Between These Walls

by John Herrick

  “I think we have that in common, the not-relating thing. Somewhere along the way, I found a way to downplay it and act like my peers, but I always sensed the disparity.”

  Gabe grinned. “So we’re similar, only different.”

  “Looks that way,” Hunter chuckled.

  “Of course, the fact that my interests were different from other guys didn’t help my cause, either. A lot of guys aren’t interested in drama or aren’t comfortable with it.”

  Hunter thought for a moment. “When did you sense you were different from other guys? What made you feel like you didn’t fit into everyone’s normal box?”

  “I discovered early on that I had no interest in sports. That was key for me. That’s when I realized I had no chance of fitting in, at least not completely.”

  “What didn’t you like about sports? Not that it matters today, but I’m curious.”

  “Some of the sports that guys play are physically rough—football, hockey. The idea of getting battered around or knocked in the teeth didn’t appeal to me. And when it came to the other sports like baseball or basketball—well, no offense, but I didn’t see it as a game. I saw it as throwing a ball back and forth. That didn’t fascinate me at all. So, since I didn’t have an interest in those activities, I never practiced or became good at them. That exacerbated the problem, because all it did was make the difference more obvious.

  “I enjoyed the idea of life, the things that make people who they are, and wanted to explore those things instead. When you’re a young kid in elementary school or middle school, and all the guys you know take off to play ball every chance they get, that leaves you with female company most of the time. Eventually, the other guys don’t know how to relate to you, and it leaves you isolated. So in the end, you just want to be accepted. Between that and a dad who died in combat before you got a chance to know him, you just want someone—someone who knows what it’s like to be you—to wrap his arm around you and let you know you’re … well, that you’re loved. That you’re wanted.”

  “And you never felt wanted?”

  Gabe thought for a moment. “Every time you overhear someone use a slur like ‘faggot’ or ‘homo’ or whatever, even if it’s in jest and they don’t mean it, even if they’re talking about someone else, it reminds you that you don’t fit in. It reminds you of how solitary you feel inside. It reminds you that you’ll never fully relate to your peers; you’ll never be cared about first, then talked to later. So you get used to being alone.”

  Hunter recalled the slurs he’d heard on countless occasions. To escape all risk of suspicion from his peers, Hunter himself had uttered those slurs in jest. Yet each time, regardless of who spoke, the words had cut through his flesh and reopened the wounds in his heart. Those words and the motives behind them had pushed him farther into his corner of fear.

  As Gabe spoke, Hunter realized that he and Gabe did share one quality in common: Both knew the pain of traveling through life lonely on the inside.

  “Didn’t you feel like drama was a match for you, though?” Hunter asked. “I saw you perform only once, but I remember how good you were at it.”

  “I loved it from day one. And I was never shy,” Gabe chuckled. “In fact, drama held a special irony: Growing up, when I tried joining in soccer or some sport just to relate, or those situations like gym class, where you’re forced to play, I felt like I was on a stage for everyone to see and find humor in my inability, or in maneuvers they took for granted in themselves but saw absent in me. Drama gave me a stage—literally—where I could excel.”

  “A place to play to your strengths.”

  “And to my personality.”

  Their server returned with their entrées, then refilled their water glasses. After asking if he could bring anything else, Hunter and Gabe declined, and the server made the rounds with his other tables as the restaurant grew more populated.

  Hunter and Gabe prayed over dinner and took their first bites. Hunter glanced at Gabe, who appeared deep in thought as he twirled a shrimp in circles with his fork. Taking inventory of those around them, Hunter noticed a woman who sat with her husband a few tables away. When Hunter shifted his head in her direction, he could have sworn she’d stared at him and turned her head abruptly. He wondered if the woman could tell he and Gabe felt attracted to each other. Did she recognize their dinner as the date it was? Or did they look to her like two buddies?

  Next, his eyes darted toward one corner of the room, where his server chatted a few moments with a female server. Each glanced in Hunter and Gabe’s direction for a second, caught his glance, then broke eye contact. The female server pursed her lips, angled her chin toward the ceiling, and shook her head before checking on one of her tables. Had Hunter and Gabe kidded themselves by thinking nobody would recognize what was going on here?

  Hunter almost didn’t ask his next question, but he believed the answer might bring a degree of comfort. He dropped his volume a notch.

  “Did you ever try to … escape your interest? In other guys, I mean. Like, did you ever try to get, I don’t know …”

  “Cured?”

  “Is that the best way to put it?”

  “I don’t know quite how to put it. However I say it, it seems too simple or inaccurate. Unfair, maybe.”

  “Like it doesn’t tell the whole story of what you’re going through,” Hunter said.

  “Exactly.”

  Gabe took a bite of pasta, chewed it slowly as he pondered their discussion further. Once he swallowed, he furrowed his eyebrows in concentration, then speared a shrimp with his fork.

  “I saw a therapist about it,” Gabe finally said.

  Hunter felt his jaw begin to drop but tried to hide his reaction. He hadn’t expected this revelation. He hoped he hadn’t given any signs of surprise that might make Gabe feel awkward. Gabe still appeared in full concentration, though.

  “When?” Hunter asked. “That is, is it okay for me to ask?”

  “You’re okay,” Gabe replied. “It happened two years ago. I’d thought about it back during college, but wanted to keep it private from everyone. So I waited until I was out of school, no longer under my mom’s insurance plan so she wouldn’t know. I didn’t want to break her heart.”

  Hunter found himself enthralled at the idea of therapy. He could only imagine the freedom in letting all your concerns off of your chest, of having someone in whom you could confide without worry of risk.

  “What made you take the step?”

  “It was a combination of things. Same-sex attraction was one of them, plus insecurities that had lingered since childhood. Never knowing my dad too well. All sorts of stuff. But the attraction issue was my biggest concern. I felt bad holding that inside me while I was a Christian. So I figured I had nothing to lose in seeing a therapist. It might do me some good.”

  “Did it help?”

  “It helped to talk about it all. I staked a lot on those therapy sessions, hoping I’d get cured of my attraction to other guys. I wanted to move past it—but then again, maybe part of me didn’t, I don’t know. Maybe it was my own fault. But obviously, here I am, still in the same boat. In the end, after a couple of years of therapy, I ended up so disappointed, I don’t know which felt worse: struggling before therapy, or the pain of going through therapy, then feeling let down—the hopelessness I felt in the months afterward. And maybe still feel today.”

  Hunter nodded as he listened to Gabe’s story, felt his heart go out toward Gabe. Though Hunter himself had never sought therapy, he related to the discouragement that came with trying to escape his inner battle and winding up defeated. How many times had he tried to quit his ‘habit,’ as he’d once called it? How often had he hungered for liberation from the torment, from what felt like invisible slavery, from what felt like aimless wandering at midnight down a long, dark road?

  CHAPTER 24

  “What about you?” Gabe asked as he twirled pasta around the prongs of his fork. “Did you ever try therapy?”
/>   “No,” Hunter replied, sipping his water to buy himself a few beats, “I never did.”

  “Wow.” Gabe’s eyes widened. With a blink, he added, “So when you say you haven’t told anyone, you literally haven’t told anyone. Not even a professional anyone.”

  “It crossed my mind years ago. The load started to feel so heavy, I craved to release it. When I considered talking about it, I was a college student like you, and the church I attended near campus had a counseling ministry. The darkness in my soul got so thick, the thought of finally coming clean and letting someone in on my secret seemed like an oasis in the desert: After all those years fighting, maybe I could get a drink of water. If I could get just one sip, I believed I could make it through.”

  “What happened? Did you make an appointment?”

  As the memory resurfaced, Hunter felt anger rekindle, but he stifled it and allowed forgiveness to settle in, as he had done countless times before.

  “I couldn’t go through with it,” Hunter said. “I was on the verge of calling them up, but then I abandoned the idea—ran as far away from it as I could.”

  “Why?”

  Hunter took a bite of his tilapia. He peered out the window at the lake where, amid the darkness, he noticed lights shining from a boat as it drifted farther from shore, toward the peaceful, endless horizon. He returned his attention to Gabe, who focused on Hunter with eyes of concern. Hunter preferred to let the memory die with the past. Then again, Gabe had confided in him, so he might as well open up, too.

  “I was in the lobby talking to a few other students after the church service ended. I knew them from a Bible study and sat with them at church on Sundays. After we said good-bye, I headed to an information table to find out about an upcoming event. While I scoured the flyers on the table, I overheard two people talking. I recognized one of the women as the lady who worked as the office assistant in the counseling office—staff or volunteer, I don’t know what she was. I didn’t eavesdrop, but you know how, sometimes, you’re so close in proximity that you overhear conversations whether you want to or not? Well, it was one of those situations. I tried to ignore the conversation and find my flyer, but the woman was loud enough for me to hear. And by the time I realized what they were talking about, it was too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “Too late for me to trust that counseling office with my secret. Because of her position, the woman was privy to what was going on in the lives of people who made appointments for help. She was whispering about some man who had called the counseling office the week before, about how the guy had discovered one of his kids was using drugs. The kid’s habit had started to cause problems in the family, and the guy—the father—had run out of ideas. So he’d talked to the office to get general information, maybe schedule a family session, that sort of thing. Maybe the woman had talked to him herself, or maybe she had filed the paperwork and read notes in the file. Whatever happened, she knew specifics about what was going on. Apparently it was a family that had gone to church there a long time and were well-known. And this woman was revealing their secrets behind their backs. I mean, picture that dad: There he was, in the middle of a struggle and at the end of his rope, desperate for help for his family. He’d confided in someone at a church counseling center and trusted them to maintain his privacy. He’d probably shown up to church that day, putting on a brave front, feeling relieved he’d gotten honest and reached out for help, thinking his information had remained confidential. So there he sat in church, thinking nobody knew. Meanwhile, who knows how many people that woman had told, and how many people they had told? For all he knew, while he sat there relieved, people might have been looking at him from all over the room with the knowledge of his private matters.”

  Hunter shook his head. To this day, he marveled at what had happened, that someone entrusted with a ministry of care could behave in such a self-absorbed manner. Had she stopped to think how she would feel if someone had revealed her personal affairs to others?

  Gabe’s eyes revealed a mixture of disappointment and anger. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure not all churches are like that.”

  “You’re right, they’re not. And I realize it’s not necessarily the churches, it’s individuals—bad apples, or whatever the appropriate term. But the thing is, you don’t know which churches or individuals or counseling offices are like that and which aren’t. Once you’ve discovered untrustworthy staffs exist, you don’t know who you can trust. And with an issue so personal and embarrassing—the type people love to gossip and joke about—I shut myself down to that option. One more reason to keep everything hidden. If they can’t keep it private, why would you bother confiding in them? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of confidentiality?”

  “I’d never considered that. To be honest, I can’t say I would’ve responded differently than you.”

  “Can I fill your glass with more water?” came the server’s voice from behind Hunter’s shoulder.

  Hunter’s heart jumped, then he cringed. Had the server overheard anything? No, Hunter realized, if he had approached earlier, Gabe would have seen him coming and peered up.

  Hunter settled again as the server filled their glasses and departed.

  Gabe studied Hunter, as if to reconsider a past remark. “You’ve never told me much about your family. Are you close to them?”

  “I’d say we have an average family relationship. We’re not the tight-knit variety you might see out there, but we’re not strangers, either.” Hunter paused. “I don’t think they understand me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “One factor is my faith. I wasn’t raised in church and, to this day, they’ve never expressed an interest in faith-related things, so I think they wonder about why it’s so important to me.” Not used to opening up to this degree with another person, Hunter set down his fork and began to fidget with his fingers before forcing himself to stop that habit. The sincerity in Gabe’s expression invited Hunter to trust him. “I’ve always felt on the outside with my family. It’s like I never found my place. I was there, but I guess I wasn’t as much a participant as, say, my brother.”

  Creases formed along Gabe’s brow, which prompted Hunter to clarify his remarks.

  “Remember how you mentioned your dad died in combat, so you couldn’t have a relationship with him because he was never around?”

  “Sure.”

  Hunter had never translated his perceptions into words. Now he searched for the best way to describe them. “Well, obviously, your situation was different from mine. But I can relate to not seeing your dad much. My dad traveled a lot—like Kara does—and I rarely saw him during the week, even many weekends.”

  “So you didn’t have much opportunity to interact with him? That would make it difficult to bond with your dad.”

  “The thing is, though, my brother found a way. He and my dad were close—well, closer than I was to Dad.”

  “Did they have similar personalities?”

  “All three of us do. But Bryce, my brother, is eight years older than I am, so while I was a little kid, Bryce had already reached the point where Dad could interact with him on an equal level. And Bryce was a gifted athlete.”

  “It doesn’t seem like athleticism should make a difference.”

  “But with Bryce, Dad had somebody to live through vicariously. You see, Dad was a gifted athlete while growing up, too—a stellar football player in high school. Even when he was in middle school, he’d caught the attention of the high school coach. By his freshman year, he was good enough for varsity, but he was behind other players in his growth, so the coach kept him on the junior varsity team, where he excelled. According to the coach’s plan, he would be their star player at that level, then by his junior year, when he’d grown bigger, they would advance him to varsity. Everyone could see he’d go on to play in college and maybe have a shot at the professional level.” Hunter paused, then added, “But that never happened. He never played varsity,
never played college ball.”

  “Why not?”

  “He calls it his career-ending injury. During one game his sophomore year, another guy tackled him illegally. Dad hit the ground hard, and at the wrong angle. Blew out his knee. He went through rehab for it, tried everything he could, but his knee never recovered well enough to avoid the risk of it shattering on him. He never played again. And if you think about it, you need your knees for almost every sport, so he didn’t try anything else. He could play on a casual basis but not on a team level. And that was Dad’s dream. For as long as he could remember, people had told him what a great player he was, how he’d play for a university one day. And he’d bought into the idea. Then, in one game, it all crashed down on him. His dream died. From there, the rest of his life seemed like second best. That’s the way he’s described his career, his potential: He calls it his second best.”

  “It hurts to put a dream on the shelf temporarily,” Gabe said, “but to say good-bye to it permanently—I can’t imagine. But didn’t it give you something in common with your dad? The sports, I mean. He must’ve been proud of you.”

  “That’s where my brother found a way to bond with Dad. I enjoyed sports, but wasn’t a stellar athlete. Bryce, on the other hand, was like the second coming of Dad, minus the injury. He played varsity football and baseball, then went on to play college-level baseball for Kentucky. When I was seven years old, Bryce was already fifteen, so he and Dad could challenge each other without dumbing it down like they had to do for me. Dad got to compete with someone who could play at an equal level in the backyard or at the park, and I think he could see himself in Bryce. Bryce had the potential to fulfill Dad’s dream, to grab the baton in life’s relay race and carry it to the finish line. And like Dad, Bryce’s talent started showing up when he was young. It became a fixture for the two of them before I was born.

  “So by the time I was interested in it, they had their routine and, as far as I could tell, it was easier for them to do their thing without me. It didn’t occur to them to include me. I don’t think Dad or Bryce meant any harm by it. Sometimes, that’s how things work out.