You Taught Me to Fly

Autumn didn’t start peppering me with questions until we were safely back home and in my room. We chatted while I changed. Don’t get any ideas, I kept my pants on.

I just thought I’d slip into something a bit more stylish than a tee-shirt…Okay, so I just put on a different tee-shirt, threw a jacket over it, and spritzed on some deodorant and a dash of cologne, but hey, it was an effort.

“Why are you getting all dressed up?” She paused for a beat before gasping. “Do you have a date?!”

I caught her reflection in the mirror (she was perched on Dave’s bed behind me). “No, I don’t have a date. I’m just…uh…going to homecoming.”

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What?! NO WAY!”

Yeah, I was having a hard time believing it myself.

That’s when it hit me that I might have imagined the whole thing, so I asked her to check my phone for Elijah’s number.

She let out a squeal of delight (I guess she was thrilled about my crush giving me his number?) and lunged to hug me instead of checking my phone like I’d asked.

“Autumn,” I tried to remind her, “I’m not sure if it really happened.” And just like that, anxiety was squeezing my lungs.

“Right, right. Okay.” She bounced on the balls of her feet as she checked. When she shrieked and hugged me again, my stomach dropped.

It had really happened.

Suddenly, I was hit with the reality of what I was getting myself into. Suddenly, I realized what it would look like if I danced with another guy.

“I’m not going,” I declared, shrugging off my jacket and tossing it onto Dave’s bed.

Autumn’s excitement fizzled out.

“Nooo,” she whined, “why not?”

I looked at her and spilled the beans about what had really happened. By the end of my story, she was practically vibrating with excitement.

Okay, so I’m not the best with words, but she was…bouncing off the walls. I waited for her to calm down enough to form a coherent thought. When she did, she smacked me upside the head.

"Ouch!" I protested, rubbing the spot even though she hadn’t hit me that hard; she never did.

“Lucas Sullivan, you are going to that dance!”

“But…”

“Dave isn’t going to be there.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “Do you even know our brother? Leilani asked him out. It’s homecoming. They’re going.”

“Yeah, the dance started at seven. He’s been texting me updates in case something…happens.”

Great, now on top of my nerves, I had to worry about my brother’s safety.

“Anyway,” she continued, “they stopped by the dance for, like, forty-five minutes then she wanted to see a movie, and now they’re at the park across town. So. He’s not going to find out.”

“Except the whole school is going to talk about Elijah dancing with me; everyone knows he’s gay.”

“Luke, you’re totally missing the point.”

I stared at her, still completely missing the point.

She sighed, rolled her eyes at my cluelessness, and reminded me: “Dancing together doesn’t have to mean slow dancing.”

Oh, shit! She was right.

“But what if?” I asked her.

“You can waste your whole life away because of ‘what if’, or you can take a few risks and see where life takes you.”

She had a point there, too.

Gahhhhhhhh, what to do, what to doooo?

“Luke,” she said firmly, handing me the jacket I had discarded, “put the damn jacket on and go to the damn dance!”

She sounded so much like our mom in that moment that I was a little scared.

But in the end, I knew I should listen to her; I couldn’t live in fear forever, even though it was tempting.

So, I put the jacket on, grabbed my car keys, and headed out to go dance...I guess...

My courage evaporated the second I stepped into the gym. It was darker than usual; the flashing lights by the DJ’s booth barely lit up the room.

The place was nearly packed with bodies swaying to the music. Our gym was pretty big, but tonight it felt so small because…well…social anxiety…yay…

I spotted some of my friends who saw me at the same time I saw them.

Even across the room, over the pounding music and the buzz of voices, I heard them yell:

“AYYYYYY! LUKE!!!”

And fear gripped my stomach because if I could hear it...

I saw Elijah look up as their shout caught his attention and he started scanning the crowd, looking for me.

He found me pretty quickly. I made my way over to my friends, painfully aware of him watching me as I walked. I tried to ignore the happiness on his face.

Hell, I tried to ignore the fact that he was fucking looking at me.

Don’t trip, don’t trip, for the love of all that is holy, Luke, do not fucking trip, I told myself.

I didn’t trip, thank God.

My friends enveloped me in a giant group hug, all of them thrilled that I had, finally, for the first time in years, come to a dance.

I was honestly glad they were here. It made this whole thing a lot less…awkward.

All I could think about, though, was dancing with Elijah, however that would happen. Part of me honestly hoped it’d be a slow dance, but most of me knew better.

At around ten-thirty, it happened, and not at all how I expected. The song “Cotton-eyed Joe” came on, and I suddenly felt someone tugging me to follow them.

A few seconds into this new development, Elijah said: “It’s time,” and, well, that answered everything. I followed him willingly to the center of the gym.

Side by side, he and I line-danced to the song with half the people in the gym, and despite my best intentions to hate it, I found myself having a helluva lot of fun.

I couldn't help but smile the whole time, even sharing a few laughs with him when I accidentally bumped into him after taking a wrong turn.

He was right, though. It was fun, and a tiny part of me was starting to fall for him because of it. I know it sounds crazy, but hey, I'm a teenager. What do you expect?

“So, what did you think?” he asked when everyone else had left.

“I’ll be honest. It wasn’t what I expected. But yeah, it was fun.”

He nudged me playfully. “See what happens when you get out?”

I made a face at him. “Yeah, yeah.”

I noticed his friends watching us, just like my friends were. It was painfully obvious how different our two groups were on the social scale.

They were at completely opposite ends.

“So, I guess we should…” I started, not really wanting to but knowing it was necessary.

He’d noticed too.

“Yeah, I guess so," he agreed, "But first, since you’re already here, what time works best for you tomorrow?”

I had no idea how these things usually went.

While I wanted to do everything I could to make him happy, there was just...one thing...about Saturdays that I considered non-negotiable.

“Well, I’d really like to sleep in…”

“Same here. I mean, it is Saturday, after all. We only get two days a week to sleep in.”

I grinned. “Exactly. Okay. So I usually sleep until noon.” I was joking, but the look on his face was priceless.

The look he gave me when he realized I was kidding and I started to giggle was even better.

“You sly shit!” He playfully shoved me. “Damn, you got me!”

My giggles turned into full-blown laughter. “Only fair since you got me earlier.”

“True, true. But seriously, what time?”

“Seriously, I usually get up around nine. I can be ready by nine-thirty.”

“Let’s make it ten-thirty, that way if it runs long we can grab some lunch.”

My stomach did a flip at the thought of having lunch with Elijah…outside of school…just the two of us. Well, hopefully just the two of us. Gosh, I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Sure! Ten-thirty sounds great,” I said.

“Awesome. Okay, my friends look like they think I need rescuing. I better go back over. This was fun, though, we should do it again.”

I agreed, my stomach full of butterflies as we parted ways. My mind was racing. I was actually interacting with my crush.

I had danced with him, joked with him, made him laugh, pranked him! I had, twice now, made him have fun, supposedly.

Part of me still thought he was just being nice for my sake, something I couldn't help thinking.

When I got home, my sister was waiting for all the details. But Dave was also in the room, so I quickly changed the subject to his evening.

He and Leilani had had a great time. Apparently they were going to do it again. He tried to steer the conversation back to me, but I wasn’t having it.

That was when things started to go downhill.

When everyone else in the house had gone to bed and it was just me and my brother left awake, he climbed up to where I was lying and sat at my feet, his long legs dangling over the edge of the ladder.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me about your evening?”

“Because nothing happened, Dave.”

He scoffed. “If nothing happened, Luke, you would’ve said so. You wouldn’t have changed the subject. Why don’t you trust me?”

Realizing this was going to be a longer conversation than I'd anticipated, I sat up, crossed my legs, and looked at him. Now would've been a good time to come out to him.

Instead I said:

“I was at rehearsal, and then I was at the dance. That’s all that happened.”

His frown deepened.

“You’ve been hiding something from me for years, and I know Autumn knows because any time I walk into a room where you two already are, you look at me and shut up.

“It hurts, you know. I mean you never go to dances, and I really want to know what changed. It’s not fair that Autumn knows the reason but I, your own twin, don’t.”

I sighed heavily. Now there was no avoiding it. Let the chips fall where they may, right?

“I was at the dance because Elijah talked me into it when we rehearsed together.

“We were rehearsing together because our director wanted the cast to run lines with the crew to challenge them, and I was the only one left that he hadn’t already run lines with.

“We had a lot of fun and he talked me into going to the dance because I had never been and he wanted to show me that they were worth going to.

“It was fun, with him. And tomorrow I’m hanging out with him again to help with his lines.”

Dave was silent for a long time. Then:

“Why couldn’t you just tell me that?”

I couldn’t believe he was missing it! Briefly, I considered taking this moment to come up with a lie, but that would only delay the inevitable.

I might as well just get it out now. I swallowed hard.

“Because I’m gay, Dave, and I have a crush on Elijah.”

Hurt was the first emotion I saw, then confusion, then hurt again, then I saw the anger.

“How long have you known?”

“Since I was thirteen.”

“And Autumn’s known…?”

“Since I was thirteen.”

Dave closed his eyes, took in a long, deep breath. “I see.” Without another word he climbed down the ladder.

I leaned over the edge, watching as he got ready for bed.

“Dave?” I asked.

He didn’t reply.

“Are you mad?”

He still didn’t reply.

I sighed, settling back into bed. I knew he was furious. I mean, he had every right to be. I just hoped he would forgive me; I loved him too much to lose him over this.