The Bravest Thing

by Laura Lascarso

  We drive another few miles in silence while I turn it over in my mind. Hiro doesn’t offer any more explanation, and I don’t know what to say without sounding judgmental. As we approach the outskirts of Lowry, I realize I don’t want to take him home just yet, but there’s nowhere in town we can go without being seen.

  I pull off a side road and then onto a dirt road. Hiro doesn’t ask where I’m taking him. He still seems pretty checked out. When we come to the edge of my property, I get out and open the gate, drive through, then close it on the other side. I pull into a grove of trees, park the truck, and shut off the engine.

  He turns toward me. “Is this the part where I suck you off in exchange for protection?”

  It takes me a second to realize what he’s suggesting. “What? No.” My neck gets hot and my junk starts throbbing at the mere mention of it. “Is that how it was at your old school?”

  Hiro chews on his lower lip and stares down at his hands. “No. I was actually pretty popular at my old school. I didn’t need protection.”

  I believe him. He has that cool air about him, like he doesn’t give a shit what other people think. I thought it was confidence, but maybe it’s only a cover.

  “I just wanted to talk to you since I can’t at school.”

  “Yeah, about that.” He drapes one toned arm across the back of the seat and rests his knee on the bench. His shirt is black and tight, with slash marks across the front, like some wild animal swiped at it. I can’t stop staring at the skin showing through. My hands get itchy, like when I’m about to get the ball in a game. I kind of want to rip the rest of his shirt away.

  “Are you a homo or what, Berlin?” he asks.

  My face feels like it’s on fire as I run my fingers through my hair, then remember my hair is short. “I don’t know.” Why do people have to put a label on everything? Why can’t I just be?

  “You want to find out?” He lifts one eyebrow suggestively, a smirk on his face. Is that an invitation? We hardly even know each other, but still….

  “No,” I stammer while images from that video flood me. All his body parts swim in my head, so much smooth skin and hard muscle, the smell of him in the cab of my truck. Of course I want to… do stuff… but this seems way too soon. “I mean, maybe, but that’s not what this is about. I didn’t come here to mess around. I just want to talk to you.”

  He shrugs and glances out the window. He looks bored. I’m boring him. He’s been with a rock star. He probably sees me as just some dumb hick. I don’t have any experience with guys. I barely have any experience with girls. I can’t even say for sure if I’m gay or not.

  I take a deep breath and try to muster up my courage. He came with me over his ex. That has to count for something. “Why’d you guys break up?” It’s none of my business, but I’m curious. In the video they looked very… close.

  “I liked your hair long,” he says, changing the subject yet again. “Why’d you cut it?”

  I’m surprised he noticed. I rub my palm across the top of my buzz cut. “Coach told me I looked like a faggot.” I clipped it the same day.

  Hiro shakes his head slowly. His mouth turns down to a frown. I want to kiss him pretty bad. He turns away from me and gets a faraway look in his eyes.

  “Must be hard for you living in a place like this,” he says softly.

  I follow his gaze to where he looks out at the land, my birthright. Even if I get through high school, I’ll still have to hide my sexuality in college if I want to play football. And then eventually I’ll come back here to Lowry to manage the farm, and what? Come out then? I don’t see any solution in sight, which means I can’t think too far ahead.

  “I take it one day at a time,” I say.

  He nods and leans the back of his head against the seat, exposing his neck. Even his throat is sexy. “Yeah, me too,” he says.

  We’re quiet after that. He knows things without me having to tell him. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

  “How’d you know?” I ask him. “About me?”

  He tilts his head to look at me sideways. “About you?”

  He’s playing dumb. He wants me to say it. “About me maybe, possibly, being gay.”

  He snickers. “You asked me out. Don’t you remember?”

  “Before that.”

  He purses his lips and squints like he’s trying to remember. “I don’t know. I guess I just… felt you. You seemed interested. Was I wrong?”

  I swallow, afraid to admit it to him. He’s the only one who knows this about me. It feels dangerous but also like a huge relief. I’m so tired of hiding it from everyone, always glancing over my shoulder or covering something up. Feels like I’m bound up in chains.

  “You weren’t wrong,” I tell him. Not in the least. I’m very interested, and it’s making me kind of crazy. “Do you think other people can tell?”

  “I don’t know. Do you check out a lot of other dudes?”

  “No,” I practically shout.

  He chuckles.

  I grip the steering wheel because I need something to hold on to. I feel like I’m on a Tilt-A-Whirl with him. “What’s so funny?”

  “I don’t know.” He waves one hand. “You’re such a contradiction.”

  I’m not sure what he means by that. Maybe because I try to fit in. Hiro clearly isn’t interested in hiding anything, even when that means getting bullied. His parents could have sent him to another school in Austin. It seems extreme to bring him all the way out to the country, like putting a wild bird in a cage. Like a punishment.

  “Are your parents mad at you?” I ask. “Is that why they brought you here?”

  Hiro sighs and clasps his hands in front of him like a well-behaved child. “My dad is, but that’s nothing new. I’m not exactly what he bargained for. Luckily, my older sister makes up for it. I don’t really blame him for giving up on me, though. I’ve made some bad choices.”

  “What about your mom?”

  His eyes soften. “My mom’s more hopeful.”

  “That’s good. Are you?”

  He tucks in his chin so half his face is hidden behind his hair. “Some days more so than others.” He says it so quietly, like he’s in pain. I want to hug him or rub his shoulders, do something to make him feel better like I would with Kayla, but I don’t want to weird him out.

  “You’re probably, like, my mom’s favorite person right now,” he says with a sad smile.

  “Why’s that?”

  He glances up at me with eyes that look empty. “Because you’re not Seth.”

  That doesn’t seem like a compliment to me, more like a default. Seth must have really done a number on Hiro for his parents to move out here. And for Hiro to sneak back to see him. Some kind of mind control.

  Their relationship interests me. I don’t know any gay couples in Lowry. And the people who might be gay are only rumors, usually meant to shame them. I guess things are a lot different in Austin. “How long were you guys together?” I ask.

  “Too long.” He shakes his head like he’s ridding himself of some bad memory. His eyes focus on mine. “How about you? Your parents are ranchers?”

  “My dad. My mom died when I was ten. Breast cancer.”

  His lips pucker. “That really sucks. I’m sorry, Berlin.”

  He has no idea. My mom was the lighthearted one in the family, the fun one. My dad only smiled for her. And she could get me to crack up laughing with her ribbing, which was always good-natured.

  “She had a great sense of humor,” I tell Hiro.

  “You have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No, just my dad and me.” But we have our land and our animals. I have my football team and Trent, even if he is an asshole sometimes. I’m not alone, except for in this one thing.

  “Does your dad know about you maybe, possibly, being gay?”

  Hiro’s teasing me again, but I don’t think he’s trying to hurt my feelings.

  “No.”

  “Would he be mad?”
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  My dad isn’t a hateful person, but he is a man’s man, a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, a God-fearing Christian. If he suspects anything, he keeps it to himself, maybe hoping it’s something I’ll grow out of. “I don’t know,” I say at last. “I’m afraid to find out.”

  “What about your friend Trent?”

  I don’t have to think twice about that. “He’d flip. So would Coach Cross. I’d get kicked off the team, lose my chance at a scholarship.” Lose my friends, become the butt of their every joke, maybe get jumped, be treated just like….

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Hiro says quietly, like he knows how important this secret is to me. I believe him when he says it. He could have told someone before now and he didn’t.

  “Thank you.” The words aren’t enough to show how grateful I am.

  “I should get going, though.” His gaze veers back out the window. “My parents are going to put out a missing persons any minute.”

  With some reluctance I start up the truck and go back out the way we came. I don’t want him to go, but I can’t say it without it sounding weird. On the other side of the fence, I unload his bike, then stand there next to it, not sure how to tell him I want to see him again.

  “You want to go shooting with me tomorrow?” I ask. The fence shouldn’t take too long to finish fixing, and then I’ll have the afternoon to do what I want.

  He runs his hand along his bike seat. His fingers are long and nicely shaped, with trim, unbitten nails. My own hands are full of scars and calluses from working on the farm.

  “I’m not really into hunting,” he says. “I’m actually a vegetarian.”

  I smack my forehead. It would figure. “You’re killing me, Smalls. This is cattle country. Beef is what’s for dinner.” Hiro smiles at that, and it’s such a pretty sight that I’d do just about anything to see it again. I wave him away. “It’s fine. We don’t have to hunt or anything. We can just shoot bottles or whatever.” Shit, we don’t even have to bring guns. I just want an excuse to be with him.

  “Okay. Let me text myself from your phone.” I hand him my phone, and he sends himself a text. “We can talk this way,” he says, looking at me with purpose. “You really don’t want to friend me on Facebook. Besides, I’m never on it.”

  He hands me my phone, and I shove it in my pocket. I don’t know what to do with my hands, which is strange. On the farm and in football, I’m good with my hands.

  “Well.” He grabs his helmet. “See you tomorrow, then.”

  As he mounts his bike, the back of his shirt lifts up over his waistband, exposing the small of his back and the triangle of muscles that point downward like an arrow. My throat goes dry as I imagine my hand there, steering him underneath me. My stomach flip-flops. Not butterflies, more like anxiety. My maybe, possibly, being gay is seeming more and more likely.

  One day at a time.

  Hiroku

  I PARK my bike on the side of the road and pull out my phone to text Berlin that I’m here at his property’s fence line. Before I can hit Send, his truck rumbles up to the gate from the inside. Berlin hops out, opens the gate wide, and I roll my bike through. Right away he takes the handlebars from me and guides my bike to a cluster of trees.

  It strikes me that Berlin is a true gentleman. My standards aren’t that high—I mean, I don’t expect a guy to hold the door open for me, but it would be nice if he made sure it didn’t close on my face. Seth always said he didn’t hold doors because we were equals, but I suspect it didn’t occur to him to be a gentleman unless there was something in it for him.

  “Come on,” Berlin says with an easy smile and motions to his truck. His biceps are impressive. Shoulders and chest too; really his musculature in general. He’s wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, work boots, and a ball cap. Muscles, golden hair, and sun-kissed skin. Raised on beef and farm work. Da-yum. If we as a species chose one man to preserve as an example of masculine beauty, Berlin would be a top contender.

  I climb into his truck, feeling kind of nervous. I assumed, when he asked me to go shooting, we would go somewhere on his land. There really isn’t any other place in this town where we can be seen together without dire consequences for him. I have no idea, though, where he’s taking me. I’m at his mercy.

  Relax, Hiroku.

  The weather is nice, not oppressively hot like it had been this summer. The breeze tickles my arms and the back of my neck. I glance over at Berlin, and he smiles shyly. I miss his long hair, though. The stupid football coach who told him he looked like a faggot is the same one who gave me a referral the first day of school and still eyeballs me whenever he sees me in the hallway. Trent’s dad. The homophobia doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  We ride for a while on dirt roads and through fields. Their property stretches out as far as I can see. As we pass by some cows grazing next to a pond, Berlin tells me about their ranch, how many head of cattle they have. Theirs is a cow-calf operation, not a dairy, Berlin explains. They keep a standing herd and raise them for meat. Not veal, though, which is good. That shit is straight-up animal cruelty.

  He rambles on—I think he’s nervous too—and I listen, forming a picture of his quiet country life in my mind.

  “You have horses?” I ask when he mentions them. I’ve never ridden before, but I’ve always wanted to.

  “Yeah. You ride?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not hard,” he says. He looks embarrassed. “I could take you sometime.”

  The way he says it makes it seem like this is going to be a long-term thing between us. That isn’t taking it one day at a time. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  He’s quiet after that. I don’t know if it’s him or me, but there’s a tension in the air. It was never this way with Seth, the getting-to-know you weirdness. If anything, I had to peel Seth off me like a leech.

  “You have any alcohol on you, Berlin?” Maybe that would help this along.

  “No.” He looks insulted. “It’s Sunday.”

  “Right. I forgot.” He must go to church too. How does that work? Is it a progressive church where gays are welcomed with open arms, or one of those “all gays go to hell” type places? My parents call themselves Christians, but I suspect it’s more a way to fit in with the locals than a source of true belief. I can count on one hand how many times we’ve been to church in the past few years.

  Berlin parks the truck, and we get out at a clearing in the woods. There are about a dozen lawn chairs in a circle around what looks like the ashes of a fire. There are also a few two-by-fours nailed together to form a shooting range, with bottles and cans balanced on the ledge. The grass is tall, and the seed stalks beckon in the light breeze like jilted lovers.

  I turn around to see Berlin toting a shotgun. Wow. I thought shooting was an excuse to get me alone, but we’re really going to do this.

  “You ever used one of these?” he asks.

  “I’ve never shot any kind of gun before.”

  “Not even a BB gun?” His face screws up like he feels sorry for me.

  I shake my head, amused by his reaction. “We’re a live-and-let-live type of family.”

  He leans to one side and eyes me from under the brim of his ball cap, blue eyes twinkling. “Let me guess. You’re one of those people who doesn’t believe in war either?”

  There’s a flirtatiousness to his teasing, like he doesn’t really mind that we’re so different. “The word you’re searching for is pacifist, and while I’ve never taken the blood oath, I’d guess that yeah, I probably am.”

  Berlin adjusts his hat as if to see me better. “Didn’t seem like a pacifist when Trent came at you in the locker room.” I detect a note of admiration.

  “That was self-defense.”

  “Why’d you let him hit you, then?”

  I glance away, avoiding his eyes. I don’t think he’d understand. I’m not even sure I could explain it. “I didn’t see it coming,” I lie.

  He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment, whic
h makes me think maybe he understands a lot more than he lets on.

  “So are you a black belt in karate, then?” Berlin asks.

  “No. It’s jiu-jitsu, and I’m not a black belt. My dad wanted me to take a martial arts class after I told him I was gay. To be able to defend myself. I chose my school because they teach Brazilian jiu-jitsu instead of the traditional Japanese form, and I knew that would piss him off.”

  “You do things just to piss him off?” Berlin asks with sincerity and I realize our relationships with our fathers must be very different.

  “Sometimes. He’s kind of controlling, so….” I think about how I basically do the opposite of everything my dad tells me as a way to exert my own will, how rebellious I was in Austin. Seth offered me a way to really stick it to him with all the sneaking around and staying out late, partying and drugs. How shitty that must have been for my dad. I’ve thought about it before, but never quite like that. No wonder my dad is still so angry with me.

  “I hate it when my dad’s mad at me,” Berlin says. “It’s, like, the worst feeling in the world.”

  “It kind of is, isn’t it?” Makes me feel like a piece of shit, all in all.

  Berlin lifts the gun and spends a few minutes giving me the basics. How to load it, how to hold it, where to position it against my body. For the last one he comes up behind me and circles his arms around my back like a winter coat, overlapping his arms with mine. I feel the heat of his body, and the muscles in his chest tighten against my shoulders. His arms are twice the thickness of mine. His hands are huge. I don’t know if this is standard protocol for gun range safety, but I’m definitely digging it.

  He positions the butt of the gun against the fleshy part between my shoulder and chest. “Rest the back of it here,” he says as his breath tickles my neck. “I’ll hold it with you the first time, so you can get a feel for the kickback.”

  I swallow as he shows me how to put my finger on the trigger and lean my cheek against the stock. This seems an intimate relationship to have with an inanimate object.

  “Keep your eyes open,” he says. His breath is hot on my ear, his mouth just inches away. “And exhale before you pull the trigger.”