Twenty-One
The following week, as we stand outside of school, Garrett reaches for me, the skin on the back of his hand warm against mine.
He holds it there, a question. For straight couples, holding hands while walking through the hallways of Irontown High is an announcement of their togetherness.
For Garrett and me, it’s something different.
We step into the building, and he begins to move away, misreading my indecision as rejection, but I slide my hand into his and pull him close, our forearms locking together. He gifts me with his crooked grin.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know what I expect to happen when the two of us walk down the crowded senior hallway to our lockers—maybe a homophobic riot or a pride parade—but in reality, it is neither of those things. Many people don’t notice, and most of the ones who do don’t bother reacting.
A few, however, do react.
Some basketball players standing in a group make jokes and snicker at us as we pass.
Ryan Beltrami fist-bumps Garrett and says, “Get it!”
A sophomore with bright pink hair claps her hands together and squeals.
Peter Reese sees us and does a double take, his lip curling in disgust. But he doesn’t say anything.
Then there’s Evan Hegge. On our way to chemistry class, I hear him behind us.
“I called it! Didn’t I tell you years ago that Rossi is a fag?”
I glance behind me. He’s talking to Dana Hendricks but is projecting his voice so everyone nearby can hear him. Garrett’s fingers tighten around mine, but we don’t turn around.
“Hey, Andersen?” he asks Garrett’s shoulder. “How long did it take him to turn you queer?”
“Ignore him,” I say.
“Because you seemed pretty straight at the beginning of the year,” Evan continues. “Well, I guess I never caught you checking me out in the locker room. If I had known, I would have been more careful.”
“Really?” Garrett says, dropping my hand, wheeling around, and stopping in the middle of the corridor. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re not really my type.”
“Because I’m not a pervert?”
“Because you’re a backward hick who treats people like shit.”
“This is the opposite of ignoring him,” I say.
“You can’t be that picky,” Evan tells Garrett. “You settled for this fairy.”
“You’re going to want to shut the fuck up,” Garrett growls.
“Or what? You’ll ass-rape me?” Evan turns to me. “Does it hurt? When he—”
“We’re going,” I say, forcing myself between the two of them. There’s a fire in Garrett’s eyes that scares me, that reminds me of the night he went off on that player on the football field. I push at his chest.
“Dude,” Tyler tells Evan, emerging from his locker, “leave them alone.” He steps forward, his shoulder acting as a buffer between the two of them.
Garrett glares at Evan for a beat longer, breathing hard, then gives in to my pleas and my pushing. We turn around, lock hands again, and resume our walk to chemistry.
“Your parents,” Evan calls at Garrett’s retreating back. “Were they so desperate to get their fag son out of their house that they sent him to Michigan?”
I know it’s coming before it happens. Garrett’s hand is no longer in mine and he’s rushing at Evan.
Tyler has moved back toward his locker, leaving Evan and Garrett unchecked.
Garrett collides with Evan full-on, and the two of them fall to the floor, a jumble of backpacks and limbs.
Evan lands the first punch, and I see blood spray from Garrett’s nose before the two of them are blocked from view as people form a circle around the fight. Phones come out to record it.
The next few minutes are a blur.
I try to get to them but can’t make it past the mass of bodies in my way.
At some point, Mr. Maki and Ms. Virtanen push through the crowd and manage to pull the two of them apart.
Another teacher yells at everyone to get to class.
I catch a glimpse of Garrett and Evan as the teachers usher them toward the principal’s office. Garrett glances at me over his shoulder, his lip puffy and bleeding, a bruise forming on his cheek.
And then the hallway is empty, as if nothing ever happened.
Tyler tells Ms. Hammond, the principal, everything Evan said before the fight, getting him saddled with a two-week suspension. Garrett receives a week’s worth of detention. Ms. Hammond calls Dad, and he picks us up early.
It’s quiet in his truck for a moment as he pulls away from the school. “So,” he says, eyes trained on the road, “what happened?”
I glance at Garrett. He’s leaning against the window, pressing an ice pack to his face.
“It was Evan’s fault,” I say.
“That’s what Ms. Hammond told me,” Dad says. “But what actually happened?”
Garrett didn’t hesitate to hold my hand in front of half the school this morning, showed no fear in the seconds before he rushed Evan, but now he looks apprehensive. Dad is the one person he hasn’t wanted to tell about us.
“Evan said some stupid shit,” I say.
Dad raises his eyebrows. “That’s it?”
I glance at Garrett again. He closes his eyes and sits up straight, lowering the ice pack into his lap. He looks like he’s steeling himself before a firing squad.
“Enzo and I,” he says, “were holding hands. We’re … we’ve been dating for a couple weeks. Evan saw us and made a big deal about it and called Enz a fag, so I tackled him.”
“Oh,” Dad says, and then he’s silent for a minute. He pulls into our driveway and kills the engine. He turns to us. “Are you guys okay?”
“What?” Garrett says.
“Believe me, I’m going to have words with Evan’s father.” Dad goes on. “And I’m proud of you for standing up for yourselves. But that couldn’t have felt good. And knowing Evan, he probably wasn’t quiet about it.”
“It really sucked,” I say, “but you caught the part about Garrett and me, right?”
Dad nods. “I’d been wondering. You’ve both seemed pretty … close over the past few weeks. I suppose I should have asked sooner, but I didn’t know how to bring it up without making things weird. I’m happy for you guys.”
“Really?” Garrett says.
Dad lets out a laugh. “Why wouldn’t I be? And talk about a turnaround from the beginning of the year.” He scratches his beard and turns serious. “I know you’re both eighteen now, but I’d, uh … I’d appreciate it if you stuck to your own bedrooms.”
I feel my face grow warm and try not to look at Garrett as we exit the truck. “Now you are making things weird.”
That night, I let Garrett hear my music. He lies on his back on my bed, and I sit at my piano, playing each of the pieces I’ve written over the last few months. He listens with his eyes closed, hands cradling the back of his head, elbows splayed out wide.
I’m more nervous than when I submitted my portfolio to the conservatory, but he’s the perfect audience, smiling to himself at all the right moments, nodding appreciatively at the end of each piece, telling me what they remind him of.
When I play the final piece, the simple piano sonata, he sits up, a strange look on his face.
“That last one,” he says. “It was … wow. I mean, they’re all great. But something about that one…”
“I wrote it after our first date. After the ice dome and falling asleep together. It’s us.”
He looks at me for a long while, then breaks into a grin. “If that’s what happens every time we make out, then you could compose a full-on symphony by graduation.”
“Not every time.”
Laughter bursts out of him. “Is that your way of telling me I need to up my game?”
“No. Your game is very, very good.” I turn fully around on my piano bench and watch him closely. “When we were in the truck today … Why did that matter so much?” I ask.
He sits up. “Why did what matter?”
“I mean, how my dad would feel about us dating. It’s almost like you cared more about it than I did, and he’s my dad.”
He looks at me for a long time, not saying anything, then lifts his shoulders, trying to appear casual. “I guess I just care what your dad thinks. That’s all.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he says, and I can tell he’s lying.
I move across the room and sit down next to him. “Well, either way, I’m sorry,” I say.
He frowns. “For what?”
“That you’re stuck in this town. That this”—I motion at him and myself—“us, had to be a big deal. It wouldn’t have been like that if we were at your school.”
For the first time, I get it, what it’s like to feel too big for this place, to feel stuck here.
“There are shitheads like Evan Hegge everywhere,” Garrett tells me. “Most people had no problem with us.”
“But those stupid basketball players,” I say, “and that look Peter Reese gave us…”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “They’re shitheads. But the shitheads are always more noticeable than the not-shitheads. There were plenty of people who were happy for us or who didn’t care at all. Tyler had our back when it came down to it.”
I think about this for a second, surprised that he’s defending Irontown and the people who live in it.
“We have every right to be here, Enzo,” he says, reading my expression.
“Just as much as bastards like Evan. We don’t have to make ourselves small in order to belong in this town.
Because when we do, when we stay in the closet, we’re saying that this place is theirs, that it belongs to bigots and assholes, and that anyone who’s different should get the hell out or make themselves invisible.
” He shakes his head. “I’m done being invisible. ”
I almost tell him I love him right there, tell him that he’s the bravest person I’ve ever met. Instead, I jump up on the bed, unpin the pride flag from my ceiling, and grab Garrett’s hand. Then we walk, flag in hand, downstairs, through the entry hall, and onto the front porch.
Dad and Emma pause their show on TV and follow us outside, watching as I remove the Packers flag that has hung in the flag holder on our porch for as long as I can remember.
I replace it with the pride flag. The flag flaps in the cold night air, right next to the steps that every customer to our shop uses, visible to the busiest street in town.
I turn around. Garrett, Dad, and Emma stand side by side, their breath rising in clouds as they gaze at the flag.
Eventually Dad speaks. “About damn time.”