“Wait! He said he fucked that one girl on the couch when we were at the beach. “Me too! I said he looked gay when he was wearing those white pants.” “I said ‘fag,’ like, a hundred times around him. In the few weeks immediately following his coming out, though, my other two roommates and I clucked like hens. We gradually slipped back into our routine. It was understood that I was not upset, that he would not have to pack, and that the details could work themselves out later. “He was a married guy.” I conjured an image of him, hunched over some guy whose poor wife was out of town.
I rolled his answer around in my mouth for a minute. The look on his face told me he wasn’t expecting that question. “But what about all those girls you said you banged?” I asked.
I wanted to let him know that I wasn’t disgusted, or angry, or whatever else he might think my silence implied. “I understand if you want me to move out,” he continued. I could tell he wanted me to say something he looked like he was about to burst into flames.
