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Nolan is 12 years old the first time he thinks that maybe something is wrong with him.
In the locker rooms at school, all the others boys seem to want to talk about is all of the girls in their classes. They talk about the way the girls look, fantasize about getting to second base, and trade stories about their limited encounters with the opposite sex. Travis just wants to talk about that goal that Jonathan Toews scored the night before against Tampa Bay.
He doesn’t want the other guys to think he’s any stranger than they probably already think he is, so he doesn’t say anything, just listens to the guys as they talk shop, nods along when he feels it’s appropriate to.
Later that night, when he’s curled up in bed trying to fall asleep at a decent time, he thinks back on the conversation in the locker room. The more he thinks about it, the more anxious it makes him: he’s never really been interested in girls, at least not more than a passive appreciation for their beauty, so is something actually wrong with him? He’d much rather watch the Sedin twins taking down a line of Calgary defensemen than think about kissing a girl. He falls into a fitful sleep hours later that leaves him dragging around the following day.
The anxiety never truly goes away, that nagging feeling that something is really wrong with him. It isn’t until he reaches the age of 16 and stumbles across an article while flipping through a magazine while waiting for the checkout at the grocery store that he finally finds some of the answers that he’s been searching for for so long.
He’d never really given much thought to the whole concept of being gay, but then again, he hadn’t really been aware that it had been an option. Growing up in a small Canadian town in Manitoba, he’d never really been exposed to any openly gay people before coming across the magazine. The more he thinks about it, the more he reads about it in the magazine (which he bought, upon finding the aforementioned article), the more right it feels in his heart. He thinks back on the time since he hit puberty, and when he applies the concept of being gay to his past experiences, things finally start to make sense for him.
He doesn’t tell anybody. He’s not scared, exactly; mostly, he’s just unsure of what sort of reactions he would get from the people around him, and the anxiety caused by the unknown is enough to keep him firmly in the closet. He doesn’t attempt to date anyone, not in such a close knit town where everybody knows everybody. Instead, he just keeps to himself, and dreams of one day being able to come out and be proud to be the person that he is. He falls asleep every night, praying to any gods that happen to hear that he’ll be able to have that happiness someday.
Reality, though, isn’t fair, and it doesn’t care about Nolan’s dreams at all.
He’s 18 and freshly graduated, getting ready to go off to college in the states, when he finally decides that he’s done hiding. He doesn’t have many friends from high school that he cares to continue having any relationships with beyond graduation, so he doesn’t bother telling any of them. Instead, he plans and waits for weeks until he finally thinks it’s the perfect time to tell his parents the truth. His sisters aren’t there, but he figures he’ll have time to talk to them later, let them know the truth separate from their parents.
But he doesn’t, because it goes bad. It goes so horribly bad that Nolan doesn’t know what to do. He barely has time to shove as much of his clothes as possible into a duffel, slide his cell phone and charger into his pockets, and grab his car keys before his parents are throwing him out and demanding that he never return again. They hurl expletives at him as he shakily cranks up his car and starts driving with no location in mind.
Nolan doesn’t have a home.
He does, however, have a little bit of money saved up, and he’s lucky that his passport is in the glove compartment in his car, so, with nowhere else to go, he starts driving south and across the border, on his way to Temple University, albeit months earlier than he is expected. He’s lucky enough to have already figured out scholarships and grants months in advance, so if he can just make it to August, he’ll be able to move into the dorms on campus.
For the remaining two months of the summer, Nolan mostly lives in his car. He uses his saved up money to buy food, and pays for shady motel rooms on nights when it’s too hot in Philly to stay in his car, and he does his best to survive. Those two months are easily the worst of his life, but he pushes through, and he manages to make it through to August, when it’s finally time to move into the dorms.
He feels pretty pathetic on move in day, walking up with nothing but one duffel bag of clothes and a measly grocery sack of hygiene products, while all the other freshmen around him wheel in giant crates full of bedding, televisions, computers, and other such things that Travis once took for granted. He smiles weakly at the volunteers as he checks in with them, trying to ignore the few curious stares he can feel. He knows he looks rough, having not had a shower in at least 3 days and having run out of clean clothes and been unable to do laundry for more than a week. His hair is a mess of grease, hanging limply in front of his face, and it’s been so long since his last haircut, he can barely keep it tamed.
As soon as he’s handed his room key, he hurries off, ready to get away from any prying eyes or pitiful glances. He already feels bad enough about himself on a regular day; he doesn’t need any more insecurity lopped onto him by others.
Sleeping in a bed again is heaven sent. It’s been at least a month since he was last able to rent a motel room, instead sleeping full time in his car, so even the thin mattresses that the school provides for them feels like laying down on a cloud. One of the first things he does is take an hour long shower; the water pressure isn’t the best, but the water stays hot the whole time he’s in, and by the time he gets out, he almost feels like a brand new person. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful for the smallest little luxuries in his entire life. That first night, he can’t help but cry, he’s so happy to be anywhere that isn’t his car or a public park.
When classes start up, he mostly keeps to himself, much like he had in high school; he’s too afraid that everybody is going to turn out like his parents if they find out the truth about him, so he keeps his head down and does his work silently. He’ll occasionally answer a question or two in his classes, but mostly he doesn’t talk at all, content to keep to himself and be a good student. He eats lunch in the canteen by himself, spends most of his free time in his dorm, and keeps as low a profile as possible. He manages to get a job working the front desk of the school library, and that’s where he meets the person who would eventually completely turn his world right side up again, though neither knew it at the time.
Travis Konecny (“Call me TK!”) is a kinesiology major that works the front desk with Nolan every other day. He’s very short, very wild, and very loud, more or less the complete opposite of Nolan. He always tries to strike up a conversation with everybody that walks by the front desk, and he succeeds about 90% of the time, because that’s just how TK is, Nolan learns. People can’t resist his charming Canadian smile, the soft twang in the way he talks, his constantly boisterous attitude, and Nolan is no exception. As the weeks go on, he finds himself opening up more and more around TK, constantly giggling quietly at all of his dumb jokes and even making a few himself. Around TK, he feels the best that he’s felt since before he came out to his parents, before his entire life crashed down around him.
He tries his best but, despite protests from his brain, his heart begins to fall a little more for TK every time they work together.
Of course, it’s TK who finally breaks down the protective walls he’s built up around himself since he lost his home. After weeks of ribbing, Nolan finally agrees to go to a party (“It’s not a party, it’s a small get together!”) with TK, provided the fact TK knows that he will leave at the drop of a pin if he gets too uncomfortable. TK mostly just laughs at him when he says this and throws an arm around Nolan’s shoulders, playfully messing up his hair and claiming that he’d never let his friends make Nolan uncomfortable.
And, true to his word, he doesn’t. The moment they get to the get together – because it really is a small get together, not a party; it’s just TK’s group of 5 or so friends, plus the two of them –, TK does his level best to make Nolan feel as included as possible, and his friends quickly follow his lead and do their best to do the same. Nolan isn’t ashamed to admit that the gathering is the most fun he’s had in probably years. He leaves with a stomach full of deliciously greasy pizza, several new contacts programmed into his phone, and a feeling of overwhelming affection in his heart.
He doesn’t ever eat lunch alone anymore, after that. It’s a rule of thumb that at least one person from their group of friends is in the canteen at all times, so Nolan never has to awkwardly sit by himself and feel rushed to finish his meals anymore. He eats leisurely and enjoys the time spent with the people who have quickly adopted him into their group and became his best friends.
Now, when he thinks back on his life before that fateful day with his parents, he doesn’t feel so sad anymore. He still wishes it could be different, that he could still have a relationship with his parents, that they could love and accept him for who he is, but he no longer feels the crushing need to make them proud. Thanks to the help of his new friends, his new family, especially TK, Nolan finally feels like he’ll be able to move on with his life and feel settled in a way that he never has before.
It helps that TK has started smiling back at him more, has begun to make up excuses to be around Nolan more. He goes out of his way to always sit next to Nolan whenever their group is out doing things together, no matter where they are. It makes Nolan’s heart flutter dangerously in his chest, and he thinks, looking at the way TK is pressed against his left side, the rest of their friends surrounding the two of them, “Maybe everything will be okay.”