The State of Us by Shaun David Hutchinson

Author:Shaun David Hutchinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Dre

DEAN WASN’T WHO I thought he was, and maybe the problem was that I’d already decided who I thought he was before I’d given him the chance to tell me. So, pretty much, maybe the problem was me. I would’ve given the finger to anyone who’d tried to tell me they knew who I was, especially since I was still working it out for myself. I felt like an asshole, and I kind of deserved it. I had never been worried what my parents would think when I came out. It was such a non-event for me that it barely registered as anything more than another day. But Dean was marinating in that fear, even if he didn’t want to admit it. He wanted to believe his mom was a good person, but he was also scared she wouldn’t accept him. That kind of doubt could tear a person apart.

Despite his buttoned-up and polished exterior, Dean was kind of a mess. It made me think back to all the things I’d said to him about being uptight or emotionally closed off or whatever, and I felt like a jerk. I’d had no idea what he’d been going through because I hadn’t taken the time to ask.

And it might seem shallow compared to the other stuff we talked about, but Dean had also blown my mind with his revelation that he’s had crushes on guys. On guys like me. In the span of an hour, the possibility Dean could be into me the way I was into him had gone from dim and distant to a pretty solid maybe, and I had no clue how to react. The part of me that Mel was worried about wanted to spill my feelings right on the floor of Newbury Comics and rub Dean’s face in them, but I didn’t because everything was still so raw. He’d built a bridge by bringing me to the closest thing to a church for me, and I was pretty sure shoving my feelings in his face would’ve caused his head to swell and explode in a cloud of confetti.

But the problem that was really messing me up was wondering if we’d even be good together. I know, I know, I was getting way ahead of myself, but it’s like in tenth grade when I was totally in love with Wesley Anders. I wrote a million awful poems about him and forced Mel to read every single one. Finally, she was like, “What would you even do if he liked you back? You’re a flamboyant extrovert, he’s a bully. You practically have a different outfit for every hour of the day, he’s been wearing the same pair of corduroy pants since school started. You like comic books, he likes beating up people who like comic books.”

I’d fallen hard for Wesley because we’d had English together and he’d been nice to me once, probably because he wanted to copy my homework, but it never would’ve worked. Dean could be another Wesley situation.

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