Page 34 of Sending Love Letters to Animals

“I’m sorry, all right?” He growled.

We both laughed.

“So,” he continued, “you guys have some fight then or something? Is that why he doesn’t want to work with you on the project or something? Seems like a long time to be upset about stupid junior high stuff.”

“No,” I said. “I mean, yeah. We had a fight. Well, no. We didn’t have a fight.”

“Wow,” Davud said, pulling his hands away from the vents to lay them in his lap. Obviously, they had warmed up enough. “Clarity is not really your strong suit, dude.”

I sighed and stared out of the windshield, my eyes threatening to lose focus once more. Shaking my head, I chased away the desire to disconnect.

“Chris and I were…kind of tight, you know?”

Davud nodded, indicating I should continue.

“He lived down the street from me then,” I explained. “We were friends in middle school and junior high. I guess we were, I don’t know, best friends. Super best friends. We did everything together.”

“Okay?”

“And…this is super private, man, so this is between us, right?”

Davud gave me a look like I was the densest person he’d ever met.

“Yeah. Okay,” I said. “We both kind of, figured out we were gay at the same time.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I mean, we were young, it wasn’t like…you know…that,” I said. “Nothing, like, physical or anything. I mean, not really. I think we were both kind of curious about each other and maybe, eventually, I don’t know. Something might have happened. You know?”

The corner of Davud’s mouth turned up. He was following me.

“But Chris got really obsessed with coming out,” I said with a sigh. “He wanted to tell his parents that he was gay. He wanted to tell all of our friends at school. And, I guess I was kind of on board with it at first. Coming out to my parents seemed like the right thing to do. My parents are pretty cool. I knew they’d love me no matter what. I was pretty sure most of our friends wouldn’t give two turds about it, either.”

Davud nodded. “Yeah. It’s kind of not as big of a deal as it used to be, sure.”

“So,” I continued slowly, “we made a plan that we would both come out to our parents one night. He’d talk to his at dinner, I’d talk to mine…and after that we’d come out to our friends. I don’t know why he thought we both had to come out to our friends…”

“Do you think maybe he liked you?” he asked. “Maybe he wanted to come out so you could be boyfriends or something?”

I shrugged.

“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “The night I was supposed to talk to my parents, I chickened out. I just…I couldn’t. I froze. I was suddenly terrified that they’d no longer love me or some stupid shit like that.”

“Understandable,” Davud nodded. “Even if society is getting better, it’s still a big deal to you, sure. So, Chris got mad you chickened out?”

“Well,” I said, “no. That wasn’t the thing. When I chickened out, I didn’t know how to tell Chris. I just…I couldn’t face him. And I realized that if I couldn’t tell my parents, there was no way I could tell our friends. So, I just stopped talking to Chris. In the last few weeks of school before summer, I just ignored him. I avoided him. He kept trying to talk to me, especially after he came out to our friends, but I just couldn’t. I was afraid to be seen with him because then people would assume I was gay, too. Which I was. I am. But I just wasn’t ready.”

“Oof.”

“Big oof,” I agreed. “I just left him all on his own and stopped being his friend so that I didn’t have to face my fears. He kind of got bullied a little bit. Not much, but any amount of bullying is bad, right?”

Davud nodded solemnly. He understood bullying. I didn’t have to explain the feelings to him.

“Then summer came,” I said. “And we didn’t talk or see each other. Somehow, I found the balls to tell my parents over summer and the rest of our friends. I thought that might fix things between Chris and me. But his family moved to a new house across town and he transferred to Whitmer—and I had been so busy with my own stupid feelings that I hadn’t even noticed. He wasn’t here on the first day of high school. I’d missed my chance to make amends.”

“Why didn’t you call him or something?”

“I almost did,” I said with a resigned shrug. “But I knew he hated me. I would’ve cussed him out and told him I hated him and never wanted to be his friend again if he’d done that to me, so—”