Dad shrugs. “I saw you kissing him one day, when he was dropping you off after school. I figured — oh, I don’t know. I thought he wasn’t going to get you pregnant, so it was none of my business.”
“Actually, it would have beenmegettinghim— you know what, never mind.” I run both hands through my hair, tugging on my curls. “You fuckingknew—”
“I did, and I thought — well, that you would tell me when you wanted me to know. But you never did, so — I figured maybe it was time.”
I’m not sure whether the noise that comes out of me is a laugh or a sob or a half-formed curse word. “All this time— I thought you might be —”
“Ezra, I don’t care that you’re gay.”
“I’m bi.” I stare at my knee as it jiggles up and down. “I’ve been with women too.”
Dad waves a hand. “I’m not up on all the lingo. But I just thought you should know — Son, your mother would have handled this better. She would have known what to say. When she left us — I was never quite sure what to do with you. But I was always grateful to that boy for putting a smile on your face.”
“JesusChrist, Dad —” I sit back in my chair, dazed, and the plastic flexes against my spine. “God, if I knew I could just — I almostlosthim.”
There’s a lump in my throat, and my eyes are blurry. I blink the tears away quickly.
I didn’t know Dad could look at me so shrewdly. “Seems like you haven’t lost him, though, if what I saw yesterday is any indication.”
“No, I guess I haven’t.” I blow out my breath slowly. The tile floor is firm under my feet, and I brush my hands over the rough denim covering my thighs. “Shit, Dad, I had a whole speech planned.”
“Well, you don’t have to make a big thing out of it. I’m just glad you’re happy.”
Just then, Seth pokes his head around the doorframe, a cup of coffee from the vending machine in his hand. “Everything okay in here?”
“We’re fine,” Dad says. “Ezra was just telling me about him and Cole.”
Seth is looking at me kindly, but I’m standing up abruptly. “I have to go talk to him.”
I’m already halfway out the door when Dad calls after me. “Send my future daughter-in-law in here, will you? She’s a hoot.”
It takes me almost no time to make it back to the waiting room. When he sees me, Cole starts halfway out of his chair, his eyes like saucers.
“Ezra, what—”
But I don’t care who’s watching us. I cross the carpet in four long strides, and I’m grabbing him by the hand, yanking him to his feet so that I can throw my armsaround his neck and pull him down into a kiss.
He’s laughing, and I’m laughing, and his hands are in my hair and we are the only two people on the planet. And for once in my life, I know for sure —
I’mexactlywhere I’m supposed to be.
***
“Hey, Ezra? Could you come in here for a sec?” Cole’s voice is coming from the back of the house, and he sounds a little strange.
“Be right there —” I climb out of bed and put my T-shirt and boxers back on. When Cole and I got back from the hospital a few hours ago, we couldn’t get our clothes off fast enough, falling into bed almost as soon as Bree and Seth left us alone. Since then, I’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness, all the stress of the past month finally catching up with me. Cole must have wandered off while I was snoozing.
I pad out of Cole’s bedroom and into the hall. At the far end, the door to Sharon’s old bedroom is open, light shining onto the carpet, and I realize with a start that I’ve actually never been inside. I make my way down the hall to a room that reminds me very much of Cole’s — quaint decor, antique furniture, a heavy wood bed frame that sits high off the floor with a white counterpane embroidered all over with violets. There are lace curtains, and through them I can see the spreadof Raritan Bay, and beyond that, the Atlantic Ocean, still visible in the last streaks of twilight that cross the sky. But at first, the room appears to be empty.
“Cole?”
“Right here.” He pokes his head out of a small alcove around the corner from the bedroom door, and I cross the room to join him in the narrow space. There’s a dresser and a vanity with a low bench, just wide enough for two people. Cole is seated, a white robe pulled haphazardly over his boxers, and I sit down beside him.
“I haven’t been in this room in years,” he begins, his voice a little hollow. “Gram — she had a stroke one night while she was sleeping. She had invited a few friends over to play cards the next day, and when they couldn’t get in, they called the police — Good thing, too, or else it might have been a couple of days until they found her.”
I reach out to take his hand, twining his fingers in mine.
“When she died, and I found out she left the house to me — I think she wanted me to have something that was mine, that my parents couldn’t take away from me no matter what. And I’m grateful, but I hadn’t even stepped foot in the house until the night of Bree and Seth’s engagement party, after — after I left you. And I couldn’t bear to come in here at all.”
