Page 13 of Ancient History

“Fuck ‘em.”

“Easy for you to say, you flaming heterosexual.” It was like a cloud following me around. Except for a few random, horrifically cringeworthy, down low occurrences, I hadn’t been with anyone since Amos. He’d turned my world upside down, but life was lived right side up.

“I saved it, but I haven’t set it to go live. I’ll leave that up to you. Hutch, life only moves in one direction.”

I nodded tersely.

“I’ve never once heard about a boyfriend. I’d like to be a grandfather one day.”

He’d make an outstanding grandpa. He would have a brand new audience for all of his corny jokes. But I would not be bearing that fruit. “Pop, why don’t I get you a cat instead?”

“Why don’t you want to date? What else are you going to do here?” He held up his hand before I could answer. “And don’t say take care of me. I don’t need twenty-four-hour care. You’re not going to stay this good-looking forever.”

“I’ll think about it.”

He seemed as convinced by that bullshit answer as I was.

“There do seem to be nice guys on the app.” He cleared his throat and took a suspicious sip of his now-decaf coffee. “Amos is on there.”

My heart did a flip against my better judgment. Whatever feelings cracked open, I pushed them down.

“Good for him.”

There was a reason Pop was the only person I’d come out to since Amos. He’d cleaned up my room when I originally moved out and found pictures of Amos and me that we’d taken in a photo booth. In half the pictures, we were kissing; the other half were kiss-free, but just as obvious that we were a couple. It was what prompted me to finally come clean to him about Amos, and it strengthened our relationship ultimately. I did things opposite: I was out to my dad, but never told any of my friends.

Except one.

The downside, though, to being out and proud to your dad was that he wouldn’t stop asking if you had a boyfriend.

“Might be worth giving Amos a call.”

I shook my head. “You know how it ended between us. He hasn’t forgotten. He wants nothing to do with me.”

That was crystal clear by the way Amos glared at me the other day. If his eyes were lasers, I’d be dead.

“Did you ever tell him the truth?”

“It wouldn’t make a difference.”

“Yes, it would. That asshole bullied you into dumping him!”

Ten years on, and the memory still made my stomach cramp up in terror. Picture this: closeted jock and closeted nerd date in secret bliss. Jock has never been happier. They make a plan to come out together at prom. Then jock’s homophobic teammate Seth Collins finds his text messages to the nerd, makes some threats, and convinces the jock to ditch the nerd, which he does via one half-assed text message. Tale as old as time, right?

According to Seth, if I came out, I could kiss my friends and my pro soccer dreams goodbye, and Amos and Pop would become town pariahs. I couldn’t let the two people I care about most become outcasts.

I still remember the chilling tone of his voice, how it shifted between concerned and threatening. He’d been vocally disgusted by the other students who’d come out during our time. Last I checked, Seth was married with four kids and wrote for a far-right blog.

I figured it was best to stop talking to my teammates and friends cold turkey after graduation. What if they had the same reaction?

A lot has changed in ten years culturally and politically, but I always wondered if Seth would’ve been right.

“It doesn’t matter if what Seth said was true, Pop. That doesn’t make what I did right. I texted Amos and told him that I was actually straight and didn’t want to see him again.” I snorted, not because it was funny but because I was stupid enough to send a text like that. “I still feel terrible. He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“You two were great together.”

“How do you know? You didn’t even know we were dating.”

“I saw the pictures when I cleaned your room. They were full of love. And love is love is love.”

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