Honeysuckle, Silent Flight

I sit on the bench so long my ass goes numb.

I think whoever’s in charge of the landscaping forgot this was here. For a while, based on the amount of honeysuckle vine wrapped over the back of it, creeping over from the copse of trees and underbrush surrounding the manicured grounds of the bird sanctuary. My bench is in a secluded place in the park. Easy to overlook.

Energy I’m working hard to channel. Normally I’d be upset to think anything at the bird sanctuary is being neglected, but for now I’m glad it’s here waiting for people like me who need a place to temporarily disappear.

So far I’ve gotten lucky and no one’s bothered me. Yet. It feels inevitable somehow, with fifty of us running around a space less than twenty acres. There would be more, but some students weasel their way out every year despite the school’s insistence it’s a “mandatory” field trip.

“We want to reward our seniors for their hard work and to celebrate their college acceptances!” That’s the administration headline.

This isn’t my first year here. Perk of being the son of a teacher. I’ve been coming since I was a kid, a seven-year-old in a sea of high school seniors. And when I was a kid that was fine. I stayed with my mom, they stayed away from her, and it was good. Even in middle school it didn’t seem to matter, because it’s senior year and everyone’s either too tired to care about the dorky bird kid or else preoccupied sneaking off to make out behind the ruff aviary.

There were always kids who were apart from the others. Probably the ones who couldn’t celebrate going off to college. It wasn’t in the stars for everyone. Not enough money or grades or time. I didn’t get it when I was little, too excited by the rainbow sea of birds to bother with that kind of thing.

It crept up on me, though I never thought I’d be one of them, even if I’m not exactly thrilled about my post-graduation plans.

I thought I’d be here with James.

It’s hard to hang out with someone you’re avoiding.

I drag my pencil across the page hard enough to rip the paper. It’s one of my crappier sketchbooks, but I don’t enjoy breaking things. I flip the ruined page under.

Focus isn’t coming today. Besides James clogging up my brain, my subject isn’t cooperating. It’s stupid to get irritated at an owl for sleeping, but today I’m fresh out of reasonable mindset.

“I wanted to sketch the flamingoes,” I mutter as I rough out the shape of the owl, the same potato-bean shape I’ve been doodling for the past half hour. “But I guess it’d be impossible to hide with a flamingo.” A rosy sea of them, goofy, lanky, and exciting to sketch.

The flamingos are exciting. That’s why they’re in the center of the park, surrounded by my classmates, and exactly why I’m as far away from them as the borders of the park allow.

The owls aren’t with the other birds of prey. Because they’re nocturnal, and the kindest thing to do is tuck them away behind a bundle of trees where they’re overlooked by most visitors but allowed to exist their own way.

There’s only one in the cage right now. A barn owl, her round white face tilted away from me towards the shaded darkness of her enclosure. There are more info cards, which probably means the other owls are in the visitor’s center.

If someone had asked me my favorite owl—nobody asks that sort of thing—I would’ve said the Great Grey Owl, or maybe the Eastern Screech Owl. The ones no one else picks as their favorite. Everybody’s too caught up with the “prettier” ones.

A twinge of unexpected guilt pings in my stomach. It’s easier to not care about something hypothetically, when the real thing isn’t sitting right in front of you, snoozing in the late spring warmth. She reminds me of my mother’s Christmas tree skirt, the white velvet embroidered with sparkling golden stars.

Besides, I’m the one who just said I’d rather see the flamingos.

“It’s not that I don’t like you,” I say out loud to no one. To the barn owl. Her eyes open slightly, like she might be listening. When they close she looks like she’s smiling. I sketch them in. “You’re a very pretty owl.” I love birds in theory. I love them even more in person.

The name on her info card says “Stellaluna.” It rings a bell. I think it’s a children’s book about a bat. James reads it to the kids sometimes, when his parents leave him in charge of his little brothers and sisters while they’re working. James is the oldest of six. The littlest, Ella, is only four.

She told me I was boring when I babbled on about birds for too long. James made her apologize. Later, when the younger kids were in bed and James was cleaning up the dinner dishes, he handed me a plate to dry.

“I don’t think it’s boring,” he said. “You know that, right?”

I hadn’t known. “It’s okay. I know it’s a lot to put up with—”

“I don’t put up with it.” His voice was clear and adamant. He’d stopped washing dishes to look at me. “I love the kids, but sometimes it’s all chaos around here. Being with you is…quiet. Hearing you talk about bird stuff makes me feel quiet.”

I nodded. I still don’t know why.

His hands were red from the hot water. He plunged them back in. They’d never had a dishwasher and his mama said gloves were for church and doctors.

“Tell me about the feathers,” he said.

I told him.

I don’t remember if the book had anything to do with an owl. This Stellaluna’s card says she’s from a rescue situation. Hit by a car.

“That must have been scary,” I say, “and confusing.” Quiet, ghostly hunter, caught in a beam of light and a flash of pain. A hit she never saw coming.

Every time I catch the shuffle of feet or the ring of voices I tense up, waiting to be exposed. Oliver, the weird teacher’s kid, who likes birds more than people, tucked away by himself. So far, they’ve all passed me by.

Owls are silent hunters. Specialized feathers cut through the air so precisely that even the sensitive ears of their prey can’t pick up on it.

That’s how James sneaks up on me.

“Hey,” he says. It’s a familiar hey, loose and casual and comfortable as the arm he used to drape around my shoulders. “Your mom said I might find you here.”

I haven’t been avoiding him.

Really.

Definitely not because of the party.

And there’s no way that just thinking about that night has me scrunching up on myself, shoulders to ears, eyes squeezed tight before I’ve even noticed them closing. Can a heart clench so hard from embarrassment that it just…stops?

I force myself to relax. Even I can tell it’s not entirely successful, my answering, “Hey,” wadded up like a discarded note.

“Mind if I sit?” He points to the bench beside me, the side most swallowed by the honeysuckle. The smell is suddenly suffocating.

He takes my stiff shrug as an affirmation and drops himself down, leaning forward to avoid the worst of the vines.

I shift, trying to cover my sketchbook without drawing attention to it. His eyes flick to it but don’t linger. He doesn’t ask to see. I don’t offer.

I wish I’d drawn the honeysuckle instead of the owl.

James doesn’t pry. He’s not that type of person. Before now the longest we hadn’t spoken was four days during our last year of elementary school, the week my dad walked out and the thought of going to school felt unbearable.

James walked a mile and a half from his house to mine the first chance he got. He sat on the bed beside me while I sobbed, arm draped around my shoulders, not caring while I blubbered snot all over his t-shirt. It was another day before I could get the words out—Dad left me—and I only managed because I knew James wouldn’t blame me if I couldn’t.

I think maybe that’s what he’s doing now. Trying to let me tell him what’s wrong on my own. Somehow this feels harder. I can’t help feeling like I’m disappointing him, even if he’d never say it.

Another walkout looms, inevitable.

He breaks the silence only when it’s clear I won’t. “I was going to ask if I could catch a ride with you and your mom,” he says. We’re both watching the owl, not looking at each other. “The principal said I had to ride the bus down here, but I could ride back with you. If that’s okay.”

I shrug. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know, Oliver. You’ve been avoiding me for two weeks, and you won’t talk about what Randy said at the party.”

He sounds close to crying. That startles me enough that I look over at him, and even though I don’t see tears he looks pained.

“I wanted to pretend it didn’t happen,” I admit. The words claw out of me, ashamed, tired, small.

Randy was not an owl, delicate and precise. He was a stick of dynamite in a barrel of fish. Destructive for the fun of it. It didn’t matter how hidden away you were, how carefully you tucked yourself into the shadows by the stairwell at the house party, minding your own business with an untouched red plastic cup as a buoy. It was careless, the way he exploded my life with a few words.

“Hey, Oli, you gotta pound that drink before James pounds your ass.”

I can’t even say if anyone laughed, or if the party went quiet, or if anyone told Randy to shut his mouth. All I remember is staring at the filthy carpet of Samantha Sherwin’s house as James’ shoes rounded the corner from the kitchen.

Running made me look guilty. Not that I should feel guilty, but pride is just a wish around here. Running was better than looking up and seeing James. Better than sticking around to find out if he’d add another stick of dynamite to the smoldering pile or try to salvage me from the wreckage.

People aren’t gay where we live. They just aren’t. If they are they sure as hell don’t stay. But I’m not heading off to college—I wouldn’t be going at all if Mom didn’t insist I at least spend a year getting some basics in at the local community college. James is staying, too, to keep taking care of his family.

If people think that about us—it won’t matter if it’s true. I can make it as an artist without ever having to see another person, but James wants to take over his dad’s shop one day. A mechanic might not spend the whole day chatting, either, but I’ve seen people shut out for less than hypothetical queerness.

Maybe I could handle that. It wouldn’t be so different from my life now.

What I can’t survive is if it comes from James. Seeing him hate me would be the hit I never saw coming.

I’m not a mouse, and he’s not an owl. He’s my best friend. If he swooped silently from the sky to grab me with unforgiving talons, I wouldn’t just be shocked. I wouldn’t curse my sensitive ears for failing to hear what couldn’t be heard. I think I’d completely lose my sense of the world.

He’s looking at me with wide brown eyes, soft and smart, waiting without prodding. My best friend since preschool in a town too small to avoid someone but too big to hold on to them if they want to let you go. Will he let me go?

James probably won’t feel that way about me, but there’s no reality where he’s cruel.

“I’m gay. I’m gay for you.” It comes out louder, more forceful than I meant. I shake my head. “I mean…god, that sounded fucking stupid. Sorry.” Maybe the reason James never pries is that I’m an emptying bathtub: once the plug is pulled, it all just flows out. “I like you, I really do, but you’re my best friend. Thinking about not being your friend makes me feel like I’m suffocating, and I know this is weird so we can pretend I didn’t say all this. You can avoid me until graduation, so people won’t think…”

He’s staring at me, eyes wide and round. I want to tell him to say something, but as hard as my heart is hammering—I think I’ll choke on it—he always gives me time. He deserves that, too.

I don’t expect him to laugh. It’s all my worst fears come to life. He shakes his head, reaches for me, and grabs my hand.

“I’m gonna kiss you now, okay?”

I don’t breathe. I nod.

Tentative. That’s how I would describe the kiss at first, if my melting brain could think up words. Then he pulls me in, or I pull him in; it becomes more than a soft, quiet kiss.

One reason I like birds so much is because they can fly. With a flap of their wings they’re weightless. I always wondered what that felt like, that lift.

For as long as I’m kissing James I don’t have to wonder.

Dizzying moments later, my feet return to the ground. James grins at me. His hand clutches my arm—that’s new. My hand is on his neck; my sketchbook has fallen to the ground at our feet. He stoops to pick it up. That’s enough time to let the doubt seep back into my happy bubble.

“Isn’t it going to cause trouble?”

“People already think we’re dating,” he says without hesitation. He can’t possibly have been thinking of this already, right? “Oliver, we literally went to prom together. Not together, together, but I don’t think that matters really. I can handle the gossip if you can.” He shrugs. “I don’t think it’ll be much worse than that.”

I’m not so sure about that, but seeing him smile at me like that, I want to believe it. That if we’re together, the bad stuff will fall away beneath us. And maybe today that’s enough.

“Want to go make out behind the ruff aviary?”

I bump my shoulder into his, laughing. “Absolutely not.”

He stands and holds out a hand. There’s a honeysuckle blossom in his hair. “Come on, Oliver. Let’s go see the flamingos.”

I take it.