Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Miles opens his front door and ushers me in—I shout a quick hello to his parents in the kitchen—then we head up to his room,
where he has to push Chardonnay out with his foot and close the door quickly behind her.
“So. How’d it go?” he asks once we’re in the quiet safety of his room.
“I didn’t do it.” He slumps and I drop down on his bed. “Valencia was there the whole time. Like she wouldn’t even go pee
or anything.”
“So do we call Grant and tell him the truth? Gramma Sharon’ll find out pretty quick then.”
The muscles in my chest tighten. I can’t do that to her. How messed up would that be? Finding out her own daughter or son-in-law
was responsible for not only poisoning her with glass but probably killing her grandson?
Oh, and also, the kid you thought was your grandson is a big gay imposter.
And for the first time, a new future fantasy comes to me. In it, Marcus is the one who killed Nate, but Valencia helped cover
it up. Gramma Sharon is heartbroken when they’re taken to prison, but she adopts me. I end up being Easton’s brother anyway.
We’re one—little—happy family.
“I know it’s stupid,” I say. “But I want to tell her first.”
Miles sighs and plops down next to me. We both stare up at the ceiling.
“It’s not stupid,” he says. Then quickly adds, “I mean, continuing to live in a house with someone who is obviously out to
get you isn’t displaying Mensa-level intellect.”
I snort.
“But I get wanting to tell her yourself.”
When I turn, he’s looking at me and his face says yes, he absolutely understands. Probably because he’s been through something
a little similar with his own parents.
“What was it like when you came out?” I ask.
He shrugs and shakes his head. “Not nearly as horrific as I imagined, but I’m lucky. I mean, I obviously don’t have to tell
you.”
“Especially because it wasn’t a choice and resulted in me being homeless and now living with at least one psychopath.”
“Right. Like, you should write a memoir after this is all done.” He puts his hands up in the air like he’s framing a theater
marquee: “COME OUT ALREADY: IT CAN’T GET MUCH WORSE THAN MINE.”
I fall into a fit of laughter that makes Miles giggle along with me.
“There’s a colon there, by the way,” he says. “Like the second part is a subtitle.”
“Yeah, I got that, thanks.”
Once we stop laughing, he continues. “I thought it would be . . . I don’t know. Scarier? And it was at first, before I said anything. The lead-up, I mean. Every day after I made the decision I would sit down at dinner, knowing I was going to say it and how. But I couldn’t. Day after day after day.”
“For how long?”
“About two years.”
“Two years?” I sit up on my elbows, looking down at him.
“Yup. And after all that worrying and hand-wringing and, like, a ridiculous number of script changes, none of it even mattered.
You’ve met my parents. How could I even think they wouldn’t still love me?”
He’s right. The limited times I’ve interacted with Miles’s parents, they seem like the kind of people who are written as cute
background characters in a silly TV show. The parents of the quirky best friend who show up only to help solve problems or
have a funny misunderstanding with the main character’s messy parents.
“How’d you finally do it?”
“Oh my God.” He rolls over onto his side to face me, resting his head on his hand. “It’s so anticlimactic, you ready?”
“Born ready. Disappoint me.”
“So we’re having dinner, right—lasagna—”
“Nice.”
“And my mom and dad are talking about work or whatever, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention, and my mom turns to me and
goes, ‘Miles, what’s new in your life?’ And before I could convince myself otherwise, I yelled, ‘I’M GAY!’”
I laugh again. “And what did they say?”
“Nothing at first. Then my dad puts down his fork and stares at me across the dinner table and goes, ‘Your mother asked what was new.’”
“So they’d already assumed.”
“Please. I asked Santa for an Elsa doll when I was five. They knew.”
I feel a blend of jealousy and happiness for Miles. “Did you get it?”
With a smirk, he rolls off the bed and goes over to his open closet and bends down to sift through piles of old clothes, boxes
of photo paper, books, and toys. Then emerges with a wrinkled stuffed Elsa doll.
“And you kept her!” I say, taking it as he hands her over to me.
“Of course. I was fucking obsessed with Frozen. I think my dad took me to see it three times in theaters. Shame the second one sucked.”
“You know I’ve never seen it?”
“What!”
“I’ve heard people singing the songs and everything, but I wasn’t allowed to watch Disney movies.”
“Stop talking.” Miles gets up and goes to his computer. “We’re watching Frozen.” I grin and don’t even bother to tell him we don’t have to. Because I kind of want to. I came over here with the idea we’d
be talking about Nate and the Beaumonts, and now . . . maybe all I want to do is watch an animated musical about ice magic.
The Disney logo appears on the monitor and Miles hops onto the bed next to me.
That’s when it hits me. I’m in a cute boy’s room, watching a movie on his bed. His twin bed. So our arms are touching. Legs, too. Little connected parts of our bodies, buzzing with potential energy.
Miles turns to me. “Sorry. I hijacked the night, didn’t I? Did you want to keep talking about the coming out stuff? Because
we can.”
“No!” I might have said it a little too fast, and my cheeks heat. “I mean, I like this. Not thinking about all the other stuff.”
He grins and my stomach flutters. “Good.”