Gay. He had to accept the word and the fact. It was his nature, he had to stop denying. Remembering the times he’d told Ben he never could be attracted to a guy who was gay, which meant, effeminate, or obvious, or flamboyant; which meant honest, open, brave enough to come out of the closet. He hated the idea of being labeled, he had said; he was more than just a gay person, he had said; he wanted to be attracted to a man for what the man was, he had said. So much crap he had said. The conviction had swum up through his thinking during the awful summer, in the echo of Mrs. Nickelsen’s death, when Ben was God knows where. If he was too afraid for people to know he was gay, then what did that mean about his character? What hope could he have? Doomed to be obsessed with straight boys. Doomed to nothingness. But even that wasn’t fair. Because he had no idea what had been inside Ben. Because he had no idea what was happening to Ben right now. Silence told him nothing, after all.

Never mind all that, though. He was gay. He came to the meeting. The association was three or four years old by then, and there had always been a lot of ugly stuff said about it, articles in The Tar Heel, snide comments from students, a debate over student government funding, all the things you would expect. But here he was, and here were these other people—maybe twenty, mixed men and women. They were arguing about the group’s purpose, its identity. Did “gay” include women? Were black students as welcome as everyone else? A discussion that went round and round. Some of the boys looked sissy in an exaggerated way. But that might just have been the way he was seeing them. Others just looked like boys. Same contrast with the girls. A room full of people.

A guy named Judson was sitting near Ronny. During a break he tried to talk. What year was Ronny? What was he studying? “I think we had a class together,” he said. “Shakespeare? Last fall.”

“Oh, right. Maybe. I don’t remember you.”

“I remember you.” The guy was smiling. Maybe he liked Ronny. Maybe he was trying to start something. “You raised your hand and talked some, nobody else did. When we were reading that King Lear play.”

“I liked that one. That poetry.”

“Yeah, pretty creepy. Ripping that guy’s eyes out.” He moved toward Ronny by one seat, leaned toward him. “You been coming to this group for long?”

“Second time.”

“So you’re not a regular.”

“Nope. I’m just trying to figure stuff out.”

“Yeah.” Judson played his fingers over the chair seat. He had a nice face, regular features, dark skin, dark hair. Lanky and tall. His voice was reedy, and he had an odd laugh—he laughed now, uncomfortable. “Who’s not? Trying to figure stuff out, I mean. Are you out to your family?”