Jordy
SEATED AT THE kitchen table, I watched my mom scurry her way from one end of the house to the other a few times, items stacked in her arms like a cargo train.
“You sure you don’t want me to help with anything?
” I asked, resting my chin on my hand. Kieran wasn’t awake yet, but I knew he’d be in a good mood when he did come down.
Our parents were going on a little date day, a matinée and then dinner, which meant it would just be us in the house, for a few hours at least, until he had to go to work.
The few hours we were able to snatch together to be alone were quickly becoming my absolute favorite thing in the world.
“Oh, no, sweetie, you just relax. I’m just finishing up a couple things before your dad and I leave.”
Since I’d basically forced Kieran to admit that he was in love with me, things had been really great.
Like, heart-shaped confetti bursting out of me all hours of the day great.
He’d said it to me a bunch more times since then, even if sometimes he did this really sexy and adorable thing where he’d lean in really close to my ear and say it into my skin, like he couldn’t bear looking into my eyes.
Like it was the most vulnerable, intimate thing he could ever say or do, being honest with me about how he felt.
And I guess it was.
“Oh, and I washed this for you,” she said on one of her trips by, dropping Kieran’s hoodie in front of me, folded into a neat little black square. I wore his jackets so often she probably couldn’t even keep track of which ones belonged to who.
Heat washed over my face as I realized it was the hoodie I’d worn on our trip, the one he’d taken my virginity on in the woods. I hoped she hadn’t noticed that it was crusted in her son’s cum. “It was really dirty,” she commented.
Clearing my throat, I stared down at my phone and tried not to look guilty. I’d meant to wash it myself, eventually, but I’d ended up leaving it balled up in the corner of my room like a disgusting shrine.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“What’d you do, roll around on the ground with it?” She wondered, an amused note in her voice. With some relief, I realized she meant the dirt and leaves that had still been stuck to it. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the other stuff.
“Uh, no,” I answered, biting down into the tip of my tongue to keep from breaking out in hysterics-induced laughter. “We, like, went on a walk in the woods and I dropped it. On accident.”
It was almost sort of true, in a complete lie kind of way. We had gone into the woods, and I had dropped it on the ground. On purpose.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t fall or anything.”
Staring up at her, I blinked innocently as I shook my head. When she walked out again, I pulled the hoodie closer to me, burying my face in it. Frowning a little, I pushed it back away from me. It didn’t smell like Kieran yet, so I didn’t want it.
Sighing lightly, I tapped my fingers on the dark screen of my phone, feeling a bit restless.
I wasn’t exactly sure why. Everything was going perfectly for me.
Kieran was more obsessed with me than ever, and I was finally hearing the words from him that I’d been dreaming of practically since I’d met him.
He still had reservations about our parents finding out, but that was okay with me.
One step at a time, like always with him.
I wasn’t sure if he suspected that we were mates yet.
I was waiting for the right time to spring that one on him.
Hopefully a time where he’d take it gracefully and bury his teeth into my gland to mark me.
It felt like we were right there, just a breath away from everything else in the world falling away to let us fully and totally belong to each other.
But I couldn’t exactly figure out what was stopping me from bringing it up.
“Hey, Mom?” I asked, impulse taking me over even before I was sure I’d even be able to get the words out.
“Yeah?” She answered me from the next room over.
Anxiety curled in my stomach as I grimaced a little. Was I seriously going to do this? But if I didn’t… What was my alternative? I didn’t know if it was worth asking Kieran about, especially if it would make him feel bad or relive bad memories. But then that meant I’d be doing it to her instead.
“Um, never mind,” I said, groaning lightly as I dropped my forehead onto the table.
“Sweetie, what’s the matter?” She asked, obviously concerned as she came back in and observed my new position. I felt her warm hand drop onto my shoulder, rubbing it a little. “You can ask me.”
“Um, no, I changed my mind. It’s too personal.”
I heard the chair next to me scrape the floor a little as she pulled it out and dropped down into it.
“Something you don’t want your dad to know?” She wondered, and when I turned my head to glance at her, she was giving me a loving, affectionate look. “You know whatever you tell me stays between us.”
“Yeah, it’s… Not really like that. It’s not about me.” When she gave me a confused look, I went on. “It’s about you. And, um, Kieran.”
“What about us?”
“Never mind,” I repeated, embarrassed I’d even started this dumb conversation. “It was rude of me to even think about asking.”
She laughed a little bit, but still looked perplexed. “You’ve got to be the least rude person I know, Jordy. Why don’t you try me? It’s obviously bothering you, and if there’s some answer I could give that would make you feel better, of course I would want to do that.”
Heaving a deep breath, I rubbed my arms uncomfortably. “Well, if you don’t want to answer, you can just say so…”
“I will,” she promised me gently, her eyes prompting me.
Her eyes were blue, light and fair like the rest of her features.
She looked more like me than Kieran, whose hair and eyes were both dark brown, almost black.
That meant he’d probably taken his looks from his father.
I wondered if he ever thought about that, and if it made him feel sad.
“It’s really just about… The night you left Kieran’s dad. Did something… Happen? To Kieran?”
She looked surprised by my question, her eyebrows popping up, before her expression turned thoughtful. “You and Kieran never talked about that?”
“Um, no,” I said honestly. “I never asked him.”
“You don’t think he’d tell you?”
“I don’t want him to have to talk about it,” I said softly, glancing back down to the table. I knew she wouldn’t exactly understand. “But… I need to know.”
“Why?” She asked, then quickly shook her head and backtracked. “I’ll tell you, and you don’t have to feel bad for asking,” she clarified gently, laying a hand on my arm. “I’m just wondering why you feel so strongly.”
My pulse flickered, nerves ramping up a bit. I didn’t know if she would suspect my feelings for him, but it was a little late to try and mitigate the damage now.
“Um… It’s just that…” My breath caught in my throat a little as I stared down resolutely, refusing to meet her gaze, only because I was sure she’d know how I felt if she looked into my eyes while I spoke.
“I think maybe it’s just something that he still thinks about.
And I think it hurts him. And I want to help, but I can’t unless I know what it is. ”
She didn’t say anything for so long that it forced me to look up at her, somewhat sheepishly. When I did, she was looking at me in a way I couldn’t exactly identify or decode. But she didn’t look mad.
“That’s very sweet of you.”
I knew I was blushing. I could feel it. That was probably also incriminating.
“Ah, no,” I denied, only because her calling it sweet made it seem a little too close to what it really was. “We’re just, uh… You know, we’re friends and it’d be nice if it wasn’t bothering him so much, is all.”
She gave a slow nod, but I wasn’t totally sure if she was buying it.
I was afraid to say anything else and make it worse.
I was sure just frantically denying it by screaming I’m not in love with Kieran and there’s nothing going on with us probably wouldn’t make things better, and unfortunately a more convincing argument was not occurring to me at the moment.
“Well, I’m not sure how he feels now,” she admitted. “I tried to get him to talk about it, for a long time after that.”
“I remember,” I said. I remember they’d forced him to go to counseling, where he’d refused to talk, and eventually they’d stopped making him go.
“And I’ve always hoped that he’s worked it out in his own way. And maybe that’s the case.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, but I didn’t think that was true.
Kieran did an okay job of hiding any angst from our parents, and people at school, and then work.
They saw a kind of grumpy guy who happened to get a little moody now and then, but no real cause for concern.
I was the only one that could get through his mask and see there were things haunting him.
“So… Did he get hurt that night? Worse than usual?” I added, if it wasn’t obvious.
There was no need to hash through the entirety of his childhood, nor the entirety of her marriage to such an evil, cruel person.
“Not exactly,” she said, and glanced around before scooting in a little closer to me, probably checking to make sure Kieran hadn’t come down the stairs. “That night was really bad for all of us. But it wasn’t because of Kieran getting hurt.”
She paused, and I watched her think for a moment, like a reel was playing in her head. Guilt swamped me, cementing the fact that I was making her relive something I couldn’t even imagine going through. She seemed to notice my stricken expression, and rubbed a hand over my arm again.