“Well, thank you,” I conclude lamely.

I was on a date with a lawyer. I wanted the date because I thought he was cute. Alexa wanted me to have the date because one of the pictures on his profile was of him shaking hands with Alex Trebek. Mildly cool to me—Alexa was obsessed. So she had done most of the work, flirting with him on my OkCupid account, getting him to invite me to dinner, choosing my outfit. We—that is she—settled on skinny jeans, a gingham button-down shirt, and black sweater.

“Perfect for a first date,” she told me, “not too dressy, not too casual.”

So I had pulled awkwardly at my collar as I drove to Raleigh. Kind of silly, I had remarked to myself, driving 23 miles to go out to eat with Trebek (as Alexa and I had been calling him) which would inevitably be awkward because we had never met, passing by hundreds of thousands of people to get there, and somewhere out in all those darkened suburbs, there were dozens of guys cuter than Trebek, who probably liked me better.

But this was all new and thrilling. I went on my first date with a guy, Brady Red, in August. It’s hard to realize that August was a matter of weeks ago. It feels like years.

So it’s nice to have Alexa’s help. Because I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.

“Let me know if I can help at all with your job search for next summer,” says Trebek, and we hug awkwardly, a bro hug.

Well that’s final, I think to myself as I take a few steps, wave, smile, and continue down the sidewalk.

He was very pleasant—he bought me dinner and then a cocktail at a nice lounge, gave me advice for law school—but it had been a pretty final good-night. And I wonder what he doesn’t like about me. Am I too young? That can’t really be it—he’s under 30. Maybe I’m too wild? Maybe he doesn’t want to date a law student?

I turn the corner, around a blockish granite government building. It’s barely 9:00, and I’m not giving up on the night, just because my date ended lamely. I’m still lost in thought, but my feet know where to go: Apothecary.

It’s really the only place I know. I know the burger place, next to that café where Alexa and I met David, and the hipster dance bar he took us to, and David’s apartment, and I know Apothecary.

Apothecary is warm, and well-lit, with big windows, and they serve colorful mixed drinks. They pour a little more generously than other bars in town, but they mask it well with just the right mix of liqueurs and just the right amount of grenadine. It’s an efficient place to get drunk in a kitschy ambiance. Little wonder the gays come here.

It’s cold out, too cold for my cotton sweater. Of course it is, I realize, it’s almost Thanksgiving. Mom will have bought a turkey already, and maybe an extra one which she’ll either keep in the freezer or give to a struggling family from church. She’ll have made the cranberry dessert already, and it will be waiting in the freezer so that there is less work to do next Thursday. She’ll wake up early to make rolls—the Swedish recipe—and the house will be filled with the smell of them baking. And when the rolls are done baking, she will take the candied yams out of the fridge and let them get hot and crispy in the oven. And Dad will put the extra leaves in the table and the table will be set with the nice, rose-colored linen, and stemware, even though there will be no wine.

Each setting will have a small cup with a few pieces of candy corn in it, and at the beginning of the meal people will take turns going around the table, saying something they are thankful for, and then they can eat one piece of candy corn. Dad will invariably say something about Joseph Smith, and Mom will say something about her children.

Before they eat, there will be the blessing on the food, and it will be said by Mom or Dad. It will seem to go on forever, and it will be a prayer of gratitude, and it will be thorough. Mom (or Dad) will pray for each of her children. In turn, she will come to me, and she will choke up, and become very emotional, and my sisters will start to cry as well. And they will pray together that I will be safe, and happy, and healthy, and that I will repent and come back to church.

I won’t be there to have turkey or rolls or candied yams or cranberry dessert. I won’t be there to eat a piece of candy corn and say what I’m thankful for. I won’t be there to hear them weep and pray for me to change my mind, and I won’t be there to ruin Thanksgiving by telling them I’m gay, because I already did that when I visited six weeks ago.

I wipe tears from my cheeks. I’m almost there, and I’m walking quickly because it’s cold, and I’m certain my eyes are red, and my cheeks are red, and they’ll only blush more deeply once I’m in the warm air inside.

Tonight there’s practically no one here. I take a moment to glance left and right, although I’m not sure who it is I’m hoping I will recognize. Trebek? I’ve been in the door less than a second when my stomach starts to sink—I’m out of my comfort zone. Instinct drives me to blend in, so I walk straight to the bar and quickly take a seat. There. I look normal—not sad, or nervous.

There’s only two other people at the bar. I flash a short smile at the older gentleman sitting to my right—not so short to be rude, but not quite friendly, either. Liz asks me what I’d like to drink.

“Blue Moon.”

“Slice of orange?”

“Yes, please.”

She hands me a bottle and I hand her my card and ask her to keep it open. And I tilt my beer back and stare at my hands, or the painting of the city behind the bar, with big, deliberate drips of paint. I sit and sip my beer, and then another one, and spin the orange around the lip, until the beer is about half gone, and then I push the slice in. The white haired man a couple seats to my right and I exchange a nod or a smile every few minutes. At one point he says, “Hi,” very quietly, and we both go back to our drinks.

It’s quiet. Jazz chords float over two or three conversations, punctuated with crashes or swishes from the kitchen. It seems like a different bar than the one I came to with Chris and Kelly. Then it was crowded with loud, young men with chic clothes, broad smiles, and bright faces. Everywhere I looked there was a pretty face. The pressure was off because I was here with Chris, so I could just enjoy what I saw. I’m too shy to flirt with strangers, but not too shy to stare. And, at least that night, the boys weren’t too shy to stare back.

Then there was the night Alexa and I came here with David. It wasn’t quite as crowded, but David, unlike Chris or Kelly, is from here, and he introduced us to a few friends. Rafael and, what was that other guy’s name? Something unusual. And Alexa and I were overdressed because we had wanted to go out fancy, and we enjoyed the attention. Alexa wasn’t the only one in a little black dress, but she was the bustiest, and more than one boy grabbed her tits and laughed. I was the only 6-foot-5 blond guy in a purple collared shirt and a black skinny tie. No one groped me though. Alexa has all the luck.

David took us to a campy drag show (it was the week before Halloween) and then to his apartment because Alexa and I had both been drinking. And he set up an airbed for Alexa in the living room and he sheepishly asked if I’d like to sleep upstairs with him.

I felt on top of the world after that. David was really hot—one of the Raleigh Plastics—and he had taken me home, and asked me upstairs. I felt like Aaron Samuels, or who knows, maybe even Glen Coco.

Not very much like Glen Coco tonight, sipping my beer and pretending to text people. I open my phone, laugh, click out an imaginary message with my thumbs, and set it back down.

The white haired man turns and says,

“How’re you tonight?”

Without knowing who it is that I’m trying to impress, I decide that I’ll look cooler talking to him than just sitting here, drinking.

“Doing good, how’re you?”

“Oh, I’m alright. Just another cold, lonely night.”

I smile, “It is pretty cold out. I’m still kind of cold from walking here.” I rub my arms together.

“I just came down for a drink after working from home all day.” He says.

I chide him, “But it’s Saturday!”

“I know, I know,” he chuckles, “And I’m retired.”

“You’re not very good at being retired.”

“No, I’m not. Sometimes you just do a thing for so long that it’s hard to stop.”

His face is spotted and wrinkled from the sun, but he has plenty of smile lines. His clean white hair stands straight up, as if ordered to attention by a barking drill sergeant.

“Where are you a student?” He says in warm baritone, with just a little gravel.

“I’m a law student at Duke.”

“Oh!” he smiles, leaning even farther back, “My son is an attorney—his office is just around the corner—Cory Van Harte.”

“Oh,” I smile again, “I’m afraid I don’t know him—I have too much school left to pay much attention to who the lawyers are in the area.”

“I’m Jeff,” he says, extending his right hand, “Jeff Van Harte.”

“Jesse,” I say, and I turn in my seat to reach for his hand, and we shake.

“What kind of law does your son practice?”

“Oh, he’s in business—he helps entrepreneurs get their businesses set up, or if a firm wants to reorganize, that kind of thing.”

“I don’t know the first thing about any of that, but it sounds like good work.”

“Yeah, he’s doing well, and he likes it. He likes it a lot better than when he was working at another firm. He told me he was having a terrible time with the partners and he wanted to get out of there. So I helped him set up his own practice. We found this great spot to lease for an office—it’s really just a few doors down—and business has really taken off. It’s been less than a year and he paid me everything back already.”

“That’s good to hear, glad he’s doing well. Sometime soon I’ll have to be a real adult and get a job. Not yet, though,” I smirk.

“You’ll be fine,” Jeff says, as serious as before, “You go to Duke. And you’re very handsome, and that helps.” He smiles broadly and swirls his vodka, while I look down at my beer.

“Believe me,” he insists, “it does.”

“I suppose I know it,” I say, lifting my Blue Moon, “but I’d rather not rely on that,” and I throw back the rest of my beer.

“Well, it’s true either way. You’ll never have trouble finding a job,” he says, and I can feel his eyes on my face.

“I hope so.”

“What do you want to do?” He asks, “Go to New York and make millions?”

I laugh, one brusque laugh, “Yes! No. I don’t know. I really have no idea.”

“That’s the best you can be. You can go anywhere you want—anything you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” I say, and I put my hands to my head. I realize, just a tiny moment too late, that I’m being too honest, so I overdo the gesture, and smile.

Jeff sits quiet for a moment, then says, “It’s ok. The things that need to get figured out—you’ll get there. Let the rest go.”

I’m silent, and he waits. Our eyes meet for a moment, and I realize his are quite red, and I glance automatically at his vodka and back up, and he just smiles.

Suddenly, I’m about to cry for no reason. I’m spinning and sinking—why does this happen to me? Like that time in the library—my breath is quickening and my face is moving on its own. Something I don’t understand is rushing up from the dark and rising to crash down on me. All of that, in the time it takes me to look from Jeff, to his vodka, and back. I force myself to snap out of it—I’m not going to break into tears in Apothecary, and I push it down.

Say something! Say anything—

“I can’t believe it’s halfway through November!” I tip my empty beer bottle, hoping for one last, exculpatory drop.

Jeff smiles for a moment, then says, “Yes, time seems to go so quickly.”

I nod and breathe deeply. It’s gone.

Still smiling, Jeff asks, “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

“No, I decided not to go.”

“Where is home?” He asks.

Feeling a bit detached, I reply, “Salt Lake City.” Liz asks if I want another beer, and I nod.

“That’s kind of far,” says Jeff.

“Yeah. I mean it’s not that bad flying, but I kind of just didn’t want to be there.”

“No?”

“Things are a little awkward with my family, and I love them, but I just—I just—”

Jeff leans forward slightly, and says softly, “How long has it been?”

“About a month.”

“Well I can understand that,” he says, and sips his vodka.

“It’s not even really about them—I can face my family—I already did the hard part,” I say.

Jeff nods. I usually have a hard time talking about this. My mind gets clouded and people assume that I’m getting too emotional or that they asked too personal a question. It’s not that at all. I just run out of words before my brain can find the next one. Jeff waits.

I continue, “Holidays are very much about extended family for us—for my family. That I can’t do. I’m not ready to deal with all that. There’s enough with my parents—I don’t need to take all that on.”

Jeff mmm-hmms to let me know he’s listening.

“Anyway, I don’t want to go to extended family stuff, and I don’t want to make my family feel bad for wanting to go. I just—” I trail off, and Jeff just waits.

“I don’t know what it is. My dad told his family—the same night I came out to him and mom. I’m not even mad about it, although if he had asked me I would have said no. They all know, it’s over and done with, and in a way that’s kind of nice. They’re just all so awkward about it now. They talk to me in hushed voices—like I’ve been through something terrible.”

Jeff is still listening and I’m just letting the words out.

“My dad’s family is very religious. It’s everything to them.”

“You’re Mormon?” Jeff asks.

“Well, I’m not very good at it,” I say, and take a sip of beer.

He nods, inviting me to continue.

“They’re really great—it was great having so many cousins that I was close with. There were four of us in the same grade at the same high school. And my aunts and uncles are almost like a village council of elders or something like that. They really come together—they talk for hours. It’s just now they’re talking about me. About what to do about me.

“It was cool seeing them work together when it was something else. How neat that they’re all so close and so smart and they counsel together and pray together over really big problems, and they solve them together. They’re a cool family. But now I’m the big problem. They’re counseling over me. How to save me. I can’t deal with it.”

“I certainly understand what you mean,” Jeff says.

“I didn’t know how complicated this all was going to be,” I say into my beer.

“I think we never do,” Jeff replies in a kindly tone, “We just know when the time is right and we take the plunge.”

I sigh in answer, and we sit in silence for a moment.

“If you’re not ready to be there for Thanksgiving, then what about Christmas?” Jeff asks.

“No, I’m going to Toronto with my friend, Alexa. I feel bad—I don’t think my family will understand—my nephew is about to be born. They’re not going to understand why I can’t be there, but I just can’t. I’m not ready. I need more time.”

“So it’s really not all about your extended family then, is it?” Jeff asks.

“Yes—no—no.” I say and look down.

“You’re lucky.” Jeff says, catching me off guard. I look at him with my eyebrows raised.

“You’re young. So young,” he sees my derisive smile, “It might not seem that way, but you’re young. And you’re beautiful and now you’re free. And your family is talking to you. You don’t realize what you have. Everything is ahead of you. Anything you want is ahead of you.”

“I suppose so,” I say, but his words aren’t really sinking in.

“You’re brave and you’re right to be out now. I waited too long.” He sits still for a moment, and his eyes widen slightly, and in my mind I see a boy in his late teens, tan and blonde and limber, he and other boys spending lazy Carolina summers jumping in swimming holes and floating slow-moving rivers, and hitch-hiking to the beach. In my mind young Jeff laughs sheepishly at his friends’ antics and stays quiet because he has a secret.

Whether or not Jeff was seeing the same thing in that moment, he speaks again, and his eyes return to the present.

“I tried to do everything right, but I was too late. My wife was furious. I tried to calm her down, but she left in a rage. The next day everyone knew—Wilmington isn’t a big city. She really only had to tell one person. She told many.”

He must see the shock on my face, because he explains,

“I don’t really blame her. I lied to her for 25 years. No, what she did is smaller than what I did.” He pauses.

“Still. I lost everything. All my friends—everyone I had known since I was in grade school—they all despise me. They all say that I had been unfaithful to her from the beginning—I wasn’t! I never—I did everything I should have—I was just also gay, and I didn’t tell her.”

“I lost my friends, I lost my clients—I had to relocate to another office and start over. For a while my children wouldn’t speak to me. The youngest still won’t—but she still lives with her mother, so that kind of makes sense.”

“You lost your business?” I ask. Maybe not the nicest way to respond, but I’m kind of dumbfounded.

“Yeah. My friend at the regional office gave me a choice—he said I could stay, or if I wanted he would relocate me. And I didn’t want to go, but I knew it was really the only choice. It would have been years before I could do business there again.”

“My children—two of them speak to me. And I’ve got new friends. I can finally love—the way I’ve always wanted to. I loved my wife. I was faithful to her. But in my heart I wanted to go back, to do things differently.” He pauses, then concludes,

“You’re lucky.”

A vision flashes through my mind—one I’ve had before—of me explaining to my family, ten or fifteen years from now, why I’ve been distant, why I don’t visit, why I’ve never found a girl and settled down. No, I think, that way was the wrong way. I did the right thing. I think I did the right thing.

I say aloud, not really on purpose,

“It’s just that it hurts, and I feel so lost!”

“We all do sometimes, and especially right at first. And that’s as it should be—everything is changing—meeting new people, feeling new emotions, starting life over again. It would be strange if you didn’t feel lost. Keep your eyes open, you’ll see there are others. At some point you’ll help someone, you’ll love someone, and then all of this will make sense.”

I nod, though I’m not really sure what Jeff is talking about. Still, something in his words is comforting, and my mind is relieved. There are more people in the bar now, and the air is starting to hum with conversation. For an instant while Jeff is speaking a new vision sparks—the sun is rising behind the mountains—my mountains, taking shape against the brightening sky. I wonder what made me think of that.

Jeff is closing his tab. We exchange a warm goodbye and I get up to use the restroom. A boy in the corner catches me looking at him, and I smirk. As I walk into the restroom I tap my back pocket—yes—I brought one, just in case.

Someone is at the urinal, so I step into the stall and latch the door.

Click.

The bathroom is dark—dark walls, dark fixtures—a stark contrast from the rest of the bar. My eyes are drawn to a scribble on the wall over the toilet—a veiny, circumcised penis and hairy balls. I sway slightly and try to count how many drinks I’ve had—one at dinner, two cocktails afterwards, then three beers here. Three? Four? Four.

At the sink I twist the water on and press the soap lever and begin to rub my hands together. Then I glance up at my reflection, in a way surprised to see myself there. I turn my head this way and that so I can see what my hair looks like. Left side. Left is always my better side. I finish rinsing the soap off my hands and run my wet fingers through my hair, and then take a step back. Still dissatisfying, but good enough, and I’m ready to go back into the bar.

But then—I look into my own eyes for a moment—how they’re small and dull, how the right one slants a different way than the left one—and I see how transparent I am. How I smile and laugh and try to let things bounce off me—to laugh away my problems—but look at my face. Look how I can barely keep from crying, over nothing at all. See how I look hurt, and frightened, and lost.

Should I have done this? Should I have done any of this? I could’ve kept hooking up with guys in secret. I could have kept wearing my temple garments during the day and changing into the colorful boxer briefs when I go to meet someone I talked to online. I could have kept lying to my family—I could have kept telling them that “Church was good this week.” I could’ve kept dodging questions whether I had found some beautiful Mormon girl who had captured my attention. Would I have been so very unhappy?

My lip trembles, and I slap my damp hands onto my jeans and say “No!” aloud. I don’t want to think about it. What’s done is done. I made my choice. That was a different world.

“No!” I’m saying again, and shaking my head.

And then I face the mirror, and I see something from that other world, from a different time, before all of this.

I see a teenage Jesse, thinner still than I am now, standing in front of the bathroom mirror. He touches his cheeks. He smiles, he frowns. And then he stares, a blank expression meeting him. He sees a shadow and he knows that it is gone—the light—a brightness and a beauty that he has driven away. And there is a pit in his stomach, and in mine as well, as I watch him. His brow furrows. He knows that he has done something displeasing to God, and the light is gone. And I remember what the thoughts were that drove away the light—innocent enough to an outsider, but to him they were forbidden. He begins to cry, and I know how weak and alone he feels, and I watch him sob, bent forwards, his hands on the sink.

And someone knocks on the bathroom door, and he says, “One minute!” and he splashes water on his face, and roughs it with a towel. And before he goes, he looks right at me for a moment, and he says,

“What are you doing?”

I open my mouth to speak, then close it again—he puts up a hand and I put up mine and they meet at the glass.

“I’m doing the best I can,” I say, but he is gone, and I am talking to myself, my hand on the mirror.

The bar is bright against the dark bathroom behind me. As I step back into the light and noise I see with a quick glance up and down the bar that Jeff is no longer here. How long was I in there? Was Jeff waiting for me? He’s nowhere to be seen now.

Again I’m alone. Again instinct drives me to sit quietly and order drinks.

“Vodka Sprite.”

“What name was it on?”

“Taylor.”

Liz swoops away to enter the drink on my tab.

I am normal, I reassure myself, sipping and stirring. This is normal.

Jeff’s words resound in my ears, “Sometimes you just do a thing for so long that it’s hard to stop.”

Sip. Jeff’s face swims in front of me.

“Twenty five years . . . she went that night . . . I don’t blame her . . . really the only choice . . . despised me . . . ”

Out of the window I see a group of boys hurrying down the sidewalk. I know they’re taking the shortcut over to Becket Street. I know they’re going to Tony’s. Before I even realize it, I’ve closed my tab at Apothecary and I’m in line at Tony’s.

I regret my move as I sip my vodka Redbull and people watch from a quiet corner. I’ve never come here on my own—I don’t really do anything on my own. A drink in my hand and a seat in the corner help hide my loneliness. And I don’t know why, but I’m reminded of a time—sitting in my dorm room, with the Christmas lights turned on. I’m gazing out the window at the color draining out of the sunset. I feel a journey starting, the ground starting to move beneath my feet. Visions of the past leave me feeling disconnected, and I scribble in a spiral notebook about Ithaca, and feeling certain that it had fallen into the sea.

Shh, Oddyseus, I whisper as I swirl the ice cubes in my cup with the straw. Ithaca, and a faithful dog, and Penelope, and Telemachus, and Calypso, and Poseidon all swirl in my cup, and then go on their way. Feeling self-conscious, I stand and head to the dance floor.

At first I only sway gently, trying not to spill as I sip my vodka Redbull. At least while I have my drink I’m not just standing alone on the dancefloor. I take a moment to see who’s here—mostly boys, some shirtless, some dancing in small clusters, some lip-locked and thrashing their hips against each other. In the darkness I can’t really make out their faces, and when their features are illuminated briefly by the confetti of lights, they are not features I recognize.

But there’s too much space—it’s not so crowded that I can lose myself in the middle, join the dancers in their facelessness. I’m sure to be seen, sure to stand out, a loner, solitary in a room of people groping each other. My drink is finished too quickly. I hold onto the cup and sip at the melting ice for a minute. I place it on a ledge lined with other empty and half-empty cups. I stamp my feet awkwardly for moment, but the awkwardness closes in on me, and I retreat to the patio.

I find an unassuming spot to sit on a bench—the gossipers go on gossiping, the smokers go on smoking, the kissers go on kissing. I sit small, with my legs crossed. Feeling both conspicuous and invisible, I get out my phone and pretend to text again. They all see me sitting alone, I think to myself, suddenly aware that a frown had pulled down the corners of my mouth.

I pretend to laugh at a text I hadn’t gotten, and I pretend to reply. I snap my phone shut and move to get up. A boy standing with a group near the fountain is looking at me—we hold each other’s gaze for a moment, then as I stand he turns back to the others.

“What can I get you, Sweetie?” the shirtless bartender calls out as I approach.

“Double vodka Redbull.”

With more vodka and less change, I notice that a lot of people are heading up the stairs—it must be time for the drag show. I follow the slowly moving line of young people into the dark room where the drag shows happen.

It’s crowded—the show has already started. I jostle in to the back—hoping to not block too many people from seeing the show. I must be just a few minutes late—the drag queen on stage is calling someone up—like I’ve seen them do before at the beginning of the show.

“It’s your birthday!! Happy Birthday!” she says in bright tones to a swaying, ruddy-faced boy in a plaid shirt and a camouflaged hat, who simply smiles and blinks.

“How old are you baby?” She says, holding the microphone to his lips. He speaks too loudly.

“Twenty five!” his answer rings through the speakers, followed by a strong chorus of laughter, all around me.

“Twenty five, not bad, not bad,” says the drag queen, clapping two or three times, drawing a round of cheers from the room, “Are you fucked up tonight?”

He only looks at her blankly, understanding only when she deftly takes the drink from his hand, saying, “Honey, you don’t need this!” He starts to protest over the laughter, but she quickly presses it back into his hand.

“Happy Birthday!” she echoes as Birthday Boy totters down the steps into the crowd.

“Are you all ready for a fabulous show tonight?” Noise, all around.

“I said, are you all ready for a fabulous show?” She repeats snappily, which draws even more noise from the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely, the fabulous Miss Kansas Greene!” A roar of cheers gives way to a guitar riff and strings—a country song. The fabulous Miss Kansas Greene struts around to respectable lyrics. My mind wanders. Why did Trebek leave so quickly? He was so nice to pay for dinner and drinks—did he only do that because he felt obligated? Just what did Alexa say that made him agree to take me out? Was Alexa more fun online than I was in person?

And I’m curious how many dates I’ve been on, and I count backwards—David, Tyler, Michael, Blake, Chris, Brady, then the other Brady. And time suddenly feels strange, and I wonder how long it will be before I fall in love.

“Ha!” I blurt out, to room full of people who can’t hear me, “Not yet!” My words disappear an inch away from my face—the song is over, we’re applauding. Kansas Greene smiles, swishes away into the dark corner of the stage, and disappears.

And then familiar notes sound over the room, and I am brought rushing back into the present. Before I see the performer, before she mouths the first lyrics, a rush of emotion runs over me like hot water. It swirls and rebounds in my stomach, and rises quickly to make my eyes water, and a chill runs down my back, and over my shoulders, to my fingertips. The performer steps into the light, greeted by a roar of applause.

You shout it out

But I can’t hear a word you say

I’m talking loud

Not saying much

She is wearing a huge, white robe with fur and feathers, so puffy that it forms a sort of parka-like frame behind her head.

Shoot me down

But I won’t fall

She reaches around, lifting the drape of the robe in front of her, and as Sia cries—

I am titanium!

the queen flings her robe away, and takes a step forward, and she is a tower of silver and glass—a shining silver breastplate, silver sequins around her waist with rhinestones glittering on the border, silver and glass beads hanging around her hips—and there is another roar of applause as she struts and shakes, and the gleam of the light off her chest seems to fill the whole room.

Too many things speed through my mind for me to grasp at them—and I have a strange feeling of being defeated, yet determined to carry on. I don’t try to stop myself crying—who will see? But as the music calms for the second verse the queen looks right at me. She can’t see me, I wish to myself, with all those lights on her, and me here in the back. But her eyes are locked on mine. Her eyes are small, but they burn with passion, framed with black and lashes and brilliantly glittering eye shadow. And at the end of the lyric, she blows a kiss, and winks, then removing her gaze, she goes on, shouting wordlessly that she is titanium.

The show isn’t over, but I make my way out, sheepishly drying my face. Not wanting to let anyone see my emotion, I cross the patio quickly and return to the dance floor. I chug what’s left of my drink and discard it so I can take off my sweater. I let my sweater hang at my side, clenched in my left hand. I’m in the back, glad for the darkness, and glad now that there are few others—they’re still at the show. I stamp and sway and twist—there’s no one here to see me—and I start to feel the music in my knees and my hips. I pull my shirt untucked from my jeans—no one to see the wrinkles—and I undo the three top buttons with my right hand—no one to see my collarbone. And swaying, I tilt my head back as tears spring back to my eyes—no one to see me cry.

I let the loudness of the music and the darkness of the dance floor hide me, and I cry. I don’t have a reason—I just feel the music bouncing in my chest, where it stirs up emotions that well up, and out. Out when I cry. Out when I move—my arms, my hands, my hips. And soon I am moving more than I am crying. I feel myself becoming a flow—the music, the energy it ignites in my gut, the need to move, movement. I have to keep moving.

I do not notice if others have made their way back to the dance floor. I do not know how long I have been here. I just feel the music, and the need to move, and my feet and my hips and my arms, moving. Smoke billows from somewhere near me, and I disappear into the fog, and into the music.

***

I’m leaning on the bar, my breath still heavy, and my shirt still clinging damply to my skin—waiting to ask the bartender for a glass of water—chatting with the girl next to me.

“Oh—phew—I’m all sticky!” I say, waving my shirt, drawing air across my sodden skin.

“Haha it’s all good,” she says, slapping my shoulder, “I think everyone is. Saw you up there dancing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah!” She smiles, “You’re fun, just dancing up there all alone.”

“Yep,” I smile, feeling more meek than I let on.

“Love it!” She says. “Hey! Come over for my afterparty!” A friend on her other side, a skinny gay guy in a pink tank top, rolls his eyes.

“Afterparty?” I repeat.

“Yeah, just a few people, come chill with us.”

And before I know it I’m sitting in a bedroom with six other people, eating a McDouble. My fries were gone before we got out of the car. We eat and laugh, and someone puts music on. Beth offers me a beer, which I decline at first, but after my soda runs out I change my mind. I’m sitting on the bed—there’s three of us sitting on the bed, one on the desk, one on the chair, two on the floor. I wipe my fingers and my lips on a napkin, and then I ball it up and aim for the wastebasket by the door. My napkin hits the wall and bounces to the floor. “Oh!” sounds around the room, and the boy on the floor tosses the balled-up napkin in, to a round of cheers. I ball up my bag—with the extra napkin, the wrapper for my McDouble and fries—and it bounces neatly into the basket.

Beth reaches to her bedside table and opens what looks like a small metal drum. She pinches in the bottom, and drops bits of green crumbs into a pipe. Marijuana, I realize. If she offers me some—I try to decide whether to accept.

Beth asks who wants to smoke—the other boy on the bed—James—says, “Most def.” Beth glares at me and says, “Jesse, you too.”

“I’ve never tried it,” I offer lamely.

“Well, here you go, watch,” she says, and she flicks a lighter over the bowl, and she draws in smoke. She hands the pipe to James, but waves at me to get my attention. For a moment she doesn’t speak and I wonder what she wants. But then she exhales slowly, and explains,

“You gotta try to hold it in your lungs.”

I nod, and James hands me the pipe, a tiny tail of smoke rising from the bowl. I draw slowly, feeling the hot dryness of the smoke in my mouth, watching the tiny glow of red on the edges of the crumbled herb. I hold in my breath, counting to ten. I exhale—a little too quickly—and I cough a few times, as the others laugh.

I don’t feel anything—just the sting of the smoke in my throat. I’m disappointed to admit that Alexa was right—I’m not going to get high, not the first time. I wonder if she’ll be mad that I did this without her.

Terrence—the grumpy boy in the pink tank top—appears, stepping sideways into the room and pulling the door closed behind himself.

“It’s late, Beth, will you be long?”

“Oh, blah blah blah,” she bubbles, holding out the pipe to Terrence, her head tilted, her lips in a pout.

Terrence clicks his tongue at her, Tsk, and moves to leave, then turns back and says, “Oh, alright.”

“Yay,” says Beth, patting the spot beside her on the bed.

Terrence sits cross-legged and leans this way and that to get comfortable while he flicks the flame over the bowl and twiddles his thumb on the choke.

“It’s like the Ocarina of Time,” I say, indicating the pipe with a nod towards Terrence. Beth and Terrence just looked at me blankly, but James laughs.

“You’re totally right,” he says, taking the pipe from Beth, “Never thought of that before. You a gamer?”

“Not really,” I explain as he puffs on the pipe, “I mostly just like Mario Kart. Oh! And I used to love Golden Eye. My mom didn’t like us playing violent games, which is dumb because Golden Eye really isn’t that bad, but I just played it at my friend’s house and didn’t tell her. My brother was always getting into trouble at school, so I kind of got away with small stuff like that.”

Beth smiles for a second and says, “James, pass, let Jesse have some more.”

Terrence, reclined against a stack of pillows with both hands behind his head, exhales slowly, his mouth in a small “o”, letting the smoke stream over our heads, then fade upwards.

“No man,” says James, “Mario Kart is the best. It’s an awesome drinking game—if you reach first place you take a shot—we call them Blue Shells” A chuckle passes around the room.

We sit and talk and Beth puts new weed in the pipe. I finish my beer and Beth asks the friend on the floor to grab drinks from the mini-fridge next to her—she hands me a beer and Beth a Diet Coke.

“This is our third bowl,” says Beth, and Terrence raises his eyebrows.

“Did I take too much?” I ask, in a small voice.

“No, no, it’s cool. I wanted to get stoned and you couldn’t just sit here sober and watch. Not in my room.”

James laughs, “Yeah, this room is like a shrine to getting high.”

“Yeah,” Beth admitts, “I kind of hand-picked everything in here to make me comfortable. Don’t you love my puffy pillows?”—Terrence leans back farther into the plush—“And I’ve got my mini-fridge full of water bottles and Gatorade, I’ve got my air freshener, I’ve got that chair I can prop under the doorknob so nobody can get in—” she laughs— “I’m a total pothead. But I never buy my own weed—Kevin just gives it to me. It’s pretty great.”

“He probably just wants you to sleep with him,” laughs James.

“Kevin?” Beth says, sitting up a little, “No—well, yeah, he probably does.”

“I thought he was gay,” Terrence says, holding his hands out for the pipe.

“He wishes he were gay,” Beth says, “He’d love that so much. He’d be the gayest thing ever. But nope, he’s a pussy-loving hetero.”

“Eww, pussy,” I say, with a sarcastic grimace.

“Rude,” says James, but Beth says,

“I’m with you. No one wants that. All cock, all the time, please and thank you. Gays are smart.”

“Gay’s the best,” I smirk.

“Can you turn the song up a little?” Terrence asks, opening one eye.

“Yeah! This is a great song,” says Beth, leaning to adjust the volume on her speakers. She laughs, “This is one of my getting high playlists. I have a bunch of them, depending on what mood I’m in.”

Terrence sways slightly to the sound of acoustic guitar and a cooing tenor, and Beth gesticulates along with the lyrics.

I roll onto my back, with my feet up on the oak bedframe, grabbing a spare pillow for my head.

“Don’t fall asleep,” says Beth.

“I won’t,” I promise, but I close my eyes and pull my jacket close around my arms.

“Liar,” Beth says, kicking me gently.

“Nope,” I smile.

Maybe because of the melancholy lyrics—a latin phrase floats into my mind. Fortior quam creditis. I can see it—courier letters on a glossy textbook page.

That’s been a long time ago, I think to myself, and I count the years backwards to high school, in Miss Shelly’s classroom, writing out ten declensions and swapping with Ashley to correct each other’s quizzes. Ashley sat on my right, and Alyssa on her other side—they were both in marching band with me—well, they were on color guard. Ashely taught me how to spin a rifle, and we used to stand on one leg and chant jump-rope rhymes to keep a pace while we spun the white-and-metal props.

We used to sing “Amabitur!” to the tune of the Maroon 5 song, “She Will Be Loved”, and we tried to translate the rest of the lyrics, but we usually just sang the one line.

Then there was the Monday when Ashley’s seat was empty. Alyssa and I looked at each other, and just sat, sniffling until the bell rang. Ashley was still in the hospital; Carson and Brent were dead, and it wasn’t a sure thing that Whitney was going to make it. Alyssa and I wiped back tears as Miss Shelly, in a more gentle voice than usual, asked us to turn in our assignments and get out a blank piece of paper for the quiz.

Fortior quam credo.

From a bird’s-eye view, I see the whole marching band, standing in a circle on the high school lawn, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing “Friends are Friends Forever.” And at the cemetery, looking down on all of us in our uniforms, standing at attention, while Brandon and Matt, trembling, play “Taps”, and a casket is lowered into the ground.

From the cemetery I glide over houses, over the canal, and past the reservoir at the mouth of the canyon, to a bend in the road where I imagine skid marks, tire tracks in the soil, and a breach in a chain-link fence. Though I hadn’t gone to the canyon since the accident, though I meant to avoid it until the signs were cleared—I knew just where it had happened. I knew just what it would look like. I gaze down on Brandi, as she steps out of the car, shaking, and flags down help, with blood on her face.

And then I am pulled swiftly up the mountain to the summit—up to the top of Mount Timpanogos. And the air is thin and clear as I look down on the valley. And it’s all before my eyes: there is the temple, and there is the high school, and there is the office where my dad worked until he was laid off, and there is the university, and there is the Missionary Training Center, and beyond all that the shining, yet muddy water of the lake, below the plain brown hills. The buildings and roads far below sit quiet. It’s just the sound of the wind in my ears as I look down on my home, miles away.

And I turn and I see an expanse of green hills and rocky peaks under the bright sunlight, and I zoom from hilltop to hilltop, and the ground is a blur of grass and stones and flowers. And I come to a place I’ve never seen before, a broad, green plain. My feet brush onto the grass, and I run, the wind behind me, until I tumble forward, summersaulting so that I land face-up, laying on the grass.

And I gaze up at the brilliant blue sky, and at white clouds riding the wind, and at the blazing sun. And I lay still and feel the golden sun on my skin.