We Could Be So Good

by Cat Sebastian

Is Nick so mired in gay paranoia that he can’t even admit to being friends with another man without thinking vice cops are about to crawl out from under the desks and arrest him? Is he so used to being lonely that even companionship feels dangerous?

We no longer have the energy to hide. You can’t know the strain on a person in always pretending.

He reads the calm rebuttal of all the usual arguments against homosexuality, and the statement that it makes no sense to argue against a thing that simply is.

He feels as if he’s been turned inside out, as if he just learned that a part of his heart is on the outside of his body, in the possession of somebody else entirely.

If heartbreak is the price, he’ll pay it for this, for Andy in his life and home and bed.

Did Nick tell her? Or is this another instance of Emily’s irritating ability to see these things? Is the woman some kind of dowsing rod for homosexuals?

Everyone he knows is trying to assemble some kind of life from the spare parts they have lying around, just like Andy.

Sometimes when Andy looks at him, it’s like the radio has tuned in to the right station, the static dropping away and everything going momentarily clear.

he doesn’t know how to stop being afraid any more than he knows how to stop his heart from beating.