“Why do women get periods?”
Michael looked at Patrick nervously and didn’t say anything.
“Because they deserve it.”
It was the new student orientation week, and Michael, a freshman, had serendipitously met Patrick, another fellow student in the same major and year, and together were walking to an ice cream social. Michael, a shy and kind individual, didn’t know how to feel about that statement. It set off a bit of a red flag in his gut, but Michael was only seventeen and seemed like one of those innocent enough jokes. Plus, Patrick was in his major and they’d already made plans to work together on their first business school homework assignment.
A couple months later, both Michael and Patrick decided to rush the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity system, and the two of them became co-pledges. Ever since orientation, Michael harbored a bit of reservation against Patrick, but Patrick embodied the image of a normal student; he was a native of Atlanta and won a full need-based scholarship to the university. Plus, he was always just present due to sheer circumstances. Micheal arrived at university with dreams and ambitions. Despite being a stellar student, his family couldn’t afford tuition at the ultra-elite private schools, so Michael decided to accept a scholarship to his local state school, UC Berkeley.
Michael came from a highly conservative family who upheld a sense of duty and tradition within the family, and so Michael initially kept his sexuality secret. Gay marriage—at the time—was still a highly controversial topic and not universally legal. Love, Michael thought, was perhaps not for him due factors beyond his control, so he set his sights on attaining a career that he could put his heart and soul into. Michael believes there are things in this world more worthy of achieving than love. Outside of his business degree, Michael dreamed about becoming a surgeon, a career that would monopolize the rest of his life toward a heroic cause.
Michael and Patrick both received bids for the Sig Ep fraternity and became neighbors in the Sig Ep frat house located 10 minutes away in a nearby residential area of Berkeley, about a 10-minute drive from the main campus. The house smelled of dried beer and stale cigarette smoke on any given day. Dishes piled up in the sink and the wooden floor of the house had a habitual stickiness to it, a remnant of the parties that Patrick, mainly, would organize every week or so. The house also had an old pool table that doubled as a beer pong table during the weekends.
Despite Patrick’s misogynistic attitude, Michael noticed that Patrick could get the girls—just not keep any of them. One such as girl, Jasmine, dated Patrick for a few months and would frequently chit chat with Michael when she’d be over at the house.
“Why don’t have a girlfriend, Patrick? You’re not gay, are you?” Jasmine once asked Michael on one such night.
“No, of course not, I just have a lot going on right now. I’m thinking about medical school after college,”
“Med school? Have you taken the MCAT yet?”
“I’m scheduled to this summer.”
“Good luck. My friend Jessie just finished hers. I heard that test is a beast.” Jasmine said in a matter-of-fact kind of way.
“Shouldn’t be too bad, I’ve gotten pretty good at standardized exams at this point.”
That night, in the basement of the house during a frat party, Michael bumped into Jasmine again and the two started a conversation. This time, she was being a little more flirtatious than Michael was comfortable with. One thing led to another, and Jasmine lifted her right hand, thereby exposing her breast and ran her hand through Michael’s hair. Michael froze.
“I’m sorry I have to go.” Michael said to Jasmine and quickly walked up the stairs to his room and shut the door.
Twenty minutes later there came a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Michael said.
“It’s Patrick.”
“What do you want?”
“I saw you with my girl. Open up. I have something I want to say to you.”
“Patrick. It’s not what it looks like.”
“Are you gay Michael?”
Micheal opened the door. Standing in front of him was an inebriate Patrick, but still coherent. Patrick walked toward Michael’s desk chair and sat down. The tension in the room was high.
“I don’t know what to say Patrick. What does it even mean to be gay?”
“Well, do you like boys?”
Michael paused for a second and broke down a little. For a significant amount of time, he couldn’t muster the words necessary to communicate what he wanted to Patrick. He’d been holding secret his entire life and the thought of release was too much for him to bear, and in a fraternity, nonetheless.
“Alright, you’re right. I think I am gay.” Michael finally acquiesced.
“It’s alright you know. I’m too.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”
“What about Jasmine.”
“I have parents.” Patrick replied.
Fifteen years have passed and Michael is in his final year of surgical fellowship. He decided to marry a woman, Jenna, who’s pregnant with their first child. Whatever urge Michael initially possessed he has outgrown, or at least that’s what he tells himself. Michael found God and attends church on a regular basis.
He and Jenna bought a small house outside Atlanta, not far from the hospital where Michael had accepted his first attending position. The house had four bedrooms, although they only needed two. Jenna said they would eventually fill them.
One Saturday afternoon, while Jenna was attending a baby shower organized by her sister, Michael drove downtown to purchase a new pair of shoes. His old ones had begun to split along the sole, and in three weeks he would be interviewed for a faculty position.
He was walking past a coffee shop when he saw Patrick.
Michael almost continued walking.
Patrick was sitting outside beneath an umbrella, older but immediately recognizable. His hair had thinned slightly near the temples, and the boyish roundness of his face had disappeared. Across from him sat another man. Their knees touched underneath the table.
Patrick noticed Michael first.
“Michael?”
Michael stopped.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
“Holy crap,” Patrick finally said, standing. “It is you.”
They hugged awkwardly.
“This is Daniel,” Patrick said, gesturing toward the man sitting across from him. “My husband.”
The word struck Michael with a strange physical force.
“Husband?”
Daniel smiled and extended his hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
Michael shook it.
“And you?” Patrick asked. “What happened to you?”
Michael lifted his left hand almost instinctively.
“Married. Jenna. We’re having a baby.”
“No kidding.”
Patrick smiled.
“That’s great, man.”
Michael couldn’t determine whether Patrick meant it.
They talked for several minutes. Patrick had moved to Atlanta after college, worked briefly in consulting, hated it, went back to graduate school, and eventually became a high school economics teacher. He and Daniel had been together for eight years. They had married after it became legal.
Michael told him about medical school, residency, fellowship, the surgeries, the sleepless nights, the faculty position he hoped to obtain.
“You actually did it,” Patrick said.
“Did what?”
“Became a surgeon.”
Michael smiled.
“I guess I did.”
Patrick looked genuinely impressed.
For fifteen years Michael had imagined that sentence bringing him enormous satisfaction.
Instead, standing there on the sidewalk, he felt almost nothing.
Daniel excused himself to go inside and order another coffee.
Patrick waited until the door closed behind him.
“You happy?”
Michael laughed.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A normal one.”
“Of course I’m happy.”
Patrick nodded.
Michael’s phone vibrated.
A text from Jenna.
Baby is kicking like crazy today. Come home soon.
Michael stared at the message.
Patrick glanced at him.
“You should probably go.”
“Yeah.”
“Take care of yourself, Michael.”
“You too.”
Michael walked back toward the parking garage.
He thought about Patrick’s bedroom fifteen years earlier, although of course it had actually been his own bedroom. He remembered the dirty fraternity house, the stale smell of beer downstairs, Patrick sitting in the desk chair, and those four words.
It’s alright you know.
Michael had forgotten them.
Or perhaps he had spent fifteen years trying to.
When he arrived home, Jenna was sitting on the couch with one hand resting on her stomach.
“There he is,” she said.
Michael leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
She took his hand and placed it against her belly.
“Wait.”
For several seconds there was nothing.
Then Michael felt it.
A small movement beneath his palm.
He smiled despite himself.
“That’s our son,” Jenna said.
Michael kept his hand there.
Another kick.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he began to cry.
Jenna laughed.
“Oh my God. Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You are.”
She pulled him toward her.
Michael rested his head against her shoulder.
For the first time in years, he allowed himself to think about the seventeen-year-old boy who had arrived at Berkeley believing that there were things in the world more worthy of achieving than love.
He had become a surgeon. He had become a husband. Soon he would become a father.
He had achieved nearly everything he had once believed a life was supposed to contain.
And yet, sitting beside his wife with his hand resting on the child moving inside her, Michael understood something that frightened him more than any operating room ever had.
A person could build an entire life without ever deciding whether it was his own.
Jenna squeezed his hand.
“What are you thinking about?”
Michael looked at her.
He opened his mouth.
Then, after a long silence, he said,
“I think there’s something I need to tell you.”
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