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The bars and clubs are a side effect of friendship with Trinity Santos. Unfamiliar to him at first, Dennis has grown used to slick, sweaty bodies crowded all around, to music thumping its way into his bones, and to sticky bathroom floors.
He’s grown to enjoy it. He’s not like Trinity; he can’t throw himself into the centre of the dance floor without worry, and he certainly can’t sidle up to a stranger and invite them to dance. But he likes swaying to the music, likes the way a couple of shots loosen his tight muscles, likes to people watch, and sometimes he’ll let Trinity force him to dance when she’s not in the mood to find a stranger or be alone. But, otherwise, he likes to keep to himself and enjoy the buzzing atmosphere.
Except for tonight. Tonight is different, because a beautiful man asks Dennis to dance. It’s different because Dennis finds himself saying yes.
It’s different because that beautiful man kisses him, and it’s fierce and deep and hot, and Dennis kisses him back feverishly until his blood runs cold and he can’t kiss him anymore.
Dennis kisses a man, and then finds himself hyperventilating in an alley with a hand on his heart. It might very well fall out of his chest, he thinks, and the world is going so blurry he has to sit in the gravel. He shivers and pants and finds himself wondering exactly why.
“Dennis?” he hears Trinity calling distantly, and he tries to alert her to his presence around a hiccuping breath.
“You back here?” she rounds a stack of pallets to his left, and her eyes land on him. “Whoa. Dude, what the fuck happened?”
Dennis looks up at her, then his eyes wander, seeking, afraid the man might see him, afraid of being seen at all. He shrugs, and his chest begins to ache. Trinity kneels in front of him. She’s wearing shorts. The gravel might scrape her knees, or at least get her all dusty.
He can’t speak well enough to comment on it.
“You’re having a panic attack,” she tells him. “You need to slow your breathing.”
“Wh- what do you think I’m- trying to do?” Dennis asks hysterically.
His stomach feels like it does when he laughs so hard he stops breathing. Probably because he’s mostly stopped breathing. He giggles at himself and lets his head fall back against the cement wall.
Trinity is quiet for a moment, then says, “Wait here a minute. Try to breathe.”
It feels like she’s gone for hours. When she returns, she presses a glass into his hand. Dennis looks down at it. It’s a shot glass full of clear liquid.
“Shoot it,” Trinity tells him.
“Seriously?”
“Yes! Trust me!”
Dennis gasps and hiccups, then thinks, whatever, and shoots it back. Tequila. He shudders at the taste, and finds that after he swallows, his breathing is a bit more even.
“Never heard of getting people drunk to stop a panic attack,” he breathes.
“It’s not about the alcohol. Strong tastes are supposed to, like, shock your system or something. Are you feeling any better?” Trinity asks.
Dennis swallows. His tongue feels big in his mouth.
“A little. I’m still not breathing so… so well,” he says.
“Okay, then I guess we’re doing breathing exercises, now. Come on. Follow my lead.”
Dennis meets her eyes and does as he’s told. He models her breaths until his own finally begin to feel deep again and the pain in his abdomen starts to fade away. Homeostasis, he thinks blearily, and feels like he could pass out right where he sits.
“Okay,” he says, “I’m okay, now.”
“Good,” Trinity sighs. “Jeez, I’ve never seen you freak out like that before. What happened? You seemed like you were having fun with that guy.”
Dennis frowns, wondering how to articulate what exactly it was that threw him so off balance. His pensive look must not be very reassuring, because Trinity’s hackles start to rise.
“Did he do something? Did he hurt you? Because I’ll—”
“No!” Dennis exclaims, “No, he didn’t. No. It’s not that. I just… I kissed him.”
Trinity pauses, her lips pursed and her brow furrowed. She nods slowly. “Okay…?”
“Or, he kissed me. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I haven’t- I’ve kissed one other boy in my life, and I was fourteen, and it… it did not end well. It didn’t- it didn’t feel good and it ruined… everything. For a little while,” Dennis explains.
It was a silly crush and a pathetic, nervous peck on the lips, and the consequences of just that much intimacy with another boy ensured that Dennis would be very careful about what to confide in others for the rest of his life.
“You’re telling me the people in Broken Bow, Nebraska are homophobic? I’m shocked.”
Dennis frowns at her, then shrugs.
“Not all of them, and it wasn’t like I was abused or thrown in therapy for it, but, yeah, it wasn’t… the message I received was pretty clear. I think maybe I just remembered all that and freaked out,” he says.
Trinity examines him, shifting in her awkward, crouched position. “Yeah, I’d probably freak out, too,” she says. “You can tell me all about it later, if you want, but it’s getting late. Let’s get you home.”
Dennis wets his lips and nods, letting Trinity help him up. They make their way out of the alley and order an Uber, then stand shoulder to shoulder to keep warm while they wait.
“…If you like men,” Trinity says, “I hope you don’t stop yourself from exploring that because of your family or whoever. It’s not a… a deficit or a failure. It’s just a piece of who you are. Like any other ordinary thing.”
She won’t meet his eye, but Dennis doesn’t mind. He gives her wrist a gentle squeeze—one of their many versions of a hug.
“Thank you,” he says. “Love you.”
It’s then that their Uber pulls up, and Trinity nudges him with a half smile.
“Yeah, whatever,” she says. And in that, Dennis hears what she means. Love you too.