Chapter 18
Iris and I stay in the car while Nate goes to see Dad.
He doesn’t say anything about it this year. Things with Dad have gotten monumentally worse since Nate married Iris. He was always Dad’s favorite. Probably because he did everything when we were growing up.
But now, Dad hates him almost as much as he hates me.
Nate’s still trying, though.
I don’t think he’ll ever stop searching for the better version of that man, even if it kills him. Me, on the other hand? I sit in the cold truck and look at the run-down house and feel nothing for him.
Mike: Hi miss you :)
Alex: Miss you too. Especially right now. I’m currently sitting in my dad’s driveway.
Mike: ew why??
Alex: Nate’s being sentimental since it’s Christmas
Mike: I’m sorry baby :( are you okay?
I look up at the house, and then at Iris scrolling through Instagram unbothered, even though Nate’s probably in there getting yelled at over marrying her for the tenth time this year.
I feel like I shouldn’t be okay, but all I can think about is Mike calling me baby again.
Alex: Surprisingly, yeah. How are you doing?
Mike: All good! Zara’s here we’re making cookies
Alex: Save me some! I’ll call you tonight.
He sends back a thumbs up and a heart, and I pocket my phone when Nate gets back into the car with a sigh.
I’ve managed to work up some semblance of excitement by the time we get to Ben’s house. The kids come running toward us the moment we get into the house.
I always miss them.
I never have any time to visit anymore. If I could bring Mike, my brain tries to remind me, but I shut that down.
I can’t.
The whole family is already in their usual places, guys drinking in the kitchen, the girls gathered around the babies. It’s all so familiar, it warms my heart.
I’m lucky to have this.
Mike would love it too.
He’d be on the floor with the kids, talking about video games with Noah and letting Sammy and Margot climb all over him. He’d make everybody laugh. He’d drink with the guys and probably hang out with the girls, too, because he can fit in anywhere.
He’d bring his guitar, and everyone would go quiet because you have to when Mike plays.
Nate and Iris liked him that day I moved in. I’m not sure Nate would if he knew what we were to each other.
At dinner, I’m quiet, looking down at my plate of uneaten food.
The thing is, I thought I would be out by now. I’ve known I was gay since I was old enough to have those sorts of thoughts. It was always there. Something I would deal with when I got older.
But something I would deal with.
I’ve thought about it more times than I can count, sitting here with these people who have loved me my whole life and telling them the truth. What words I would use. How they would react.
That all stopped after Jason.
But I find myself doing it again.
Iris would support me. I have no doubt about that. I think she probably suspects anyway. Liz and Gracie and the kids wouldn’t care. Ben and Calvin might make it awkward, but that’s to be expected.
Nate—
I can’t get past Nate.
He watched me spend the last two years pulling myself out of the dark hole Jason put me in. And if I tell Nate I’m gay, the first thing that’s bound to happen is he’s gonna think about Jason.
He’s gonna wonder.
Did Jason know? Did you want it to happen? Did you enjoy it?
He might not come right out and say it, but I would see it on his face anyway. A flicker of recognition, connecting the dots.
I would have to spend the rest of my life wondering if my family looked at my sexuality and saw what Jason did to me. The two things, hand in hand, forever.
I can’t do that.
“Alex, you want some pie?”
I look up. Liz is holding out a chocolate pie toward me, one of my favorite Christmas desserts, watching me with gentle eyes.
“No thanks.”
I end up on the floor with Noah and his new games, and for a while, I almost forget. He’s my favorite person in the family. The dude has no idea anything is wrong, doesn’t have any careful looks for me, doesn’t treat me like something fragile.
He wants to beat me at any and every video game we play and brag about his win for the foreseeable future. I respect it.
“You suck at this game!” he shouts when he kills me for the fifth time.
“I’m letting you win.”
“You wish!”
He shoves my arm, and I shove back, hard enough to make him fall over, and dissolves into giggles, and for a few minutes, no one is worried about me, and I’m not thinking about anything, and everything is almost normal.
Sammy climbs into my lap and starts showing me her new Barbie that Santa brought her. I listen as she tells me all about her, missing the man I love, while none of the people in this room know anything about him.
It’s been four days since Christmas, and I’m starting to feel a little bit of worry creep in.
Mike has sent me five texts. One word answers, no emojis, one voice memo, the day after Christmas, where he sounded normal, telling me he was on his way to band practice, and he missed my—
Anyway.
I’ve listened to it six times.
I’m at the kitchen island with my phone face down in front of me, trying not to check it again. Mike doesn’t have to text me. Plenty of people don’t text all day. It’s just that I’m used to it, so it’s weird that he is not.
And he said Christmas makes him sad. I knew that, and I still left and—
The backdoor opens.
Nate comes in, brushing snow off his shoulders, while Iris follows behind him, unwinding her scarf. They both smile when they see me, leaving their coats on the hanger to join me in the kitchen.
“Hey,” Nate says. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“We were gonna make something.” He opens the fridge, scanning the options, but closes it without taking anything. “Actually. You got a minute? We wanna talk to you about something.”
I look between them at that. Iris is already smiling, and when Nate looks over at her, he does too.
“Okay,” I say slowly.
“So,” Nate starts, clearing his throat. “Iris and I have been talking for a while now about starting a family.”
“We’ve looked into options,” Iris adds. “Adoption, surrogacy, there are a few different routes, and we wanted to figure out what felt right for both of us.”
“We looked into getting an egg donor because I really wanted our baby to look like both of us, you know? But trying to find someone with Iris’s heritage is easier said than done,” Nate says, and I don’t think I really hear him through the ringing in my ears.
“But, I was talking to my sister about our plans, mostly complaining about the lack of options, and she offered. Just like that.”
“We went back and forth about it for months. Made sure everyone was really sure. And we think,” Nate looks at Iris. She nods. He looks back at me. “We’re going to do it.”
The kitchen is silent while they wait for me to say something.
I look back and forth at them. Nate’s face open and hopeful, Iris glowing, Nate wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close.
They’re going to have a baby.
Their own baby.
They’ve been thinking about it for months and planning it, and now they’re telling me.
They’re going to have a baby.
“So you’re gonna knock up Iris’s sister?” I know it’s a fucked up thing to say before it even comes out of my mouth. I can hear it. I hate myself for it. But I don’t have control of my mouth.
Nate’s smile drops. Iris goes still beside him.
“No,” he says, his lips turning up into a small frown. “It don’t work like that. It’ll be through a fertility clinic. Anika’s donating the eggs, and then we’d still need a surrogate to carry—”
“Right.” I look down at the counter. “Okay. I guess I’m confused. I figured you weren’t having kids.” I say it like it’s nothing. Like I can’t feel my entire body shaking with a feeling I don’t understand.
“You know I’ve always wanted a family with Iris,” Nate says, and I can tell he’s trying, but I push anyway.
“Yeah, but you can’t, though. It’s not really your baby, so what’s the point?” It’s like someone else is talking. Some asshole that wants to hurt the people I love most, and I want to strangle him.
But he’s me.
Iris has gone completely still, pulled away from Nate, her eyes shining in a way that has nothing to do with happiness anymore. A tear spills down her cheek that she wipes away quickly.
And then she walks out of the kitchen.
“Iris, wait—” Nate reaches for her arm, but she pulls out of his grip without looking back at him. She doesn’t look back one single time before she closes their bedroom door behind her. Nate watches the door for a long, tense moment before he turns back to me slowly.
I’ve seen him angry before. I’ve seen him worried and protective. But I’ve never seen him look at me like this.
“What the hell was that?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t.” His voice is low and controlled and aimed at me. “Don’t tell me you didn’t mean it. I heard you, Alex. She heard you.”
I look down at the counter because what can I say? I knew it was a fucked up thing to say the second I said it, but I can’t take it back. And my chest feels tight and—
“Look at me.”
I look at him.
“Do you have any idea,” he starts, and then stops, running his hand through his hair, so pissed he doesn’t even know what to say. “How hard this has been for her? How many conversations we’ve had? How many nights she’s cried, thinking she wasn’t enough because she can’t carry our children?”
I didn’t know that.
I don’t say anything.
“We’ve been trying to figure this out for over a year. Over a year of worrying we wouldn’t ever be able to start a family. And we finally made a decision. And she was happy, she was actually happy about it, and you—”
He stops again.
“It’s not really your baby,” he repeats back to me. “You said that to my wife.”
“I know.”
“Do you know how bad she wishes she could give me a baby? She never even thought that was in the cards for her. It took so long to get her to a place where she believed it was. And you, someone who’s supposed to care about her, sat there and told her it didn’t count.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Then what did you mean?” He spreads his hands in frustration. “Because I’m trying real hard to find the version of that sentence that isn’t cruel, and I can’t find it. So why don’t you walk me through it.”
I can’t.
Because my heart hurts, and I made that pain a weapon and aimed it at the people who love me most, and I can’t take it back.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“What the hell is going on with you? You’ve been off this whole visit. You’ve barely said a word, you’re on your phone constantly.” He shakes his head, looking at me with my own blue eyes, filled with worry as much as anger.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Alex.”
“I said nothing’s going on, Nate,” I snap.
The refrigerator hums, doing something with the ice maker, way too loud in the silence that’s overcome both of us.
“I love you,” Nate says finally, his voice coated in exhaustion. “You know that. But I need you to understand something.”
I nod, accepting my fate.
“Iris is my wife. And you will not talk to her like that in my house again, do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
He glances toward the hallway again, the pull to go check on her visible in every line of his body. “She cares about you so much.” He looks back at me. “And you just went and broke her heart for no goddamn reason.”
I know exactly what I did, and I have no defense for it, and the thought of Iris crying alone right now because of me makes me hate myself more than I already do.
Nate starts toward the hallway, but stops before he gets there.“I think you should leave,” he says, without turning around.
I don’t say anything.
He disappears down the hall.
I go to my room and pack my bag, moving through the motions without thinking about what’s happening. Folding things and putting them up, never sitting down because if I sit down, I won’t get up. I grab my stuff from the bathroom, my charger from the wall, the jacket I hung over the desk chair.
And I leave my childhood home for the last time, without saying goodbye.