Chapter 36 #2
“In the list of transgressions I’ve supposedly committed and need to be called to task for, which is the worst? Is it that I’m gay? Or that I’ve embarrassed you by being outed against my will? Because from where I’m sitting, I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.”
My mother leaned forward, her eyes sparking. “You did embarrass us. You could have given us a heads-up, let us get ahead of the news cycle. We were blindsided, Sebastian.”
“And you think I wasn’t? What part of ‘outed against my will’ do you not understand?”
My father snorted loudly again, and my head swung quickly in his direction. “Do you have something to say?”
He shot me a withering glare. “Are you really that naive, Sebastian? Your sexuality was the worst-kept secret in Washington. Everyone who's anyone knows you're a poofter."
I heard Taylor suck in a shocked breath as my blood ran cold, a deep and terrible sense of calm washing over me. “You knew?”
“Of course, we knew,” he replied, his lip curling as his gaze bounced to Taylor and then back to me. “We’ve known since you were in college.”
His implication was more than clear. All this time, they’d known about Taylor and me. How, I couldn't even begin to guess, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.
They’d known I was gay, and they’d let me twist myself into knots, trying to keep my identity—this essential part of who I was at my core—a secret from the world.
They’d let me live in shame.
No. They hadn’t just let me—they’d forced me to live in fear of discovery, terrified of the repercussions of that truth.
They’d known, and they’d let me suffer anyway, supporting dangerous, hateful politicians who would have sooner seen me stripped of every single right I had than accept me for who I was.
This wasn’t just betrayal; it was cruelty.
My body went numb, my legs turning to jelly, and I felt myself dropping into the chair, my vision going blurry at the edges.
Instantly, Taylor was crouched in front of me, his big hands wrapped around both of mine. Dimly, I was aware of his mouth moving, but through the ringing in my ears, I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I watched him turn his head sharply toward my parents, who were now standing side by side a few feet away. When had they moved?
Through the high-pitched squeal in my brain, I heard him roar, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
My mother said something, then my father. Taylor fired back, and I watched it all like it was happening on the other side of a very thick pane of glass covered in Vaseline.
I looked down at his hands on mine, focusing on his red, cracked knuckles. At the long white scar near his right thumb, the one that I knew was from a skate slicing him open two seasons ago, as the spike of adrenaline receded and the ringing finally faded.
I focused on the warmth of his hands around mine until my heartbeat slowed, and I found that still place inside of me I sometimes went to when I needed to ground myself.
The place I’d spent more and more time in the last few years.
The place I hadn’t felt like I needed all that often since Taylor had come back into my life.
I looked up at my parents, the people who were supposed to love me most in the world, the people who were supposed to protect me. My eyes began to burn. “Do you really hate me that much?”
My mother’s face flushed red, and she raised her eyes to the ceiling, her lips moving as she murmured something so quietly that I couldn’t make it out.
My father’s face turned the color of ash before his knees buckled, and he collapsed heavily onto the edge of the sofa. He propped his elbows on his thighs and hung his head forward.
Between one beat and the next, Taylor was on his feet, his hand closing around my arm and pulling me upright. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” he snapped, as he steered me toward the door.
There, I paused for a moment, rolling my shoulders back and lifting my chin—the act of a man fighting to control his emotions. The act of a man who never wanted to let these people see him break.
I reached for the doorknob just as my mother’s voice cut through the silence. “Wait! There’s something you should know.”
I turned around slowly, as if moving through sludge, to find her staring down at my father, her eyes narrowed in contempt.
My mother wasn’t the type to blurt things out.
She was measured and very nearly always in control of her emotions.
It was something I’d always admired about her.
A trait I’d once been proud to have inherited myself.
“Tell him, Charles,” she hissed.
My father’s head shot up. “Bernadette. No.”
“If you don’t, I will, and so help me god, you won’t like my version of this story.” She crossed her arms over her chest, which rose and fell with harsh, angry breaths.
My father exhaled loudly, his shoulders falling, and then … nothing. He just sat there, looking for all the world like a man who’d simply given up.
“Tell me what?” I asked, dragging my attention back to my mother.
“The man sitting here lecturing you about respect has been living a double life for the better part of thirty years.”
I heard the words, understanding each one individually, but together, they formed a statement I couldn’t fathom. “What are you talking about?”
“Your father has a second family in Georgetown—a woman he’s been with for god only knows how many years.
They have a twenty-six-year-old daughter he’s never claimed publicly.
” She lifted her martini to her lips and emptied it in one giant gulp, eschewing the ladylike sips she’d been taking all evening.
Fuck.
I had a sister—a person I could have known, an ally in this fucked up world my parents occupied, and nobody had ever thought to mention it to me.
Taylor’s hand closed around mine, and I turned briefly to look at him. To anchor myself once again in his presence when it felt like everything was spinning out of control. He gave my hand a firm squeeze and held on.
I refocused my attention on my mother, recognizing that my father was essentially useless to me right now. “What’s her name?”
She slammed her glass down on the table, and it shattered, shards of glass flying in every direction. “It doesn’t matter what her name is,” she bellowed. “She’s a nobody. Irrelevant.”
She looked down at the mess she'd caused, her expression going blank. It was somehow worse than the outrage had been. At least that had felt human.
“She’s my sister,” I whispered. “That matters to me.”
My father raised his head slowly, looking like he’d aged ten years in one night. “I tried to protect this family,” he said, his voice stripped of emotion. “I know you don’t believe that, but I did.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked, sliding my hand from Taylor’s to tunnel my fingers through my hair, linking my fingers atop my head, and blowing out a breath.
“It means that when your father’s friends at The Stratford Institute found out,” my mother sneered, “they made it clear that nothing less than total, unconditional loyalty to their agenda would suffice. It means, for twenty years, every time they’ve said ‘jump,’ we ask, ‘how high?’”
I let my hands fall limply to my sides, comprehension washing over me.
“You chose loyalty to them over me.”
My father bounded to his feet. “I don’t think you understand. It’s—”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” I snarled. “Your secret—your comfort—was worth more than your son’s safety and dignity.”
I needed to get the fuck out of this place. To not be here when I eventually crashed, which, by the shaking in my hands and the sweat prickling my brow, I could tell was fast approaching.
I spun on my heel, yanked open the door, and stormed out, Taylor at my side.
“Sebastian, wait!” my mother called, rushing after us, the click-clack of her heels muffled by thick carpet.
I jabbed the elevator button as she came skidding to a halt. “We're not done here.”
Taylor stepped in front of me, and I let him. I simply didn’t have it in me to fight with them anymore, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d fight for me with every last breath in his body.
“Look, lady. I know you’re used to calling the shots, but we are absolutely done here.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” she spat.
“Yes, it fucking does. I love that man.” He pointed at me, keeping his eyes locked on her. “And I refuse to stand here and let you hurt him any more than you already have.”
“What gives you the right—” she sputtered.
The elevator dinged, signaling its arrival, and Taylor took hold of my hand, leading me inside. As the doors began to close, my mother stepped into view, her face red and splotchy. “Goodbye, Mother,” I whispered, feeling my limbs begin to tremble.
I held my breath until we began moving, then crumpled. Taylor pressed me into his chest and rocked me gently back and forth as I finally let the tears I’d been holding back all night begin to fall.
I didn’t know if they’d ever stop.