Across a Green Ocean by Wendy Lee

would never have admitted that what he said was wrong.”
    “But it was wrong.”
    Michael shrugged. “Not in his mind it wasn’t. I’m sure he’s said a lot worse. Done a lot worse, too, but that’s beside the point.”
    “Do you think you’ll ever tell your mom and sister?”
    “Which part of it?”
    “All of it.”
    He sighed. “Not right now. They have too much to deal with.”
    After a pause, Amy said, “I’m seeing someone. Don’t judge. He’s one of my teachers and— don’t judge —he says I have a lot of talent. What do you think?”
    “I think,” Michael said, “that you’re still going after the wrong men.”
    “That’s probably true.”
    “I’m seeing someone too. His name is David. He pays for everything.”
    Amy arched a brow. “So you feel like a kept woman?”
    “I don’t know how I feel about it. Sometimes I think things are going well, and I don’t know how I lucked out, and other times I feel like something bad is going to happen. Like this.”
    Amy said softly, “Your father didn’t die because you were enjoying yourself with a man.”
    Michael considered this for a moment. Amy spoke so plainly, with such conviction, yet he couldn’t quite disassociate what Emily had told him over the phone a few days ago with the feeling of David’s skin, the salty essence of him.
    “I think I’m going to break up with David when I get back,” he said.
    “You do that,” Amy replied. “Maybe I’ll break up with my guy too.”
    They looked at each other, as if daring the other to look away first, and then started laughing. Both of them knew that this was easier said than done.
    Michael left Amy on the porch and went upstairs to use the bathroom. He was passing his sister’s bedroom door, which was slightly open, when he saw something inside that made him pause: Emily and Julian, going at it like horny teenagers. He stepped away, and then chuckled to himself. So Emily wasn’t that perfectly behaved after all.
    After he got back to the city, he did break up with David. Then he couldn’t stay away, and they got back together. This pattern repeated itself over the following year, with little variation. When they were apart, Michael didn’t call for days, went out with other friends. During this time, he imagined David sitting in his tasteful apartment, sipping his mineral water, alone. David gave Michael expensive presents for his birthday and the holidays. Michael gave David nothing, unless you counted grief.
    It was pretty childish behavior, he had to admit. It was as if by not committing to David, he didn’t have to tell his mother and sister he was dating anyone, or that he was gay. He wasn’t even sure if it mattered now. The person in his family who would have been most upset by it would have been his father, who was gone; and besides, his father already knew he was gay, had known for years, even if he didn’t care to acknowledge it. But Michael had spent so long acting this way, it was as if he didn’t know how else to be. If he cared to admit more, there were things he resented about David, the least being that everything seemed to have come so easily to him, especially when it came to his identity. Well, there had been that incident with his high-school girlfriend, Laurel, but the fact that she had invited David to her wedding said something about how easy it was to forgive him. He was on good terms with his parents and his younger brother, and he doted on his twin three-year-old nephews. He had been in several long-term relationships, all which had ended amicably, and he had never been desperate enough to pick someone off the street, before Michael. And even then, with his luck, Michael had gone right along with him.
    David didn’t make things easy, though. Passive aggressive, Michael thought. At the same time as David allowed Michael his space, he also insisted Michael give him a key to his apartment, in case Michael were locked out or something happened to him (yeah,