He shakes his head. “Only partially. My parents found out I’m gay, yes. One of my mom’s neighbors saw me coming out of some building with a guy, must have seen me kiss him or something, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Pops called me a faggot. Told me to change or get out.

“But that’s not all. I saw my mom in the store a few weeks ago. We were polite—Mom is always polite. I offered to help her with the groceries. She accepted, and we went to her car. She even gave me some money, said, ‘Based on how you’re looking, you need it.’ When in fact, what I needed was a mother who cared about me.”

He sighs, and I can tell he wants to stop. But he also wants—no, needs—to keep going.

“I asked her, you know. Why she let him kick me out. Why she didn’t fight for me. You know what her answer was? She told me it was because everything about me disgusted her. And if it wasn’t who I slept with, then it would be something else. My political views, my profession, the fact that I don’t support the war. She was ashamed of everything about me.

“So I left. Stormed out of the parking lot and never looked back.”

I reach up and squeeze Michael’s shoulder. He doesn’t lean into it, but he doesn’t tense either.

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

“It’s not your fault I left.”

“No,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry that it happened to you.”

He shrugs and takes another drag, a shaky one. “Just promise me that it gets better. Promise me that you’re not a fluke, that there are many queer guys like us being proud and thriving and, you know…existing.”

I don’t even have to hesitate this time. “I promise.”

“You lying?”

“Does it matter if I am? You might not be alive to know.”

Michael shoves me hard, hard enough for me to lose my footing. Once I regain it, I push him back.

“Hey! Who’s to say I won’t be alive in…fifty-one years? I’ll be what, seventy? That’s not that old!”

“Keep smoking like that, and you won’t be!”

Michael hesitates, looking at the half-smoked cigarette in his hand, and stomps on it twice. “There, now you’re stuck with me, even in the future. You’re going to regret saving my life fifty years from now, Andre Cobb from Boston.”

“Leave that decision up to me, Michael Gray from Boston.”

Michael’s brow furrows. “Does that really sound as pretentious when I say it as it does when you say it?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Note to self: stop saying that.”