Never in my life had I ever seen two men kissing.

I’d dreamed of it. Fantasized about it. Wished for it.

It made my insides curl in a way I never imagined. I felt weak all over, hot and cold at the same time. And aroused and alive. And scared.

And Gary just smiled, and he called it love. He said everyone deserved happiness.

That’s not what my dad said.

We got back to our blanket and sat back down. I felt restless and confused, and there were so many people. There were random bursts of singing and guitars and laughter, and it was all a bit much.

“You’re overwhelmed,” Gary said softly. He drew his legs up to sit cross-legged, and his knee rested on my hip. He was so close, and it should have sent me reeling backward. I glanced around to see if people noticed, but no one had.

Not one person around us looked at us, or cared.

“Richard, I’m gonna tell you something,” he said. “Gimme your hands.”

I hesitated and looked around us again. No one was paying us a lick of attention at all. I held out my hands and his were warm and strong, and I felt something inside me shift. Like something had been missing for so long and was suddenly found.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he whispered. His face, his perfect face, so serious but gentle and kind. His smile was everything I needed. “There’s nothing broken. You’re not sick in the head. You don’t need fixing. You’re not going to hell.”

My eyes burned and I couldn’t swallow.

“You are perfect just as God made you, just as you are.”

I shook my head, but Gary nodded and squeezed my hands. I didn’t want to cry, not here, not in front of him. “It’s…” What could I say? It was a million different things, and to not deny it meant owning up to it, and I wasn’t even sure I could do that. I’d been denying it for so long.

“It’s not easy,” he said. “Believe me, I know. But it’s my truth. And I deserve to be happy.”

His truth.

“You… you’re…”

He nodded and smiled. “I am. You don’t have to say it. It’s not an easy word to say because it makes it real. But it gets easier with time. It will get easier for you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not…” And I stopped. I couldn’t even say it to deny it. Not when he’d been honest with me.

“You’re not what?” He said, still smiling. “Happy? Living true to yourself?”

Then there were tears.

I shook my head again, and he let go of one of my hands so he could wipe my cheek. His hand on my face felt so good, I couldn’t help but lean into his touch.

“You’ve been carrying this weight around on your own for so long,” he murmured. “You must be so tired.”

“I am,” I said through more tears. “So tired.”

He never told me to stop crying. He never told me to man up. He just wiped my cheeks, and I was suddenly so tired, I could almost fall asleep sitting up. Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Here,” he said. “Lie down for a bit.” And he coaxed me down, and I couldn’t fight it. I had no strength left. I’d never felt this kind of tired. He stretched his legs out, and when I curled onto my side, he put my head on his thigh and I let him.

I closed my eyes, and before I could freak out that I was using his leg as a pillow—a man! I was lying down on another man’s leg!—he stroked his fingers through my hair, and with the warmth of the sun on my face, with his strong but gentle touch, I fell asleep.

I woke to the sound of singing. It was some folk song I might have heard on the radio, and it took me a second to realize it was the people around me who were singing. There was a warm hand on my arm and a rumbling, deep voice was closer than all the others.

Then I remembered where I was.

I was almost scared to open my eyes. Because if I woke up, this dream would end. This closeness to him would be over, and I’d be forced to face the consequences from before: that I’d admitted my deepest, darkest secret.

But then he said he was too. He was the same as me. How was that even possible?

He’d said it was okay. That nothing was wrong with me, and that I deserved to be happy.

But then the song drew to a close and a round of applause and cheers went up, and then another song began. Someone with a guitar, more voices, and I sat up. Gary was right there, smiling at me as he sung about how many roads must a man walk down, but he was smiling at me as he sang.

The group on the blanket next to ours had the guitar and there must have been fifty people around us singing. Gary moved a little closer to me and he sang a little louder, and it wasn’t long until our shoulders were touching and we swayed to the song.

I didn’t think I’d ever have the courage to sing, but it was contagious. People the same age as me, around twenty years old, wearing denim jeans and T-shirts, some with daisy chains around their heads or bandanas, men with long hair and floral shirts, vests of fur or fringes. The very kind of people my father would scoff at and call ‘no-good hippies.’ He’d say they were a burden to society, a smear on the American way of life.

But as I sat with them, sang with them, smiled with them, I had no idea it could feel so good.

I’d never felt freer than I did that very moment.

When that song ended, Gary leaned in and spoke right against my ear. “You okay now?”

I nodded and smiled, genuinely, for the first time since I was a small child. “Thank you. I didn’t mean to freak out before.”

He put his hand on my back, and it felt like it might burn through the fabric of my shirt. “You’re allowed to freak out. It’s a lot to take in.”

I nodded and found myself smiling at him. But we were a little too close, closer than men should probably be, so to distract myself I checked my watch. It was almost three. “Did I sleep for that long?” I asked him.

“You were out like a light,” he replied with a happy smile. “I could stretch my legs a bit though. Wanna take a walk?”

He didn’t really wait for an answer. He got to his feet and held out his hand to pull me up, and I gave him my hand without thinking. I let go as soon as I stood up and looked around to see a lot more people had arrived. “Wow.”

Gary laughed. “It’s a gasser, right?”

I looked at him then. “A gasser?”

“The coolest thing ever,” he explained.

“Sorry. I’m not up to date on what the cool kids say.” I made a face, but the crowds were staggering. I’d never seen this many people in my life. And I was soon smiling without even realizing.

“This way,” Gary said, as he waved me over. We snaked our way through the masses toward the side of the parking lot. It was fenced off and out of the way. There were fewer people there, and the rows of blankets and tents and laughter and song gave way to green grass and quiet. Gary turned to face me, his grin wide, his eyes kind and warm. “Aren’t you glad you came with us?”

“I am,” I replied. “I’m sorry about before… I never should have…”

“What?” he pressed. “Never should have what?”

“Never should have said what I said. Or admitted to…” I shook my head and let out a shaky breath. “I can’t even say it. Does that make me some kind of coward?”

“Coward? Absolutely not. No one has stood in your shoes. Everyone’s journey to this point right here is their own, and it ain’t up to anyone else to judge how you got here.”

I found myself smiling at him. “You have a totally different way of looking at things than anyone I’ve ever met.” I sighed and leaned against the fence. “I could have done with a friend like you through high school.”

“If we had gone to the same high school, do you think we would’ve been friends?” he asked, still smiling. “Let me guess. You were on the football team.”

“Football? I snorted. “Hardly. Baseball.”

He laughed. “Well, I wasn’t. I was a mathlete and in the drama club. You would’ve hated me.”

“Nah,” I said. “I would’ve envied you.”

He stared at me for a long while, then he squinted against the afternoon sun. “If we had gone to school together, maybe I could’ve tutored you or something after class, and we’d known each other’s secret and maybe spend all those hours making out instead of doing homework.”

I felt my cheeks heat, and words failed me.

“You ever kissed a guy before?” he asked, still looking at me, squinting one eye from the sun. His beard looked more ginger in the sunlight; his lips looked even pinker. Then the tip of his tongue trailed across his bottom lip, making it shine in its wake.

I swallowed hard and shook my head. The ability to breathe escaped me. “My dad always says people like me are bound for eternity in hell,” I blurted out. “’Cept I never told him what I was, but I think he knows. ’Cause he looks at me all mean when he talks about it. Like a threat, ya know?”

Gary frowned but nodded. “You don’t actually get to choose who you’re attracted to. It’s in your makeup, like the color of your eyes. It’s just who you are.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Gary smiled. “Of course I do. I never made a decision to find Tommy Sutcliffe cute in the third grade. He was crushing on Charmaine Polinski, and I looked at her, then looked at him, and I knew there was no question. I wanted to kiss Tommy, not Charmaine, or any other girl in my class.”

I laughed at that. At how ridiculous it was to be having this conversation. Me! Talking about kissing boys instead of girls. “Did you? Kiss Tommy?”

“Nope. My first kiss was Chip Wilding, in the ninth grade.”

“Ninth grade?” I couldn’t believe it. “Did he… was he…?”

“He kissed me first.” He laughed at my expression and leaned back against the fence alongside me. “Guess we had different lives, huh?”

Had or still have? “Do your parents know?”

He nodded and smiled out over the field. “My dad’s not too happy about it, being that it’s against the law and all, but my mom’s fine. We don’t talk about it, but they know.” He glanced at me, then back out to the crowd of people. “Does your mom know?”

I shook my head quickly. “Oh no. She’d have me exorcized to save my soul from the devil if she knew. Or I’d be living at the church to repent.”

“She is aware that priests and ministers are all men, right?” he asked with a wink.

I laughed. “If they’re anything like Father Simmonds at my local church, I’d rather not.”

Now Gary laughed. “Not good?”

I burst out laughing and made a face. “Even thinking about that is not good.”

He pushed off the fence. “Richard, I really like the sound of your laughter. And if you want, no pressure at all, but if you want your first real kiss to be with me, I would be down with that.”

My face burned so hot I thought I might catch fire, and I certainly couldn’t form a reply. Gary laughed some more and nodded back to the mass of people. “Come on. We better get back.”