The Love We Breathe
Page 26
Hit me with it, you bastards. I can fucking take it. I can take it because Ryan’s holding my hand.
I can fucking take it!
Give me all you got!
Because what you give me will be the worst I’ll ever take.
And then I can take anything!
That’s when time started to move normally again. I was subconsciously aware of the fact that my hand was hurting from Ryan squeezing it.
“What are you talking about, James?” Mom asked. Her voice seemed too close. I had almost expected it to sound far away and echoey like we were in a church with brilliant acoustics.
But we were here in our carpeted living room and her voice sounded so dead. It surprised me and shocked me back into reality.
“You heard me.” I said confidently. But my voice came out as a raspy whisper.
Dad creased his brow and said, “But you’ve had girlfriends…”
“I was just in denial.” I said, turning to face him. I could scarcely look him in the eyes. Why did I feel such shame?
Why did I feel so scared to tell my own flesh and blood?
Why couldn’t I trust them even one iota?
“I was… confused,” I added after a short pause.
There was an awkward silence. It can’t have lasted more than ten seconds, but it felt like ten lifetimes.
Time crawled by. Mom and Dad both exchanged glances. Ryan shifted uncomfortably.
I was frozen still, encased in a static cage of panic.
I was holding my breath.
I was waiting… waiting… waiting for…
…Waiting for the worst to happen.
But it didn’t.
It didn’t.
“Okay,” Dad said. He nodded at me stiffly. “Okay.”
I… I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I mouthed the word back at him: Oh-kay?
He nodded vigorously. “It’s okay.”
I turned to Mom.
“It’s okay, honey.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t hold it back.
I burst into tears, this flood of emotion and relief pouring out of me.
They said okay.
I felt an instant guilt that I hadn’t trusted them more.
I felt so bad that I had expected them to act like homophobes. To be homophobes. To hate me for who I was.
Ryan put an arm around me and held me close to him, squeezed me tight, and in that moment, bracketed by my parents on one side, and Ryan on the other, I felt… safe.
Not safe as in physically safe. But emotionally safe.
The tears came and went like a flash flood. I dried my eyes, laughed nervously, and now found it even more difficult to meet Mom and Dad’s eyes.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I thought you two wouldn’t—”
“You’re our son,” Mom said. She nodded at Dad, urging him to speak.
He cleared his throat, and said a little awkwardly, “It wasn’t what I expected to hear. But… but I’m your father… and you’re my son… and…”
Now it was my turn to tell him it’s okay. He wasn’t good at this kind of stuff.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I said. “I understand.”
“Good,” he said gruffly. He turned to Ryan. “And you’re…?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said.
“You seem like a nice young man.” Dad gave a small smile.
“Thank you,” Ryan said, beaming back.
I thought about how tough it was for him and his mother… and comparatively, how lucky I was.
Just when I thought it was all over, Mom burst into tears, and she surged toward me, and lifted me into a standing hug.
“You were scared to tell us?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“But why? What did you think we would say?”
I shook my head, feeling that guilt again. “I don’t know, Mom. You know how it is… it’s not easy.”
She nodded, swallowing back her tears. “I know, sweetie. I don’t want you to be scared to tell us anything. No matter how bad it may seem to you, we’ll always support you.”
I smiled at that. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“I mean it,” she said, her voice hardening. She leaned back to look me in the eyes. “Anything at all. Don’t shut us out of your life.”
“I won’t,” I told her. “I promise.”
And with that, it was over. The big moment. The biggest moment of my life, maybe.
We talked a little. Ryan introduced himself, told them about himself. We talked about college, about plans.
We talked about Ryan’s situation at home. Mom told him he was welcome to stay here.
And faster than I could have ever expected, we were done with dinner, Ryan and I helped with the dishes, and then we went outside for a walk, and walked until we found a small playground nestled in a batch of trees.
We sat together, chatted a bit, in silence for other bits, looking up at the velvet sky.
And then we lay on the grass, and he and I held each other for the longest time.
Things were going to be okay.
They were really going to be… okay.
I was happy. Ryan was happy.
We were happy.
We’d find our way through life.
And while I didn’t know if we were going to stay together forever, or if we were going to come to an end someday, thinking that far ahead didn’t matter.
It was better to live in the now, and cherish it now, than worry about a later that may never come, that may be different than I could ever possibly imagine.
“What are you thinking about?” Ryan asked softly, turning onto his side to nuzzle his face in my neck.
The grass was a little damp beneath us, but we didn’t care.
“I was thinking about the future,” I said.
“But now?”
“But now I’m thinking about the now.”
“What about the now?”
I shrugged. “Want to do something tomorrow?”
“I can think of a few things I’d like to do,” he said, giggling.
I grinned. “Yeah, me too. I don’t know… let’s go on a date.”
“Are you worried what people in your old neighborhood will think?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not even a little bit.”
Also by Adelia Everett
The Love We Breathe
The Taste of Cinnamon
The Pieces We Pick Up
About the Author
Adelia Everett has written about life, loss, lust, and love between men for as long as she can remember. When she's not writing new stories and characters in her spare time, she can be found at her day job working for an animal shelter in a small town, or visiting family in the next town over.