I Know It's Over by C. K. Kelly Martin Page A

food court, pale and alone. I slid into the seat across from him and plunked my hands down on the table. “Sorry I took so long. Are you eating anything?” He wasn’t, but I didn’t know what else to say. “Do you want me to get you something?”
    “I’m not hungry,” Nathan said into his palm.
    “So can we talk here?” I lowered my voice. “What happened?”
    “I got tired of being chickenshit so I told him the truth and…” Nathan scanned the immediate area. He rested his head in his hands, his fingers hooked around his ears. “He said that it was just a phase, like an experimental thing that would pass. I told him it wasn’t like that—that I’d always been this way, as long as I could remember.”
    “As long as you can remember,” I repeated. “Like when you were six?”
    “Always,” he confirmed. “Before I even thought of what it was called. I always knew there was something different.” I nodded encouragingly, thinking of the two of us at eleven, skateboarding at the park, and of him knowing, even then. “But he won’t let it be that way. He said he won’t accept that coming from me at sixteen and that he doesn’t want to hear another word about it. He said when I get older and move out, I’ll be able to do whatever I want but not now. His house. His rules.”
    “Maybe he just needs time,” I offered. “It has to be a shock.”
    “It wasn’t a shock to you.” Nathan sighed. “You know how he is, Nick. He thinks it’s weak somehow.” Nathan squinted down at the table, his eyes lined with red, and I knew that we had to get moving before he lost it in the middle of the food court.
    “Come on.” I reached across the table and bumped his arm, reminding him that I was still there. “Let’s go back to my house.”
    “I don’t know.” He looked up at me with shining eyes. “I don’t want to talk to anyone else.”
    “They’ll leave us alone,” I promised. “We’ll hang out in my room. Come on.” I stood first. Nathan rubbed his eyes hard before hauling himself to his feet. I felt drained watching him. I wanted to tell his dad that Nathan was fine the way he was and that he was the one that needed to change. There was way too much macho bullshit going on at Nathan’s house all the time. It made me glad to have my parents. If I told my dad I was gay, he’d probably just look scared and hand over more safe sex money.
    I wondered how Nathan’s mom would’ve reacted. She died of cancer when Nathan was eight and his dad didn’t like to talk about her. I was sure his dad had never sat Nathan down and said, “We need to take a little time to adjust to this as a family.”
    Nathan glanced wearily over at me as he matched my stride. “Thanks,” he said, hunching over like he was bracing against the cold. “I didn’t know what to do.”
    Nathan had more friends than anybody I knew. There were so many people he could’ve called, but maybe he wasn’t sure they’d understand. I wasn’t sure I understood one hundred percent either, but I knew I’d be there no matter what.
    He’d do the same for me. He always has.

 
    nine
    Nathan ended up staying with us for four days. Mom made him call his house and leave a message about where he was and it took Nate’s dad three days to phone back. They had a huge fight over the phone and Nathan said he wouldn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t and hung up. His dad came with the car the next day. My mom put her arm around Nathan’s shoulders and asked if he would at least try to talk to his father. Nathan’s dad had dark shadows under his eyes and he spoke to Nate alone in the kitchen. They left together forty-five minutes later.
    When I asked Nathan what’d happened, he said, “He told me he loved me. He never says that.”
    “What about his rules?”
    “I don’t know,” he replied. “He just said the most important thing was that I come home.”
    Sasha came over once while Nathan was with us. He told her everything that