Only to Feel This Fully [Completed]

Ch. 10: Say Something

On days I was scheduled at the store, I brought a change of clothes to school so I wouldn't have to go home to change out of my uniform. Nora was pretty chill about what her employees wore. The dress code was effectively whatever we wanted it to be. Today, I wore black skinny jeans with a Kacey Musgraves concert tee and my Keith Haring stan smiths.

When I got to the store, Dalia was the only soul there and informed me that she still had thirty minutes left on her shift, reckoning that "we have plenty of time to talk about the new guy." Dalia and Theo had shared the evening shift yesterday and she seemed to like him. He had spent most of the long idle periods common at the shop reading, which was essential to gaining Dalia's approval. "A bit stand-offish, though," she added. They must not have talked much, because she didn't even know that we knew each other. Or, Theo just saw no meaningful reason to bring it up.

Dalia worked at the store part-time, as she was a student at the local college. Last semester, Dalia had had a class with my mother, who teaches literature, but it was safe to say their two personalities don't mesh well. "Typical neoliberal corporate feminist," I believe Dalia had labeled her, to my great amusement. It was clear, from numerous conversations shared with the college student in this little-trafficked bookstore, that my mother's career trajectory, from cosmopolitan childhood to a promising career to moving to a partner's provincial hometown and taking a reduced role, represented Dalia's greatest fears and worst anxieties. Her life thus far had followed a somewhat similar path and she worried that she was heading towards the same end result.

I'd never actually come out to Dalia, but my sexuality was something she seemed to pick up on almost immediately. This used to trouble me; that my carefully-managed front was so easily seen through, but now it was a comfort to have someone I could share this part of myself with. We talked about boys, debated queer theory in literature, and obsessed over Timothee Chalament and Annette Benning. My personality oscillated greatly to fit the environment, going from outwardly-masculine with the team to most free here at the shop, where I felt a sense of security in the fact that no one who would ever judge me for that was likely to step through that oak door.

As if on cue, the chime attached to the door sounded. Through unconscious reaction, I looked up and unintentionally locked eyes with Theo, who looked absolutely exhausted. I saw it in his eyes. The exhaustion appeared emotional, not physical. I took a weird satisfaction in this. Pine Wood wasn't the safe space that my obsessive inferences from Theo's post had made it out to be, but at least he was safe from physical harm. The look on his face reaffirmed my decision to keep my guard up. It was about survival, I told myself if Theo had it this bad at Pine Wood, then how bad would it get at St. Sebastian?

"Afternoon," I greeted Theo, as Dalia said her rushed goodbyes before heading off to write some ungodly-long essay she'd been telling me about.

"Busy day," Theo volleyed back, with an irony that even the dullest could detect in this empty store.

"Looks like you could use a break," I said, trying to nonchalantly bring up his evident exhaustion, but Theo's look of annoyance signaled I had been imprecise in my observation, so I tried to dig myself out of the hole. "I, uh, heard about...well, I read your post."

"Does this change anything? Do you hate me now too?"

"What? No, I could never," I stammered out, genuinely shocked he could think I was capable of that. His questions and tone brought with them a million questions to my mind, so I ventured "did it not go well today? How'd your team take it?"

"It's not like I'm the first person to come out at school," he attempted to project casualness about it.

"True, I suppose, but it still can't be easy," I tried to sound sympathetic without giving myself away.