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It’s Monday and the room is packed. There is literally standing room only. People who aren’t part of this class are standing in the background, and registered class members are now having to aggressively vouch for each other just to get a seat. There were actually camera crews in front of the Grier building when I came in, and there’s one to catch the beginning of the lecture to prove that he’s come back.

“Mr. Knight!” one of the reporters says, shoving a microphone into my face. “How do you feel to have your husband vindicated?”

“I am very happy, of course,” I repeat. I think I’ve said that exact line at least four or five times since getting onto campus. There were people from even the national news networks asking me for soundbites. I can’t even imagine what it was like for Bastien. I wish that I could have come with him, and at least been by his side the whole time, but Bastien insisted that we should go about the day as normal. I think he thought that it would be low-key, but it’s anything but.

“And what are your plans now that he’s been reinstated?” the reporter asks.

“Just to get through the semester with as little disruption as possible.”

“Let the real students get set up,” a man from Administration says. “Observers to the back of the room. I’m sure that you can get more quotes after the class is over.” He waves the group back, and the reporter sighs and goes to the back of the room, where there is a bank of cameras. I look over my shoulder and see Justin, the man who took pictures for Cara Finch. He takes a picture of me, checks over his shoulder, and takes one of Matt Comstock, who is studiously ignoring him.

Well, well, I think.

My phone lights.

Bastien

Jtm

Je t’aime. My heart soars and I type back Love you, baby boy.

He comes through the door and puts his phone in the pocket of his coat. He’s wearing another one of his three-piece suits: it’s gray with an aqua waistcoat and a pink tie, and he’s wearing the new gray fedora I bought him. He looks absolutely good enough to eat.

Applause erupts from more than half of the class, who stand up clapping and whooping. I get it. This is their win as well. They fought against an injustice, and in a world in which that normally results in nothing, they’ve won. Bastien stops in front of the class, looking embarrassed, his head inclined at that soft, bashful angle I love about him before he reminds himself to straighten his head and his shoulders. I stand on my chair, shouting and clapping my hands over my head. He scans and when he sees me, he blushes and shakes his head in amused exasperation.

He puts his hands up and gently motions for them to settle down, but it’s still a bit before he can get the class back in seats.

He’s almost like a stranger, and yet, as I watch him, he glances up at me, and when he smiles softly at me, I feel the weight of his love hitting me. This is my Bastien, too, who turns his wedding ring around with his thumb when he’s thinking and still gives me these shy little looks when he thinks I’m not paying attention. But I’m always paying attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says. He’s now back to his American accent and I feel the loss of that Frenchness. I’ve gotten used to it, but I don’t like it. “It looks like we have more people here than I recognize.” He waits for the little chuckle to subside. “But I suppose there is always room for one more. I want to take a moment to thank my friend Molly Baker, who graciously took on this class.” He nods to Molly, who’s in the back as well. “She deserves to be applauded more than I. Because I already knew you were trouble, and she had no idea.”

Another laugh.

“But there is someone else I want to thank, and that’s you. All of you. Your protests, your voices, matter. You made those banners yourselves and you stood outside in the cold holding them. Don’t let old people tell you that you don’t know what is right and what is not. You made this happen. I am very grateful. And all of you are the ones who deserve this applause. Without you I would be nowhere. Thank you.”

There is more applause, as the class members look at each other. Even Cecilia, who probably hates every moment of this, still looks around. We feel like we’re all part of a movement. We made a difference.

“And even to my detractors. I know that not everybody thinks I should be here, and that’s fine, because we have the right to think whatever we like. I privately agree with you. I’m afraid that now people will not allow me to be just the boring professor I always aspired to be. God help me, I’ll have to make my classes interesting now.”

Another laugh. He gives that gentle half-smile of his, a self-deprecating academic perfectly on form.

“So, our lecture topic says that we should be talking about something different. But I want to talk about authenticity and fear. But before we do that, there is one other person who deserves that nod.” He turns and faces me. “Levi, it pains me that I was ever in a position not to tell you how much I love you, but I hope that you will let me for the rest of my life.”

I ball my fist against my heart. I don’t try to blink back the tears. I don’t care.

He smiles back at me. “When I was younger, in Canada, on my first job, one of my friends came by and made a joke about my boyfriend. The next week, I was let go. Maybe for other reasons, but maybe because after that moment, the owner never looked me in the eye again. A few years later, at a corporate job in Montréal, I watched the way they treated a gay man who had not learned that lesson. You must blend. You must be normal.”

He takes off his hat and loosens his tie, sliding it off his neck.

“He had not learned to be quiet and not to wear makeup in public. He still dreamed that getting ahead didn’t involve keeping your head down.” He takes off the coat and starts unbuttoning the vest.

I don’t know what he’s doing.

“But they mocked him and when he applied for positions, he didn’t get them. Of course he didn’t, and that’s the thing. Even I did not think, But this is wrong. I thought, Of course he wouldn’t. What a fool he is to think the world will bend for him. His name was Gilles Tremblay, and I have not said it out loud in a very long time. He was better than me. More experienced. More clever. I thought, maybe…” He slides off the vest and unbuttons his shirtsleeves. “Maybe that discrimination is better among the Anglos. We Québécois are hidebound people sometimes.” I now realize how that French accent is slowly creeping into his voice, and I realize what he’s doing. I put my hand over my mouth and blink back the tears. “So I went to classes and gave up this accent. And I became another Anglo-Canadian with a funny name. And I shortened my name from Sébastien to just Bastien.” He takes off his belt and sets it on the table behind him as if he’s at home.

There’s a soft gasp from the students. They look at each other anxiously. Even I am not sure of what he’s doing right now. I thought I had it. I don’t.

“And I was right. When I was straight-acting, Anglophone Bastien, I got jobs, respect, lovers, ironically. I stopped thinking in French, and initially I was proud of this, until I realized that I had lost the language of my heart. I had sacrificed it.”