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I took a few deep breaths, forcing myself to keep it slow and even. Right. Okay. I would find a time to talk to Pike about the baby. Not right now, but… in a couple of weeks. Once our relationship was no longer a secret. Then, after Pike had some time to think and make his choice, I would talk to my parents. It would all be fine.
It was going to be fine.
By the time I got home, I’d finished crying and I had myself under control again. I just had to act normal, I kept telling myself. Act normal.
Of course, the problem with that is you didn’t know what your ‘normal’ was when you were actually acting normal. You only thought about it when you weren’t acting normal and were trying to cover it up.
I thought I was doing a pretty good job though. I got home in time to help my mom finish up the last of the dinner, and set the table, and then Morgan pulled up in his fancy new car and came in.
Morgan was a bit colder than normal. He was polite, as usual, but there was a distance to his behavior that wasn’t usually there. We’d been doing a good job of pretending to be on good terms in front of our parents for four years now, so why was he suddenly acting all distant like an amateur?
Unless… had he been hearing more rumors? Shit. If he’d heard people talking about us more, he might think that Pike and I were in a relationship (and he would be right, of course, damn it) and that would be why he was being so cold.
Well, great. I wasn’t going to call him out on it, not today. It was Thanksgiving, for one thing, and for another this was not the way that I wanted my relationship with Pike to be revealed to my parents.
Dad said grace, we all dug into our food, and we kept the conversation polite. Morgan had plenty to talk about with work, and there was always sports to fall back on and discuss, and Mom had plenty of gossip, and Dad was into this new TV show he wanted to tell us all about… what would Dad think, if he heard about Pike and me? Dad tended to take Morgan’s side on things. If Morgan got to him and made it sound like Pike was an asshole or something…
I tried not to worry, tried to eat and laugh and talk like everything was fine. I would talk to Pike about it in a few weeks, when our relationship was more settled, and until then I would just get used to the idea of being a mother. Right? Right.
Dad dragged Morgan into the living room to eat pie and watch the game, and Mom and I cleaned up dinner. “Morgan’s getting too goddamn big for his britches,” I mumbled as I stacked dishes by the sink.
Mom raised an eyebrow. “Hmm. He has gotten a bit more controlling, yes. But Morgan’s always been that way, even as a little kid. He doesn’t like to feel like he’s out of control.”
“Yeah, well…” I didn’t know what else to say. What could I possibly tell her that wouldn’t reveal too much information about myself, about Pike?
Mom paused, turning off the water on the sink. “What’s going on, honey? I know that there’s something. You’ve been acting different lately. Is it you and Morgan? I know that—you had that big fight a few years ago—”
“I’m just stressed about life,” I said, trying to play it off. “Morgan’s trying to decide my life like being my big brother gives him the right to control me, and I can’t seem to get him to listen or understand otherwise.”
Mom nodded, but I wasn’t sure that she bought that whole excuse. It was only partially true what I was saying, after all, and Mom could read me better than anyone in the world. “You can’t live your life trying to make other people happy,” she said. “Whether Morgan approves of your choices or not, you’re going to have to just go for them and stop getting stuck arguing with him about them. Because if you stop to argue with him, you’ll never get to where you want to go.”
That… that was fair. If I was focused on Morgan, then how could I ever focus on myself or on Pike? The person that I really truly cared about and wanted to be with?
“That’s good advice,” I said. “Thanks, Mom.”
She reached out and laid her hand on my upper arm, squeezing it with a small smile. “You’re young, but you’re going to work yourself out, honey. I think… you’ve always seemed to know what you wanted. I think it isn’t so much that you don’t know as it is you do know, and you’re scared to go after it.”
