Rules were established. They would see each other only in Henry’s room, and only late at night, when Chase’s roommate, Gunter, would be sleeping. They wouldn’t acknowledge each other outside the room, and when they called or texted, it would be using a special code Chase had come up with. Freshman year, Chase had dated a Guatemalan girl named Sadie with whom he had amicably broken up when she transferred to Georgetown. Chase would tell his teammates he and Sadie had decided to keep dating long-distance. Chase saved Henry’s number under the name of his ex-girlfriend in case a teammate happened to pick up his cell, and whenever Chase took a call from Henry around the others, he would call him Sadie. The secrecy, the arcane rules, all ran counter to what Henry had become over the summer—but he couldn’t stop falling for Chase, this boy whose beloved father would have cut out his son’s heart if he knew what was going on; this boy who was flourishing and free when he was safely locked in Henry’s room; this boy who was funny, sweet, gentle, goofy, and far smarter than he acted. Chase and Henry started seeing each other during the football season, and Chase was so tired when he came to Henry’s door that they just as often fell asleep as fucked. Chase always set an alarm for 5 a.m., waking in time to tiptoe back to his dorm room and be there when Gunter woke.
Henry didn’t expect the main parts of Chase to change, but he had hoped for the edges to soften—for Chase to at least sometimes look at him when they saw each other in public. But Chase was as disciplined here as he was in football. Nothing of their inner world seeped into the outer. It was when the outer world started to invade the inner that Henry started to rethink what he was doing. Because Chase would sometimes joke and call Henry “Sadie” when it was just the two of them in Henry’s room, when there was no reason to use the code they had developed. Though Henry didn’t think it funny, he at first played along, attributing it to Chase’s odd—and oddly intense—sense of humor. But this just encouraged Chase, until one night Chase called Henry “Sadie” while Henry was going down on him. Henry pulled his mouth away and told Chase to never do that again, and this sent Chase into an embarrassed rage. He kicked the little plastic dorm trash can and hissed that Henry had no right, no fucking right at all, to tell him what to do. Chase hadn’t hit Henry, but he had frightened him, had shown he could harm him if he wanted, and when a few nights later Chase called Henry “Sadie” again during sex, it seemed like Chase was daring Henry to say something. Meanwhile, outside the room, the stress was leading Henry to revert to his old, closeted, paranoid self. He started dressing conservatively again, tried not to speak, and when he did speak tried not to give off signals.
Thao had been hesitant about the whole arrangement between Henry and Chase from the start, and once he saw what was happening to his friend, he came right out and told Henry this relationship was poison, that it was erasing every good bold thing about him. Eventually Henry came to see this himself, and the first week of April he sat Chase down on his bed and told him it was over. Chase cried until the sun rose, when it was time for him to return to his room.
Fall of their junior year, Thao worked hard to reclaim his friend, listening to Henry talk and talk about Chase, assuring him he’d done the right thing. Meanwhile Chase was obsessively texting and calling Henry, apologizing, promising he’d change, saying they could try again, he had gotten a room to himself on Central just so they could start over. If Thao was around, Henry would ignore Chase, but when Henry was alone he would sometimes give in and take the calls, answer the texts, and in this way encouraged Chase to keep pursuing him. Then came Chase’s all-out campaign in the last weeks of the football season, the gifts, the handwritten letter. Thao could see it was working, that Henry was considering giving Chase a second chance, and he became so concerned for his friend’s safety that he finally snatched Henry’s phone and typed a text telling Chase to fuck off and never contact him again.
Henry was relieved that Thao did what he hadn’t been able to, and they went out that night to celebrate, the first time Henry had gone out all semester. They decided to meet at Stefan Knows with Thao’s friend Jamie. The three of them took shots at the bar to get Henry relaxed, then ventured out to the dance floor. Henry was still nervous as he danced with Thao, but that he was dancing at all was in itself a feat, a victory, an important step toward recovering his old confidence. Then Thao saw Chase pushing through the crowd. Chase confronted
