“So, basically what you expected,” I say carefully. I mean, it’s a testament to how messed up the situation is that I’m hearing this and thinking, Could be worse! “Do you think they’re open to the conversation at least?”
“This was a week ago,” he whispers. When he looks up at me with tears in his eyes, he adds, “No one has spoken to me in a week.”
• • •
A week.
A week!
I can’t even fathom not speaking to my parents for a week. Even when they’ve been on work trips, they call and check in nightly and require detailed updates that go far beyond the scope of their mildly distracted at-home check-ins. But Sebastian has been living in a house with a family that moves around him as if he’s a ghost.
I don’t know when exactly we move on, but it’s not long after he tells me this. It’s like there’s nothing I can say that makes it less terrible. I try, but I fail, and eventually just focus on making him lie back next to me, staring up at the tree, and telling him all the stupid gossip Autumn has told me.
Oof. Autumn. I need to go there at some point.
But not yet. Right now we’re holding hands and lying side by side. Our palms grow slippery and clammy, but he doesn’t let go, and I won’t either.
“What have you been doing?”
“Moping,” I tell him. “School. Mostly moping.”
“Same.” He reaches up with his free hand, scratches his jaw. It’s stubbly for once, and I’m into it. “Well, and church. I’ve been practically living there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” He rolls his head to look at me. “I leave on tour three weeks from today. Honestly, I don’t think my parents are going to be able to keep this up when the book comes out. I know they’re proud. They’ll want to share that pride with everyone.”
I’d forgotten about the book. It’s like the tour just sort of bled into his mission and stopped having any legitimate purpose. I am a brat. “And they won’t want anyone to see them being assholes.”
He doesn’t say anything to this, but that means he doesn’t disagree, either.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t want to bad-mouth your parents because I know you guys are super close. I’m just pissed.”
“Me too.” He shifts, putting his head on my shoulder. The next eight words come out thin, like he’s run them through his thoughts so many times, they’re worn down, frayed: “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this worthless.”
This is a knife to my gut, and in a heated flash, I want him to get the fuck out of Provo. I hope his book sells a million copies in a week and everyone loses their mind over how great he is. I hope his ego gets enormous and he becomes unbearable—anything but that shaking tenor of his voice saying those words again.
I pull him to me, and he rolls to his side, letting out a choking sob into my neck.
So many platitudes pile onto the tip of my tongue, but they’d all sound terrible.
You’re amazing.
Don’t let anyone make you feel worthless.
I’ve never known anyone like you.
And on and on.
But we’ve both been raised to care greatly what our family thinks about us—their esteem is everything. On top of that, Sebastian has the looming judgment of the church, telling him wherever he looks that the God he loves thinks he’s a pretty foul human being. It’s impossible to know how to undo the damage they’re doing to him.
“You’re amazing,” I say anyway, and he chokes out a sob-laugh. “Come on, kiss me. Let me kiss that amazing face.”
• • •
Mom finds us like this—crying-laughing-crying in a heap under the Snuffleupagus tree—and one look at our faces sends her into triage mode.
She claps a hand over her mouth when she sees Sebastian, and tears rise to the surface of her eyes nearly immediately. Mom pulls us up, hugs me, and then wordlessly takes Sebastian into her arms—he gets the longer hug, the one with the soft Mom words spoken into his ear—and something breaks loose in me because it makes him cry harder. Maybe she’s just saying things like “You’re amazing. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel worthless.” Maybe she tells him she understands what he’s going through and that it will get better. Maybe she’s promising him weekly deliveries of bumper stickers. Whatever it is, it’s exactly what he needs because the tears eventually stop, and he nods down at her.
The sun is starting to set, and there’s no question he’s staying for dinner. We wipe the grass from our pants and follow Mom inside. It’s late spring, and even though it gets pretty warm during the day, the temperature drops like a rock once the sun goes away, and it’s only now that I realize how cold it was out under the tree. Inside, my parents have a fire going in the living room. They’re blasting Paul Simon from the stereo. Hailey is sitting at the kitchen table, carving out her chemistry homework with dark, resentful scrapes of her pencil.
It’s suddenly impossible to get warm. We laugh, clutching each other in this sort of surreal, high way—he’s here, in my house, with my family—and I pull Sebastian down the hall with me, handing him one of my hoodies from the coat hooks near the front door. It’s deep red, with the S-T-A-N-F-O-R-D stamped across the front in white letters.
He patiently lets me zip it for him, and I admire my handiwork. “You look good in those colors.”
“Unfortunately, I’m already enrolled at a local university.”
For now, I think. God, his decision to embrace this—us—impacts so many things. If he wants to stay at BYU, he can’t be out, period. Even being here he’s essentially breaking an honor code. But there are other schools. . . .
This is unreal. I look down the hall at where my parents are bent over, laughing over my dad’s hysterical distaste for touching raw chicken. They both seem to have put their worry away for the night, realizing that we need this—a few hours where we can just be together like any other couple. The only instruction they give us is to wash our hands before dinner.
“Speaking of college, though.”
I startle when he says this because it hits me: It’s been only a few weeks that we’ve been apart, but so much has happened, future-decision-wise. He doesn’t know where I’m moving in August.
“I assume you’ve heard back from most places?”
“Yeah.” I reach forward, zipping down his sweatshirt just enough to get an eyeful of throat and collarbone. His skin is this perfect kind of smooth and tan. I want to get him shirtless and have my own photo shoot.
I’m stalling.
“So?”
I meet his eyes. “I’m going to UCLA.”
Sebastian falls wordless for a few tense seconds, and the pulse in his neck picks up pace. “You’re not staying in state?”
Wincing, I admit, “No.” I hope the grin I give him takes the edge off my words: “But neither are you, most likely.”
He deflates a little. “Who even knows.” His hand comes up to my chest, sliding flat-palmed from my shoulder to my stomach. Everything tenses. “When do you move?”
“August, I think.”
“How’s your book coming?”
My stomach spasms, and I gently guide his hand away from my navel. “It’s fine. Come on. Let’s get something to drink.”
He sends a text to his parents, telling them he’ll be home late. It goes unanswered.
I think I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life, and I don’t say that to be flippant or hyperbolic. I mean, my parents are charged up on something—together, they are being hilarious. Hailey is actually crying she’s laughing so hard. Sebastian nearly loses a sip of water when my dad tells his favorite terrible joke about a duck walking into a bar and ordering raisins. When we finish eating, I take Sebastian’s hand on the table and my parents stare at us for a few beats with a mixture of adoration and concern. Then they offer us dessert.
It’s what I want for us. And whenever I look over at him and he meets my eyes, I try to say, See? It co
uld be like this. It could be like this every day.
But then I see his own words pushed back to me, high and tight in his thoughts: It could. But I’d lose everything I know and everyone I have.
I can’t honestly blame him if it’s not enough yet.
• • •
Mom and Dad head up to bed only about twenty minutes into Spectre. They lift a snoring Hailey off the chair and help her up the stairs too. Dad looks back over his shoulder at me, giving me a single half encouraging, half reminding-me-not-to-have-sex-on-the-couch look, and then disappears.
Then we’re alone, in the living room, with the strange blue glow of the television and a giant mostly untouched bowl of popcorn in front of us. At first we don’t move. We’re already holding hands under a throw blanket. I keep having these flashes of realization—I wonder if it happens to him, too—where I can’t actually believe he’s here, we’re back together, my parents are just hanging out with me and my boyfriend like it’s something we can do, no problem.
But that voice that’s been in my thoughts all day clears its throat, and I know I can’t put it off anymore.
“I need to tell you something,” I say.
He looks over at me. The left side of his face is glowy from the television, and combined with his sharp jaw, cheekbones, and mildly concerned expression, he looks a little like the Terminator. “Okay.”
“I messed up.” I take a deep breath. “After you broke up with me, I was a mess. I don’t actually remember a lot of the day. I know I drove around for a few hours, and then I went to Autumn’s. I was crying, and not thinking very clearly.”
I can tell he knows the minute I say this because he does this sharp inhale through his nose, like he’s saying, “Oh.”
Nodding, I let out a slow, remorseful, “Yeah.”
He nods, turning back to the TV.
“She’s okay. I’m okay. We talked about it, and obviously it’s weird, but she and I will get through it. I just . . . didn’t want to keep it from you.”
“Just to make sure I understand: You had sex with her?”
I pause, guilt and shame pressing down on my shoulders like a weight. “Yeah.”
His jaw tics. “But you don’t want to be with her?”
“Sebastian, if I wanted to be with Auddy, I’d be with Auddy. She’s my best friend, and I went to her because I was heartbroken. I realize this sounds completely insane, but we got into a weird comfort spiral that turned into sex.”
I think this makes him laugh in spite of himself. But he looks back at me. “This doesn’t feel great.”
“I know.”
He reaches up, absently rubbing his sternum with his fist. I lift his hand to kiss his knuckles.
“I know I messed up,” he says quietly. “I guess I can’t have the kind of reaction that I want to have.”
“You can. I get it. I would be losing my mind right now if the situation were reversed.”
“But you wouldn’t be able to tell me what to do after you break up with me.” Apparently, his calm demeanor wins out. I’m not sure whether I’m relieved, or wish he would show a small flash of jealous rage.
“I guess not.”
“But if we’re together, you’re with me, right?” he asks. “Even if I go away?”
Pulling back, I study him for a second. “I thought you couldn’t be in a relationship when you leave.”
He ducks his head. “I’m going to have to figure out what rules I follow and what rules I don’t.”
“While keeping everything about you a secret?”
Sebastian turns to me, pressing his face into my neck, and lets out a cute growl. “I don’t know yet.” His words come out muffled: “I love so many things about the church. Speaking to God feels like instinct, like it’s wired into me. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I left. It’s like standing in an open field and trying to point to the four walls. There’s just no framework to my life without the church.”
I wonder if he has to leave, if his choice is binary like that. “Maybe things are more relaxed in wards in other cities,” I say. “Like LA, for example.”
He laughs, and bares his teeth against my collarbone.
Things go wordless for a while.
I keep one ear open for the sound of footsteps on the stairs and the other open for the sounds Sebastian makes next to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A word to the wise: Don’t try to be the little spoon while sleeping on a couch. You’ll fall off, for one, and wake up with a cramp in your neck, for two. And most likely, when you wake up alone on the floor with your father staring down at your shirtless body sprinkled with the detritus from an overturned bowl of popcorn, you’ll be grounded.
“Sebastian slept over?”
“Um . . .” I sit up when Dad asks this, looking around. Without even looking in a mirror, I can tell my hair is standing straight up. I pull a sharp kernel of popcorn away from where it is dangerously close to my nipple. “I don’t actually know. I think he’s gone.”
“Kind of like your shirt?”
“Dad—”
“Tanner.”
It’s hard to take his gruff tone seriously when he’s wearing the Cookie Monster pajama pants Hailey got him for Chrismukkah two years ago.
“You’re running late,” he says, and turns. I catch a glimpse of a grin. “Get dressed and eat something.”
I grab a bowl of cereal and sprint straight to my bedroom. I have a lot to write down.
• • •
Sebastian doesn’t answer the chicken/popcorn/beach landscape emoji text I send him just before school starts, and he isn’t in the Seminar this afternoon. I send his private e-mail a short note when I get home.
Hey, it’s me. Just checking in. Everything okay? I’m around tonight if you want to stop by. —Tann
He doesn’t answer.
I try to ignore the familiar sinking ache that takes residence in my stomach, but at dinner, I’m not hungry. Mom and Dad exchange worried looks when they ask if I’ve talked to Sebastian today and I answer in a grunt. Hailey even offers to do the dishes.
I send our old standby—the mountain emoji—the next day, and get nothing in return.
At lunch, I call him. It goes straight to voice mail.
From there, my texts to him pop up in a green bubble, as though his iMessage has been turned off.
• • •
Nothing today.
Nothing today.
It’s been four days since he was here, and I heard from him, an e-mail.
Tanner,
I’m so sorry if I miscommunicated anything to you about my feelings, or my identity. I hope my lack of clarity hasn’t brought you too much pain.
I wish you nothing but the best in your upcoming adventures at UCLA.
Kindest regards,
Sebastian Brother
I don’t even know what to say or think after I finish reading it. Obviously, I read it about ten times, because the first nine times, I can’t believe that I’m reading it right.
I go to my folder, the one with the letters from him. I read different phrases, totally blown away by the distance and formality in the e-mail.
Is it weird that I want to spend every second together?
Sometimes it’s hard to not stare at you in class. I think if people saw me looking at you for even a second, they would know.
I can still feel your kiss on my neck.
But no, he miscommunicated his feelings.
• • •
I send my official acceptance letter to UCLA, but my hand shakes when I sign the acknowledgment that my acceptance is dependent on my grades this term. The plan is for me to move August 7. Orientation is August 24. I text Sebastian and tell him, but he doesn’t answer.
I counted today: In the past six days, I’ve sent him twenty emoji texts. Is that crazy? It feels like nothing compared to how many real ones, with words, I’ve started and deleted. I have Auddy and Mom and Dad ready to listen anytime I need them. Manny a
nd I had lunch, and it was quiet, but actually pretty easy just to hang in silence. Even Hailey is being sweet.
But I just want to talk to him.
• • •
My book is due tomorrow, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Sebastian shows up in chapter two. Fujita told me I need to turn in at least a hundred pages to get a grade, but he knows I have more. If I gave him even the first hundred, he would get right to the part where Sebastian told me he’s attracted to guys. He would get to where we kiss.
The funny thing is, if you’ve watched me for more than two minutes in that class, it wouldn’t matter what changes I make. I could move it to an alternate universe on a planet called SkyTron-1, rename him Steve and myself Bucky, and give us both superpowers, and it would still be obvious what this book is about. I can’t hide anything when he’s in the room, and my heart is on every page, regardless of the details.
If I get a D in this class—what I’d get if I didn’t turn in the final book or only gave Fujita twenty pages—I would still graduate, but would lose my honors ranking. I think UCLA would still take me. I think.
I realize the end of this book sucks, and I’m barely trying to make it anything worthwhile, but this is the end I have. What kind of idiot was I to start a book about writing a book and just assume the ending would be happy? That’s my framework—happy endings, easy life. But I guess it’s better that I learn this lesson now instead of later, down the road, when I’m not living at home and the world isn’t so kind.
I have been a lucky asshole, one with no idea how the world really works.
• • •
I stand outside Fujita’s office. He’s in with a student—Julie, I think—who is crying and probably stressed about turning in her book, but I feel oddly numb. No, that’s not entirely true. I feel relieved, like both of my looming fears—the fear of Sebastian ending things again, the fear of having to deal with the book—have come to pass and at least I don’t have to worry about either of them anymore.
When it’s my turn, I walk inside. Fujita looks at the laptop in my hands.