Autoboyography

This is how we reveal ourselves: these tiny flashes of discomfort, the reactions we can’t hide.

Love fails for a million reasons - distance, infidelity, pride, religion, money, illness. Why is this story any more worthy? It felt like it was. It felt important. Living in this town is suffocating in so many ways. But if a tree falls in the woods, maybe it makes no sound. And if a boy falls for the bishop's closeted son, maybe it makes no story.

I don’t actually care if you break my heart, Sebastian. I went into this knowing it could happen and I gave it to you anyway. But I don’t want you to break your own. You have so much space in your heart for your church, but does it have space for you?

He pauses, and I know what’s coming before he even says it, and it’s like the sun chose this moment to press through the dense branches of the tree. “I’m totally gay.

The things that I love about you aren't going to go away when you go on your book tour, and they're not going to go away when you go on your mission. I'll still be here, and I'll still be thinking about all those things. I'll still be working on being a better person, a better friend, a better son. I'll still be wondering what it would be like to be a better boyfriend for you. And you will be on your mission, thinking about how much you wish your weren't gay.

He is never going to be here, I thought. He is never coming back. Was I okay with it? No. But missing him every day for the rest of my life was still easier than the fight Sebastian had: to stuff himself inside a box every morning and tuck that box inside his heart and pray that his heart kept beating around the obstacle. Every day I could go to class as exactly the person I am, and meet new people, and come outside later for some fresh air and Frisbee. Every day I would be grateful that no one who matters to me questions whether I am too masculine, too feminine, too open, too closed. Every day I would be grateful for what I have, and that I can be who I am without judgment. So every day I would fight for Sebastian, and people in the same boat, who don’t have what I do, who struggle to find themselves in a world that tells them white and straight and narrow gets first pick in the schoolyard game of life. My chest was congested with regret, and relief, and resolve. Give me more of those, I thought to whoever was listening—whether it was God, or Oz, or the three sisters of Fate. Give me those moments where I think he’s coming back. I can take the hurt. The reminder that he’s not coming back—and why—will keep me fighting.

My brain is such a traitorous beast.

Our eyes snag, and hold. His are green and yellow, with these razor-sharp flecks of brown. I feel like I've taken a running leap off a cliff and have no idea how deep the water is.

But this is your life, and it will stretch out before you, and you are the only person who can make it whatever you want it to be.

Light bursts behind my closed eyes, so intensely I nearly hear the popping sound. It's my brain melting, or my world ending, or maybe we've just been hit by a meteor and this is the rapture and I'm given one last perfect moment before I'm sent to purgatory and he;s sent somewhere much, much better. It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one.

Maybe I'm crying because I'm terrified that he's come here to do more damage, to reactivate what I feel only to let me down easy again, missionary style.

We don't rehash the question of my sexuality, but I feel its presence like a third person in the room, sitting in the dark corner, eavesdropping on our conversation.

Inside my chest, my lungs are wild animals, clawing at the cage. "Oh, man," Autumn mumbles from beside me. "His smile makes me stupid." Her words are a dim echo of my own thoughts: His smile ruins me. The feeling makes me uneasy, a dramatic lurch that tells me I need to have him or I won't be okay.

He shakes his head, and I think this moment, right here, is when it really hits me that Sebastian's identity isn't queer. It's not gay. It's not even soccer player or boyfriend or son. It’s Mormon.

His voice is both low and quiet, and it has this hypnotic rhythm to it. I wonder whether someday he'll give sermons with that voice, whether he'll throw down judgement with that voice.

We're only three class sessions in and I'm already behind? And to hear it from him? This buttoned-up Bible-thumper I can't get out of my head?

To her, not packing our lunches every day or joining the PTA is a feminist rallying cry.

I am a monster beneath him, with arching hips, an octopus with hands everywhere at once. I don't think anything in the history of time has felt this good.

Oh my God, Tanner! Do you really care what kind of underwear he’s got on? Let’s talk about your goddamn outline!

You're so lucky and you don't even know it.

It isn't his first kiss - I know that - but it's his first real one.

He's not recruiting me to the oiled-up Gay Bliss Club of Northern Utah, but to the LDS Church.

He shakes his head, and I think this moment, right here, is when it really hits me that Sebastian's identity is a queer. It's not gay. It's not even soccer player or boyfriend or son. It’s Mormon.