Chapter 33
Aaron
Sasha’s been gone four days. I’ve walked six miles today and I don’t know where half of them went. I’m walking past shops I’ve never been inside just to have somewhere to put my legs.
Meghan keeps pace beside me. She’s got an iced coffee in hand and sunglasses pushed up on her head and she hasn’t asked where we’re going because I don’t think she cares. Saturday morning in Hartley. It’s unusually warm for Hartley, Massachusetts in April.
We pass the vintage clothing store on the corner — the one with the mannequin in the window that’s been wearing the same beaded jacket since September. Meghan stops to look.
“I’m going to miss this town,” she says.
“You’re going to miss the mannequin?”
“I’m going to miss the mannequin, the bookstore, the fact that I can walk everywhere, and Buddy’s sundaes.” She turns to me. “Tell me you’re going to miss Buddy’s sundaes.”
“I’m going to miss Buddy’s sundaes.”
“The hot fudge ones. With the in-house fudge. Aaron, there is no hot fudge in the NHL.”
“There’s probably hot fudge somewhere in Albany.”
“It won’t be the same and you know it.”
We walk. Past the used bookstore with the cat in the window. Past the coffee shop where every third person has an Ashford hoodie on. Past a group of freshmen sitting on a bench looking like they own the place, which is funny because now I feel like I’m barely holding it together.
“So what are you going to do with the premed degree?” Meghan asks. Casual. Like she’s asking about the weather.
I grin. Can’t help it. “Hand the diploma to my mom and dad and then go play hockey.”
She laughs. “Colleen is going to frame it.”
“Colleen is going to put it on the mantel next to Sean’s wedding photo and Colin’s engagement photo and tell everyone at Mass that her son is a doctor who plays hockey on the side.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“She won’t let that stop her.”
We’re quiet for a block. The wind picks up. I shove my hands in my pockets and think about Sasha back home in Russia and what he might be doing right now at this very moment. The look on his face when I said what if I told them and he didn’t even blink. Just folded another shirt.
I hear Sasha’s voice in my head. When you’re ready to tell them, you won’t be asking me what if. You’ll just do it.
“Meghan.”
“Mm.”
“I need to ask you something.”
She looks at me. Pulls her sunglasses down. Studies my face with that expression she gets — the one that means she already knows this is serious and she’s giving me the space to say it.
“I’m going to tell my parents.”
She stops walking. Right there on the sidewalk, iced coffee in hand, a freshman on a skateboard swerving around her. “When?”
“Tomorrow. Sunday dinner. Everyone’s going to be there — Sean, Colin, the girls.
I want to do it when they’re all in one place so I only have to say it once.
” I swallow. “I can’t take one more visit home feeling like a coward for not telling them.
I sit at that table and I eat the roast and I laugh at the jokes and the whole time I’m lying to their faces. Every single Sunday.”
She’s quiet. Watching me.
“Will you come with me? So I don’t back out. If you’re there, I can’t — I won’t be able to chicken out. And they love you. They’ll keep their good Catholic behavior going in front of you.”
Her face does something I don’t expect. She doesn’t look worried or careful. She looks proud. “Aaron Kelly. Yes. Obviously yes.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask me this for months.” She grabs my arm. “Tomorrow. Sunday dinner. I’m there.”
We find a bench in the park near campus.
Spring sun, new grass. We sit and we plan it.
Not a script — just logistics. When in the dinner.
How to start. What happens if my dad goes quiet.
What happens if my mom cries. Meghan’s contingency plan if things go sideways: change the subject to the Red Sox until everyone stabilizes.
“And if they ask about Sasha?” she says.
“I tell them.”
“Everything?”
“The rivalry being fake. All of it. I’m done lying.”
She squeezes my arm. “You’re going to be fine. You know that, right? You’re not doing anything wrong.”
I nod. My throat is tight. But I feel like I’m moving toward something instead of running from it.
My shirt is sticking to my back before we’re through the front door.
I changed twice. Meghan watched me change twice and didn’t say a word, just sat on the edge of my bed scrolling her phone while I pulled on a blue button-down, took it off, put on a gray henley, took it off, put the button-down back on.
It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. I could show up in a tuxedo or a trash bag and the words are going to come out the same and my parents are going to hear the same thing and nothing about this shirt is going to change that.
My hands are cold. April evening in West Roxbury and my hands are ice.
The kitchen is loud. Sunday dinner runs on a schedule that hasn’t changed since I was twelve — five o’clock, good dishes, everyone home.
Sean and Lauren across the table. Colin and Jess beside them.
Caitlin next to my mom. Mary next to my dad.
The roast is on the table. My dad is carving it.
Steady, unhurried. The way he does everything.
My mom beamed when Meghan walked in. The hug. The look over Meghan’s shoulder. Finally.
I sit down and my leg starts bouncing immediately. My mouth is dry. The roast smells the way it always smells — garlic, rosemary, Sunday — and my stomach turns. I put a piece on my plate. Push it around with my fork.
I can hear my own heartbeat. Over the conversation, over Colin’s story about his bachelor party, over the clink of silverware and my mom asking about Sean’s new lawn — I can hear my pulse in my ears like a countdown.
Meghan’s knee presses against mine under the table. I’m here.
Do it. Do it now before you lose your nerve.
“Hey.” My voice comes out wrong — too loud, too sudden. Everyone looks at me. I set my fork down. My hands are flat on the table because if I pick anything up I’ll drop it. “I need to — I have something I want to tell you guys.”
The table quiets. Not all at once — Sean finishes his sentence to Lauren, then trails off. Colin looks up. My dad’s knife pauses on the roast.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. My palms are sweating against the tablecloth. This is it. No taking it back.
“I should have told you this a long time ago.” My voice shakes. I don’t try to steady it. “I hate that I didn’t, because keeping it from you makes it seem like I’m ashamed of something. And I’m not. I’m not ashamed.”
My mom’s expression shifts. The polite dinner-table smile drops and something else moves in — concern, worry, the radar she’s had since I was five.
“Aaron, honey, what—”
“I’m gay.”
Silence. My mom’s hand goes to the cross at her throat. My dad sets down the knife. Colin’s mouth opens and stays open. Sean leans back in his chair. Caitlin’s eyes go wide. Mary looks at me, then at my mom, then back at me.
Nobody speaks. A car passes outside. My heart is so loud in my ears I’m amazed the whole table can’t hear it.
“Mom. Dad.” My throat is so tight the words feel like they’re being pushed through a straw. “I’m gay. I’ve known for a long time. And I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. I should have been. You deserved that.”
“I watched what happened with Uncle Jonathan.” My mom flinches. “He’s your brother, Mom. And it’s like he died. Just because he left the church to be honest with himself.” I look at her. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Not because I’m ashamed. Because I was afraid I’d become him.”
“Are you—” My mom’s voice is barely there. “Aaron, are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She blinks. Her eyes are filling and her hand is white-knuckled on that cross and she doesn’t say anything else. She just looks at me like she’s seeing a person she doesn’t recognize sitting in her son’s chair.
“Holy shit,” Caitlin says gleefully.
“Language,” my mom says automatically, without looking away from me.
My father rubs his forehead. “Jesus Christ,” he says, looking pained. He looks down at his plate, not willing to meet my eyes.
“There’s more.” I swallow. My hands are shaking on the table and I don’t hide it. “I’ve been seeing someone. For a while. A long time, actually.”
The table shifts. This is different — this isn’t abstract anymore. My mom sits up straighter. My dad’s eyes sharpen.
“His name is Sasha.”
It takes exactly one second. I watch it land. I watch every single person at this table make the connection at the same time.
“Sasha,” Sean says. “As in — Sasha Vorontsovsky. Your co-captain.”
“Yes.”
“But you hate him!” Colin’s voice cracks on it. “You hate that arrogant Russian — you said he was the most annoying person you’d ever—”
“I know what I said.”
“The rivalry!” Caitlin is leaning forward. “The commercials, the — all of that was—”
“Shut up.” I don’t say it mean. I say it tired. “Please. All of you. Just — shut up for a second.”
They shut up. My eyes are on my parents. My dad, who hasn’t spoken. My mom, whose tears are falling now but whose face is still frozen in that expression of someone trying to assemble a puzzle with pieces that don’t fit.
“I never hated him.” My voice is steady now. Quiet. And I mean every word. “I love him. I’ve loved him for a long time. The rivalry was fake. Every commercial, every interview where we trash-talked each other — it was all a marketing campaign. None of it was real. This is real.”
“And one more thing. Because I’m already here and I might as well say all of it.
” I take a breath. “I’m not going to be a doctor.
I’m never going to be a doctor. I have a premed degree and a perfect GPA and I’m going to play hockey in Albany, and that’s what I want.
That’s what I’ve always wanted. I know you know that I don’t really want to be a doctor.
That hockey is all I’ve ever cared about.
But since I’m finally being honest, I thought I should say it out loud. ”
My dad is looking at the roast. My mom is looking at me. My siblings are looking at each other.
Nobody speaks for what feels like a full minute.
Then my dad clears his throat. He’s staring at some fixed point in the middle of the table, the way he stares at the TV during a bad Bruins period — not really seeing it, just needing somewhere to put his eyes while his brain catches up.
“I didn’t know they did that in Russia,” he says.
I blink.
“The Vorontsovsky kid.” My dad’s voice is distant, processing. Like he’s working through a math problem. “He’s — so Sasha is gay?”
“He’s bisexual, Dad. He likes guys and girls.” I look at my father — this man who coached me in youth hockey, who spent three hours on this roast, who asked me if I was all set when I transferred home and never once made me feel like a burden. “But he loves me.”
Meghan’s hand finds mine under the table. She squeezes. Hard. I don’t look at her. I don’t need to. I know exactly what her face looks like right now.
She’s proud of me. So am I.