But somethingI woulddeal 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 andbrag 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.
