I pushed the buzzer in the building’s tiny foyer and when a very-healthy sounding Suze asked “Yes?” I told her, “It’s me, let me up.” To which she said, “I don’t think it’s you. You would have said ‘it is I.'” and a pause. “Look, Kerry, I really don’t feel well.” Her voice had changed. Now it was husky. In a bad way. I said, “Suze, I drove all the way down here, wandered the streets for ages to find a place to park, to speak to you. Let me up.” I heard the buzzer and pushed the door open. I climbed the flight to her second-floor Apartment. Her door was ajar.
As I said, I’d never been there. It was big. Not “Friends” big, more like Meg-Ryan’s-place-in-“You’ve Got Mail” big. There was a nice living room with a curved window overlooking the street and a small kitchen. And two bedrooms off the hall heading to the back. Suze was sitting in the middle of the sofa, and I sat in one of the chairs across the coffee table.
“I really don’t feel well,” she said. She didn’t look well, paler than I was used to.
“Suze, tell me what’s going on. You look kind of drowned out but I don’t think it’s physical. Talk to me.”
“You’re the last person I can talk to.”
That hurt and I think she saw me wince.
“No, no, no. It’s not you.”
“Then what is it?”
She paused, took a breath, and after a moment’s thought her eyes became steely. Staring at me she said, “I’m gay.”
I’ve always hated myself for this, but all I could say, at least all I DID say was, “You can’t be” and, worse, I shook my head and covered my eyes. “I thought we were friends…You can’t be like that.”
When I looked again her eyes were blank. I wasn’t ready for what she said and I don’t know why I said what I said, but to her was I no better than her father?
She got up. Walked to the door. Opening it she was direct: “Just fucking leave.”
And I did.
Suze: Two Seconds
Bitch.
I’d bared my soul to this woman. I had never told anyone, not even my Aunt, not even Annie, that I was gay. I did not know whether I would ever tell anyone else except maybe someone else I fell for in some sleazy lesbian dive. I needed to come out to her and it revolted her. I revolted her. Not only would I not learn whether she had any feelings for me, I found that her only feeling when I exposed myself to her was repulsion.
I ignored her calls and did not respond to her texts. Kerry hadn’t told my Aunt because when Aunt Mary called she did not say anything about it and I got away with telling her that I was too busy preparing for the Spring Term to focus on anything else. That was not true. I wouldn’t have to think about school until late January when classes resumed.
I did speak to Annie. She sensed that something was off but did not push it. Even when she came back from Mill Valley she knew enough to give me space, although she did drag me out to a few get-togethers with her friends. At that point, I did not think I had any friends of my own.
Given the drop-off in my course-load after the first term, I started running more in the Park; it was all of 100 yards from my front door. Even when it snowed heavily, the Park Drive was cleared within a day, and in January I did at least one six-mile loop each morning at about nine and longer ones on the weekends.
I’d never been a big Facebook user but I deleted my account, doubting that any of my “Facebook friends” would notice. I did not have a lot of non-Facebook friends so save for Annie I was lonely. She knew that I was cratering and tried to get me to go out with her on weekends, but I always bowed out, pleading school work. I never mentioned Kerry.
No matter what I was doing, I was thinking of Kerry. I knew she wanted to apologize and I knew I would have to deal with her when classes began, but I was gutted. I wouldn’t listen. Fucking child. I was just a fucking, spoiled child.
Kerry: Conflicts
I said that Suze did not have a mean bone in her body and that that’s one of the things I loved—yes I use that word—about her. But sometimes I thought I had been premature in my assessment. I fucked up, okay. She came out to me and afterward I realized that she probably had not come out to anyone before and might not ever again. And what if she wanted me?
I, in that one, most important moment of my life, failed. I failed her and I failed myself. I am not an idiot and I knew there were plenty of gay people around. Hell, I had often met and had dinner with Mary and Betty, a lesbian couple with kids.
And yet.
I had “just met” them. They weren’t my friends. They weren’t my best friend. I wasn’t their best friend and I knew that that’s what I was to Suze. I reacted and I reacted badly. The most important moment of my life and I reacted badly.