stating the obvious

XVII.
It was winter break of my senior year in college, and I was hanging out with my best friend from high school. We'd headed in separate directions for college, and both of us had been relieved to discover that Out There, in the world, there are places much larger and more imaginative than Riverside, CA.

Let's walk around the school, he suggested, and we did. It was twilight, and this was before high schools everywhere put their campuses under lockdown. We strolled right through the student parking lot and walked around.

At night the campus looked so small and empty. Or maybe it was just the realization that while once this had been so much of our universe -- where we'd dreaded and complained and mocked others before they could get to us -- now it was utterly insignificant.

You didn't offer to take me to my senior prom, I said accusingly. Not that it mattered anymore, but I had been annoyed by the omission then.

I didn't realize I should, he said, I'm sorry. And then he took a deep breath, and I knew what he was going to say, because it was something that I'd figured out years before.

Cindy, I'm gay. he said. All in a rush, white frozen breath pluming out over him. Anxious to see what I was going to say. This is where I was supposed to say something worthy of a made-for-TV movie.

I spoke. Well, DUH, I said.

This was obviously not what he was expecting, and he stood there -- and I continued, I KNOW. I went to college too, y'know. And then we started laughing, and I gave him the requisite hug, and everything continued along as it had been.

Friday 08 February, 10:19 AM