My chest tightened again from what I wanted to say next. My sexuality had not come up again since that conversation with Tsehay. Elias finding out I was gay had not changed much between us, and I imagined it was partly because we’d steered clear of it since that day. Even after we finished Aristotle and Dante, he’d just commented on how much he’d liked it without going into much detail. But for some reason, tonight I wanted to push. Hear what he really thought about that part of me. It was stupid and selfish to put him in an awkward position like this, but it seemed vital to know he was okay with that part of me too. “I also struggle with how much of my personal life I have to keep under wraps while I’m overseas.”

Elias pulled back then, his back straightening, and I could see his shoulders tense. He opened his mouth once, then closed it again, looking a little panicked. Immediately I felt ashamed of hijacking the conversation and making it about me.

I shook my head and took a big gulp of my beer. “I totally took over this conversation. We were talking about you. It sounds like you’re not sure if you want to go. Would you come back after you’re finished?”

Elias raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands in a gesture of concession before he answered, “You just said a lot of things I would like to hear more about, but I will let you get away with changing the subject.” It was like he could see right through me. “And yes, I am conflicted. I know it’s an amazing opportunity, and I would be foolish not to take it, but I’m scared leaving will make it hard for me to come back, and the idea of not returning feels like I’d be betraying my country…and myself.”

My impulse was to minimize, say something like don’t put all that on yourself or it’s your life and you do what you need to. But then I thought about my own struggle. I knew very well that deciding between what made me happy and disappointing those I loved could sometimes feel insurmountable. When I looked at the lines around his mouth, I saw the tension this conversation was bringing up for him. Elias would get my struggle better than most; his own was very close to mine. That realization made me feel more understood than I had in a very long time. “That’s a really big burden to carry.”