It was one of those gorgeous clear winter mornings that was perfect for hiking. In just a few weeks, warm fronts would start moving in, replacing the blue skies with dreary rain and wind, which was fine if you didn’t mind slugging through mud, but Burns preferred the crisp hard ground of winter, the chilly wind against his face, that sense that you’d really escaped the world. Nothing better than hiking up in the mountains this time of year, rounding a curve in the trail and discovering you had a perfect view down into a valley, sun casting a vast morning shadow across the land, mist rising, ready to be burned off. To be absolutely alone, away from parents, away from everything that had happened these past few weeks. Glorious.

Which is why it seemed unfair that he was wearing his dress shoes and a blazer for church. He watched his parents greet other members of the church, all smiling faces and community goodwill, while he stood by awkwardly, a stiff fake grin on his face.

“Don’t you look handsome,” said Delia, coming around from behind. She linked arms with him. “You clean up nice.”

“I’m about to crawl out of my freaking skin.”

“Good catch, southpaw. Are you holding up okay?”

“What counts as okay?”

“You’re alive. You left the house. This will be good for you.”

“A sermon will be good for me? You don’t believe that.”

She smirked. “Seeing that the world is still turning, that’s what will do you good. Everything didn’t suddenly stop when Karl left you.”

“Shh,” he said, glancing over at his parents.

“Trust me,” she said, “I spent years studying the acoustics of the churchyard as a kid, I know exactly how loud to talk where they can’t hear me at all.”

Having someone to share his secret with had helped, more than he’d realized. He and Delia had talked a lot since the breakup. When he was dying to call Karl back, it was Delia who told him to stay strong. He’s bad for you, clearly, she’d say, and he’d argue with her, because that wasn’t true, but bad or good wasn’t the point. The point was just to keep surviving this aching loss that refused to stop hurting.

“I almost called him again last night,” he said.

“Why this time?”

“To apologize. But then I thought, what if he doesn’t pick up? What if he ignores the call? I wasn’t sure I could take that.”

“Apologize? Dude, you did nothing wrong! He was pushing you to do something you weren’t ready for. If you ask me, Karl’s a little bit of a control freak.”

Anger flared in him. “Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t put him down. You don’t know Karl.”

“All right, all right, peace,” she said, letting go of his arm.

It was almost time to go in. Everyone liked to linger out front before services. He could remember, as a little kid, thinking it was the biggest gathering of people in the world, but now it didn’t seem so crowded.

“Shall we?” said Delia. “You can come sit in the special pew with me. It’s extra-holy.”

“Burns!” called a voice from across the churchyard. A loud and familiar voice.

“Burns, where are you?”

“Oh lord,” said Delia. “We’re doomed.”

There was no question who the voice belonged to, nor to the excitement (mingled with fear) that he felt when he heard it. Karl! But where was he? He looked around, trying to see past the crowd that was gathering up at the church steps.

There he was. Dressed up, hair slicked, running straight for them, his tie flying all around. An expression on his face Burns could not have named.

Has he come to make me apologize?

Is he coming to start another fight?

Is he coming to save me from drowning in this pain?

* * *

“Well look at you,” said Delia as Karl reached them. “All dressed up for Sunday service.”

Karl held up his hand, pausing for breath. “Burns, I went to your house, you weren’t there.”

“My parents begged me to come to church.”

“Listen, can we talk? I promise, it won’t take long, there are some things I’ve got to say, and I didn’t want to say them over the phone, and I was…”

His voice trailed off. Burns’ mom and dad had spotted the commotion, and were coming over.

And who else? Reverend Ron.

Burns wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

“Karl Bowden, what are you doing here?” said Burns’ mom. She looked pissed that he was interloping again.

“Now now,” said Reverend Ron, “all are welcome, it says so on the sign. Pleased to see you again, Karl. I hope you’re planning on letting me give the sermon this time?”

“He’s not welcome to me,” said Burns’ mom. “I don’t know what that boy thought would happen, blowing up in front of all my friends, but I think it proved to Tommy that you have to choose your friends wisely!”

“Dude, if I could just see you alone for like five minutes,” said Karl, his eyes darting around like he expected to be carried off by bouncers any second.

“Anything you have to say to my boy, you can say in front of me,” said his mom.

Reverend Ron smiled a broad alligator smile. “I think that’s a fine idea. Do you have something to say, Karl? Something for us all to hear?”

I can’t breathe. This is impossible. I’m going to drop dead right here in the churchyard, surrounded by everyone in my life who stresses me out.

“Dad, don’t be an asshole,” said Delia. “Let them have some privacy.”

Karl looked like the fox that had been brought down by a pack of hounds. He looked more defeated now, than he had when they broke up. Burns felt a deep fear inside himself. Maybe this was it. Karl was going to tell everyone.

Here’s where my life ends.

Karl looked around. He met every pair of eyes, one at a time. Then, with a sense of resignation, he nodded. “Okay. Yes. I’ll do that.”

Oh god no.

“I came to apologize to Burns. I didn’t mean for everyone to listen in, but I guess that’s okay too. We’ve been friends for years, but the other night I abused that friendship, and the welcome I’d gotten from his whole family. Mrs. Burns, I know you don’t like me, but you were civil to me when I was a guest, and I repaid you by offending everyone at your table. Reverend Ron, even though you and I have fundamental disagreements, that was neither the time nor the place for me to air them.”

Now he turned to Burns, and took a step closer. His eyes were wet, and he gave Burns such a significant look, like there were a thousand words he wanted to say, but couldn’t.

“Dude, I’m sorry. You were right all along. Actions are more important than beliefs. Blowing up at everybody…” He shrugged. “I’m not a good person. I can’t handle it when people disagree with me. I guess I’m a control freak, and I let it destroy our friendship. I don’t know whether you can forgive me, but I’m sorry.”

The look that passed between them was so freighted with meaning, and yet Burns felt at a loss to translate it all. There was so much he wanted to say. So many questions he wanted to ask.

“Okay,” he said in a strangled voice. “Thank you.”

Karl gave him a pained look, as though he were asking, Is that it? Thank you?

But what else could Burns do?

Finally, Karl nodded. “I’ll leave you to your services, then. Sorry to interrupt.”

He turned and began to walk away.

That’s not what he came here to say. He had something else, but he wasn’t going to say it in front of everybody.

He’s saving me again.

Karl made it two paces before Burns said, “Wait.”

Karl paused, and very slowly turned around.

“Come back. I need to apologize too.”

Burns’s mother sniffed. “I don’t see what you have to apologize for, you weren’t the one who ruined my dinner party.”

Karl returned to their circle. “I’m here,” he said, sounding so lost and small.

Burns swallowed. His throat was bone-dry. Everything in his chest was dry; his heart felt like a dead leaf, fluttering inside his ribs.

“I agree with your mother,” said Reverend Ron. “I don’t see that you have anything to apologize for. Don’t let Satan’s snares fool you, Burns.”

“Too late,” said Burns. “I’m ensnared. But it isn’t by the devil, it’s by Karl.”

His mother looked wary. “What’s that?”

“You want me to spell it out? Karl is my boyfriend, Mom. Or, he was, until the damage you were doing to me at that dinner party, and he tried to save me.”

“I don’t understand!” said his mother.

“What do you mean boyfriend?” said his father.

Karl’s lips were somewhere between a smile and a frown, like he didn’t know which emotion to feel.

“I didn’t really intend to break the news to you in front of church,” Burns said, “but I’m gay.”

“No you’re not, Tommy.”

“Mom, stop. I am.”

She cast a frantic look at the reverend. “Ron, tell him he’s not! Tell him he’s making a mistake.”

“Now Burns,” began the Reverend.

“No. NO,” said Burns, his voice loud enough to echo off the church wall. “My entire life, I have let other people decide this for me. As though it’s a choice, as though it’s a decision someone has to make. It isn’t. I am gay, I have been gay, I’m always gonna be gay, and Karl is the man I love.”

“Damn,” said Karl. “You know I was totally keeping your secret there, don’t you?”

“I’m sick of secrets. I can’t do it anymore. The lies are killing me.”

His mother touched his arm. “But dear, I don’t understand, why didn’t you ever tell us?”

“Tell you? Tell you? You knew! You sent me away to that camp with Reverend Ron, so he could pray the gay away and make me straight again!”

She gasped and stepped back. “I sent you to that camp because you were twenty pounds overweight and so insecure! I sent you to get some sunlight and exercise!”

Burns shook his head. “Wait, what? No, you wanted Ron to convert me. You remember, the parent-teacher conferences, all those talks about me being bullied?”

She turned to his dad for support, and he wrapped an arm around her. “Son, I was there at those conferences,” said his dad. “The teachers were worried because you were getting torn up by those kids. Your grades were dropping, you were sad all the time—”

“I was miserable!” he said.

“But no one said anything about you being gay.”

It was like finding out you had been adopted. Like suddenly discovering something you knew about yourself, something fundamental to your being, was a sham.

Like you had been living one lie, all the time thinking you were living another.

He turned to Reverend Ron. “You knew.”

The pastor nodded. “Of course I did. You see enough boys, you come to realize which ones have…those kind of problems.”

“You tried to cure me of it. You made me feel like there was something wrong with me. Something shameful.”

“We’ve all sinned,” said Ron, “and fallen short of the glory of God. Your sin is a little harder to root out and destroy, but given time, faith and prayer, I’m sure we can—”

“You know, normally this would be a place where I’d interrupt and start arguing,” said Karl. He walked over to Burns and put an arm around his waist, pulling him close. “But I think for once in my life, I’m just going to stand here and be supportive.”

Burns’ mom looked pale and shaky…and upset. “I don’t understand. All this time, you’ve been this way, and you never told us?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Mom. I know what you believe. I wanted you to think I was cured of those sinful impulses, as the reverend would put them.”

“Hurt me? What could hurt me more, than finding out my own boy has been in pain all this time, because he never came to me?”

“Come on, Mom, don’t play the victim here. You would have thrown me out. Disowned me.”

“I never would! I mean, I don’t approve, and I find all this so confusing, I think I need to have a seat.”

“Son, I wish you’d come to us with it years ago,” said his dad. “I don’t care if you’re gay, if you’re straight, or if you’re purple or green. You’ve got my name, my father’s name, and that means you are always my family. Mine, Thomas Burns, no matter what. Now, I’m with your mother, this is going to take some getting used to. But I sure wish you could’ve told us years ago, so we could be used to it by now, now that you have a boyfriend.”

“But why Karl?” cried his mother. “He’s a communist!”

“A Georgist!” insisted Karl. “It’s different! Totally different! The state takes charge of land and natural resource use—”

“Dude, maybe later,” said Burns, squeezing Karl tight.

Karl blushed. “Sorry. Heat of the moment.”

“So…is this it? Did I do the right thing? Can we be together now?”

“I was coming to tell you we had to be together, if you’d take me back. I was going to give you this big speech about giving you all the time you needed…but it’s a speech that would’ve worked better without your parents and preacher listening in.”

“Now Burns,” said Reverend Ron. “You have a decision to make. It’s important, and I want you to listen to me. If you go off with Karl, you will be forsaking God, and the church, and even your family. Look at what you’ve done to your mother.”

Burns’ dad got in Ron’s face. “Now you listen to me. You may have a lock on God, and you may rule this church, but you don’t speak for the Burns family. Now we’re going to sit down and figure this all out. Without you. Do you understand me? If I had any idea that you had meddled in my son’s life like that, I would have marched right up and bloodied your nose.”

Ron looked past him, right at Burns. “It’s your choice.”

Burns pulled Karl even tighter. “You’re damn right it’s my choice.”