CHAPTER 21
brEVAN
I’m nervously excited to see Kendrick this morning. I must have lain in bed wide awake for hours as I remembered his hands on me. The way he kissed me. How we cuddled together.
I’ve never considered myself an overly sexual man.
It’s not that I’m not interested in sex.
I totally am. It’s just that I’ve had so many things to stress about since my grandfather died, and Grandma struggled to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, and me in football, that all my thoughts not on football or school were spent worrying about that.
There was one time shortly after my grandfather died that I heard my grandmother on the phone. She was weeping and was telling whoever she was talking to that she was afraid of losing me and my brother to social services because she couldn’t provide for us.
Cody always said it was unfair that Grandma had already raised her kids, and now she had to do it again, but this time without Grandpa. It made me really conscious of a lot of things and filled any space in my mind that would normally be on sex with worries.
So many of those worries still persist. I worry that Grandma died because she finally had a chance to rest, and knowing that I was somewhere safe, and Cody had a job and an apartment, she didn’t have to stay here with us anymore.
I worry that I’m not going to get drafted, and I won’t have anywhere to go this summer. Yes, I can crash on Cody’s couch, but that can only last so long. He has a tiny apartment, and I know he doesn’t make enough to support me, too.
I worry that even if I enroll in the Master of Library Science Information program and complete it, I’ll still be facing a dead end with nowhere to go and no job. It’s not like I can just wish for my dream and it’ll appear.
No one tells you that. They tell you to work hard and you’ll achieve your goals. That’s not always true, though, is it? There’s a very good chance that I’ll never open the library I want because it’ll take a lot of money.
Money that I don’t have and have no way of getting. Even if I find a librarian job, there’s no way I’ll ever save up enough money to finance my dream. Librarians aren’t the wealthiest people in the world.
So… yeah. Football takes up eighty percent of my brain space.
The other twenty percent is filled with schoolwork and worries.
Any kind of sexual need or desire I have ever had has stemmed from temptation.
Someone proposed something and I couldn’t resist the offer.
Otherwise, the amount of worry and time I dedicate to football overshadows everything inside me.
I think that’s what’s led people to tell me I’m oblivious.
I used to try to explain, but someone who doesn’t have the same kinds of fears and concerns that I do simply doesn’t understand how those can take up more residence in their heads than sex.
To so many people, sex takes up a lot of real estate in their minds and bodies once they hit their mid to late teens.
That’s just not me, and I haven’t met someone who understands that.
I’ve never met someone who truly makes me think about sex until Kendrick, either.
As I sit at the table with the other RDU students, I realize that it’s not just the big life worries that fill my mind, but even when I’m not hung up on future worries, there’s still something that I can’t stop worrying about.
Like this trip. Belonging here. Being smart enough to represent RDU. Since receiving the letter selecting me as a student ambassador, I haven’t stopped thinking about it with anxiety and maybe a little despair that I was going to let everyone down.
My brain is always filled with worry!
Kendrick is the first person I’ve ever met who’s quieted the fretful thoughts and allowed me to unwind.
Even when we touch on my fears, I don’t feel the overwhelming sense of disquiet within me that the unknown brings.
There’s space in my mind to enjoy his company.
Admire him. Have a conversation about anything at all.
There’s space in my brain to think about sex and orgasms and touch. I can still feel the way he touched me, and I want more. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted more before.
My eyes snap up as soon as Kendrick steps into the room, and our eyes meet. My breath catches when he gives me a smile, though he’s talking to Dr. Weaver. They stop at the breakfast buffet to fill their plates.
Keeping watch of him would be weird, so I lower my eyes to my plate and try to concentrate on eating while remaining very aware of where he is as he moves throughout the room.
He and Dr. Weaver walk behind the table.
I feel Kendrick’s presence like you feel the sun warming your skin after the clouds part.
When your body is aware and goosebumps rise.
His hand grips my shoulder on the way by, and my stomach jumps into my throat. I glance up at him over my shoulder, and we share a smile. Then I turn back to my plate, hoping that I didn’t just advertise that I maybe have big feelings for him.
Everyone is talking excitedly about today.
They’ve decided that tóreargleei University’s Community Day is probably along the lines of the festival that Dean Stommer organized in the fall, with another coming next month.
It will only be the second one, but already it looks like the festival has grown fifty percent.
I’m looking forward to it. It was a lot of fun with vendors and games and music. I remember back in elementary school there’d be a pop-up bookstore, and we could bring money in from home to buy books. There was one of those too.
One of my favorite things about this upcoming one is that Dean Stommer has created a community hours payment program where you can earn ‘money’ to be spent at any booth for anything at the festival in trade for performing some kind of help from any number of tasks on a list that he has posted online.
All you need is someone to sign off when you’ve done your task.
It’s little things like that why I love RDU so much.
The festival is meant to be fun for everyone—all the students and staff, as well as the community—all while raising money for the school.
But for those who don’t have money to spend on fun, it felt a little…
sad. Isolating. In the fall, I was able to buy cotton candy. That’s it.
I think enough people shared this thought and Dean Stommer found a way to make sure everyone has a chance to have money, even if it’s fake money that will be reimbursed by whatever means Dean Stommer has set up to pay those vendors accepting the fake money tokens earned by community service efforts.
The effort that everyone at RDU puts forth to make sure all the students are on a level playing field has always felt very humbling to me.
When we’ve finished breakfast, we climb into the shuttle for the six-minute drive to tóreargleei University. I’m surprised at the appearance of booths and games when they weren’t there yesterday afternoon. Not even a hint of them was there when we left.
“The shuttle leaves at 3:15 for Reykjavík. You don’t have to be on it if you choose to stay longer, or would rather go back to the domes. Or enjoy another activity,” Byndley calls as we get to our feet. “Did you all take a picture of the map for where you can find the shuttle once in Reykjavík?”
I nod as others agree verbally.
“Good. The shuttle will go back to the domes every hour beginning at 4:30 through 10:30. There are tons of excursions and explorations of the local area if you choose to do something other than check out downtown. Have fun and be safe,” she concludes and turns to climb off the shuttle.
The group of students we’d hung out with yesterday is there waiting for us. Einar meets me with a big smile when I get off the shuttle and hands me a hot cocoa. “This one is amazing,” she promises. “My favorite.”
I take a sip, and it’s hot, creamy, and with a hint of toffee. “Wow. I might need eight more of these.”
She beams. “Right? You want to walk around?”
“Yes, show me your Community Day. I want the tóreargleei experience.”
Einar laughs. “Don’t you have community events like this?”
“Yep. In the summer especially, there are always a lot of fairs and stuff. County fairs and small-town fairs. This year at RDU, we had our very first campus festival with another planned for the end of April.”
“Yeah? Is it like this?”
We pass kids making snowmen and two snow walls set up with people throwing snowballs at each other. “Well, to start with, there’s no snow, so those activities are different.”
She snorts.
“But yeah, kind of. The idea is the same. Promoting community and support.”
“I’m looking forward to the changes you guys are going to help us make.”
There’s something about the way she says it that makes me feel guilty. For a minute, we walk in silence, and I watch as Wendy gets to feed a reindeer.
“You know, I don’t think we should be changing what you have at all.”
“Isn’t that the point of this, though?”
“I think maybe we’ve been using the wrong words.
You have a solid foundation already in place.
Actually, in some ways, you’re further along than we are because your government enforces equality in so many ways that ours does not.
I don’t think we should be changing anything.
I think we should be expanding and growing what you already have.
Like your Community Day. This is absolutely breathtaking.
There’s magic in the snow, and I love how you embrace that with your activities. You know what I see missing?”
Einar looks around. “Warm tents to take the edge off.”
I laugh. “Yes! But what I’m referring to is that I see most of the signs and banners all boasting that they’re brought to you by tóreargleei and clubs within tóreargleei. You’re lacking community involvement. Does that make sense?”
She looks around. “You’re a really cool guy, Brevan.”
My cheeks heat and I take a sip of my cocoa to hide it.
“I get what you’re saying. You don’t think we need to redesign this entire event. It just needs to grow.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. I get that these events are about promoting community, but they’re also about making money, and if the school and its clubs are sponsoring the whole thing, I don’t think you’re making the money you should be.”
“This right here,” she says, gripping my arm and gesturing around us, “is why your idea of exchange students is exactly what we need. I may have wrongly heard or interpreted that aligning tóreargleei University with Rainbow Dorset University meant a lot of changes to get to where you are. But you’re saying what we have is already great.
We can just be greater. We’ve stopped growing and reaching for the stars.
We’ve been satisfied that a few local businesses get involved with Community Day.
We’ve become complacent, and that’s not what we should be doing.
We should always be evolving and getting better. Reaching more people.”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Einar. Yes!”
She sighs. “I think we’d reach the stars if you stayed here for a semester.”
“I have confidence that you can reach the stars without me. Especially now that we’ve closed the language barrier.”
Einar laughs. “We speak very good English.”
“You do, but we can pretend your Icelandic roots and my crass American English explain our miscommunication on the mission of sister schools.”
“I like that. It’s a single word that makes all the difference,” she says.
“We’ve been saying change is coming, and that can still be true.
But we’re not trying to take Iceland out of tóreargleei University.
We’re getting ready to expand on what we have and loudly promote the safety and inclusivity of being a queernormative university. ”
“Definitely. Don’t take Iceland out of tóreargleei. This is who you are as much as being queer.” I pause. “I just realized that the only people in the room who said they were queer are those of us from America.”
“I think that’s because in Iceland, there’s not as much emphasis on being queer.
It’s who you are, and that’s fine. You use queernormative as a way to describe your campus because you struggle within a toxic straight-normative country to find a place where you’re free to be who you are.
We don’t have that issue here. We just are.
There’s no need for either of those words. ”
“It’s impossible to imagine what it would be like to live in a place like that. An entire country.”
“Where everyone is considered normal,” Einar says, shrugging.
“Sounds fake.”
She laughs.