“I WISH YOU WERE COMING with us,” Sully said as Matt was getting ready to leave the Darrow house.

            “Yeah, Matt,” Mason joined in. “I mean, we’re only going to look at the house we’re all going to end up living in. And no parents. That’s the best part. Dad and Mom were going to come down, but they decided to do it on their own time. They’re letting us make the purchase.”

            “Don’t you need like… grown ups to pay for the house and stuff?” Matt said.

            “Not if you have the money,” Balliol shook his head. “And, in case you hadn’t noticed, Matt. We are grown ups.”

            “Look at the house, pay for the house,” Mason said. “Go through the house. My family’s gonna come down and look at the damage, then they’re going to get with Bailey’s mom later and see who can fix it up, how much that’ll cost, how soon it can be done… blah, blah, blah. We’re just going to hang out. At Jared’s place, at the coffee shop. On the campus.”

            “That place is even busy in summer,” Tommy stated, appreciatively.

            Matt wondered if Mason knew about Sully’s affair with Jared, and then realized he probably didn’t. It was so strange. Most of the time Mason was first to know everything.

            “I would go,” Matt said. “I’d love to go, and Sal’s cool as fuck. He was telling me how if I walked on to the football team, then midyear I might be able to get a scholarship.”

            “You’re gonna play sports again?” Balliol said from Mason’s desk.

            Matt put out a hand and shook it a little. “Thinking about it. But today I’m going to see Suzie.”

            “Let us know how that goes,” Sully told him.

            “It shouldn’t go any way,” Matt told him. “I don’t know what we could possibly have to talk about—‘Ey, Suze! Remember how we used to be high school sweethearts and then you dumped me, and deep on the inside I was secretly very happy?’”

            “See,” Balliol noted, swiping one of Mason’s cigarettes. “Right there that seems like plenty to talk about.”

“Man, we need to have you by the house more often,” Adam was saying as he swigged from the bottle of Rolling Rock and handed a new one to Dan. “I mean, we need to have you over all the time.”

            “I just don’t like to impose,” Dan cracked open the bottle. “You know, be all intrusive and wavemaking.”

“Says the man who stole his first car at thirteen?” Savannah shook her head, incredulous. “Who hitchhiked across Pennsylvania, and Ohio.”

            “Don’t forget Indiana,” Dan laughed, swigging from the bottle.

            “What’s in Indiana?” Adam said, putting his fist to his chest as he belched lightly.

            “Absolutely nothing!” Dan declared. “But I was always curious about it. You know. The state you pass through on your way to Chicago. So I hitched through it. I don’t know if that was courageous or just… weird.”

            “It’s a little bit of both,” Adam said. “You know where I’ve always wanted to go?”

            “Hum?” Dan turned to him.

            “Iowa.”

            Savannah uncrossed her legs, smoothing out her Indian skirt and said, “Iowa! You never… why?”

            Adam stood up, shrugged and said, as he stretched, “I don’t know… it just sounds cool. Guys, I have to whiz. I’ll be back.”

            Dan took a swig from his beer and bummed one of Savannah’s cigarettes.

            “How’s the job at the library?”

            “A relief,” Dan said. “And… fun as hell in some ways. Just to talk to some people, I haven’t had a lot of friends. Not recently. And I like Adam.”

            “He likes you a lot,” Savannah said taking a cigarette out too. “He doesn’t talk to everyone easily, you know? It’s neat to see you all connect.”

            “Savannah, I feel bad.”

            “For?”

            He looked at her frankly, his eyes large and blue.

            “I want to kiss you.” He said as the toilet flushed

            She looked at him in shock and he said: “But I’m not going to.”

            And then, looking at her, he took a swig from his bottle.

Dan didn’t attempt college right away. High school was a thing he lost interest in and then he just stopped going. He just stopped doing everything and so his parents asked him to leave. There was more, of course. There was more fighting, more screaming. The year that should have been Dan Mitchum’s senior year, he spent at home smoking vast quantities of marijuana and drinking his father’s Scotch. He’d been born when Keisha was nearly an adult, and by now his parents were exhausted. They didn’t know what to do with him. They didn’t know what to blame on his problems. Lots of children had problems. But was it because he was blond with blue eyes and pale skin and he was supposed to be Black, or was it because he was white with a Black mother or what? Was it identity? Was he having sexual problems? What?

            When his mother found him in his bedroom glassy eyed and hallucinating, it had been the last straw. She’d asked Keisha and Sidney if he could come and live with them, and they said yes and things changed.

            “What’s this about hallucinating?” Sidney asked his brother-in-law.

            “Morning glories,” Dan told him. Dan was too small, too slight and too sweet to get into so much trouble.

            “A friend of mine told me that if you crushed the seeds in the right amount of water then it would be a lot like LSD. Only legal. Only,” Dan reflected, “I think LSD is legal. I’m not sure. But the point is morning glories grow in the back yard and LSD doesn’t. Well, now LSD doesn’t grow anywhere, does it?”

            Mason was seven at the time, and no one noticed him coming into the room.

            “Dan, Dan,” he said, impersonating his mother, “what are we going to do with you?”

            Dan smirked at his nephew, who looked nothing like him, and said what he always said to Keisha: “Just love me.”

            Dan didn’t go to work, which is what his parents had planned. But here, at the house, Dan had responsibilities. He had Mason. He’d never had a younger brother or even so much as a pet to care for and he began to love his nephew and the other boys who came by the house. Chris and Seth, Mason’s godbrothers. Addison and Tommy, his friends. And there was the web of people who came in and out of this house. For the first time Dan felt like he was a part of something.

            There was Savannah.

            Savannah was the only thing Dan never discussed with Sidney, although he knew Sidney must have known something. He wasn’t afraid or ashamed it was just that there were parts of Dan’s life that were so private they couldn’t be talked about. Especially this part which involved another person. How could he talk about going over late at night to the Darrow house, up to the coach house, or receiving Savannah in his room and the talks they had long into the night, the gentle touches, the questions, the promises that led to the kisses, the fumblings. Everything that went on that Dan wouldn’t voice, but when he thought of his fists clenched and his dick stiffened even as his heart melted. That was what their relationship had become.

            And then Savannah went to college and Dan went to earn his GED. He didn’t want to think of not being able to go off to school too. When Savannah came back they were stronger than ever and she helped him enroll in Cartimandua.

            “I’m the only one I know,” Savannah said, “who kept my boyfriend.” She kissed him.

            “Did you know everyone gets rid of their old flames at the beginning of freshman year. It’s amazing. They just….” Savannah shrugged. “Fall out of love. And into love with someone else.”

            Dan kissed her on the mouth and murmured, “You don’t ever have to worry about that.”

And so he began Cartimandua College in January while Savannah was off at Wherever. He really never troubled to learn the name. For the first time, to his amazement, Dan had friends. People liked him. That always surprised him. He’d had such a difficult time connecting. A lot happened. He was changing. And as he was changing he was afraid.

“You can’t make yourself be faithful,” he wrote in his journal one day. He played rifts on his guitar of various versions of this assumption.

“You can make your body be faithful, But not your heart.”

Dan still lived with Sidney and Mason. There was more work now since Keisha had left. Marks’ wife was sick with cancer and it seemed that Joel’s marriage was on the fritz. Everything was falling apart.

            “Sidney?” said Dan. “When is it time to break something off?”

            “Something off?”

            “A relationship, I mean.”

            “It depends. Is it a marriage? Is it a…?”

            “It’s not a marriage,” Dan said.

            “I would say…” Sidney reflected. Dan felt suddenly very insensitive.

            “I would say when you feel like you’re in a cage.”

            “What about if you love someone else?”

            “Do you?” Sidney said.

            Dan turned his head away, afraid.

            “Yes, I think so.”

            “My sister will be crushed,” Sidney said pointedly.

            Dan didn’t look at Sidney. They had never discussed that relationship together.

            “But if she’s with someone who doesn’t love her then she’ll be miserable. I’d rather see her crushed.”

            “I do love her,” Dan said.

            “Just not enough.”

            “No,” he said. “No… not enough.”

“Sidney, can I grab a few of your smokes?” Mark asked on his way out reaching for the half pack.

            “I’ll be glad when you quit quitting,” Sidney shouted from the bathroom.  “Sure, take what you want.”

            “You know I love you!” Mark Powers slipped four cigarettes into his breast pocket, then shouted back, “I’ll see you later,” and stepped out of the kitchen door to be shocked.

            On the stoop sat a girl, her dark hair covering her face. She sobbed into her hands.

            Mark didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Hi?”

            The girl looked up at him, her eyes red rimmed, her face ravaged.

            “I know you,” he said.

            She sucked snot up into her nose and, offering her hand said, “Bonnie Metzger.”

            “I’m—”

            “Dr. Powers,” she said. “I remember you.”

            “Well, are you alright? I mean… I don’t think any of your friends are—”

            “No one’s here!” she wailed. “That’s why I’m here. On the door step. No one’s here!”

            Mark frowned. He hated to see people said, and he was so bad at comforting them. He said, “Come on in the house, Bonnie. We’ll talk. You me and Sidney. We’re here. Alright?”

            Bonnie sucked up snot and nodded.

            Mark, on inspiration, offered his hand and gave Bonnie a brave smile through his glasses.

            Trying to smile back, she took his hand and they both went into the    house.

            Sidney was standing in the kitchen, amazed, and he looked from Bonnie to Mark.

            “She needs our help,” Mark said simply.

            “Well, hell yeah she does,” Sidney murmured. “I think we ought to do like the British and put on some tea. Is that good for you, Bonnie?”

            Suddenly Bonnie declared, “I love the British!” threw back her head, and howled.

“Good God!” Sidney exclaimed when Bonnie had only gotten halfway through her story.

            “Addison’s going to have a baby?” Mark said it more to Sidney than to the girl.

            “No,” Bonnie said a little angrily. “I’m going to have a baby. Addison already did his part. Which wasn’t much by the way.

            “I went to tell my parents…” She shook her head. “I never talk to them. They never talk to me. I don’t know what I expected.”

            “Support,” Sidney said simply.

            “Well,” Bonnie shrugged. “Yes. Support. But… they were so angry. It’s like they thought I was still a virgin or something. And I can’t remember the last time I was that! They told me I couldn’t come back. They told me to get out.”

            “They weren’t serious—” Mark began.

            “They were very serious,” Bonnie assured him. “And I haven’t known where to go. I can’t—I won’t go to Addison’s parents. Swain and Balliol are gone today and…” she looked at Sidney. “So I just came here. You know. Everyone comes here. But I couldn’t really get up the nerve to tap on the door.”

            Sidney put a hand over Bonnie’s and then it seemed to loosen something in her and this time the tears that came out flowed more freely. Observing, Mark thought they came from a deeper place.

            “Well, now of course you can stay here,” Sidney said. “I mean, as long as you want. You’re anything but alone, Bonnie.”

            “Where am I going to stay?” Bonnie wondered suddenly. She knew every room was full. “I’m not putting Tommy or Mason out. That’s certainly not going to happen. If you’re sure, Mr. Darrow, I could take the—”

            “I can take the couch,” Sidney said. “A girl should have a room of her own.”

            “Nonsense,” Mark Powers said.

            They both looked at him.

            “I mean,” Mark began again. “What I mean is why should Sidney be the only hospitable one? And, yes, a girl should have her own room,” Mark acknowledged. “But so should a forty year old man.”

            They were still looking at the psychiatrist.

            “Look, you two,” said Mark. “I have all of that large house. Too large for me and Chris and Chris is hardly there and he’ll be gone when summer’s over.

            “Now, Bonnie, I know you don’t know me as well as you know Sidney, but I would be honored if you stayed in one of the guest rooms. There is more than enough room for you.”

            Bonnie looked at Mark Powers surprised. She turned to Sidney, who she knew better, for a look of advice.

            “Dr. Powers is a good man,” he told her. “You should take him up on that.”

            She turned to thank him, but something choked in her throat, and Bonnie just nodded and smiled, choosing to say nothing.

“Do you know where you’re going after you graduate?” Jared asked her.

            “I didn’t think I was going anywhere,” said Swain.

            “You could come here,” Mason told her.

“You keep saying that.”

            “And you keep acting like its not a good idea.”

            “I’d never seen the place,” she said.

            “Well,” John asked her, “now that you’ve seen it… do you like it?”

            “I like it well enough.”

            “Well, enough to come?” Sully raised an eyebrow.

            “Well, enough to think about coming.”

            “My girlfriend was just like you,” John said.

            “Was she Black?”

            He grinned at Swain. “Well, almost just like you. She didn’t want to come until I convinced her that this would be a great place.”

            How’s that working out for you?” Jared said with a raised eyebrow.

            “What working out?”

            “The girlfriend?”

            “Oh...” John rolled his eyes. “We’re great. She teaches me new things everyday.”

            “I’ll bet she does,” Jared murmured, and then in Mason’s ear, “and none of them of any use to him.”

            “What did you say?” John said.

            “Didn’t you used to be gay?”

            “I was trying out things,” John said.

            Jared opened his mouth and then said, “Never mind.”

            “Never mind what?” John looked at him sharply.

            “Never mind,” Jared said in a low voice, lowering his eyes and sipping his latte.

            “So how do you guys like the house?” Jared said, switching the subject.

            “What’s not to like?” Mason raised his hands.

            Swain suggested.: “How about the fact that the porch is sunken, and there’s water damage all along the walls of the first floor?”

            “Well, there’s that,” Mason allowed. “But do you know that’s not going to take a lot of time or money to clear up?”

            “The good thing about still being in town for high school is that even if I come here next year, this year I’ll be around for Bonnie.”

            “Bonnie?” Jared said.

            “Addison, my friend?” Mason explained.

            Jared nodded his head.

            Swain finished diplomatically. “He got her knocked up.”

            “Oh…” Jared and John murmured.

            “And he was about to leave her,” Mason added.

            “Well the nice thing about my situation,” Sully declared, “is that I don’t have to worry about  leaving my exes knocked up.”

            Mason burst out laughing and they all looked at him. He shook his     head.

            “I was just picturing Chris out to here with Sully’s baby.”

            “That would teach the bastard,” Sully muttered

“Still not talking?” Swain raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck no!” Sully said, heatedly. And then remembered himself and said, more quietly, “No.”

“How does one,” Jared began smoothly, “Go from being a   homosexual to having a live-in girlfriend?”

            “I’m tired of explaining that,” John told him.

            “Really, cause I’d love to hear it.”

            “I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

            “Please,” Sully said, his voice changed. “It is a big deal to me. See… Chris is straight now. Or so he says. He was with a girl between the time he broke up with me and came back, and no he’s gone back to her and he says its what he likes so… Is it? How does it work? I only know how I work.”

            “Is it nurture or nature, chromosomes or society?” Jared rattled off bored.

            “Exactly,” said Sully. “And what’s more… If I wanted to could I change. I mean. I thought I didn’t know much of anything or think I was much of anything until Chris. But looking back,” he looked to Jared, who did not laugh at him, but nodded, “I realized there was something else. Someone else.”

            “Once you told me,” Mason began, and then was quiet. He remembered that day when they were going upstairs to the paper room together.

            “You know, stuff hits you in the head out of the blue. You learn things about yourself. I thought about all the fights I’d had with Bailey, all the awkwardness right before we split and I found Chris and I realized that what had been happening for the last few years, was I’d been falling in love with him. I know I don’t have to ask you not to tell him this. But I know it now. I was crushing on my best friend hard and didn’t even get it….”

“Once,” Mason said, “you told me you loved someone.”

Sully looked at him, and remembering, blushed.

“Can you go back?” Sully said, “Could I start to love women?”

“Do you want to?” John said, “See, I’d think that was the question.”

Sully sat back in the chair, opening his mouth into a long groan, and saying, “It just seems like it would be… easier. You know? Than what I’ve got right now.”

“Whaddo you have right now?”

            “Right now I have an ex who’s with a woman, a past, and no example to live by but an episode of Will and Grace.”

            “There’s always Queer as Folk,” Swain suggested.

            They looked at her.

            “I was just saying,” she said.