Clarity

The coffee shop on the quad had become routine, though Micah couldn’t pinpoint exactly when. Somewhere between September and now, mid-October leaves beginning their slow burn to amber, his Tuesdays had reorganized around this place, at this time. He told himself it was about the coffee, which beat dining hall swill, or that it seemed to always match his schedule, but he wasn’t buying his own excuses anymore.

“Predictable,” Eldee said, appearing beside him in line with that half-smile that did complicated things to his chest. She wore flannel today, sleeves rolled to her elbows, and her hair was shorter than last week. Much shorter.

“Says the person with the same order every time.” He tried not to stare at her, at how the new cut changed the angles of her face, like she was meant to look this way all along.

“Fair point.” Eldee stepped closer as the line moved. “Though I’ve been switching things up lately. New semester, new approach to things.”

There was something careful in how she said it, like testing words, trying them out. Micah had been noticing this more over the past few weeks, the way Eldee had of speaking as if she were translating from some internal language he couldn’t quite understand.

“What kind of approach?”

She shrugged deliberately. Nothing about her body language was casual anymore, he’d realized. Every gesture seemed practiced, considered. “Being honest about what I want, I guess. What feels right.”

They reached the counter, and Micah ordered his usual while Eldee surprised him by asking for something different: black coffee, no sugar, nothing fancy. Jake, a sophomore from Micah’s linguistics class, handed over the cups with a friendly nod.

“Eldee, right?” Jake said. “Cool name. Is that short for something?”

Eldee’s face tightened almost imperceptibly. “Much to my chagrin, yes. It’s short for something much worse.”

“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” Jake pressed with the oblivious enthusiasm of someone who’d never hated their own name.

“Eldora. Like I’m some kind of fairy-tale princess locked in a tower.”

Jake looked genuinely puzzled by her obvious distaste. “I think that’s pretty…”

“I don’t,” Eldee said, turning away. “Thanks for the coffee.”

They found a bench under one of the gigantic oak trees that dotted the quad. Micah had questions about the hair, about the name conversation, and about the way Eldee seemed to be shedding pieces of herself and emerging as someone familiar and new, but he’d learned that direct questions often made her retreat.

“I’ve been thinking about names lately too.” He’d been thinking about a lot of things lately. “How much they shape how people see us and even how we see ourselves.”

Eldee glanced at him sideways. “Yeah? What about yours?”

“It’s fine, I guess. Biblical, which my parents loved and I’m mostly indifferent to. But I’ve been wondering what it would be like to choose something for yourself, you know? Something that fits who you are instead of who your parents hoped you’d become.”

“God, yes.” The words came out with such pathos that Micah turned to look at her. “It’s like wearing clothes that are the wrong size. Sure, they cover you, but they never feel right, and they’re never comfortable.”

They sat in relaxed silence for a moment, watching students scurry past with backpacks and coffee cups, trying to conceal the desperation of the approaching midterms. Micah studied Eldee’s profile, the clean line of her jaw, and the way she held her shoulders, straighter and more squared.

“Can I ask you something?” Eldee said.

“Of course.”

“What do you think about all the pronoun stuff?”

Micah’s pulse quickened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...” Eldee paused, choosing her words carefully. “I have friends who use they and them, and I totally support that. It’s their choice, and if that’s what makes them comfortable, then obviously that’s what we should use. But me, personally? I don’t know. It feels imprecise.”

“Imprecise how?”

“Like, maybe it’s fine for people who genuinely feel like they exist in some space between or outside traditional categories. But...” She trailed off, then started again. “I think I’m someone who knows exactly what I am. It’s just that what I am doesn’t match what people seem to assume when they look at me.”

Micah’s heart was beating faster now. He felt like they were approaching something significant, circling around it the way you might approach a wild animal, carefully, not wanting to startle it.

“That makes sense,” he said. “Clarity matters.”

“Exactly.” Eldee turned to face him more directly. “I’m not confused about my identity and not questioning or exploring or any of those things. Just... waiting for the world to catch up to what I already know about myself.”

The words hung between them, loaded with implication. Micah felt a familiar flutter of recognition, the sense that Eldee was describing something he understood from the inside out, even if their experiences weren’t identical.

“What about attraction?” he asked, then wondered if he’d gone too far. “I mean, in terms of clarity versus questioning.”

Eldee smiled, and there was something almost relieved in her expression. “You mean like how people sometimes assume that not being sure about one thing means you’re not sure about anything?”

“Yeah, precisely.” Micah felt emboldened. “Like, I know who I’m attracted to. That’s never been the confusing part for me. It’s more about whether other people would understand or whether they’d expect me to be different somehow.”

“Different how?”

Micah hesitated. This was hazardous territory. They were walking near the edge of something important, and Eldee’s directness was making him brave. “I guess I worry that people have assumptions about what attraction looks like or who it’s supposed to involve. And I worry that if I’m honest about what I want, people might think it…” He paused. “They won’t like me.”

“What if the person you’re attracted to understood exactly what you meant?” Eldee asked quietly.

The question hit Micah physically. He studied her, taking in the new hair, the confident posture, and the way she’d been transforming herself piece by piece into someone who looked more and more like the person he’d been drawn to all along.

“I guess I’d want to tell them,” he said.

“Even if it was complicated?”

“Especially if it was complicated.”

Eldee was quiet for a long moment, turning her coffee cup in her hands. When she spoke again, her voice was softer but more certain than before.

“I’ve been seeing someone,” she said. “A counselor. To talk about... the name thing. Among other things.”

Micah nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“And I’ve been thinking that maybe by next semester, I might be ready to have some conversations I’ve been putting off for too long.”

“What kind of conversations?”

“The kind where you tell people who you really are, instead of letting them continue to assume.” Eldee glanced at him, then away. “The kind where you find out if the people you care about will still care about you when you stop pretending.”

Micah felt a door opening. “What if they care about you more?”

“Is that possible?”

“I think so.” He paused, then decided to take the leap. “I think some people are more themselves when they’re with someone who sees them clearly. And I think being seen clearly by someone you’re attracted to might be the best feeling in the world.”

Eldee looked at him then, really looked, and Micah saw something shift in her expression—surprise, maybe, or recognition, or hope.

“Micah,” she said, and his name sounded different.

“Yeah?”

“What would you think if someone told you they were thinking about what you said? About names that fit who you are?”

“I’d think they were brave,” he said without hesitation. “And I’d want to know what name they were choosing, so I could use it.”

“And what if they told you they’d been attracted to you for months but hadn’t known how to say it because they weren’t sure you’d understand what that meant?”

Micah’s breath caught. “I’d tell them I understood exactly what it meant.”

“Even if it was different from what you expected when you first met them?”

“Especially then.”

Eldee smiled, and it was the most genuine expression he'd ever seen on her face. "I wanted to ask you out since September, but I was scared you'd think it was weird."

“It’s not weird,” Micah said, his heart racing. “And I’d really like to go out with you.”

“Even though I’m still working out who I am?”

“Especially because of that.” Micah reached across the space between them and took Eldee’s hand. “I like people who know who they are, even when it’s complicated.”

Eldee squeezed his hand, and Micah realized that this was what he’d been hoping for all semester, not the confession or the attraction, but this moment of recognition, of seeing and being seen.

Eldee’s smile broadened. “So… Friday? But not here. Somewhere neither of us has been, and we don’t know what to order. Somewhere that’s more like who we really are.”

“I’d love that,” Micah replied and meant it.

They lingered a little while longer, trading small talk about classes, weekend plans, and the way the light looked filtering through the oak leaves above them. But underneath it all ran the weight of what they hadn’t said, a current humming just below the words.

When they finally stood to leave, Eldee headed to her afternoon seminar, and Micah headed toward the library, smiling as he walked. Friday couldn’t come soon enough.