Two Boys Kissing(3)

Ryan walks into the prom, and then Avery walks in ten minutes later. We know what’s going to happen. We have witnessed this scene so many times before. We just don’t know if it will work, or if it will last.

We think of the boys we kissed, the boys we screwed, the boys we loved, the boys who didn’t love us back, the boys who were with us at the end, the boys who were with us beyond the end. Love is so painful, how could you ever wish it on anybody? And love is so essential, how could you ever stand in its way?

Ryan and Avery do not see us. They do not know us, or need us, or feel us in the room. They don’t even see each other until about twenty minutes into the prom. Ryan sees Avery over the head of a thirteen-year-old boy in (it’s true, so gay) rainbow suspenders. He spots Avery’s hair first, then Avery. And Avery looks up at just that moment and sees the blue-haired boy glancing his way.

Some of us applaud. Others look away, because it hurts too much.

We always underestimated our own participation in magic. That is, we thought of magic as something that existed with or without us. But that’s not true. Things are not magical because they’ve been conjured for us by some outside force. They are magical because we create them, and then deem them so. Ryan and Avery will say the first moment they spoke, the first moment they danced, was magical. But they were the ones—no one else, nothing else—who gave it the magic. We know. We were there. Ryan opened himself to it. Avery opened himself to it. And the act of opening was all they needed. That is the magic.

Focus in. The blue-haired boy leads. He smiles as he takes the pink-haired boy’s hand. He feels what we know: The supernatural is natural, and wonderment can come from the most mundane movement, like a heartbeat or a glance. The pink-haired boy is scared, so incredibly scared—only the thing you’ve most wished for can scare you in that way. Hear their heartbeats. Listen close.

Now draw back. See the other kids on the dance floor. The comfortable misfits, the torn rebels, the fearful and the brave. Dancing or not dancing. Talking or not talking. But all in the same room, all in the same place, gathering together in a way they weren’t allowed to do before.

Draw back farther. We are standing in the eaves.

Say hi if you see us.



Silence equals death, we’d say. And underneath that would be the assumption—the fear—that death equaled silence.

Sometimes you glimpse that horror. When someone close to you gets sick. When someone close to you gets sent to war. When someone close to you takes his or her own life.

Every day a new funeral. It was such a large part of our existence. Imagine being in a school where a student dies every day. Some of them your friends. Some of them just kids who happen to be in your class. You keep showing up, because you know you have to. You become the bearer of memory, and also the bearer of sorrow, until it is your turn to be the one who is gone, the one who is mourned.

You have no idea how fast things can change. You have no idea how suddenly years can pass and lives can end.

Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you have been given.



It is 10:45. Craig Cole and Harry Ramirez are planning their big kiss. There have been months of preparation leading to this kiss, and now here they are, the night before. Most kisses only require two people, but this one will end up needing at least a dozen. None of those other people are in the room right now. It’s just Craig and Harry.

“Are we really going to do this?” Craig asks.

“We most certainly are,” Harry replies.

They know they need their sleep. They know it’s a big day tomorrow. They know there’s no backing down, and also no guarantee that they’ll make it.

They should be going to sleep, but good company is the enemy of sleep. We remember this feeling so acutely—the desire to linger away the hours with someone else, talking or holding or even just watching a movie. In those moments, the clock seems arbitrary, since you are setting your understanding of time to another, more personal measure.

They are at Harry’s house. His parents are out for the night, the dog already asleep. Because the house feels theirs, the world feels theirs. Why would you want to close your eyes to that?

They are at Harry’s house because Craig’s parents can’t know about the kiss. At some point they will. But not now. Not before it’s happened.

Eventually Harry will leave Craig curled on the couch. He will tuck Craig in, then tiptoe back to his own room. They will be in separate places, but they will have very similar dreams.

We miss the sensation of being tucked in, just as we miss the sensation of being that hovering angel, pulling the blanket over his shoulders, wishing him a sweet night. Those are the beds we want to remember.

We are excited for the kiss tomorrow. We don’t see how they can do it, but we are hoping they will.



Pink-haired Avery was born a boy that the rest of the world saw as a girl. We can understand what that’s like, to be seen as something that you are not. But for us it was easier to hide. For Avery, there is a thicker chain of biology to break. At a young age, his parents realized what was wrong. His mother thought that maybe she’d always known, which was why she’d chosen the name Avery—her father’s name, which was going to be given to the baby whether it was a boy or a girl. With his parents’ help and blessing, if not always comprehension, Avery charted a new life, was driven many miles—not to dance or drink, but to get the hormones that would set his body in the right direction. And it’s worked. We look at Avery now and know it’s worked, and appreciate the marvel of it. In our day he would have been trapped by an insurmountable body in an intractable world.