Lunch
Chris Herrmann

My head was awhirl with nervousness, a chaotic stream of thoughts running in my brain. Anxiety. Fear. Excitement. Hope. We pulled up to the restaurant, my emotions running a gauntlet. I wondered how my life would change in the next few minutes, after I told my innermost thoughts to Dan.

It was nearing the end of winter break during freshman year, and we were getting together before school started again. Dan was one of my best friends from high school; we're both creative minded people, into the arts. We share a love of all kinds of music, fantasy books and Kevin Smith films among other things. We had gone to classes at the community college in our senior year of high school, and the drives to and from resulted in talk about everything from a band's sound to our views of and hopes for life. The night before I hesitated over the keyboard, my soul agonized as I tried to find the right words. Typing, deleting, typing, deleting, I finally decided on it: "I need to talk with you about something when we meet for lunch tomorrow." I sent the email.

We entered the restaurant, a small Mexican place. To the casual observer, the two of us may have appeared like day and night--Dan with his piercing and punk style and my casual style. We got a table and ordered, all the while talking about how we liked college, what we had been up to lately. Then he said it. "You had something on your mind?"

I froze up, my mind going through all the rehearsed words and thoughts, realizing that they had all but vanished. I looked away from him, down at the table. My breathing was rapid, my throat swallowed hard. I felt as if every eye in the restaurant was staring at me, waiting for me to break down. I looked up at Dan again, my mouth opening and almost forming a word, but then closing again, my eyes returning to elsewhere in the room, anywhere but at my friend. Then I dug deep inside myself, and said…

"I..."

And then the waiter came to the table to refill our water glasses. I sat in silence, waiting for him to leave, my mind screaming "Get the fuck out of here! Leave, please!" He left and I returned my view to Dan. He stared back at me, the guy who took me to see countless local bands, the guy who was always there to lend an ear whenever I needed to vent, the guy who had opened my mind up to so many new things in the past two years. I said it.

"I...I think I'm attracted to other guys."

There was silence for a second. I rushed to say more-"I don't know what it means exactly. I don't want to label myself as gay, bi or whatever yet."

He looked at me and spoke.

"I understand. It's totally cool. This doesn't change anything."

The minutes after that are kind of a blur--I remember talking about what I was going through, Dan's own views on what it was to be gay, knowing other gay people. But the thing I remember most was a sense of joy.

He accepted me in every way. To him, I am still the same person I've always been. Recently, he said something that resonated in me. "I don't see you as gay Chris; you're Chris."