacey Witter. For some reason, though, she couldn’t make the words form. She was sure that her hesitance to talk about her foray into the world of casual sex was not because she felt Jack might disapprove; the two of them had made a silent pact long ago never to feel or say that particular ugly word. No, it was that she was aware the night he had just ended had possibly changed his life, whereas her night had done nothing but convince her that she would forever remain the bad girl who wasn’t that bad after all.
“Ballroom dancing?” He batted the conversation into her corner.
“Forget it. Not important. Tell me about your date.”
She scooted over before he asked her to, making room for him to sit beside her. He laid his head in the small of her back, staring up at the ceiling.
Neither said anything. He knew she wouldn’t press him to retell the story. Strangely, though, he wanted to tell her everything.
“This guy, Ben, he emailed me a couple of days after Thanksgiving. Found me after reading Dawson’s news story on the web, apparently. Andie practically fell in love with him when she read the email and begged me to write him back. I – I wasn’t going to . . . but yesterday at school, he IM’ed me. I sat there staring at the damn computer screen. I didn’t know what to do. The little red-and-blue box kept beeping in my face. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Long story short, Andie was sitting right behind me. She kind of . . . coached me,” he laughed and Jen smiled, not wanting to interrupt. “It was weird. I know it’s a strange thing to say, but I felt like I was Andie and Andie was me.”
She finally had to interrupt. “Huh?”
“I mean, I felt like I was watching someone else meet this person. This incredibly attractive person who honestly understood how I felt . . . how I feel,” he corrected himself, “every day of my life. I guess it wasn’t so scary if I could even vaguely imagine that, at that moment, I wasn’t me.”
Jen nodded.
“Anyway, Andie set the date up within minutes after we saw his picture. I watched her arrange a day and time – all these small details – and I continued to stand behind her and shake. My teeth were chattering, I was so scared.”
“Andie can be . . . persistent.”
“Yeah. But in truth, when she came to talk to me before I left tonight, she was great. Everything I wanted her to be from the beginning. I listened to her pep talk and I felt like I would be able to do it – to do the whole date thing. But when I actually walked up to the door and saw him, I started shaking again and I couldn’t go in. I mean, I told Andie and Grams that it was because I saw a guy and a girl sitting nearby and I wanted to be them. And I admit that I didn’t want to be me. That’s partly true. I mean, it’s more true than I wish it was. But as I think about it, I don’t know if that was really the whole reason.”
“And the rest of the reason was?”
He sat up and leaned against the pillows; she followed his lead and they lay side by side.
“The other part of the reason was that . . . as great as Andie was and as much as Grams means to me . . . well, even with all their support, the one fact remained: you weren’t there. And when I do walk through that door sometime in the future, I want you to be waiting outside to walk me home. It’s different with them. Because,” he paused and searched for the right words. “Because with them, I’m comfortable enough to admit that I don’t always like who I am.”
She nodded reassuringly, but said nothing.
“But then, when I’m with you,” he continued, “I don’t have to admit that because . . . because when I’m with you, I don’t want to be anyone else.”
She didn’t cry, though she felt that she could have with even the next small word. Instead, she smiled widely and adjusted her head into the proffered crook of his arm.
“Thanks, Jack. I needed that tonight.”
Moments passed, both of them staring at the paralyzed ceiling fan.
“Where have you been lately, anyway? I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“I’ve been kind of . . . preoccupied.”
“Clearly. With what?”
“Can we save it for later, Jack? I’d like to just lay here with you, if that’s okay.”
“Are you kidding? That’s beyond okay.”
She was asleep within moments, but he remained awake, contemplating the occurrences of the past few days. On the edge of sleep, he heard her voice.
“So he was that cute, huh?”
“Oh my God, Jen. You have no idea,” he said, letting out a tense breath.
Jen and Jack convulsed in laughter, filling the house with noise. They had their apologies prepared when Grams appeared in the doorway.
“It’s late and there’s school tomorrow. You should both go to bed. I brought in an extra blanket in case you get cold.” She spread the quilt over them and kissed Jen’s forehead, then Jack’s. “Goodnight, my darlings.”
THE END