Chapter Twenty Two #2
The color drained from Miles’s face, and his eyes went wide, while his leg bounced on its sole. I’d only ever seen that look one other time, at the VIP pool party, when he was terrified that the guys had posted things to social media.
I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him. How could he be that blind? It was obvious to me, for fuck’s sake!
“No… you’re not gonna tell her, right? This is just between us, right? It’s family business. No one needs to know. This stays between us.” He smiled. “I’m just joking, anyway.”
Lena and their dad had taken the two remaining seats around us. Miles’s eyes were wild, flicking back and forth between all of us.
Mr. Beckett said, “We’re not gonna tell anyone, buddy.”
Miles let out a breath, but his shoulders looked so tight they buzzed.
“Honey, look at me,” His mom said, and Miles did.
“That’s not someone with a temper. It’s not stress.
It’s abuse. Your father and I would never speak to each other that way, or let anyone speak to you like that.
We’d never belittle or demean one another, or ever, ever try to stop them from seeing their loved ones.
Even when your aunts and uncles drive us crazy.
” She smiled and brushed Miles’s face with her thumb.
Lena said, “Yeah, Mi. That’s not okay. Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” Her anger had faded into concern.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Bullshit, bro.” My chest rose rapidly, as if I’d just been forced to run laps in high school. “Don’t… C’mon, man. You know that’s bullshit.”
He wouldn’t look at his sister or me. “It’s not. There’s nothing to tell.”
Their parents had been exchanging quiet words.
Mrs. Beckett said, “Miles, we love you. We would do anything for you, but we cannot support this wedding. Your father and I are asking you to reconsider. If you can’t, or won’t, or feel scared, or in danger, that’s okay.
We will still pay for the venue and everything else.
But we will not be attending and are going to tell our families not to go either. ”
Miles’s eyes opened as wide as his mouth in a silent scream. His chair flew back, digging a divot into the grass where it landed.
“You can’t fucking do that! Do you know how bad that will look? To our friends? Or her family? Or her followers?! She’s about to sign a huge sponsorship deal! What if… what if someone guesses… or, or, or… finds out why you’re not there!” He was close to hyperventilating.
“Calm down, buddy.” Mr. Beckett’s tone was even, and his voice deep. “We love you, and that’s why we can’t go. If we didn’t care—”
“She was right! Bree was FUCKING right!” Miles said.
“Please sit down,” his mom said.
But Lena said, “What was she right about, Mi? She’s a liar and manipulator. She hasn’t been right about anything a day in her life.”
“She always said, always, since the first time she met all of you, that you didn’t love me. I’m not a girl, or gay, and that’s all that matters to you people.”
“Dude, c’mon,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you hear yourself right now?”
“Miles, you know that’s not true,” his mom said.
“It is!” He was sobbing. “She was right about everything! No one else will love me like she does. She’s so far outta my league… I’m lucky to have her! You’ll always choose Lena and Ryder over me. Always!”
Miles was losing steam, and I fetched his chair from the lawn, afraid he’d collapse. My heart broke for him, and my stomach retched. He was under so much pressure, I was afraid he’d pop. I hated it, all of it. Seeing him that way, hearing the pain in his voice, but most of all, I hated her.
While I did, Mrs. Beckett said, “Honey, those are lies meant to isolate you from anyone who’d help you see it.”
I put the chair behind him just in time for him to fall into it. “No they’re not. It’s all true. If you don’t go, that just proves it. She said some mean things about Ryder—so what! And now you’re not going. She was right! You’ll always choose him over me. Even at my wedding!”
Nails ran up my back like Bree’s hand on my arm. I shivered. “They weren’t just some mean things. She was disgusting. Shameful. Hateful, bro. Can’t you see what she’s done? What she’s doing?”
His face was destroyed, and he looked at me as if he’d never seen me before.
Lena said, “It isn’t about him anyway, Mi. It’s about you. I never liked her, but if she was good to you, I’d have learned to deal. But she’s…”
The Becketts stared at each other, concern turning to fear on their mom’s face. “Miles, what would it take to show you that isn’t true?”
“Nothing! She’s right! Always was. Now my own family won’t come to my wedding!” His body shook as if he were sobbing, but no tears fell.
I tried to catch his eye but couldn’t. I’d never been so scared for him. He had to hear us, he had to understand.
His dad said, “It makes me sick to my stomach to think my son, my little buddy, is being treated the way you’ve just told us. But,” he looked at his wife, who nodded, “If it takes us being there to prove to you she’s lying, then we will be.”
My stomach dropped, and the backyard turned cold. I must’ve missed something or misheard. Mr. Beckett didn’t mean that. Of course, he didn’t.
“You’ll come? Even after… for real?” Miles’s chin quivered.
“If that’s what it’ll take, yes,” Mrs. Beckett said.
“We love you, Miles. We choose you. And we will be there for you when you can’t take any more, with open arms.” Her face set the hardest it’d been that night.
“But we can’t in good conscience let our families go. It’s not right, and we won’t do it.”
“That’s fine.” Miles sniffled. “I understand. She won’t, but I do.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. How could they fold like that? Give her exactly what she wanted? Bree’s voice, slurring and slimy, hissed picture-perfect in my memory. My stomach raged. Maybe a parent’s love is different, but I couldn’t stand it.
“I’m out, dude,” I said, breathing heavily. “I can’t be a part of that. If you’re too far gone to hear what your parents are saying, then, then…” My heart raced, and my head swam. “I don’t know, but I can’t and won’t be part of it.”
They stared at me. I think I caught some admiration in Mr. Beckett’s eye, but it didn’t last long enough to tell.
Miles said, “What the fuck? Why would you care? She likes you!”
Lena surged forward, opening her mouth, but snapped it shut and sat back.
I stood and spoke faster than I could think.
“Because she treats my best friend, my brother, like garbage. Like dog shit on her shoe. Because she’s a bigot who’s tearing your family apart.
” My arms drifted up, and my head shook.
“Because because because… she disrespected the man I love, and I’ll never let anyone speak about him like that. ”
It took a second to process what I said. I could barely hear my own words over the rushing blood in my ears. Once I did, it stopped me cold.
Miles’s brow came together. “The man you love?”
Alarms blared in my head, and my vision blurred. What had I done? What the FUCK did I just do? Not like that. Not out of nowhere. I was dizzy and needed to sit down, but so frozen, I couldn’t move, breathe, or fucking blink.
But there was something else, too. A clarity I would’ve been too dense to see months ago.
My heart raced, not because I had just come out to the whole Beckett family in the middle of a serious crisis, not because I had just proved them right after years and years, but because I loved Ryder.
Even mad, even hurt, and pissed off, and embarrassed, and sad, I still loved him.
I sat down. “Ryder… I love him. We’re… together.”
Miles’s face went blank, like some deep internal error had occurred. Lena’s mouth hung open in a gigantic smile. Mr. Beckett looked just as shocked as his son, and Mrs. Beckett’s eyes fluttered but smiled like her daughter.
Trying to figure it out, Miles said, “Ryder… and… so you’re gay for him?”
My brow set and voice dropped. “And fucking proud of it. Is that a problem?”
Miles shook his head and blinked rapidly, clearing the fog away. “No, of course not, man. Good for you guys, I just… wow. Okay.”
I filled my lungs, smelling the chlorine from the pool. Mrs. Beckett reached across her son to grab my hand and squeeze it. “We’re proud of you, honey. We’ve always loved you like a son.”
Mr. Beckett put a hand on my shoulder and nodded.
“Thanks,” I said as my throat got tight and my chest got tighter. It wasn’t about me, but I was still about to cry in front of them. I wouldn’t add my own emotional upheaval to everything else.
And then the implications came hard and fast. Too many for my brain to deal with at once.
Like how I had just chosen the worst possible time to come out to them.
Or how I should confess that Ryder was missing because of our fight.
Or that I knew Bree was lying at the church.
Or that I knew they talked about me, and how hurt I was by it.
But there was only one thing I needed to say, what I came to do.
“But—” My voice broke like I was a kid. “Sorry, but I can’t be your best man, number one male, or anything at all. I won’t sign away my brother’s life on a marriage license.”
Miles’s eyes went wide, focusing on each of mine, back and forth, until his face shattered. I was never good at guessing people’s thoughts, but I knew his. The weight of what we’d been trying to tell him had come home.
A deep, howling sob broke from him. “Please, man, please. Don’t abandon me, too. My biological brother is… I can’t lose my chosen brother, too.”
“We’re not abandoning you, bud,” Mr. Beckett said. “We’ll be there. In protest, but we’ll be there.”
His mom said, “And I’m sure Ryder will be there, too. He loves you, Miles, so much. We all do. We’re all here for you.”
“Yeah, you stupid dingus.” Lena laughed through tears I hadn't realized she was shedding. “I’m out of the party, too, obviously. But you’re my brother. I’ll always show up for you. Screw Brielle, though. Or no, please don’t, like ever again.”
A single chuckle wracked Miles’s body before he groaned from the pit of his stomach and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “My head feels like it’s gonna explode.”
His mom wrapped him in a tight hug. “We love you, honey. And we’re here for you. Forever.”
He sobbed into her neck. “I love you guys so much.”
Miles grabbed my collar and hugged me when she let him go. “I love you, man. It’s great that you and Ry are together,” he said, wetting my neck with tears. “Seriously. It would be freaking awesome if you were my brother-in-law one day.”
“I love you, too,” I said, deciding not to mention how he won’t be allowed to hang out with me anymore once he’s married.
He let me go and looked into my eyes. “If you can’t stand up there, I get it. It’s okay. But please come. I need you there, man. From the bottom of my fucking heart, I need you there.”
“I…” More implications flooded as I searched my best friend’s snotty, swollen face.
“I need to find Ryder.” Maybe it would be a fight.
Maybe a fuck. Or maybe we’d just hold each other.
I didn’t know, but I wasn't doing anything until I spoke to him. “I need to make sure he’s safe, and I need to talk to him. If he’s okay with it, then I’ll be there.
But if he’s not… man, you gotta understand. ”
Rivers flowed from Miles’s nose, and his eyes were so puffy he looked like he’d been in a fight. He bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”
Mrs. Beckett mouthed, “Thank you,” to me.
Several moments passed in silence. Miles’s heavy breathing calmed. He stared at the ground, looking more drained than I had ever seen anyone else.
Mr. Beckett shared a look with his wife, then stood up. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s get you to bed.”
We followed his lead. He draped an arm around his son and led him into the house.
Mrs. Beckett hugged me and said, “We’ll talk more later. But go find him. And text me when you do, okay?”
“Will do, Mrs. Beckett.”
She let go, smiled, and placed a hand on my cheek. “I meant it earlier. We’re so proud of you, Finn.”
My throat closed, causing the “Thank you” to come out like a croak, and my eyes to blur with tears.
She smiled again, nodded, and walked inside.
Lena looked at me, tears wet on her cheek and more threatening to fall. She said, “I’m so sorry for earlier. But—”
I bent down and hugged her. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I was a dick at the church.”
When I let her go, she hit me. “Ow! That hurt!”
She smiled through sniffles. “I’m really proud of you, too. That was… I can’t even, Finn. Just amazing. Seriously. And I think you kinda got through to him. His whole vibe changed after you came out.”
“I can’t believe I did that.” I held out my hand and watched it tremble. “I’m still freaking out.”
“I know, that’s why I hit you.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her. “Do you think they’re mad? That was… what the fuck was I thinking?
“No, of course not! They love you, Finn. And you loving Ryder is great news, no matter what.” She smiled. “Now, go find him. But text me before you text my mom. I need to apologize to him and give him the heads up.”
I smiled again. “Will do.”