Nate

Katie is holed up in her usual spot at Bean There, surrounded by books and flash cards.

She shoves a set into my hands as soon as I sit down and asks me to quiz her. When she finishes one round, she tells me to quiz her on another.

“You need to take a break,”

I tell her.

“You can talk.”

“I’ll let that go because you’re probably tired and overstimulated.”

I gesture to the empty coffee cups piled up on the table.

“You’re right, I need more coffee.”

“This isn’t a bar, just relax and have something to eat.”

She sighs. “You’re right.”

She orders a panini and a cookie and drinks some water.

“Distract me,”

she says, closing her laptop, “what’s going on with you, and I don’t mean studying.”

“What else would be going on?”

“We need some new friends.”

Katie smiles and I kick her under the table.

“Can you at least get a love life so I can live vicariously through you?”

“You have a love life… sometimes.”

“Stop changing the subject. Any cute guys on the horizon?”

I shake my head and try to push out the image of that bison tattoo and my suspicions of Harrison’s teammate.

“Why are you blushing?”

“I’m not.”

The barista brings Katie’s food over and she starts cutting into her panini.

“, if I thought you were saving your virginity for like, religious purposes or something, I’d back off, but you’re not…”

She’s talking way too loud “be quiet, do you want to ring a bell and announce it to the whole world?”

Katie rolls her eyes, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of, I’m just saying…”

“Well don’t.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Sorry, it’s just… I’m trying, okay?”

“Have you talked to anyone online recently?”

I shake my head. “Not for a while.”

The last time I was chatting with someone, they made it very clear they thought my body and my whole general appearance was a fetish. Like I’m so beyond the realms of normal beauty standards you’d have to have a fetish to want to have sex with me.

“I still think you should let me take you to a gay bar.”

“We’re not 21.”

“You’ve got a good fake ID,”

she flashes me a smile, because she somehow got hold of my student ID picture and gave it to some back-alley scammer to buy it for me.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the problem? Gay bars are fun.”

“For girls maybe, but for me…”

“What?”

It’s a meat market, and one I don’t rank highly in.

I shake my head, “I don’t know, I’m too busy with school.”

Katie sighs dramatically and slumps back in the chair, “you don’t need to kill yourself with studying, you get good grades.”

“Yes, because I kill myself with studying.”

“If you say so smarty pants.”

“Smarty pants, really?”

Now she kicks me under the table.

I want to tell her about maybe seeing our hockey team enforcer - the literal embodiment of the big dumb hockey player, with a bonafide chipped tooth, a nose that’s probably been broken a few times, a shaved head and too many muscles – on a gay dating app. But it feels like a betrayal. Even if Katie didn’t tell a soul, which she wouldn’t if I asked her not to, there has to be some code with these things right? Like alcoholics anonymous. No, not alcoholics anonymous, being gay isn’t anything like being an alcoholic.

“I know you’re hiding something from me,”

Katie says. “It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, I don’t care.”

When she talks like that, she reminds me of my mom. She’s an expert at that passive aggressive, guilt-tripping thing.

I have a two-hour lecture for my engineering major and a calculus class right after, so I load up on caffeine and sugar before the lecture and get ready to take a ton of notes.

There are times when I’m sitting in the lecture hall, listening to someone who is an expert in their field teaching me everything they know, and I remind myself that I should take a second to enjoy this. This is what I’ve fantasised about for years. College. Being in a room full of my peers. But all I feel during these lectures and classes is anxiety. There’s always a deadline. Always a grade to chase. Your life ruled by letters posted in an email with the heading Assignment Results.

For years at school, I thought I was the smartest person in my grade.

Not that I was gifted or born with academic talents.

I knew if I was smart, it was because I’d studied harder than anyone else and worked for it.

I was valedictorian of my senior high-school year, and though I’d never say it out loud, I thought I was going to get into every school I applied for.

So when M.I.T rejected me, I thought there’d been a mistake, and was probably one of hundreds of poor saps calling the admissions office to make sure there hadn’t been an administrative error and they’d switched my acceptance letter with someone else’s rejection.

I’ll never forget the secretary’s pitying voice on the phone when she informed me there had been no mistake.

I just didn’t get in.

My professor talks at the head of the lecture hall and I frantically take notes whilst simultaneously trying to listen.

After calculus, I go straight back home to eat something before studying some more.

Mom’s home from Pilates and orders me to sit at the kitchen table while she makes me a sandwich.

She’s still wearing her yoga pants and matching top and looks way too put-together for someone who just did a work-out. I haven’t done physical activity since I was forced to do gym class at school, but I still remember how red my face would get and how my hair would get all sweaty and stick up.

Mom’s platinum hair is still in its perfect ponytail and her make-up looks like she just applied it fresh.

She hums to herself as she spreads butter on two pieces of bread before asking if I want cheese, pastrami or both.

I’m not going to lie, it is nice having someone take care of you when you’re exhausted and I’m so useless at cooking, I could even fuck up a sandwich.

Mom makes it just right, putting little pickles and mayonnaise on top before sliding it across the table to me. She’s the only person who doesn’t tell me I’m too skinny, but I think I see it in her eyes sometimes and the way she slathers on the full-fat mayo she never eats herself.

I have my calculus books out and she snatches them off me and says, “food first, then books.”

Doesn’t she know how much work I have to do? She’s my mother. She should be encouraging me to read instead of taking books away from me, but I know that face, and there’s no point in arguing with it.

She takes a seat and watches me as I eat. I draw the line at her tucking my hair behind my ear and ask her to back off.

“Sorry,”

she holds her hands up in surrender. “I just love having you home.”

“I live here.”

“I know, but you’re always at class, or up in your room studying. And your brother’s always at practise, or away playing exhibition games in Europe.”

Yes, that was tough on her this summer. As much as she fusses over me, we all know Harrison is the golden boy. There was a point where my homework got too complicated for her to understand, but she’ll always know how to talk to Harrison about what he loves.

“How’s school?” she asks.

“Fine.”

She rolls her eyes, “I thought you’d stop these one-word answers when you turned 20.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not a teenager anymore.”

She watches me chew and the silence in the room is too much.

“It’s hard,” I say.

She leans forward and frowns, a pose I think she learnt from her therapist. I wait for her to say something therapy-like, but thankfully she doesn’t.

“But it’s worth it,”

I say, “all the studying, it will be, when I graduate.”

Mom nods. She doesn’t say it, and maybe she’s not even thinking it, but I hear, and then what?

“You’re so smart ,”

she says, “I’ve never had to worry about you.”

She looks at me and something flickers in her eyes. I think I see what she’s thinking. Me lying in bed for weeks after being rejected by my dream college. Did she worry about me then? I remember her trying to bring me sandwiches. Trying to force me to eat. I feel bad for putting her through that.

I smile, “you don’t have to mom,”

I say, “I’m fine.”

“Good, now you just need a nice boyfriend and it’ll be perfect.”

“Mom, please.”

“What? You’re such a handsome boy, I don’t understand why you’re still single.”

Thankfully, I’ve finished eating. I bring my plate to the sink and rinse it with my back turned.

“Don’t ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you mom, I just don’t have time to date.”

“Your brother dates.”

I snort. Harrison does not date, he fucks puck bunnies at frat parties, there’s a difference. I can’t say that to my mom.

“Harrison’s the captain of the hockey team.”

“So what?”

I almost point to my own skinny body and tell her, and I look like this, but I couldn’t bear to see the sad look on her face, or the long, drawn-out hug she’d subject me to as she stroked my hair and told me how beautiful I am. Having boys was definitely wasted on my mom.

“So… socialising is part of his thing, and he doesn’t have to get the grades I do, he’s going to be playing in the NHL one day.”

When I turn around, she’s beaming with pride and something sinks in my stomach. I don’t have any logical reason to be jealous of Harrison. I can’t think of anything worse than playing ice hockey as a career. Getting beat up as part of my job? No thanks. And yet…

“Can I have my books back now?”

Mom squints like she’s thinking about refusing.

“I ate something,”

I remind her.

She hands them back with a sigh, “just don’t work too hard okay? Take breaks. Do that pomodoro thing.”

I suppress an eye roll, “okay, I will.”

Pomodoro is for slackers.