Chapter 26 #2
Thankfully, the conversation turned to how awful sisters were, though Tad somehow managed to walk the line of telling the horror stories of being a younger brother while maintaining that Krista had probably been an angel of a sister and that Zach had deserved everything he’d gotten. Which made Zach like him even more.
About an hour later, coming out of the bathroom, his own awful sister cornered him. She was waiting as soon as he stepped out of the door. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Tad’s great,” he said, heading her off at the pass, though he wasn’t sure why she felt the need to bother him about his opinion right now. She must really like the guy if she was this impatient to get his opinion.
Krista flipped her head, making her curls bounce.
“I know that. I just needed to tell you that Mom was bugging me about getting you hooked up to a nice girl again the other day after she met Tad.”
Ice hit his heart.
“You didn’t tell her…”
His sister glared at him.
“Of course, I didn’t. It’s not my thing to tell.
But you need to tell her, and soon, because I’m not lying for you.
I told her I thought you were seeing someone.
” She rolled her eyes at his groan. “You’re going to have to tell them, eventually.
Exactly how long did you think you could keep this all a secret? ”
Definitely at least a little longer. Until he found the exact right way to tell them. Part of him almost wished Krista had told their mom. At least then, the Band-Aid would have been ripped off, and he would know what the reaction was.
He put his hand to his chest, which was starting to hurt, right where his heart was.
Krista’s expression softened, and she stepped forward, putting her hand on his shoulder.
“They’re not going to reject you.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Even if they don’t, I don’t want them feeling ‘sorry’ for me because my life is going to be harder or thinking I’m just going through a phase or changing how they see me…” He gulped in a breath of air hard. It felt like his chest was constricting.
“Of course, it’s going to change how they see you, the same way it would if you quit your job and announced you were going to do something else entirely.” She rubbed his upper back. “That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”
But it could be.
“Mom could decide it’s great, and Dad could hate it. And then Mom would defend me. They’d end up fighting about it.”
“Zach, it is not—and never has been—your fault when they fight, even if the topic they’re fighting about is you,” she said sternly.
The pain in his chest said it didn’t believe her.
“You know, it’s actually pretty egotistical to think that everything is about you. You always do this.”
“What do you mean?” He turned his head to look at her incredulously. What did he always do?
She shook her head at him.
“When Mom and Dad separated, you were convinced it was about you.”
“I was?” He didn’t actually remember that. He barely remembered his parents’ separation. He’d only been five when they’d separated, and they hadn’t been separated for very long.
“Yes. Because the last fight they had before Mom kicked Dad out was about where you were going to go to kindergarten. You thought you’d done something wrong for weeks. Right up until Dad came back home. But it was never actually about where you were going to school.”
“I… I don’t remember.” But his chest was hurting more than ever. Was this what a heart attack felt like?
Probably more like a panic attack.
Apparently the backrub was over because Krista took the opportunity to smack him on the back of the head instead.
“Ow!”
“Not. Everything. Is. About. You.” She punctuated each word with a slap, even as he ducked away, putting his own hand on the back of his head for protection.
“Stop it!”
“Admit that not everything is about you!”
“Not everything is about me!” Saying the words should have been easy, but instead, he felt his stomach twist inside him with nausea. I do know that, right?
Right?
“You need to tell Mom and Dad about Kincaid.”
“I need to tell Mom and Dad about Kincaid,” he agreed, sagging slightly. At least he’d gotten turned around to face her so she couldn’t keep slapping him upside his head. “I’m going to.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Sooner than he’d meant to, thanks to Krista.
She crossed her arms and frowned, tapping her foot.
“I want a timeline. Because it’s not fair to me that I keep having to lie to Mom and Dad, and it’s definitely not fair to Kincaid.”
He knew that.
“By the end of the month.” Today was the second, so that gave him plenty of time.
Krista pressed her lips together, obviously displeased with that answer—probably too much time, in her opinion—but she nodded her agreement.
The sick feeling in his stomach increased.
He had till the end of the month to figure out exactly how to tell his parents that he wasn’t straight.
And that he’d been living with his boyfriend for the past year and lying to them about it.
Well, if I’d told them sooner, I wouldn’t have been lying to them for a year.
Am I really afraid I’m going to break up my parents’ marriage?
Maybe.
But he felt just as afraid that it was going to change everything.
“Deal,” Krista said, uncrossing her arms and stepping forward so she could loop her arm through his. Obviously, she felt better now that the agreement was made rather than worse, like him. “Now, let’s get back to our boyfriends.”
She made it sound so much simpler than it felt.