Page 9 of Open Water
The words just came. I hadn't planned them. Hadn't rehearsed them the way I rehearsed everything else. They sat on the table between us next to the ketchup and the napkin dispenser and Ethan's half-eaten fries.
He didn't look surprised. "Okay."
"Not tomorrow. But I'm done, Ethan. All of this. It only has power because I'm hiding. If I just... stop hiding, what's left? My father finds out? The texter exposes me? Expose what? If I'm already out, there's nothing to expose."
Ethan was watching me. It wasn't a teasing look or a protective one. It was something new — like he was seeing a version of me he'd been waiting for.
"That's big," he said.
"I know."
He leaned forward. "But Alex, be smart about this. There's a difference between coming out because you're ready and coming out because you're tired of being blackmailed. One is freedom. The other is letting someone else's pressure make the decision for you."
He was right. There was a version of this where "I want to come out" was just another reaction. Another move on someone else's board.
"Come out because you want to be yourself," Ethan said. "Not because you're sick of your father."
"What if it's both?"
"Then make sure the first reason is louder than the second."
I sat with that. The exhausted part of me wanted to walk into practice tomorrow holding Liam's hand just to watch the whole performance collapse. But Ethan was right — that wasn't freedom. That was a grenade. And grenades didn't just destroy the thing you threw them at. They destroyed everything nearby.
"You know what my cousin James told me?" I said. "Before they cut him off. He said the worst part wasn't losing the money. The worst part was realizing that every relationship he had was conditional. That every person who said they loved him meant they loved the version of him that fit."
Ethan didn't say anything. Just listened.
"I don't want to find out which of my relationships are conditional," I said. "But I think I already know."
"Not all of them."
"No." I looked at him across the booth. "Not all of them."
Ethan grabbed a fry. "For what it's worth, whenever you're ready, I'll be there. Film crew of one. We'll document the whole thing. Call it 'Portrait of a Rich Boy Learning to Be a Person.'"
"Terrible title."
"Working title. I'm open to notes."
I smiled.
The waitress appeared with the check and set it on the table between us.
Ethan grabbed it before I could.
"I got it," I said.
"You got it last time. And the time before that. Let me buy you a burger."
"Fine."
We slid out of the booth. The late afternoon light was coming through the windows at a low angle, catching the dust in the air, turning the checkered floor into something almost warm.
Outside, the air was cold. November settling in. We walked toward campus with our hands in our pockets and our breath making small puffs in front of us. The trees along Main Street were mostly bare now — just a few stubborn leaves holding on, refusing to let go even though the season had already changed.
We talked about smaller things on the walk. His documentary edit was due in two weeks. I told him about the winter training program Hale and Eldridge was building. He complained about his film professor's feedback. On and on until we got to campus where Ethan would head to the Arts building and me back to my dorm.
Ethan stopped. "Alex."
