Page 37 of Well, Actually
“Sorry. I should have known all that charm of yours comes effortlessly,” Cooper says with a flirty wink.
I glare back, my annoyance compounded from the tattletale blush burnishing my cheeks. “I must have walked under a ton of ladders and shattered all the mirrors recently because bad luck would have it that I ran into you at brunch,” I say into the mic, trying to navigate away from Cooper’s insatiable flirting.
We go over the main points of the meal for listeners, then Cooper asks, “Where does the experience rank in my sparkling track record?”
While I’m not feeling generous by any stretch of the imagination, I shrug and decide to be honest. “You’ve done worse in a group setting.”
Cooper’s smile is radiant, eyebrows raised in excitement. “Does that mean I’ve made up for the infamous frat house night that haunts you still?”
“Oh god, nothing was worse than that frat house night. I’m not sure you made up for it, but you certainly did better than it.”
“Come on, that night couldn’t have been that bad!” Cooper splays his hands, leaning back in his seat. “Me and the boys always knew how to have a good time.”
“You and the boys were toeing a fine line between a good time and a massive drunken orgy incorporating Solo cups and beer pong.”
It all comes back to me as rancidly as if it happened last night. The heavy scent of weed and beer and Axe body spray. The pumping music and rowdy crowd. Cooper and his buddies all shirtless in jeans and cowboy hats, a sheen of sweat on their chests as they slapped each other’s backs and loudly ogled the few women in attendance.
“Like I said, we knew how to have a good time,” Cooper quips, but there’s something deflated in his tone, his smile forlorn and not reaching his eyes.
“I have never seen a more homoerotic gathering of men than at your frat house and I’ve been attending NYC Pride for nearly a decade. There were numerous points during the night where you and ‘the boys’”—I offer my most exaggerated air quotes for the video recording—“screamed ‘No homo’ before pantsing someone or sticking your tongues down each other’s throats after successfully shotgunning a beer. All in the name of brotherhood, of course.”
The memories feel like a smack on sunburn, a quiet, hot ache that lingers even after all these years. The humid, suffocating energy of Cooper and his friends, their toxic deployment of neutral words, the sinking feeling of disappointment I wasn’t sure I was even entitled to.
I’ve been aware of liking people, not genders, since I wasold enough to register a crush, but growing up lonely in such a crowded house required all my energy be applied to getting by and taking care of myself. I didn’t have the bandwidth to process a label for my sexuality until I found breathing room in college. But even twenty-one-year-old me tiptoeing around my pansexual identity—not sure if I was outwardly and actively queer enough to claim a spot in the community—felt uncomfortable at the way Cooper and his friends acted. I remember watching him, the cavalier way he paraded around as a stereotype of masculinity, the reeking perfume of it that I pretended to like as I curled into myself, annoyed that I felt annoyed.
I’m surprised to see remorse flash across Cooper’s features now before he hangs his head. “I remember that. I think about it a lot, actually.”
“One of your prouder moments?”
His head snaps up. “One that eats at me. So much about that time in my life haunts me.”
My lips part, instinctually prepared to snap back with something inflammatory, but my throat hollows out at the serious expression on his face, the lines notched between his eyebrows in a frown instead of around his eyes in a smile. I bite my lip, then tilt my head, silently telling him to go on.
Cooper leans away from the mic and takes a deep breath. Then another. I hear the rattle of nerves with each exhale, and something in my chest shifts, my heart giving a sudden and surprising squeeze at his discomfort.
And it clicks. I sense what he’s about to say, the defensive but proud set to his shoulders and jaw. My expression turns open and genuine for the first time in a long time with him,and I give the tiniest shake of my head, telling him it’s okay. Telling him he doesn’t have to go on.
He drags his hand down his face, then leans his cheek against it, partially covering his mouth from the cameras.It’s okay, he mouths, then gives me a wink and a smile before dropping his hand back to his lap.
“I’m bi,” he says at last, forming the words clearly and steadily as he hunches closer to the microphone. “This isn’t my coming-out or some secret, I’ve alluded to it a few times on here before, but my sexuality still feels somewhat of a private topic to me so I don’t talk about it often… Maybe that’s just my internalized biphobia holding me back, though, who knows.”
He lets out a rough, self-deprecating laugh, eyes meeting mine. His smile is slow, a little timid. I want to return it. I want to silently, softly, encourage him to keep going, but my breath is snarled in my mouth, and all I can do is stare.
His smile falters, and he clears his throat, bashfulness returning. “Regardless, I wasnotout in college. I was very,verydeep in the closet, and acting out in a lot of ways that were toxic and perpetuated this idea of heteronormativity that I thought could save me, especially within frat life. I thought if I was masculine enough, aggressive enough, the one delivering the funniest jokes at the expense of a community I wasn’t openly a member of, I could maybe earn my straight guy card. And that infamous night with you was one of my more extreme showings of that.”
There’s an extended pause, and I belatedly realize I’m supposed to fill it. Cooper is staring at me with a brave face, atiny glint in his eyes that says he’s ready for whatever jab I’m going to throw.
Instead, I shake my head, trying to clear the fog. “What… what changed?”
Cooper starts like I surprised him. His jaw works as he studies me, weighing how genuine my question is. And in his true, unguarded fashion, he slowly smiles again, eyes locking with mine like nothing makes him happier than opening up to me.
“Well… I hit rock bottom. And it was dark and shitty and I lived down there for a while. But, eventually, I realized I couldn’t hate myself into someone I liked. So I decided to give accepting myself a try.” His voice is low, almost a whisper, eyes fixed on me. “Extensive therapy did some heavy lifting too, I’ll be honest.”
From a distance, I remember we’re recording all of this, that he’s sharing this into a microphone, and part of me wonders if what he said was even picked up. But the greater, stronger, delirious part of me wants to shut down every microphone and camera and grab Rylie Cooper by the front of his sweatshirt and shake him, demand he tell me every last detail that has actually changed in him since I knew him. Beg him for more of this truth. Collect all these new pieces as I try to put his puzzle together. Make him tell me if I can trust this version of him or if I’m just adding layers to the man that’s profiting off this whole ordeal.
But this moment isn’t about me. None of this has ever been about me, and that’s a new and hard truth I need to reconcile with.
Silence stretches again, and Cooper clears his throat. “So… yeah. I was a total dumbass that night—”
