Page 6 of Exchanged

My unmade bed hunkers in one corner beneath the slanted vault of the ceiling, a shaft of light from the window playing across the bedspread I’ve had since I was ten. My oboe lies across the chair next to my Casio keyboard, piles of sheet music resting on a nearby music stand. My laptop is open nearby, the composition software still on its screen, filled with my half-finished homework for the online music theory class I’m taking. There are no music theory classes at Irontown High School—we barely have enough people for a full band—but Mr. Campbell helped me enroll in the online class through a community college downstate.

“You’re into music?” Garrett asks.

“A little,” I say, which is an understatement. People at school think I’m a band geek. People in band think I’m an oboe geek. People really close to me know I spend a lot of time at this keyboard, improvising my own music. But I’ve never told anyone that I want to be a professional composer, writing film or video game soundtracks one day.

I would never share this secret that burns in my gut. I don’t need anyone else to confirm that I’m not good enough to make it in the cutthroat music industry, to remind me of the sacrifices required. The nearest college with a film composition program is six hours away. In order to attend, I would need to trade this real, tangible home for an improbable dream. It feels uncomfortable having Garrett this close to that part of me.

His eyes continue scanning the room. The evening light makes it hard to tell if they’re gray or blue. They come to rest on the rainbow flag pinned to the ceiling above my bed.

“Huh,” he says.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t just huh at my pride flag and not say anything.”

“It’s just … Is your dad cool with you being gay?”

“Who says I’m gay?” I ask.

I’m very gay.

He points at the flag. “I just thought—”

“Having a pride flag doesn’t make me gay.”

“No straight dude I know has a pride flag above his bed.” He looks me over. “And you seem gay.”

“What do you mean, I seem gay?”

He shrugs. “You know, there’s just something about you that’s kind of … gay.”

“Please,” I say, gesturing at myself with my open palm, “tell me what about this strikes you as obviously gay.” I regret the statement immediately, realizing I don’t want to hear him list all the stereotypes I fit into.

He holds up both hands. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to piss you off. It’s just that my gaydar is usually not wrong.”

“You say shit like this to people often?”

“No.”

“Just me, then.”

“Look, man,” he says in that infuriating, chill-out-bro tone that straight guys use, “I’m just trying to get to know you.”

“By asking how my dad feels about my sexuality?”

If he were Davit from Tbilisi, I might tell him about coming out to Dad a few years ago. How I’d blurted it out while he was sorting a pile of old records that needed shelving, fanned out on the floor around him, a rainbow of vinyl album covers. He didn’t say anything, just hugged me while I cried. And the next day that pride flag showed up outside my bedroom door.

I’m so damn lucky.

I don’t say these things now. Someone like Garrett wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have to worry about being accepted.

He doesn’t back down. “Irontown’s a small town and everything, so I wondered—”

“Wondered what?” I ask.

“What it’s like to be gay in a backward place like this.”