There is a moment (familiar to any who are easily assumed to be white/straight/non-other) when some remark or gesture gives you away, maybe on purpose: a tiny hitch in the pacing, a change in the easy tone, a sudden collective knowledge of an alien, or an infiltrator, or a hunter among innocents. I am no provocateuse and rarely seek out this moment, but it is savory.
You will doubt everything you’ve done. It’s inevitable that you will, standing so close to him with his potential (for love, for learning and doing) shining out of him, blinding, dangerously high-voltage.
I have seen you tripping over words as if they were strange, unwieldy artifacts in your mouth; as if they were from a language you weren’t yet fluent in, and you wished that someone, somewhere spoke your mother tongue (whatever that is).
We are not used to it. Weeds grow hurriedly along the driveway, anxious that they might miss their moment; their boldness does nothing to disguise that they were caught off guard. For gardeners, this rain is a trickster, pulling bright green shoots out of the ground long before the dangers of snow and cold snaps have passed.