Chapter 26
ZACH
Zach was awake at midnight, which wasn’t weird for a Saturday. The weird part was that he’d spent the evening watching documentaries about consumerism instead of drinking and dancing, but he chalked it up to being a diligent student.
The first time she called, he’d panicked and jammed the power button until the screen went black. When he cautiously turned his phone back on a few hours later, there weren’t any new voicemails or texts.
Maybe she’d dialed him by accident.
He let himself believe that until the next day, when she called again. This time, Zach watched the photo of the two of them—arms around each other, smiles pressed together—blink on the screen until the ringing stopped.
She called a few more times over the next few weeks, never leaving a message, and Zach had no idea what to think.
No one else in his family had attempted to reach out besides her.
What awaited him on the other side of the line if he ever picked up?
Yelling about his lifestyle? Pleading for him to change?
Telling him to come pack his shit before they tossed it in the garbage?
He was too terrified to find out, eventually blocking her number.
He was spooked enough to decline and block every single call with a Montana area code, though most of them had to be telemarketers.
Without these calls, Zach wasn’t sure what was stronger—the relief or the disappointment.
It didn’t matter. For better or worse, it was done, and Zach had to find his way forward.
He’d spaced out to the soothing drone of a Harvard professor’s lecture on consumer rights and protections when his ringtone went off. It had to be close to one in the morning, so it was probably Joel drunk-dialing him to demand that he come out and play.
As if that ever worked.
For some reason, Joel was convinced all Zach needed to get over Miles was to go out and get laid.
Zach didn’t exactly disagree, but he couldn’t bring himself to go through the motions.
Instead, he postponed it to some nebulous point in the future, around the same time when he would vacuum under the bed and write thank-you notes to everyone who attended his high school graduation.
Zach ambled to the nightstand, where he’d left his phone to charge, and froze.
It wasn’t Joel.
It was Jerry.
His brother’s name made every muscle in his body tense up in dread. A late-night phone call to a semi-shunned family member was never a good thing. What if something had happened to his mom or dad? What if he never got a chance to make things right?
In that moment, the truth hit him hard, cracking the optimistic facade he’d crafted.
He wasn’t over it, not even a little bit.
He wanted his family back so badly that he could barely breathe.
The secret, desperate hope to be accepted flared bright in the depths of his soul, even though he knew it was pointless. Knew it would lead to more pain.
“Jerry? What’s wrong?” His voice cracked, and he held his breath for a response.
“Huh? Nothing’s wrong. I’m glad you’re awake, though,” Jerry said in a distracted voice before a loud clattering sound interrupted him. “Dammit. You have too much shit on your shelves.”
Did Jerry call to complain about his books? After a month of silence? Were they razing Zach’s side of the room to remove all trace of his existence?
Zach moved the phone away from his ear to double-check he was on a call with his brother and not having an auditory hallucination. Despite the evidence, he wasn’t reassured.
After a series of thumps that Zach could only guess was Jerry’s rifling through Zach’s piles of books, Jerry’s voice was back.
“I can’t find the next disc.”
“What?”
“You left me those stupid movies, and I’m halfway through the second one, but the next disc is missing. Where’d you hide it?”
It took Zach a few seconds to connect the dots. Apparently, Jerry had appreciated his parting gift enough to not only start watching Lord of the Rings but seriously get into the story if he was awake and ripping through Zach’s shelves at one in the morning.
Why was he checking the bookshelves anyway? Did he expect there to be a random disc between his dinosaur encyclopedia and The Hunger Games?
“Check the other cases. I probably stuck two on top of each other.”
He listened as Jerry shuffled around before letting out a whoop. “Got it! Thanks, bro. I need to know what happens with the tree things. Okay, later.”
“Wait!” Zach shouted, surprising himself. Now that he had his brother on the line, he didn’t want to let go. “Did…did Mom talk to you about me?”
“Oh yeah. Dude, what the hell?”
Zach closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Here it came. The judgment. The anger. The disappointment.
“You should have told us. Now I feel like an idiot talking about the hot chicks in Portland when you don’t even care.
Are there hot dudes in Portland? Or are they all bearded hipsters like on TV?
Are you into beards? Because if you are, I guess that’s the right place for you.
Wait, is that why you’re staying there? For the beards? ”
Jerry’s train of thought was a wild ride, but Zach ignored all the rapid-fire questions in favor of his own. “You don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind what? That you’re gay?”
“Yes?”
“Come on, man, we’re in Montana, not the Middle Ages.
Abe and I know how these things work. Love is love and all that.
” Jerry’s tone shifted, almost hesitant when he spoke next.
“I get not telling Mom and Dad, but you could have talked to us. You know we love you, right? We don’t always get you, but we’re on your team. ”
“I was scared,” Zach admitted, letting his vulnerability show. “I’ve been hiding for so long, I didn’t know what to expect. I’m sorry I left like that.”
“I get it, but man…you missed an insane fireworks display.”
The unexpected levity caused a burst of laughter to escape Zach. For a moment, he didn’t understand the strange, weightless feeling spreading through his chest. The burden he’d carried for years, cinched tight around his neck and making every breath a struggle, was suddenly gone.
The lightness unmoored him. He floated in the ether as nervous giggles dissolved into shaking sobs. Each jagged exhale caught in his throat, making it impossible to speak.
Still, he kept the phone pressed firmly to his ear, clinging to the quiet breathing on the other end. Jerry didn’t say a word, but he stayed there, stayed with him, holding him together.
“Sorry,” Zach said after calming down. “I guess the tragedy of missing those fireworks affected me more than I realized.”
Jerry barked out a laugh. “You’ll just have to come and see them again. Maybe you can help set up next time.”
The subtext couldn’t have been clearer—Zach was welcome home, at least by his brothers. That still left two people and some unanswered questions.
“Any idea why Mom’s been calling me?”
Jerry let out an annoyed groan. “She’s been all over the place. And you know Mom and Dad—they barely talk to us and only to give us orders and rant about boring shit that doesn’t matter.”
Zach’s eyebrows shot up. He’d assumed it was just him, that Jerry and Abe had an easy, normal relationship with their parents.
“Honestly, man, I have no clue what happened,” Jerry went on.
“All I know is, by the time Abe and I got back to the house, Mom was crying, Dad looked like he wanted to punt the grill, and nobody would tell us jack. We didn’t find out about the gay thing until the next morning.
They sat us down with these grim expressions, like they were about to tell us Fido went upstate to live on a better farm. ”
“Were they mad?” Zach asked.
“Not at first, but I think Dad got pissed when we didn’t react how he expected.
They were like, We have something upsetting to tell you.
Zachariah has informed us that he is gay and permanently moving out.
” Jerry did a stiff imitation of their dad’s deep voice.
“And Abe and I went, Okay, that’s cool. Then Dad’s face got super red, and he said, What do you mean ‘that’s cool’?
This is serious. And then Abe leans over to me and goes, I should have asked him for help decorating my room.
And, yeah, that was the end of that conversation.
After that, they told us you didn’t want to talk to anyone, so we figured we’d give you some space.
But…you’ve had enough space now, right?”
“Yeah. Plenty.” Zach let out a shaky chuckle, a new wave of tears sliding down his cheeks. “Thanks for telling me all that, but I’m still not sure why Mom keeps calling.”
“Wish I could tell you. They don’t exactly invite us to their hushed conversations.
And we’ve been slammed with the harvest—like, eating sandwiches in the field for dinner, home to shower and sleep, rinse and repeat kind of slammed.
Awful. I don’t think I’ve left the farm in a month.
But…from what I’ve seen, I get the feeling she’s regretting whatever went down with the two of you. ”
A small hope flared inside Zach’s chest—bright, warm, and terrifying. He quickly tamped it down before it could burn him. Hope was a dangerous thing.
“If you’re so busy, why are you up? It’s after midnight,” he said instead of prodding more.
“Seriously? Not you too,” Jerry groaned. “This is literally the only me-time I get. I just wanna watch a movie and turn my brain off, even if it means running on four hours of sleep.”
His mock-dramatic tone made Zach grin. Not wanting to impede on Jerry’s limited downtime, he wished him good night, promised they’d talk again soon, and dragged himself to bed.
The crying had been cathartic, but the relief came with a bone-deep exhaustion, and he barely managed to pull the covers over himself before sleep overtook him.
It wasn’t until he woke up surrounded by the faint smell of the ocean that he realized he’d slept on the bed instead of the couch.
He couldn’t bring himself to regret it. With his face buried in Miles’s pillow, Zach breathed in and wished for the impossible.