He turns to me and tilts his head. His eyes, though, stare beyond me, his thoughts clearly dwelling somewhere else. “You know, Callum used to say all the time that he would never leave Vermont or my parents’ farm because all he ever needed was right there.”

And there it is: Callum. His parents. They’re Jack’s ghosts. We haven’t really gone deep about his family or Callum and coming out to them, because every time I bring it up, he changes the subject. It goes something like this:

Jack: “Callum was just telling me about this ridiculous thing my dad did at work today, and I’m dying, it’s so funny. I really miss them.”

Me: “I’d love to meet them. Tell me more about Callum.”

Jack: “Do you like Skittles? I love Skittles.”

He’s told me that Callum is the only person who has ever gotten him, is an important relationship, yet he says coming out to him would be “complicated.”

“What do you think?” I ask. “Can everything you need be in one place, the only real place you’ve ever known?”

He sucks in a sharp breath.

Fuck. I’ve pushed too far.

Jack’s story revolves around his parents and siblings and Callum, how they’re his best friends, yet he writes poems about his family not understanding him and brings them up in reflective moments like these when I challenge him.

Is it possible for both of those things to be true at once? Rae tells me, “That just means he’s a writer,” and as an artist, I get it. Sort of. I think about my own father and how I’ve never been able to call him a best friend or a friend at all, but at least he’s cool with who I am. It makes me wonder what space I occupy in Jack’s mind. Maybe I’m just a way for Jack to help prepare himself for the winter ahead. Am I the skin he’ll have to shed, the warmth he’ll seek during hibernation, or his spring awakening?

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.” Guilt rattles in my chest.

“You didn’t,” he says. “It’s just a bit difficult for me to talk about my life back home. It’s not that it’s bad or anything, it’s just … hard to describe, and it shouldn’t be, but it is.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“For now, I want to just keep you here,” he adds, and it sort of feels like a deliberate separation of church and state, but I don’t challenge him on that. “You’re something sacred, like a hymn.”