42. Faction Fallout #2
I'm not sure they understand the word.
Dad's brow furrows. “What does that mean?”
“There are five of us living together as a family.”
Mom blinks. “Five?”
“Yes.” I keep my voice even. “I'm romantically involved with three of them.”
Her face pales.
“One is a man named Dex. He's my partner. Another is Ronan. He's also a man, and we're together.”
Dad's fingers tighten around the arm of his chair.
“The third is Cami. She's a woman. She's married to Griffin.”
Mom looks briefly relieved.
It disappears when I continue.
“She's also my partner. Griffin lives with us. He and I aren't romantically or sexually involved, but he's part of my family too.”
Dad stares at me.
I give them another second.
“All five of us know. Everyone consents. Nobody is cheating on anybody. The relationships between us aren't all identical, but this is committed. It isn't casual.”
Mom opens her mouth.
Nothing comes out.
“I love them.”
Dad looks at the floor.
Mom whispers, “The men too?”
“Yes.”
She presses one hand to her mouth.
I know that gesture.
She used to do the same thing when she cried in church.
Dad's voice is low when he finally speaks. “You know what we believe.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would you come here and tell us this?”
The question surprises me. Not because I don't understand it.
Because the answer is so obvious.
“Because I'm your son.”
Mom makes a sound—small and broken.
I keep going. “And because I'm done letting you believe I'm living a life that doesn't exist.”
Dad's eyes close briefly. “You're living in sin.”
He doesn't yell.
He doesn't sound angry.
He sounds tired.
Almost sad.
“Yes,” I say.
Dad's head comes up.
I clarify before he can misunderstand. “According to what you believe.”
“What Scripture says.”
“What you believe Scripture says.”
His jaw tightens. “Micah.”
“I'm not here to argue theology.”
“Then what are you here to do?”
“Tell you the truth.”
Mom wipes under one eye. “How long?”
I know what she means. “Being queer?”
Her mouth trembles. “Yes.”
“Most of my life.”
She stares at me. “You've known all this time?”
“I've known enough.”
“And you never told us.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Dad looks at her.
I don't.
Because if I look at Mom right now, I may soften in ways I cannot afford.
“You're looking at why.”
She flinches.
I regret the cruelty before the sentence fully leaves me.
But I don't take it back.
Mom looks down at her hands.
Her wedding ring catches the lamp.
“We would have helped you.”
I do turn to her now. “No.”
Her eyes lift. “Yes, we would.”
“With what?”
She opens her mouth.
Nothing comes out.
“The part of me that likes men isn't a problem I needed help with.”
Dad's expression hardens.
Mom's fingers twist together. “There was that program Joan sent her son to.”
The room narrows visually as my mind spins.
Her face becomes sharp while everything behind her loses focus.
“No.”
She blinks. “Honey, I only mean—”
“No.”
Dad sits straighter. “Micah, listen to your mother.”
“There is nothing to cure.”
Mom starts crying harder.
I can barely hear her over the pulse in my ears.
“I don't think you're sick,” she manages in a broken voice.
“Then don't suggest treatment.”
“It isn't treatment, it's—”
“I know what it is.” My voice stays level.
That matters.
If I get angry, Dad will hear rebellion instead of meaning.
If I raise my voice, Mom will hear pain and try to fix the wrong thing.
So I don't.
“This is not something somebody did to me. Dex did not make me queer. Ronan did not make me queer. Cami did not corrupt me into loving more than one person.”
Mom closes her eyes.
“I didn't choose what genders I'm capable of being attracted to. I didn't choose the fact that loving one person doesn't switch off my ability to love someone else.”
Dad shakes his head. “Everyone has temptations.”
“I'm not talking about temptation.”
“That's exactly what you're talking about.”
“It’s not though.”
Quiet.
Final.
Dad stops.
“I chose Dex.” My throat tightens around his name. “I chose Cami. I chose Ronan. I chose the life we're building because it is good for me.”
Mom's shoulders shake.
“I did not choose to be queer. I didn't choose the way I'm capable of loving.” I pause. “What I can choose is whether I spend the rest of my life lying by omission so nobody here ever has to confront who I actually am.”
Dad's face changes.
For the first time, something like real pain cuts through the certainty.
“And I'm not doing that.”
Mom whispers, “We love you.”
“I know.”
“I don't think you do.”
That hits me harder than anything else.
I don’t let it show, but breathing becomes work.
“I do.”
She presses her palm flat against her chest. “You're my only child.”
There’s the sentence I've been waiting for without admitting I was waiting for it.
Mom almost died when I was born.
Nobody ever told me all the details because my family treats medical history like classified information once the emergency ends.
I know there was bleeding and a doctor telling them another pregnancy wasn't safe.
After that, there was just me.
My biological father stayed until he didn't.
Aunt Rachel had enough children for both households.
Mom babysat cousins.
Hosted sleepovers.
Filled Grandma's house and later ours with other people's kids whenever she could.
For years, family meant Mom and Grandma and whichever aunties and cousins were around that night.
Then Matthew showed up.
He didn't have children of his own.
Never tried to replace anyone.
He just stayed.
Eventually, there were three of us again.
Me.
Mom.
Dad.
Their only son, even if only one of them made me.
“I know,” I say.
Mom's face crumples. “My only child.”
Dad reaches for her hand.
She grips it.
“And you're telling us you live with men and a married woman and—”
“Yes.”
“Do you even want children?”
I stare at her. “I don't know.”
She cries harder.
Dad's gaze hardens again. “This is selfish.”
That lands cleanly.
Maybe because I expected worse.
Maybe because I've spent years expecting exactly that.
I look at him. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“No. Explain it.”
Dad's mouth tightens. “You know what your mother wanted for you.”
“And what about what I want?”
He doesn't answer.
“That isn't rhetorical.”
“Micah—”
“What about what I want?”
Dad looks away first.
I knew he would.
Mom speaks instead. “We wanted you to be happy.”
“I am.”
She looks at me—really looks—and I wonder what she sees.
The tattoos she learned to tolerate because at least they were art.
The gauges she hated.
The hair I stopped cutting the way she preferred sometime in my twenties.
All the small ways she's adjusted her idea of me for years without realizing none of those were the important part.
“You don't look happy right now.”
“No.” My voice almost breaks—almost.
“Because I'm sitting here telling my parents something I knew might cost me them.”
Mom shakes her head immediately. “You will never lose us.”
Hope is a stupid reflex.
Mine moves anyway.
Dad looks at her.
Then at me.
“But we can't accept this,” Mom says.
The hope dies so fast it almost feels physical.
I look at her.
Her face is wet.
Her voice is shaking.
But she doesn't take it back.
“I didn't ask you to pretend it was something you believe in.”
“We cannot have this in our home.”
“I'm not asking to bring anyone here tonight.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do.
I make her say it anyway.
“No. Tell me.”
Dad turns slightly toward her.
She shakes her head and wipes at her face.
“No, he wants us to say it.” Her voice cracks. “So I’ll say it.”
Something inside my chest goes very still.
“If you're choosing to live openly this way, we can't have you coming to family gatherings as if nothing has changed.”
Something behind my ribs cracks—like ice under weight.
A small sound you hear before you realize the surface isn't safe anymore.
“Christmas?”
Mom cries harder.
Dad's eyes shine now too. “Son.”
I look at Mom.
“Christmas?”
She looks down.
That is the answer.
“Easter?”
No one speaks.
“Aunt Rachel's?”
“Micah, please,” Mom whispers.
“Hannah's birthday?”
Dad's face tightens. “Enough.”
“No.”
For the first time tonight, my voice sharpens.
Enough that both of them look at me.
“You don't get to make this abstract.”
Dad's lips press into a line.
“If you're telling me I'm no longer welcome in this family unless I lie about who I am, tell me exactly what I'm losing.”
“You are not losing your family.”
I laugh once.
There is no humor in it.
“You just listed the conditions for having one.”
Mom flinches.
Good.
I hate that I want her to.
Dad rubs one hand over his mouth. “We just need time.”
I look at him.
“I can give you time.”
Hope flickers across Mom’s face.
I kill it myself this time. “But I'm not changing.”
Her hands fall.
“I am not breaking up with Dex.”
Her eyes close.
“I am not ending my relationships with Cami or Ronan.”
Dad shakes his head. “You're choosing them over us.”
“No.” The answer comes immediately. “I'm refusing to choose.”
“You know there are consequences to choices.”
“Yes.”
Mom shakes her head. “I don't think you understand.”
“I understood before I walked in.”
That silences her.
She looks at me like I've struck her. “You knew this would happen?”
“Yes.”
“And you came anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I love you.
Because I spent Christmas with you knowing it might be the last one I ever got to have without conditions.
Because one of my cousins saw pictures months ago and I knew the fuse was already lit.
Because Cami almost died and five adults discovered exactly how much the world cares about paperwork when somebody can't speak for themselves.
Because Dex told his mother and she asked when she could meet everyone.
Because Griffin stopped letting anyone treat him like something was being done to him.
Because Cami walked into her parents' house knowing they might misunderstand her and told them anyway.
Because hiding stopped feeling like safety.
“I don't want you loving a version of me that isn't real.”
Mom folds forward slightly.
Dad puts an arm around her.
I look toward the cross by the front door.
Near the entryway hangs the cross Dad made in a church woodworking class. It was one of the first things I ever did with him.
Dark wood.
Simple.