Chapter Fourteen
We have reservations to grab a late lunch at a place within walking distance of my apartment, so I’m able to lure my mom and Bel away from any fight challenges by reminding them that we’ll be late. My mom, especially, doesn’t want to miss the photo op.
Photographers pack the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. Which makes it easier to remember there are parts of this that need to remain staged. Bel’s identity, of course; but also my true feelings about Urzoth.
We’re seated at a table by the window. Bel pulls the chair out for me and I flex my good hand at him.
“Still got a few functioning appendages, sweetheart.”
He sticks his chin up. “I’m allowed to baby you. You got hurt. Sit your butt down.”
Mom and Dad, already seated across from us, watch this exchange in horror. Well, Mom watches it in horror; Dad’s studying the menu like it’s a fascinating read.
“Alexo,” Mom says through her teeth, then smiles, remembering the cameras. “Orok isn’t really hurt.” She gives me a look. “I can’t believe you’re clinging to this charade, Orok. What is this doing for your image? For Urzoth’s image? Take off the sling.”
I sit, and Bel follows me into his own chair, his face wound with barely repressed anger.
I refuse to let dangerous lulls in the conversation happen. “Mom, I didn’t actually introduce you. This is Alexo. Alexo, this is my mom, Ghorza, and my dad, Dave.”
Mom gets a knowing smile on her face. “And Alexo is your…?”
I take Bel’s hand under the table.
“I moved into Orok’s apartment,” Bel offers.
“Oh yes, Orok told me that.” Mom bats her hand. “I meant what label are you using now. I don’t see a ring?”
Bel makes a strangled squeak.
“Mom,” I say, and she shrugs.
“What? You need to lock this one down, Orok. He’s so much better for you than Sebastian.”
I bristle. “Seb and I were never together. And there’s nothing wrong with him.”
Mom hums, unconvinced, and opens her menu with a flourish.
Thankfully, the waiter comes, and we all order drinks. I’m not even sure what I ask for, my hand cramping around Bel’s.
Once the waiter leaves, Mom props her elbows on the table, making herself look bigger. An intimidation tactic I’m not even sure she knows she’s doing, it’s so ingrained in most Urzoth worshippers.
Bel is unfazed. He moves my arm from holding hands to looped around his shoulders and settles into my side, his palm dropping to rest on my thigh.
“So, Alexo,” Mom starts. “What are you doing about this awful Galaxrien business?”
I clamp my fingers on Bel’s shoulder, every muscle in my body tensing.
“What?” I demand at the same time Bel gasps and mumbles, “Wh-what?”
Mom looks between us. “The cultist ritual last week. How they dared to abduct an Urzoth worshipper. As if we would have Galaxrien’s descendant in our church!
Which of the Urzoth demonstrations did you participate in?
I couldn’t find anything online about what you two did in response to that horrific attack, and Orok claims he didn’t attend any of them.
But you seem like the kind of person to not let an atrocious slight like this go unchallenged. ”
Bel laughs nervously. “Oh. Um—Reverend Drach didn’t want us participating. He wants our relationship to help accentuate other elements of Urzoth.”
“Ah, of course! See, Dave?” Mom nudges my dad, who’s on his phone again. “This one has a smart head on his shoulders.” She flicks a knowing look at me. “Unlike Sebastian.”
I suck my teeth. “Mom, enough.”
“You’re still friends with him, aren’t you? How does Alexo feel about that?” She swings on him again. “Have you met Sebastian?”
“I have,” Bel says, “and—”
“He’s not at all Urzoth material. He led Orok down some very unfortunate paths.”
I hold my breath. She wouldn’t bring that up. Not now, not here. Would she?
“That whole messy business with”—her voice drops to a dismayed whisper—“the lawsuit? Sebastian’s work.
I want you to know it wasn’t Orok’s idea.
He got swept up in Sebastian’s schemes. He’s normally such a great Urzoth man.
Strong, relentless, passionate. It’s only Sebastian’s influence that swayed him to weakness. ”
“Mom,” I manage, a choked plea for her to stop.
She bats her hand. “I want Alexo to know. He’s a true embodiment of Urzoth.
Well, a bit small, but that can be fixed.
Surely he’s been wondering how that lawsuit fits in with our faith?
I won’t have you running him off because of misperceptions.
You two are doing good work now, bringing light to Urzoth.
Representing him. Using your platforms and fame to his glory.
This is too important to let the past sully it.
So, Alexo, I promise, Orok’s not really like that.
Whatever you heard about the camp, he’s better than that.
If Orok had been alone there, he would have excelled—”
“Mrs. Monroe,” Bel barks.
Loudly.
The whole restaurant quiets. The waiter, halfway back to our table with a tray of drinks, stops, but Bel doesn’t notice. His fingers are clawed into my leg and redness creeps up his neck, his dark eyes focused and pissed.
“Your son is incredible,” Bel says, his voice low and vehement.
“He’s the first to help whenever anyone needs it.
He does so much for so many people and never takes credit.
He constantly puts himself up against impossible odds, the kind of odds that, even if he wins, he knows will be met with attitudes like yours. ”
Mom looks taken aback, realizing Bel’s upset with her. “Like mine? I don’t know what you—”
“He saved me,” Bel tells her, arching over the table.
“He saves me every damn day, and I am so unbelievably lucky to have him in my life. And you’re lucky to be able to call him your son, but you’ve berated him nonstop from the moment we met.
Do you realize what a gift it is to have him in your life?
And you’re screwing it up by treating him like shit, and I won’t allow you to speak to him that way.
I love him, and not just because he’s strong, but because he’s soft and gentle and kind, and that is what makes him strong. And you should love him for that, too.”
The table is silent.
The whole restaurant is silent.
Even my dad looks up from his phone.
I can’t breathe, can’t move, everything in my body slowly crystallizing.
Bel comes back to himself with a jagged gasp.
His gaze darts around, seeing everyone looking at him, and when his focus gets to me, it’s like he hears all his words in one big ricochet.
“Oh.” He smacks his hands over his mouth.
“Oh my gods. Oh my gods. I said I love you. For the first time. While yelling at your parents.” He whips on my mom and dad.
“I didn’t mean to yell at you. Well, I did, because you’re treating him terribly and he doesn’t deserve this, but I—oh my gods. I gotta go.”
He bolts out of the chair, weaving through tables until he vanishes down a hall at the back of the restaurant.
I launch after him.
“Orok!” Mom calls. “Wait—”
But I’m gone, zipping through the shocked tables and ducking down the hall.
A storage closet, an exit, and the bathroom are back here. I choose the bathroom first.
The restaurant’s fairly nice and the small room reflects that, white marble on the floor and halfway up the walls. Bel’s crouched in the far corner by the stalls, curled in a ball, arms around his knees, head buried in his lap.
The rest of the room is empty, so I let the door swing shut behind me and lock it.
Bel doesn’t look up. Not as I approach and kneel next to him. Not as I put my hand on his wild pink curls and tug gently.
“Let me die of humiliation in peace,” he moans into his legs. “Just make sure the cultists don’t get my remains, okay? On principle.”
“Don’t even joke about that. Look at me.”
He lets me pull his head back. He touched up his makeup after the game, smoky liner and black mascara and more of that pink gloss on his lips.
I know now that the gold glitter across his face is from him not putting his illusion spray on as strong as he should, so parts of his real skin shine through.
I swipe my thumb under one teary eye.
If anyone ever stood up to my mom that way, I thought I’d be most worried about the fallout.
But there’s only one thing pulsing in my mind.
“I love you, too,” I tell him.
Bel wheezes. “What?”
“I don’t know why I haven’t said it yet. I accepted it as truth so easily. But.” I cup his cheek. “I love you.”
“Y-you love me?”
“I do.”
He sputters a half-bitten-off sob. “I can’t believe you’re telling me in a bathroom.”
I grin and drop my hand to his knee. “It’s kind of fitting for us. Our first date happened because I stalked you.”
“And kidnapped me.”
“I won’t admit to that.”
Bel laughs, dimples popping, and he scrubs the back of his hand against his cheek.
He settles, blinking wet eyes up at me. “I’m not sorry for what I said to your mom.”
“I don’t expect you to be.” My gaze lowers from him, unseeing on the floor. “I was going to renounce Urzoth. The day of that meeting with Roesia and Reverend Drach? I was supposed to meet with Roesia and tell her that I wasn’t going to have Urzoth as my patron god anymore.”
Bel moans softly. “And instead you got sucked into embodying him even more.”
“No.” I pin him with a look, letting all my certainty well up and out and into him.
“No, I chose to be with you. Because I think I knew even then that you’d be important to me.
All this time, when I’ve had to put on a front about Urzoth—I haven’t been doing that.
I’ve been choosing us. Only I’m realizing that lying about Urzoth, while something I can compartmentalize, is still giving the wrong message to the world. ”
“If you want to renounce him,” Bel says, “I support you. Completely. I want you to be happy. Fuck hiding behind him—I want you to be free, Orok.”
I kiss him, needing a taste. He chirps, but relents immediately, and whines when I pull back.