“Okay. We can fix that too. I mean, the color on the walls is contributing to that.”
“It would be cool,” said a nonbinary kid named Sam, “if we could have, like, zones? Like, we’ve got all these books that were donated, but they’re in those bins in the corner, and I hate trying to sort through them. I was thinking it would be cool if they were all in bookcases in one corner and there were some nice chairs for reading.”
“Maybe we could put a game table over there,” said a skinny boy named Ben. “Carlos and I play tabletop games sometimes.”
“Sure, we can do that,” Nolan said.
And they went around like that. Grayson dutifully took notes on his phone. When one of the kids asked him if he was texting someone, he said he wasn’t, just that he was writing down everything they said so he’d remember it later.
Once Nolan had a fuzzy idea of what he wanted to do—new paint, new floors, bookshelves, storage cabinets, and the whole space divided into zones—he decided he wanted to chat with the kids a little to solidify his ideas for what they’d find useful. “Why don’t you each tell us a little about yourselves. It doesn’t have to be anything personal, but I’d like to get to know you all a little to help us finalize what we want to do with the space.”
It started off innocently enough. Marisol was sixteen and a sophomore in high school. She wanted to be an engineer and seemed excited about the plans for any construction work they might do. Sam loved to read but added that they were living in Rainbow House because their parents didn’t understand their gender. Ben had been kicked out of his house when he’d gotten in trouble at school for kissing a boy. But the kicker was poor Ander, whose single mom was an evangelical preacher at a big church upstate and who had disowned Ander when he came out.
Nolan hadn’t been looking at Grayson as each kid started telling their sob story, so he was surprised when Grayson stood and said, “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Then he left the room.
They were basically done with all the information they needed. Nolan wanted to finalize a few things with Marcus, but he wondered if he should go after Grayson.
“It was really great to meet all of you,” Nolan said. “We’re gonna ask you guys to help us out with a few tasks to save some money, but we’ll get professionals in here for most of the hard work. I don’t want you guys to take time away from school or whatever else you’ve got going on, so just come by the common room when you’re available and I’ll put you to work. Sound good?”
“Can I ask you a question?” asked a really big kid named Brian.
“Sure.”
“You’re queer, right?”
“As a three-dollar bill,” said Nolan.
“You still in touch with your parents?”
“I am. They live upstate. My mom and I are pretty close.”
Brian took this in. “My mami, she lives in the Bronx. She says she still loves me, but I wore a dress one time, and she says I can’t stay at the apartment anymore because it’s a bad influence on my brothers and sisters.” Brian rolled his eyes. “You got kids?”
“No.”
“You married?”
“I was. He… died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Brian frowned. “That sucks.”
Nolan let out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. It does.”
“This house is really important to us, so make it look good, okay?”
“Of course.”
Nolan moved to find Grayson. When Marcus approached, he put out his hand. “Hey, Marcus, can you wait like two minutes? I need to find out what happened to Grayson. Once I make sure he’s okay, I’ll come back and we can work out a work schedule.”
“Yes, absolutely. Go find him.”
Nolan retraced his steps to the parking lot and found Grayson leaning against the exterior wall of the building.
He was sobbing.
Nolan ran to him and pulled him into his arms. “Oh, Gray, oh, honey, what is wrong?”
Grayson didn’t say anything at first. He just clung to Nolan’s shirt and continued to cry into his shoulder.
