11. When Things Don’t Get Better
That means they go the other direction instead.
This was not going to go well. Wait, it wasn’t like things were going fine before. Maybe there was no going wrong anymore. Maybe this was just things going normally. Yeah, that thought didn’t really help. I was also firmly telling myself not to think about baseball. That was crazy hard.
When you tell yourself not to think of something, duh, it’s suddenly all you can think about. Also, I play baseball, I have played baseball since I was a kid, a big part of my life was baseball. I’ve never tried not to think of baseball before, so I had no practice with it. I just…
In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out.
But this wasn’t baseball. Thankfully.
Ryan didn’t even like baseball. Did that count as a strike? Nope, no, there couldn’t be four strikes. Maybe that would be a different game. Or the umpire was drunk. Hey, there was an idea. I could get Ryan drunk… or not. Too many logistics to figure out.
A few days ago, watching Lydia and Alicia arguing in my room seemed like the worst thing I’d have to endure all week. Now? Well, I was trying to make this as painless as possible. Video chatting seemed like a good idea. I wore a black tank top and Ryan could ogle me all he wanted and hopefully that would lessen the bad news. Except my face caught his attention before my arms did.
“You’re not coming,” Ryan said. He sounded resigned, tired. Didn’t even bother fighting me on it and that was weird because he normally fought me on everything.
“Never promised I was,” I tried weakly. I felt bad even though I specifically never promised him I would come just in case something like this happened. Yet I still felt like I was letting him down. More than that, letting myself and our relationship down.
“You were going to try.” He didn’t sigh but his whole voice was like a sigh.
“I did try. My car needs new brake pads.” The vehicle probably couldn’t make the trip and I wouldn’t be able to get it fixed before the weekend came.
Ryan waved a hand. “Just throw it away and get a new one.” Normally I would find that cute. I took a breath to avoid getting annoyed.
“That’s really not how cars work.” Maybe he could invent disposable cars.
“I know.” He smiled that half sweet, half sharp smile of his. “They get fixed, don’t they? Why can’t you do that?” See, Ryan never made things simple for me. I was just wondering why he wasn’t being like that and now he was, so I should be glad. I just didn’t exactly want to get into that.
“Look, it’s just…” Mom could take it in, I could drive her car. We could figure something out. There were some things Dad could fix himself without needing to go into a shop. Or maybe even I could but I still wanted Dad around to check my work. There was a different issue.
“You don’t want to visit?” Ryan asked, guessing the issue for himself.
“No! Nothing like that.” I tried to keep my voice light. Crap. That was probably worse than the actual issue and unfortunately honesty was still a thing that existed. And if I stopped being honest, Ryan would think he was able to do the same thing and then lies would be everywhere. Like ants. Relationship ants. Ugh. I tried to smile reassuringly.
“My parents aren’t totally sold on me going,” I explained. Ryan didn’t say anything to that, for once in his life, so I had to keep going. “You know, us being alone together in a place with no adult supervision.” We could get into some trouble. We had already gotten into some trouble but saying that probably wouldn’t be comforting.
Ryan’s face twitched, like it wanted to show emotions but then made an effort to stay blank and, frustratingly, his face managed. “Oh,” he said, in a voice similarly devoid of emotions.
“They’re making progress,” I rushed to say. “They’re not there yet.” He was still doing the not-upset thing, which should be good that he didn’t immediately go to the freaking out place, just, it was really weird. “They have to trust me,” I continued. “You know, the whole they raised me right I’m going to make the right decisions thing.”
He tilted his head in thought. “And you think they’d think gay sex is the right decision?”
“I don’t know, maybe when I’m committed to my boyfriend and we’re being safe and whatever.”
“What if we told them we had sex, so there’s nothing to worry about because it already happened.”
I smiled tightly. “Not sure that would help.” Dad pretty much knew anyway.
If Ryan was a girl, then… I actually didn’t know. I still don’t think they’d be thrilled. But when faced with spending time apart from girl-Ryan who I was in a committed relationship with? Yeah, they’d probably understand eventually. I was getting older, a senior in high school, practically an adult. They weren’t shy about telling me the right thing to do but they also normally gave me the opportunity to actually listen or not listen.
Actually, that’s what I was hoping was going to happen here too. But with the car also needing repairs, just don’t think it was going to happen soon enough.
“What if we tell them it went badly?” Ryan asked.
“Nope, that makes it worse cause then Dad feels the need to talk to me about it.” Though Ryan’s suggestion hadn’t been too far off. Dad was the one having more trouble with me being bi, but he was the one who knew about intimacy issues in my relationship. He was trying to convince my mom that it was okay to let me go see Ryan.
Couldn’t think about that anymore when Ryan was busy making a screeching noise. “Your dad knows?!?!”
