Chapter 16 Seth #2
I stared at the message, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
What was I supposed to say? That I was lying in my childhood bedroom, feeling like a coward?
That I’d spent dinner being told my life choices were worthless and I hadn’t defended myself?
That I might be able to save things with my mom, but only if she stopped blindly following my father?
Fine. Family stuff is always weird.
Yeah. I get that.
My mom told me she’s been seeing someone. A guy named Frank. They’ve been together four months.
I sat up, reading the message twice. Angie was dating. After Patrick. After everything.
How are you feeling about that?
Weird. Good weird, I think? He seems nice. And she seems happy.
I told her about you.
My heart stopped. Then restarted, hammering against my ribs.
You did?
Yeah. About us. About how scared I am and how much I care about you anyway.
She said love is always a risk. That the question is whether it’s worth taking.
I read the messages three times, then set the phone on my lap and stared at the ceiling some more.
Tanner had told his mother about us. Had sat down with her and admitted he was falling for someone who played the sport that killed his father—had trusted her with that fear instead of hiding it.
He'd chosen honesty over self-protection, had risked her worry and her disappointment because keeping us a secret felt worse than facing whatever came next.
And what had I done? Sat through three hours of bullshit. Let my parents believe I was still the version of myself they wanted, other than football. Proven my father right about me being too afraid to commit to anything real.
I picked up the phone again.
I'm proud of you. That took guts.
It felt like the right time. She told me about Frank, I told her about you. Fair trade.
How'd she take it?
Better than I expected. She's worried about me getting hurt—not by you, by the football thing. But she said love is always a risk.
She sounds smart.
She is. I'm lucky.
I stared at the words, at the casual way he described a mother who responded to hard news with wisdom instead of ultimatums. A mother who worried about her son's heart instead of her own reputation.
Yeah. You are.
The typing bubble appeared, then disappeared. Appeared again.
I wish you were here.
Me too.
Two more days. Then we’re both home.
Yeah. Two more days.
I set the phone aside and closed my eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. All I could think about was Tanner at his mother’s house, sitting on some back porch or in some kitchen, having conversations I was too afraid to have. Being brave in ways I couldn’t seem to manage.
My phone buzzed again. I grabbed it, expecting another message from Tanner.
It was my father.
We need to talk tomorrow. About your future. This nonsense has gone on long enough.
I stared at the message until the screen went dark, then turned my phone face down on the nightstand and pulled the covers over my head.
Thanksgiving morning arrived gray and cold.
I woke to the sound of my mother moving around downstairs, the familiar rhythm of her morning routine—coffee brewing, pans clattering, the low murmur of NPR from the kitchen radio. For a moment, lying there in the half-light, I could pretend I was twelve again, and none of this mattered yet.
Then I remembered where I was and why, and the illusion shattered.
My phone showed three messages from Emily—complaints about Mark’s family, questions about when I’d be down, and a photo of their kids that I didn’t open. Nothing from Tanner. It was early still. He was probably helping his mother cook.
I forced myself out of bed and into the shower, letting the water run hotter than comfortable, using up all the hot water the way I used to do as a teenager just to be petty. Some habits were too satisfying to break.
Downstairs, Mom had transformed the kitchen into something from a magazine spread.
The turkey was already in the oven, sides prepped and waiting, the good china laid out on the dining room table.
She moved through the space with practiced efficiency, and I watched her from the doorway, trying to remember the last time I’d seen her this focused on something that wasn’t managing Dad’s moods.
“Morning,” I said.
She turned, startled, then smiled. “Morning, honey. I didn’t hear you come down.”
“Need help with anything?”
“You can set out the serving dishes. They’re in the hutch.” She gestured toward the dining room. “And maybe…check on your father? He’s been in his study since six.”
I didn’t want to check on my father. Didn’t want to have the conversation his text had promised. But Mom’s expression was pleading, and I’d never been good at telling her no.
I found him exactly where she’d said, sitting behind his desk with papers spread in front of him. He looked up when I knocked, his reading glasses perched on his nose.
“Shut the door.”
I shut the door.
“Sit.”
I sat.
Dad took off his glasses, set them aside with deliberate care. The silence stretched, a tactic I recognized from every lecture he’d ever given me.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said finally. “About your situation.”
“My situation.”
“This athletic training path you’re insisting on pursuing.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve done some research. The job market is saturated. Starting salaries are barely livable. And the career ceiling is…limited.”
“I know the statistics.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re making decisions based on some juvenile fantasy instead of reality.”
The anger I’d been tamping down since yesterday flared hot. “It’s not a fantasy. I’ve thought about this. I’ve done the work.”
“You’ve done the bare minimum to convince yourself this is viable.” Dad’s voice was cold, clinical. “But you’re young. You still have time to correct course.”
“Correct course to what? Business school? Law school? Becoming you?”
“Watch your tone.”
“Why? You’ve been criticizing everything about my life since I got here. My degree, my career, my choices. What else is there to say?”
Dad’s jaw tightened. “I’m trying to help you avoid making a mistake you’ll regret.”
“You mean a mistake you’ll regret. This has never been about me. It’s about you being embarrassed that your son isn’t following the prescribed path.”
“That’s not—”
“It is.” I stood, the chair scraping against the hardwood. “You want me to be someone I’m not. And when I refuse, you make it about practicality or maturity or whatever other excuse lets you avoid admitting you just don’t like who I actually am.”
The silence that followed was arctic. Dad stared at me with an expression I couldn’t read—anger maybe, or disappointment so deep it had calcified into something harder.
“Get out,” he said quietly.
“Gladly.”
I left the study, my hands shaking, and nearly ran into Mom in the hallway. From her expression, she’d heard everything.
“Seth—”
“I’m fine.” I pushed past her toward the stairs. “I just need a minute.”
In my room, I grabbed my phone and called the one person I knew would understand. Well, one of two, but no way in hell was I going to ruin Tanner’s day. It was going to be hard enough for him to celebrate when there was a gaping hole at the table and in their hearts.
Hunter answered on the second ring. “Happy Thanksgiving. How bad is it?”
“On a scale of one to ten? Fifteen.”
He laughed, sympathetic. “That good, huh?”
“He just told me I’m throwing my life away on a juvenile fantasy. Direct quote.”
“Jesus. What did you say?”
“I told him he just wants me to be someone I’m not.” I sat on the edge of the bed, phone pressed hard against my ear. “Which went over about as well as you’d expect.”
“I’m sorry, man. That’s rough.”
“The best part? I’m pretty sure my mom knows something. I have no fucking clue how, but last night she gave me the you can talk to me about anything speech.”
Hunter was quiet for a beat. “And you didn’t tell her.”
“No.”
“Seth—”
“I know. I’m a coward. You don’t have to say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.” His voice gentled. “I was going to say it’s hard. Coming out is always hard, and doing it to people who’ve never been supportive is harder.”
“Tanner told his mom. About us.”
“Good for him.”
“He’s braver than I am.”
“He’s not braver. He’s just had different circumstances.” Hunter paused. “How are things with you two, anyway? You sounded off last time we talked.”
“We’re… I don’t know. Trying.” I rubbed my eyes. “He’s scared I’m going to change my mind about football. I’m scared I’m going to screw this up. We’re both bad at talking about it.”
“So talk about it. When you get back.”
“What if talking doesn’t fix it?”
“Then at least you tried. That’s better than wondering.”
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to think that being honest could solve problems rather than create new ones. But sitting in my childhood bedroom, having just blown up at my father, honesty felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford.
“I should go,” I said. “Before Mom comes looking for me.”
“Hang in there. One more day.”
“Yeah. One more day.”
I ended the call and sat there for a long time, staring at nothing. My phone buzzed—another message from Emily asking when I’d be down. I ignored it.
Eventually, I made myself go back downstairs.
Dinner was excruciating.
Emily and Mark descended on the house with their kids like a small tornado, and Mom went into grandmother mode, all warmth and indulgence she never showed me.
Dad barely acknowledged my presence. We sat at opposite ends of the table, the turkey between us like neutral territory, and made careful small talk that avoided everything that mattered.
Emily filled the silence with stories about Mark’s promotion, their new house, the chaos of raising two kids under five.
But every few minutes, she’d steer the conversation back to me—asking about my classes, my plans after graduation.
I watched her effort—the way she kept trying to draw me in, the pointed looks she shot Dad whenever he started to interrupt, the gentle redirect anytime Mom’s questions veered too close to uncomfortable territory—and felt a swell of gratitude I couldn’t quite express.
When the meal finally ended, I helped Mom clear dishes while everyone else retreated to the living room. She moved around me carefully, like I was something fragile that might break.
“Your father loves you,” she said. “He just wants what’s best.”
“No, he doesn’t. He wants what makes him comfortable.”
“Seth—”
“Mom.” I set down the plate I’d been scraping. “I need to ask you something.”
She went still. “Okay.”
“Yesterday. When you made that comment about how I could tell you anything…” I forced myself to meet her eyes. “Did you say that for any particular reason?”
Her expression crumpled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
The silence stretched. In the living room, one of the kids shrieked, and Emily laughed. Mom’s hands twisted in the dish towel.
“I want you to be happy,” she said finally. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And I want you to feel like you can talk to someone.”
“But?”
“But your father…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It would be hard for him. To understand.”
“And you? Would it be hard for you?”
She looked at me with eyes that were wet but not spilling over. “I just want you to be safe. To have a good life. To not make things harder than they need to be.”
The answer landed like I’d known it would—loving, well-meaning, and completely missing the point.
“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”
“Seth—”
“It’s fine, Mom. Really.”
I finished the dishes in silence, then excused myself to my room. Lay on the bed and stared at my phone, reading Tanner’s messages from earlier.
She said love is always a risk. That the question is whether it’s worth taking.
I typed out three different responses, deleted them all. What was I supposed to say? That his mother was brave and mine was practical? That his family made space for him to be himself and mine would be happier if I crammed myself into the box they’d picked out for me?
In the end, I didn’t say anything.
Just turned off the light and tried to sleep, counting the hours until I could leave.