Back When You Were Easier to Love Read Online Free Page A

Haven Public Library would yield exactly six people, all of them related to the poet.
    He caught my meaning, of course. “The city library. Downtown.”
    The reading was by the poet laureate of some state back east, who had won a poetry prize I didn’t want to let Zan know I’d never heard of before. For him, I wanted to be smarter than I really was.
    So we took off, me in jeans with sticky fingerprints on the legs and Zan in a T-shirt with Latin all over the front that translated into: If you can read this, you’re overeducated.
    It was still light out, that glinty, glary late-winter-afternoon light that always deceived me into thinking it would last longer than it actually did. Winter days: reminders of how something so bright can fade so quickly.
    Street parking was free after four on weekends, and Zan wedged his car into a space behind the library. The downtown library was one of my favorite buildings ever, and as I walked toward the front doors I kept my eyes upward, staring at the angular glass walls, jutting just-so to make the most of the lingering light.
    When I bumped against someone I apologized instinctively, not realizing until I looked around that it wasn’t just one person I’d run into—it was a whole bunch of people blockading the sidewalk.
    “What’s going on?” I asked, craning my neck. I could see now that the road between the library and City Hall was caution-taped off, and a cop was directing pedestrian traffic.
    “I think it’s a protest,” said Zan, his eyes lighting up. “See the news vans?” He motioned to a woman with neat hair and a too-big microphone, standing next to a white van with the name of a local TV channel across it.
    “Cool!” I grabbed Zan’s hand, a risky move I was only now willing to make, now that the crowds were heavy. I wanted to get mixed up in them. I wanted to become one of the people with a cause, not one of the people who did crafts and babysat.
    His hand was warm against my cold one, and I tightened my grip. “Come on!” I said, pulling him into the crowd. I wanted to lose myself, but I didn’t want to lose him.
    “You want to check this out?” Zan said into my ear as we ran across the street, zigzagging through groups of people. He sounded surprised.
    “This might be my only chance to be in a protest march,” I said. “And I want to make the world a better place.”
    “You realize this is a gay rights rally, don’t you?” He dropped my hand and pointed upward.
    I looked through the bare tree branches at a sign: WE ARE ALL EQUAL. Zan raised an eyebrow at me.
    “We are all equal.” I pulled together the two sides of my jacket and fumbled with a button. “And health-care rights for gay couples in this state are a joke.”
    His eyebrow arched higher. “Oh, really?”
    “What, you don’t agree?” I was trying to get my stupid button through the buttonhole without taking my eyes off Zan. Zan, with his thick, soulful eyebrows crinkled in thought, his big eyes, his two-day stubble pronounced against his pale skin.
    “I’m just surprised,” he said. “Not a lot of Mormons think about things like that.”
    “Not a lot of Mormons in Haven think about things like that,” I said. My fingers were too cold now, and my button still wasn’t done up.
    “You really think it’s different anywhere else?” His voice hadn’t changed, not really, but there was a certain challenge in his tone. “In California the Church thinks gay marriage is hunky-dory?”
    I rolled my eyes. “You know that’s not what I mean. But at least for California Mormons gay marriage is actually an issue. Here, gay marriage is wrong, sinful, nevergonna-happen, period. There’s no real debate. Just cold, midwinter protests that won’t do any good.” I blew on my hands, the warmth spreading fingertip to palm. “But I want to be a part of it anyway.”
    Zan nodded. “I do, too.” He glanced at my coat, motioned toward it. “May I?” Before I could nod, he was buttoning