The night Maksim told me he knew me was the first day of my new life. The acceptance I received from him was more powerful than I could have imagined it would be. It was validation I hadn’t realized I’d needed, and he’d given it so eagerly. While I had once believed it was Cal’s kisses that set me free, I became aware after coming forward to my cousin that I had never been truly liberated until that moment. A secret I had locked away in the deepest cavities of my soul had been unchained and laid out in the center of the living room and, miraculously, I remained in one piece. It was as if I had thought as soon as someone found out about my interest in fellows, I would be less of a man than I’d been before; my body would be pulled apart, pillaged of its testosterone, and slapped back together a broad. I thought it would change me, as if uttering the admission would somehow alter who I had always been, shifting me into someone new, someone I’d never known and wasn’t sure I would ever want to. I had feared I would be treated differently, looked at oddly, and regarded softly, but Maks hadn't done anything of the sort. Everything was the way it had been, yet I was not.

For as long as I could remember, I had never felt settled. Whether it was cranking my neck to look over my shoulder or straining the muscles in my fist trying to hold onto a man I’d known would leave, I had constantly dealt with the pain of anticipating the next awful event. Telling Maksim about Cal, about me, marked the only time I hadn’t looked forward or back. I’d stayed in the minute and hadn’t feared the hour to come. I was just there with Maks as me, and he didn’t expect anything more or less. What had made it all so impactful was that there had been no impact. I was wholly me, and I didn’t like or hate myself more than I had in the days before.

Knowing Cal as well as I did, I had predicted that I would hear from him on Independence Day, and I was pleased as a peach when he proved me right.

“Is today the day of your Emancipation Proclamation?” Cal asked as soon as I’d picked up the phone.

“I miss you,” I whispered, allowing my lips to brush the mouthpiece.

“I miss you too,” he said, but I could hear that his question lingered on the line.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” he questioned, the sound of his sharp inhale telling me when he got it. “Yes.”

“I was worried you wouldn’t call.”

“But you knew I would, didn’t you? What better day to push you toward liberation? What better day than this one to hope for fireworks?”