You Look Different in Real Life

with goats, who appear way too excited to see us.
    “They think it’s time to go into the pens by the store,” he says. The goats watch him with their disturbing horizontal pupils and such a familiarity, I get the feeling he comes here more often than anyone knows. Nate leads me to a stall at the back of the barn. It’s empty and scrubbed clean.
    “Can you help me with some hay?” he asks, opening the stall door. We grab some from a bale on the ground and pile it into the stall. He puts the rabbit inside and closes the door. “You’ll have to hang here for a bit,” he says to Ratso. “I’ll be back with some food and water.” The rabbit just looks at the wall.
    We stand there in the middle of the barn, which smells like mildew and damp fur, and there’s this awful What next? hanging in the air between us.
    “Do you have a minute?” Nate finally asks.
    Yes, I have a minute. I have many. I have millions, for you right now.
    “I really need to get going. . . .” And why I say stuff likethat at moments like this, I’ll never understand.
    “There’s just something I want to show you,” says Nate.
    He indicates with his head for me to follow him, and I do. Into a far corner of the barn, where wooden shelves contain animal feed and unlabeled metal cans. Nate grabs a ladder that looks like he made it as a kid with toy tools, and positions it against the wall of shelves.
    “Hold this,” he says, and I do. He climbs the ladder and with each step, I’m convinced it’s going to break and he’ll fall backward onto me. Which wouldn’t be a terrible thing, but probably best to avoid anyway. When he reaches the top shelf, he moves some containers aside and produces a rusted coffee can. It rattles as he climbs back down. I step aside as he makes the jump to the floor.
    “You asked me about the footage Lance gave me,” he says. He peels off the plastic lid and reaches in, pulls out a digital videotape. “This is it.”
    The way he holds the tape, clutches it really, tells me the emotions and experiences recorded on it haven’t worn off in the years it sat on a dusty barn shelf.
    “So, not destroyed,” I say.
    “I couldn’t. Even stuff like this, you can’t let go of.”
    The fact that he’s kept it, the fact that he’s showing it to me—I can’t imagine anything more intimate. Except this:
    “Here,” says Nate, holding it out on his open palm. “Take it.”
    “What . . . why?”
    “When you give the other footage to Lance and Leslie, give them this too. They’ll know what it means. It’s part of the story and I’m ready for it to be told.”
    I see how, at a certain point, keeping the tape could hurt a lot more than letting it go out into the world. I take it from him and slip it into the front pocket of my jeans.
    Silence. I stare at our feet and remember his sneaker tapping against mine on the playground. Any more animals to tuck away in their new homes? Any more coffee cans full of secrets?
    “I guess I should head over to Lance and Leslie’s. Give them their stuff back.”
    “Do you want me to come with you?”
    I do, but I don’t. “I think I need to go on my own,” I say, with genuine regret. He nods. He gets it.
    There should be more here. I don’t know who it’s supposed to come from.
    Finally, I just mutter, “See you,” and turn and walk out of the barn, resisting the overwhelming urge to look back.
    Outside, the light is extra bright, screaming at me like Find a way to stay longer, bonehead! After my eyes adjust, after I move through that cloud of regret, I turn the corner to the side of the barn and start walking back to the car.
    What will happen when we see each other at school? Will it be like nothing’s changed, when, in fact, everythinghas? I can’t imagine it another way. I can’t imagine how we could possibly keep things the way they are at this very moment. Or were. Because the moment is already over.
    “Justine!” calls Nate.
    I turn to see him rounding the corner of the barn toward me. Doing that walk-jog thing where you want to run but don’t want to run. He stops when he reaches me and takes a deep breath.
    “I forgot to say thanks. . . .” He holds out his arms. Without even thinking about it, I’m opening mine to him and then we are holding each other. I feel the familiar reflex to pull away but ignore it, because he’s not pulling away either. His shoulder, his neck, his ear. He’s so warm, and it could be that I’ve been cold my whole