40. Reveal the Party #2
The words land harder than they should.
Because technically, he's right.
Because two nights ago he was the person sitting in the ambulance with me.
He was the one who found me.
He was the one who answered questions when I couldn't.
“Ronan.”
His gaze comes to me. “I am not angry with Griffin.”
“I know.”
“I want that distinction clear.”
Griffin nods. “It is.”
Ronan presses his palms together between his knees. “I still don't want a primary partnership. I do not want joint bank accounts. I don't need marriage to prove permanence.”
Dex lifts his head. “Thank God. Planning that wedding would be a nightmare.”
Micah elbows him without looking.
Ronan continues as if no one spoke. “But I do not want a form somewhere to reduce me to your roommate because you aren't awake to correct it.”
The back of my throat burns.
There it is.
Not hierarchy.
Not jealousy.
Fear.
Exclusion.
Different from Dex's loud panic. Different from Griffin's frantic competence.
Ronan's is precise enough to fit in one sentence.
Micah looks down at his hands. “What would the order even be?”
Griffin turns to me.
Doesn't answer for me.
Doesn't even suggest an answer.
My body.
My decision.
Something in my chest goes soft. “Well, Griffin is first.”
Dex nods immediately. “Obviously.”
“Clay makes sense somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Griffin says.
Ronan looks across the room at Micah.
“Micah should be ahead of me.”
Micah's head comes up. “What?”
“You remain calm under pressure.”
“So do you.”
Ronan looks down at his hands for a moment. “No. I function under pressure. Those are not always the same thing.”
Nobody jokes.
Dex points to himself. “I nominate myself for dead last.”
My laugh comes out wet. “Dex.”
“No. If everybody above me is incapacitated and they have reached me, society has collapsed.”
Micah's mouth twitches. “You could do it.”
“I would Google one thing and convince myself everyone has rabies.”
“You cannot diagnose rabies from the internet.”
“Watch me.”
The pressure in the room cracks just enough to breathe again.
I wipe under one eye. “Fine. We call a lawyer.”
“Not today,” Griffin says.
“No. Today I nap.”
“Best decision you've made all week.”
I elbow him weakly.
My head finds his shoulder again.
For a minute, I think the conversation is over.
Then Clay's face comes back to me.
Still part in uniform.
Gift-shop dragon tucked under one arm because apparently grown firefighters panic-buy stuffed animals when their little sisters end up in the ICU.
He'd sat beside me for almost two hours, made exactly one joke about my hospital hair, and promised not to call Mom and Dad.
“Clay asked about my parents.”
Griffin's hand stills. “What did you tell him?”
“That I wasn't ready for him to call them.”
Nobody challenges it.
“He promised he wouldn't.”
Dex picks at a loose thread in one of the blankets. “But?”
I swallow. “But he warned us about this.”
Hidden things don't stay hidden.
At the time, it had sounded like older-brother wisdom I could safely ignore.
Now I picture a different hospital bed.
Micah unconscious.
Dex.
Ronan.
Someone's mother walking into a waiting room while I stand there trying to explain why I need to be let through a locked door.
My stomach drops. “What if it hadn't been me?”
Every face turns toward me. “What if one of you couldn't explain who we are?”
Micah's hand tightens slightly on my shoulder.
No one answers.
They don't need to.
“We keep doing this in pieces,” I say. “Roommates when it's easy. Friends when that's easier. Partners when we know whoever we're talking to isn't going to make it weird.”
Ronan nods slowly. “Legal documents solve part of that.”
“Part.”
“But not family.”
“No.”
I look around the couch.
The chair.
The ridiculous pile of medical supplies.
“My brother already knows everything. Our friends know. We're not really keeping this private anymore. But somehow we’ve managed to make sure the people who could legally matter in an emergency are the last ones to know.”
Dex gets strangely interested in his phone. Then says, “My mom already knows I'm seeing multiple people.”
Four heads swivel toward him.
“What?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I told her my love life was complicated.”
“That is not remotely the same thing.”
“No, but I can fix that.”
Micah catches his wrist. “Right now?”
“Why not?”
“Dex.”
“What? We're having an emotional breakthrough.”
His thumbs are already moving.
A minute later his phone buzzes.
He looks down.
Then starts laughing.
“What?”
He turns the screen toward us.
Mom
Five people?
Another message appears.
Mom
At least you're settling down.
I laugh so hard I immediately regret all my life choices.
Dex stares at his phone. “I hate this family.”
Another bubble pops up.
Mom
When do I get to meet everybody?
Micah covers his face.
Ronan smiles—an actual smile.
Griffin shakes his head. “That was disturbingly easy.”
Dex types back. “See? I volunteer as tribute. My family is apparently emotionally bulletproof.”
I look around at the other three.
Not everyone will be that easy.
The knowledge moves through the room without anyone saying it.
But it also doesn't feel theoretical anymore.
Not some future conversation we can keep moving three months down the calendar.
I sink against Griffin. “Okay.”
His arm circles me. “Okay, what?”
“We tell them.”
No one asks who.
We all know.
The people we've avoided.
The people we've protected ourselves from.
The people who could someday be standing outside a hospital room deciding whether the rest of us count.
Dex lifts his phone. “I technically already started.”
“Of course you did.”
He grins.
Micah's fingers wrap lightly around my ankle beneath the blanket.
Griffin's thumb moves over my arm.
Ronan's foot still touches the edge of the couch.
Dex keeps texting his mother.
For the first time since I woke up in the hospital, nothing in my body is demanding immediate attention.
For now, every person in this room knows exactly where they belong.
The paperwork can catch up.
There are conversations you rehearse because you want them to go well.
Then there are conversations you rehearse because you already know they probably won't.
This is the second kind.
By the time Griffin turns onto my parents' street, I've told them the truth in my head at least forty-seven different ways.
Straightforward.
Funny.
Clinical.
Defensive.
Aggressively casual.
One version starts with So, funny story, I accidentally acquired three additional boyfriends after I got married.
Clay vetoed that one.
“You're smiling,” Griffin says from the driver's seat.
“I'm imagining throwing myself from the moving vehicle.”
“We're going twenty-five.”
“I could still make it dramatic.”
From the back seat, Clay snorts. “You're not escaping. I rearranged my day for this.”
I turn enough to glare at him. “You're supposed to be my supportive older brother.”
“I am supporting you.”
“By trapping me?”
“By knowing you'll drive around the block six times if we let you.”
I hate when he's right.
Griffin reaches over and squeezes my thigh.
I cover his hand with mine.
My parents' house comes into view.
Same pale siding.
Same flower beds my mother has probably already replanted twice this spring.
Same driveway where I crashed my bike hard enough to skin both knees, and had Mom immediately ask whether I felt my blood sugar was low instead of whether I was hurt.
That probably summarizes my childhood more efficiently than therapy ever could.
Protective.
Loving.
Exhausting.
Griffin parks.
“You want me with you when you start?” he asks.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
His fingers lace with mine.
“But don't answer for me.”
“I won't.”
“And when they inevitably start asking if you're okay—”
“I know.”
Clay opens his door. “Are you two done establishing rules of engagement?”
I look back at him. “Ronan has infected you.”
“Pretty sure that isn't how autism works.”
That gets an unwilling laugh out of me.
Fine.
Maybe I needed that.
Mom opens the door before we knock.
For a second, she just stares.
At me first.
Then Griffin.
Then Clay.
Her eyebrows pull together. “Well, this looks ominous.”
“Hello to you too.”
“Cameron.”
There it is.
Government name.
I haven't even crossed the threshold.
Excellent start.
She hugs me anyway.
Tight and long enough that I feel some of the old tension in my shoulders answer automatically.
Then she steps back and looks me over. “You look tired.”
“I am.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Mom.”
“What?”
“Seven seconds.”
Her expression shifts. “What?”
“That's how long it took you to start medically assessing me.”
“I asked if you're sleeping.”
Clay walks past us. “She has a point.”
Mom glares at him.
Traitor status apparently transfers quickly.
Dad comes from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
His gaze lands on Griffin.
Then me.
Then our joined hands.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Dad.”
He hugs me next, gentler than Mom.
When he pulls back, Griffin offers his hand. “Griffin.”
Dad takes it. “Mark.”
Mom's attention bounces between us again.
I can practically hear the gears turning. “This is the roommate?”
I close my eyes.
Clay coughs into his fist.
Griffin somehow keeps a straight face.
“One of them,” I say.
Mom blinks.
There is no good way to recover from that sentence.
So I don't try.
“Can we sit down?”
Apparently my tone is serious enough that nobody argues.
We end up in the living room.
Mom and Dad on the couch.
Clay in the armchair.
Griffin beside me on the loveseat, close but not touching until I hook one finger through his.
Mom looks at the action.
“So,” she says slowly. “What is going on?”
I inhale.
There is no perfect opening.
No collection of words that makes the next ten minutes easier.
So I use the truth. “Griffin and I are married.”
Silence.
Absolute.
Beautiful.
Terrible.
Mom stares.
Dad's eyes go directly to Griffin's left hand.
There is no ring there.
“You're what?” Mom asks.
“Married.”
“How long?”
“Almost a year.”
Her face changes so quickly I can't track every emotion.
Shock.
Hurt.
Anger.
More shock.
“You have been married for almost a year and didn't tell us?”
“Yes.”
Dad leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Why?”
There are too many answers.