RILEY

I was five when my parents started taking me to the movies in the city. Our favorite theater is modeled after a Spanish courtyard, complete with balconies and plants and statues. The ceiling even has twinkling stars and floating clouds to give the illusion of being outside. It smells like mildew and burnt popcorn. It’s beautiful. My parents used to take me on Classics Night, when they showed everything from My Fair Lady and Casablanca to The Wizard of Oz and Monty Python flicks.

To say I liked it is putting it mildly. Those times are some of my best memories as a kid. The Wizard of Oz was my favorite and it’s become a tradition for us around the holidays.

I close my eyes and let myself go back to that first time …

Dad gives me my ticket as people begin filing into the theater. I feel like such a grown-up. I watch the people in front of me hand their tickets to the man by the velvet rope, so I do the same. The man hands it back to me with a wink and says, “You watch out for that wicked witch now.”

I quickly glance back at Mom, who puts her arm around me and says, “Don’t worry, honey. It’s all just pretend.” She gives the ticket man a dirty look.

We take our seats in the middle of the theater and chat until the lights dim. Then I’m completely engrossed. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I sit there between Mom and Dad and watch as Dorothy makes new friends, meets a good witch, fights with a bad one, goes to the Emerald City, finds the Wizard, is captured by flying monkeys, and melts the Wicked Witch of the West. And all while singing songs.

At the end, Mom and Dad have to drag me out of the theater because I don’t want to leave.

As I got older, I wanted to uncover all the mysteries. How did they make the house spin? How did Glinda’s bubble fly? How did the Wicked Witch of the West melt?

To Mom’s dismay, Dad started telling me about things—the special effects—like the wires that helped suspend things in the air and the trap door and smoke that allowed the characters to magically come and go.

Mom thought Dad was taking the magic away from me. What she didn’t understand was it was all magic to me. Whether I knew the tricks or not.

“There’s always someone behind the scenes making it all happen,” Dad explained. “Just like the man behind the curtain in Oz.”

Dez and I watch our film, both of us content and happy. When the lights come up, Dez takes my hand and leads me to the front of the theater. Jonah and the rest of the cast and crew join us. I warm in the spotlight as everyone turns in our direction … or maybe it’s having all my friends so close and hearing the applause. I feel like I could fly.

In that moment, holding hands with Dez with our friends surrounding us, nothing else matters.

The rejection from Emma?

Gone.

Libby’s criticism?

Washed away.

The breakups and loneliness and that feeling that I’m not good enough, that I don’t belong?

All locked out of this little bubble of happiness and warmth.

Too quickly, we take our bow.

Dez squeezes my hand.

It feels like I can’t get enough air into my lungs and I feel the heat inside of me beginning to trickle out. All the emotions I feel refuse to be contained any longer. I let a few tears drop, and I can breathe again.

I feel so … I don’t know, loved or something. But now it’s not just the show or the crowd. It’s the boy next to me, holding my hand.

Something has passed between us tonight. We’ve crossed over our neat little line. The line that was drawn when I first came out to Dez, when I finally had the courage to tell him I liked girls. It wasn’t like he was upset or mad, but I can’t describe the look on his face. Disappointment, maybe? I don’t know, but ever since then, there’s been a wall be-tween us.

After the last film ends and the last crew takes their bows, we leave the auditorium and Dez picks me up and carries me out to the parking lot, laughing like I’ve never seen before. Not since we were kids, anyway. It fills me up, and I feel a current coming off him.

Dez pulls me into the shadows, and this time when his lips meet mine, it’s no accident.