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Lame, but true.
“You think it was really good? Well, I know it was. No thinking necessary.”
He sounded happy and light, just what I wanted to hear. I snuggled closer to my furnace bear. “Pfft. Semantics.”
Even though I’d slept the entire drive back from town, I fell asleep immediately to the comforting feeling of the near-silent laughter vibrating through his chest.
After a solid night’s sleep in which I didn’t dream, or at least I didn’t have any memories of dreaming, I awoke to the sound of Isaac arguing on the phone. I could tell from his hushed voice he’d been trying not to wake me, but it was almost impossible in the small confines of our little home.
“This is real, Mom,” he hissed. “It’s not some—”
He listened for a while and paced back and forth in the kitchen area with one hand in his hair and the other on the phone. He only wore a pair of boxer briefs, so his body was a bit distracting for me, until I heard the next part.
“What, you want me to pretend not to like him that much? What does that even mean?”
For a split second, I thought he meant he was pretending to like me, that what we had between us was a lie. But then reality kicked back online, and I knew Isaac wasn’t that good an actor. He had real feelings in his eyes when he looked at me, and I knew he at least cared enough about my feelings not to use me that way.
“Well, forget it. I do like him, and I like liking him. And I’m going to continue liking him for a very long time, so you might as well get used to it.” He pulled the phone away from his face and poked at it, presumably ending the call.
Whoa.
I wasn’t sure Isaac Winshed had ever hung up on his mother in his life.
“Babe. You okay?” I called out, suddenly feeling nervous for some reason.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “Yeah. Sorry. I tried not to wake you, but it’s cold as balls outside and I don’t have any clothes on.”
I held out my hand. “It’s fine. Come here. Get back in bed.”
He got back in bed and pulled me on top of him like a blanket. I yelped at the frigid touch of his skin. “Fuck! You’re freezing.”
“Mm, you’re warm.”
I let him warm up for a minute before asking, “What did she say?”
Isaac sighed. “She wants me to stop making it look so real. She said she thought she could handle watching me pretend to be gay, but the reality is really bothering her.”
My heart dropped. Mrs. Winshed had never made me feel “wrong” for being gay even though there were definitely times when her ignorance about it was apparent.
I kept quiet and let him continue. Lying draped over his furry chest with his large hands running slowly up and down my back was hardly a hardship.
“I told her I wasn’t pretending, and do you know what she said? ‘Of course you are, Nine, don’t be stupid.’ Like I don’t know my own feelings. Like I’m twelve instead of twenty-four.”
“I’m sorry.”
His arms tightened around me. “I’m embarrassed to admit I’m more upset about her thinking I’m stupid than about her being homophobic.” He took a breath. “Homophobia is like… a symptom of her upbringing and culture. But thinking I’m too stupid to know my own feelings? Thinking I’m so easily led that I’d somehow turn pretend actions in front of the camera to real feelings behind it?”
I kissed his chest before leaning up to kiss his cheek. It was still cool to the touch, so I kissed his cheeks all over to warm them. Finally I pulled back and straddled him with my hands on his chest.
“You’re not stupid. Did I ever tell you the time Eli punched a hole in the wall of our apartment when we lived in that shithole orange building our junior year?”
He shook his head.
“Your dad had called and asked him to help Graham apply to UW.”
Isaac’s brow furrowed in confusion. “My brother Graham? He practically failed out of high school.”
I nodded. “Exactly. That’s what Eli said. So he asked your dad why he thought Graham should go to college, and your dad said something about how Graham had potential but had never been challenged enough to prove himself. He thought college might help, and he’d be willing to pay for it.”
Isaac’s entire body tensed up, and some of the light in his eyes seemed too dim. “Oh. Wow.”
I regretted telling him this story. Why the fuck hadn’t I thought it through before opening my big fat mouth? Clearly my words had hurt him. I tried to get to the good part. “Eli yelled at him. I don’t remember any other time Eli yelled at anyone, but he yelled at your dad that day. Told him if any of the ten of you should be going to college besides Beth it was you. Then he told your dad about every single honor you’d gotten in school, every high grade, every bit of teacher praise. I don’t know how he knew half of it since he’d been out of the house for a couple of years at that point, but I remember him getting off the phone and saying something that never made sense to me.”
