author's notes: in celebration of my darling lil's [onlyoneformeisme] sweet sixteen. here's to another wonderful year of you, chica. ily. ❤️

theoretically

Okay, so it wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. Then again, it also wasn't the worst.

After replying to Jacques's email saying he was headed to Hotel Hanukkah with his dad, Bram clicked away from Gmail with a sigh and stood from his desk. They were going to be gone for a week — eight entire days he wouldn't be able to email Jacques. Not that Savannah didn't have WiFi, because it did, but rather because his dad didn't like screentime and insisted he leave all devices at home.

"Bram," he heard his father call from downstairs. "Make a list of things to pack. You don't want to forget anything."

That was his dad. Always organised, always on top of things. His mom was the messy one, which was surprising, given what she did for a living.

"I won't," he yelled back. He turned to his bed, where his suitcase lay taunting him with its emptiness — as if to say, "Pack me so you can leave to spend a week with your dad, wondering the whole time when the hell you'll pluck up enough nerve to come out."

Yeah, that sounded like fun.

He knew both his mom and dad would probably be fine with it. It wasn't as if they spent family dinners negatively discussing the LGBTQ community, but they also didn't openly support the community. They'd always supported him, though, in everything he did.

Shaking his head as if to clear his brain of all thought, Bram opened his closet and began digging clothes out.

•

So far, it was pretty okay. He would still much rather be at home, curled up with some hot cocoa and his computer, but this wasn't bad.

One of his least favourite things was being cold — camping in a cabin with mediocre heating (at best) during the winter was not the most fun thing to do, but he did enjoy spending time with his dad. He lived with his mom — only saw his dad at the monthly family dinners (which had been arranged so as to not, to quote his mom, "ruin their kid") — so it felt like they were mostly strangers. Maybe that also had something to do with the huge-ass secret he was keeping.

At any rate, the trip was nice enough. They'd parked the truck, unloaded their bags, and taken them inside. His dad pretty much lived out of his suitcase on trips, so Bram was the only one unpacking. (And by "unpacking," he meant pulling his belongings from his suitcase and tossing them across the room to land in his open dresser drawer.)

After he finished, he tromped out to the kitchen where his dad stood watching the microwave timer count down. When it beeped, he opened the door and pulled out a bowl of popcorn, then drizzled caramel sauce from a packet over it. "Camping food," he said with a grin.

Bram shook his head in amusement. His father was usually the healthy one, but whenever they went camping or went on vacation, he turned into a junk-food addict. They made their way to the living room, which was decorated with a plush rug made from some animal fur and stuffed heads adorning the walls.

(He knew the proper term was "taxidermied," but he preferred to call them stuffed in an attempt to forget they were at one point live animals.)

"We have any Oreos?" he asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up at the secret joke.

His dad, engrossed in trying to turn on the TV, waved absent-mindedly toward the kitchen. "I think so — check the cupboard over the stove. If there aren't any in there, I'm pretty sure I packed some of the ones left over from Halloween."

Bram mentally fist-pumped. The orange ones were the best. Watching his dad struggle for a minute, he rolled his eyes, then leaned over the back of the couch and turned the remote to point forward. "Wrong way, Dad," he said, tone full of fond exasperation.

"I knew that." He clicked the power button and the TV screen lit up. "Ha! See?"

Snorting, Bram ruffled his dad's salt-and-pepper hair. "My dad the genius."

•

Their trip was going pretty smoothly. Bram was kind of upset that a TV was allowed but a phone or computer wasn't, as well as nervous about thinking of coming out, so he was pretty quiet. His dad didn't talk either, just half-watched and listened to the basketball game he'd switched on while reading a book — Bram also watched it, though the game didn't really register in his turmoiled mind.

Eventually, Bram turned to his father. "Dad?" His heart was racing and his palms were clammy. Was he actually going to do this?

His father looked up from his book. "Hmm?"

"I, uh — actually, can I — well, what I really mean is I'm —" Bram stopped. "What would you do if you had a gay kid? Theoretically, of course." As soon as he spoke, he scrunched his face up and mentally face-palmed. That was not what he'd meant to say!

Setting down his book and muting the TV, his dad turned to him. He didn't seem to read into the question the way Bram had been hoping (yet at the same time not hoping) he would. Instead, he twisted his lips to the side in thought. "Gay doesn't matter," he replied. "Being black, Jewish, and gay would probably be hard on the kid, but he wouldn't get any grief from home, that's for sure. Marian's a fair woman; she wouldn't care. I wouldn't care, either."

"So sexuality —" Bram cringed as he said that, because there are just some things you don't say to your parents "— doesn't matter to you?"

His father shook his head. "Not in the slightest," he said. "I know that your mother and I never seem to favour one way or another with the LGBTQ community, but we aren't discriminatory or homophobic. We just thought we'd give you neutral ground to lean whichever way you wanted. But thankfully, my kid doesn't have to worry 'bout that." He clapped Bram on the shoulder and turned back to the TV without waiting for a response.

Bram made a sort of smile and went, "Heh. Uh huh, right, yeah." And then he crept back to his room and flopped down on his bed, telling himself over and over he was a coward.

•

He didn't say anything else about sexual orientation for the rest of the holiday, and unwrapped all nine — his father had splurged this year — of his presents while he handed over a stack of his mostly perfect English papers, a bag of coffee, and a mug that read #1 Dad.

And the topic was forgotten. For a while.