Becky says to stay away. That sometimes wanting is better than having—whatever that means—and I’m starting to wonder if what works for her and Andy is really what will work for me.

And no way am I asking Connor.

I take the subway to West 4th and then get off and grab the uptown train, heading home without even leaving the station.

Not good to be too overeager, but I spend a whole week second-guessing myself, anyhow.

James says to ask Gabriel for his phone number. James says to give him mine.

James says that I’m driving him up the wall by looking at the clock and pacing through the days. I ask him what I’m going to do if Gabriel calls and my dad is the one to pick up the phone.

James chews his lip. What did Connor do? he asks.

I glare at him and say, Well, yeah, look how that turned out.

Becky is working her way through a pack of clove cigarettes. When I tell her she might think about cutting back, she says, I don’t really smoke them. Sometimes I just light them like incense, and sometimes I just kind of suck on them for the flavor. I used to smoke them, but they made my gums bleed, and my mom was getting mad at me, so I stopped.

Now that Mom’s using again, I don’t really care what she thinks, she says. But I still don’t really smoke them.

I never ask Connor about his phone call with my mother, and I don’t ask why he’d need a loan because my brother is, I guess, entitled to some privacy. Instead, I catch him midbite at our Wednesday dinner and ask, Did you ever think about just sitting down and telling Mom and Dad you were gay instead of being such a drama queen about it and pulling that stunt at graduation?

Are you high? he sputters.

I wish, but no.

Connor puts his burger back on his plate and takes a deep breath. Okay, he says. Just for shits and grins, let’s walk through this. I could have called a family meeting, but Mom would have cried and Dad would have dragged me to my room and pulled out my suitcase and shoved all sorts of useless crap in it while telling me I was a waste of plasma. Then he would have thrown both me and the suitcase out the door and told me not to come back.

Isn’t that what happened, anyhow? I ask.

Yeah, he says and shrugs. But at least this way, I had witnesses.

I met someone, I tell Connor, to see how the words feel in my mouth, to make it real.

Boy or girl, he asks, his face shoved into the menu as if he hasn’t been reading it since he was thirteen.

His name is Gabriel, I say.

Connor explodes in a laugh. Like the angel? he asks. Like the one that blows…

Stop, I cut him off before he takes the joke to where I know he’s going, because I don’t think “trumpet” is what he has in mind, and Connor never did learn to keep his voice down in public.