Page 43 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
“You’re not a lesbian. You know that.”
I nod.
“You spent a month analyzing the fourteen words Robbie Siegler said to you on Field Day. You made me draw a Venn diagram.”
I nod a third time.
“And even if you were, who cares? It’s not 1908. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”
“I know. I know, I know. Obviously I know. That’s not the point.”
“What is the point, then?”
“Maybe this is a bad example. There’s other stuff. Worse stuff. But it’s not really about that. It’s…it’s…it’s these thoughts. They won’t leave me alone. No matter how many times I tell them to. And they feel, like, weirdly separate from me, you know? Like…they don’t sound like me. Or, at least, they didn’t when they first started. Now…Now, I…I can’t really tell the difference.”
The confession is over. I fall silent.
I wait for the rush of relief. The fake, fleeting relief that sticks around for an hour or two whenever I confess a crime to my father. I wait for Manuel to forgive me, the same way Dad did. Here I am. I am giving you this bizarre part of myself, these thoughts that dog me, that won’t leave me alone. Take them. Drain me of them. Wring me of their poison and tell me what to do with it. Purify me. Please.
I hear nothing. I look up. And this time, when I do, I find a familiar sight: Manuel, eyes squinted, lips parted, wrinkle in the middle of his brow. His face of incomprehension, the one he wore for a month after we first met.
I begin to sweat. I’m naked and raw before the eyes of my best friend. I wish I could take it back, all of it. I’ve done something disastrous. Something irreversible. I see that now. On the day we met, I drew a clear line between Worries and Non-Worries. Only the latter could be shared. No matter how heavily they weighed upon me, no matter how much mental space they occupied, the Worries were still confined to the four inches between my left and right eardrums. The inside of my head might not feel safe, but at least therest of the world did. Why did I let all those words, that whole psychotic monologue, leak out of my mouth as casually as any other collection of noises? Now the thoughts are out there. They’re free. By speaking my fears aloud, I thrust them out into the cool, bright light of day.
I can’t bear to watch his face any longer. I look down again. I want to run away. I bet he does, too. I wonder if it’s more polite to let him go first.
Then my vision blacks. My face smushes into a blindfold of dark fleece. I inhale in surprise. Take in a familiar scent. One that calls me not just to a certain place but to a specific time of day, too. Linen and cedar and the mysterious, distinctive scent of boy. The first thing I smell every day. Manuel in the morning.
“It’s okay, Eliot.” The words sound out of place in his voice. They’re adult words, and we’re still just kids. “You’re going to be okay.”
15
NOW
FOR THE FIRST EVENT—THEtug-of-war—we divided into two teams, two pairs of partners per team: Clarence and Caleb plus Karma and Shelly on one team, Helene and Taz plus Manuel and me on the other. My parents, along with Pam and Tim, stayed ashore as judges.
The Cradle Island Tug-of-War is no rinky-dink middle school Field Day contest between a bunch of screaming eight-year-olds. It’s vicious. Just offshore, two water trampolines are anchored fifteen feet apart. They’re held in place by long chains wrapped around heavy cinder blocks at the bottom of the lake. The trampolines don’t particularly like staying in place; they wiggle and wobble beneath your feet, tipping at the mercy of tides. For the Tug-of-War, each team stands on one of the trampolines with a rope pulled taut over the open water. You tug until one of the teams falls into the drink.
As I swam out to my team’s trampoline, I thought about the Olympics we held back when I was still just a kid. For my siblings, they were the highlight of every summer. For me, the only thing they highlighted was how painfully young and small I was. I participated, but only in ways that emphasized my own inadequacy,my certainty that I didn’t belong. I filled water balloons and handed out towels. I designed prizes for the award ceremony, misshapen slices of construction paper smeared with glitter glue. I sat on Speedy’s lap during the Diving Contest and waved scorecards as high as I could. I never joined Greased Pig. At seven years younger than almost everyone else—except Henry—I was more suited to being the watermelon than to being a player.
I had every intention of winning the Tug-of-War this year. In fact, I had every intention of winning the entire Olympics. I was an adult now, just as qualified to win as any of my older siblings. Not to mention I was in the best shape of my life, thanks to all my early morning runs next to the East River.
This was Manuel’s first Olympics, too. By the time he started coming to Canada, we’d retired them; everyone else was too old. They’d found other outlets for pent-up emotion. Healthier, more mature outlets, like sarcasm or alcohol or grudges buried so deeply they never see the light of day.
Up on the water trampoline, I ended up positioned between Manuel and Taz. Manny’s back was so close to me that I could smell the cedar and sunscreen leaking from his pores. It was a traitorously nice smell. Just as I caught myself leaning a little too close, hands loose, nose hovering just a millimeter from his skin, Speedy blew his whistle and the contest started. I jerked forward, grasped for the rope, missed entirely, and tipped headfirst into the lake.
—
THE SECOND EVENT WAS Along-distance relay swim. One partner swims from one end of the harbor to the other, and the second swims back. First team to finish wins.
No sweat, I thought.I’m a runner; cardio is my thing.
Unfortunately, running didn’t seem to translate to swimming. I hardly made it fifty meters before my arms and legs and lungs werescreaming at me to stop. I lifted my head out of the water, and when I saw how far the beach still was, I groaned. In doing so, I accidentally inhaled a mouthful of lake water. I coughed it up. My arms flailed wildly. I pounded at the water and wondered if this was what it felt like to drown.
When I finally made it back to shore, I dragged myself through the knee-high water on all fours. I squinted up at the sky only to find a hand waving in front of me, blocking the bright sunlight. I grabbed it without thinking. As soon as it wrapped around my palm, I knew who it belonged to—the warm palm, the rough skin, the long, nimble fingers…My hand had been in that hand before. More times than I could count.
Manuel hoisted me out of the water, helping me up onto the sand. I sprawled out on the beach, breathing heavily. When I turned my neck to look for him, to say thank you, he was already gone. Off swimming the second leg of a race we’d already lost.
I let my head flop back onto the sand. My eyelids were about to flutter shut, but before they closed all the way, a pixie-haired face popped into view: Karma, captain of her high school swim team.
