Doorways can be mysterious things, mystical. Intriguing. Sometimes they open into a ghosts lair, sometimes they open into the Salem Witch trials. Sometimes it’s just your closet.
Tucker Foley has opened his fair share of doors in his lifetime. Good and bad. Who hasn’t though? There are millions of different types. There are hospital doors which scare him out of his skin. There are the Casper High doors which hold the bullies during school hours. And there’s the Fenton’s front door which is never locked.
But there are also metaphorical doors too.
When a girl turns him down it’s like a door has been slammed into his gut.
The door of opportunity to go to college closing as his grades slip.
The death of a loved one as they cross into whatever after life they’re given.
Doors are also like choices. You open one door, and there are five more waiting on the other side, keen to be chosen.
The best doorway Tucker has ever opened has got to be his choice to sit with Danny on the first day of kindergarten.
He’d been nervous. He’d never been around so many kids before. But he saw Danny sitting all by his lonesome and decided to join him. From there they drew many different pictures of robots and rockets that they stuck around Danny’s room.
As a result of opening Danny’s door, Tucker was dragged through Sam’s in second grade. He didn’t understand girls yet, he still thought they had cooties, but he was quickly informed that they in fact did not.
She fit perfectly into their friendship, bats and spiders joining the pictures on the walls.
The worst doorway Tucker has ever witnessed is no doubt the ghost portal tearing a hole between dimensions with Danny inside it. Hearing the screams, seeing his skin flicker. It had been terrifying. When Danny had fallen out of the portal unrecognizable Tucker had been so afraid.
He didn’t know that it had been Danny who’d fallen out, what had happened to him.
Tucker thought he’d lost his best friend until that white ring appeared around his waist, leaving a charred human boy on the floor of the lab.
The nightmares of that day still plagued his mind sometimes, but it no longer happened every night.
But now, they were juniors in high school. Many more doorways had been opened in the years since the accident. Many bad, some good.
Right now, the three of them were playing hide and seek. Tucker chose a very particular door to hide behind.
He was hunched under some blankets on the floor in Danny’s closet.
Tucker was waiting for the right time to tell Danny he was bi. Sam already knew, but that was because she actually noticed things.
Suddenly he heard the door opening and someone dogpiled on top of him. Struggling, he shoved them to the floor and pulled the blankets off and glared at them.
And there sat Danny, looking at him with a big smile and bright eyes.
“The closet, Tucker? That’s like, hide and seek level 1.”
Danny stood and held his hand out to help Tucker up. Once he was standing, he took a deep breath.
“Yeah!” He said nervously. “And here I am. Coming out of the closet.”
He stepped through the doorway and did some small jazz hands.
Danny rolled his eyes at Tucker.
Danny stuck his tongue out before grabbing Tucker’s hand to drag him out of the room and downstairs.
“Sam wants to go to the Nasty Burger for lunch, she’s waiting outside.”
As they stepped outside into the sun, Tucker interlocked their fingers. Sam raised an eyebrow at the boys intertwined hands, before smirking and walking down the sidewalk.
Tucker and Danny’s eyes met, and they smiled, swinging their arms back and forth in between them.
Tucker will never regret opening that door on that day so long ago.
