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from behind a bank of slate-blue clouds. Waves dissolve on the shore in soft yet rhythmic pounding.
    I walk across the street and climb up on the boulders near the breakwater at the south end of the beach. It’s cold here, and I shiver. I’m grateful for the chill—it’s bracing. I take a few breaths of the marine air, inhaling its slight fishy tang, and try to let my anger go. Yeah, you could call the guy a tease. He had flirted with me from day one on the train. And then he invites me over, gets me all worked up—if there really were such a thing as blue balls, I’d now have the world’s worst case—and then pitches me out the door. I know I have every right to be furious. My emotions and my libido have been toyed with. It isn’t fair to me, who had no idea this guy was getting married, for Christ’s sake. He’s so deep in the closet, he’d have to drive just to get to the hangers.
    I shake my head. I can’t be mad. I watch a seagull fly across the sky, its form a silhouette against the moon’s illumination.
    The poor guy. I knew from the first moment I saw him that he was conflicted, tortured, whatever word you want to use. Maybe that’s what drew me to him. I have always wanted to be the one who bestows kindness on strangers. I was always the one to coax the stray home and feed him, build a nest in a shoebox for a wounded bird, let countless friends cry on my shoulder. Maybe that’s why I started out studying for the priesthood. Maybe that’s the reason I now work with little kids, who drive me nuts and, at the same time, make me happy.
    Andy. Andy. Andy. Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just let yourself be who you are? You can hide from your mom, from Alison, from your family and friends, but you can’t hide from me how hot you were for me. You can’t hide that you were hungry for me. Starving. That’s so sad. Will you carry this burden, this need, around with you forever—never getting it met? Are you going to spend your whole life pretending you’re someone you’re not? Will you go through the rest of your days wondering if those who love you would if they knew the real you?
    It’s tragic, really. I understand Andy’s confusion. I went through it myself. The priesthood was my naïve way of thinking I could escape my own feelings toward other guys. I tried to bury those urges beneath scripture when I was younger. How stupid was that? A bitter laugh escapes me as I think how entering a seminary to get away from homosexual inclinations was like a dieter hunkering down at Dunkin’ Donuts.
    But at least I can take comfort in the fact that I’m not running from myself. While I don’t broadcast who I am (it would not go over well at the Catholic school where I teach), neither do I hide it from those closest to me. My good friends know and don’t care. Yes, some of them are gay too, but even the straight ones just look at my proclivities as a variation on the human theme.
    I think Andy looks at his desire as something revolting. And how can he? It’s part of him. He’s one of God’s children, created in his image. He’s beautiful and whole just the way he is.
    I wish there were a way I could help him see. I wish now we hadn’t begun having sex, because maybe there would have been a chance I could have befriended him and talked to him about his conflicted feelings and desires. But I know that would have never worked. It was our loins calling to each other, not our intellects.
    It was all about sex. And a damn shame we didn’t even get to finish that. The poor guy’s probably up there right now—I turn my head to glance at his window, where the blue light from the TV flickers—beating off and thinking about what we could have done. After, he’ll feel soul-crushing guilt and will probably renew his promises to himself that he will not allow himself to have these urges ever again.
    I could save him the trouble if I could talk to him. I could tell him you can’t wish away who you are,