Chapter 28 Dane
Dane
Connor’s childhood home is like a portal into a syndicated family sitcom where everyone loves each other, the banter is wholesome, and the teasing is always in good fun.
The house is warm from a musty furnace, the living room TV is always on a game or an action movie, and the furniture exists to be lived on.
Once Mrs. Whitlock gets over the shock of finding a Rorschach test of hickeys on the left side of her son’s neck, she asks everyone what they want for dinner, and spaghetti with meat sauce comes out the winner.
She makes it with Ragu, ground turkey, and Parmesan cheese from a big plastic shaker they keep in the fridge.
We all eat in the living room with our eyes glued to Sunday Night Football, and it feels so… normal.
As nice as it is to be in a house where I’m not constantly belittled and micro-managed, I’m not sure normal is what I’m cut out for.
The warmth, the coziness, the simple food, and the middle-class ambience are all great, but it’s the family part I’m not sure about.
I’ve always been a black sheep. An outcast. An afterthought.
But Connor is the center of his parents’ universe, and they’re pretty much the center of his.
I’m a lone wolf invited into an established pack, and I don’t know how to navigate that.
I don’t know what I’ll do when Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock find out I’m not good enough for their son and the invitation expires.
They’re so nice to me, but I don’t trust it.
I can’t. Even when Mr. Whitlock offers me Bud Lites like we’re old pals, and Mrs. Whitlock asks me if I’m warm enough every fifteen minutes, my Spidey-senses are too good to miss the suspicion hidden in every nicety.
Connor, though, my precious little goldendoodle, may as well be the belle of the ball.
I call it bottom bliss—when a dude gets fucked so right that it turns him into a Disney princess for the rest of the day.
It’s the starry-eyed smiles and the extra flourish in Connor’s walk, like he’s on the verge of breaking into a song and dance number.
I swear, when he comes back to the sofa with a fresh can of Coke, he does a half-twirl before plopping down beside me. It’s absolutely fucking adorable.
His happiness makes me happy. Even with my head all twisted up about seeing Lori again, I feel better off today than I did yesterday. Whether what Lori said in the parking lot was true or not, I don’t need her love anymore because I have Connor’s.
The Jaguars score a touchdown, and Mr. Whitlock is beside himself. He has money on the game, and Mrs. Whitlock is persistent about reminding her husband that she told him this would happen.
Connor chuckles at their bickering, totally unfazed. That’s what happens when you grow up in a loving home. A little bickering is just that and nothing more. Connor doesn’t have to worry about a nit-pick becoming a jab, or playful teasing becoming an all-out screaming match.
“How’s your food?” Connor asks, staring at me with Ragu tinted lips and a whimsical glint in his eyes. Too good for this world.
“Almost as yummy as you.”
He blushes, nose wrinkling from how brightly he smiles. Despite the looks it earns us from Connor’s parents, I put my arm around him and let his head rest on my shoulder.
I kiss his freshly shampooed hair and leave my mouth there to murmur, “You feeling alright?”
“Great.” He shoots another sparkly grin at me. Yep…bottom bliss.
“Connor.” Mrs. Whitlock’s voice turns Connor’s head the opposite way. She’s sitting at his other side, nursing a white wine. “If you’re finished eating, put your plate in the sink and come help me with something outside.”
“Outside?” Connor asks. “It’s dark out. Can it wait ‘til morning?”
Not bothering to sharpen up her excuse, Mrs. Whitlock simply pats Connor on the knee and tells him to meet her out on the back porch.
Just to confirm what I already know, I scoot to the end of my cushion and offer to help too.
“Connor and I can manage,” Mrs. Whitlock objects. “You stay put and enjoy the game.”
Oh, I’ll stay put alright. For about one and a half minutes, until Mr. Whitlock crashes out about an incomplete pass, and I slip out of the room.
I know it’s wrong to eavesdrop, but when a conversation is so obviously about me, I can’t help myself!
Besides, Mrs. Whitlock is just as bad at keeping her voice down as Thalia was in San Diego.
I hear everything clear as day through the back patio door when I slip into the nearest chair at the kitchen table.
“I don’t think getting an apartment with him is the best thing right now,” Mrs. Whitlock’s voice fills my ear through the door panel and curtained window. “I thought you would want to spend winter break here with us.”
“I do,” Connor’s voice answers, “but we can still take a trip up here and pay for an apartment. I’ll get a job, take out a loan, or—”
“Connor.”
There’s a weighted pause before Connor says, “What?” in an exasperated tone.
“Your dad and I will book you a room at an extended-stay hotel until you finish out the semester. Then, you can spend the winter break here with us, and we’ll all figure things out from there.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I screwed up my living arrangement.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not all your fault. There’s this thing I’ve been reading up on. It’s called the quarter-life crisis. You’re at that age where life is feeling a lot less certain, and abnormal behavior is a natural reaction to uncertainty.”
“Abnormal behavior?”
“Well, Connor, you moved away with a girlfriend and came home with a boyfriend. That’s pretty abnormal to me.
You have never had an inclination toward boys.
Never. I would know. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with experimenting.
Lord knows this is the time to do it, before your real life kicks off.
I just don’t want you making any lasting commitments while you’re in transition.
For example, getting into a lease with a boy you’ve been messing around with for little more than a few weeks. ”
There’s even more weight in the pause that follows. So much that it thickens the air inside too. I slump down in my chair, picking at a loose thread in the ruffled placemat and holding my breath to keep from shedding tears.
Either Connor spoke too softly for me to hear, or he isn’t speaking at all, because the next voice I hear is Mrs. Whitlock again.
“I can see that you care about him, but—”
“I love him.” His decisiveness caresses my aching heart, but it doesn't bring me any relief. “He’s not a quarter-life crisis. That was when I moved to San Diego because I was too afraid to break up with someone I knew deep down I didn’t have a future with.
The crisis was me fighting with myself to be someone I thought I was supposed to be. ”
“Are you saying that you’re gay?”
He pauses. “I’m saying that…maybe if I’d had more exposure growing up, then it wouldn’t have taken me so long to—”
“What were we supposed to do, Connor? Pick you up from soccer practice and take you to a gay bar?”
“No. Jeez. I’m not saying you shoulda done anything different.
I’m talking about me. I didn’t expose myself.
I went to school with gay kids. I could’ve made friends with them, but I didn’t.
I avoided them because they made me nervous, and because I thought we wouldn’t have anything in common.
I didn’t think I could be someone like me and also be interested in men, because I was so normal, and being gay seemed so not normal.
“You’re right that I never had an inclination toward boys, but maybe that’s because I was so grateful to be inclined toward girls that I blocked everything else out.
Can’t be gay if you’re always having crushes on girls, right?
Except that, as it turns out, I’m not straight either.
Even if I hadn’t come home with a boyfriend, I still wouldn’t be straight. I’m sorry if that disappoints you.”
“It doesn’t disappoint me, honey. I just didn’t know. You never mentioned any of this to me. I had to find out about all this by walking through the hall last night and realizing you had Thalia’s brother in the shower with you. I wish you would have talked to me.”
“It wasn’t something I could talk through with you.
It was something I had to figure out myself.
But I came here—I brought Dane here—because I know it’s safe here.
I want that for him. I want him to know what a place like this feels like.
I want him to see how much we love each other, so he’ll know I’ll love him the same way. ”
“Connor,” Mrs. Whitlocks sighs. “You’re a very compassionate person.”
“It’s not compassion, Mom. I need him. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.
That’s not to say I never loved the people I was with before, just that Dane is different.
Things weren’t easy in San Diego. It wasn’t easy to get here, but I got here.
He got me here. I need him in my life, and I’m afraid that if I can’t prove to him that I’m different, he’ll run away. ”
I swipe away three racing tears before Connor’s voice adds, “He means everything to me, Mom. He’s not a crisis. He’s a cure. I need him.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Whitlock says. It’s the last thing either of them says, but it’s several minutes until the patio door opens again.
Even though I’m listening to everything, I flinch when they come through the door, realizing they’ll both know I’ve heard it all.
Connor freezes in the middle of the kitchen, facing me, gazing at me with the red face of someone who’s been crying. Not caring that Mrs. Whitlock is watching, I stand and scoop Connor into my arms, squeezing him tight enough to feel his heartbeat against my chest.
Hugging me back with all the strength in his perfect body, he asks if I’m down to go for a walk, which I am.