"Very much so. They were lovely and opulent but garish nightmares, which is the exact opposite of what I'd expect from Andy. I've known her for five years and everything about her is classic, elegant, understated. But she comes in with these tablescapes and centerpieces and it's insanity. I'd sooner die than have flower-vomit centerpieces at my wedding."
Tom continued talking about Andy's plans and how they finally arrived on the same page but the record player in my head kept skipping on the words "my wedding," each pass sending bile up my throat. I knew that wasn't a turn of phrase; it was obvious he'd devoted real thought to the details of his wedding day and—and oh my fucking god, he wanted to get married.
Marriage had never once entered my mind. It'd never seemed like an option for me but more than that, I'd never felt the desire to get married. I supported that choice for anyone who wanted it but I wasn't one of those people—and it appeared Tom was.
Right? Or was I reading between lines that hadn't been written?
"Hey, so, you want to get married?" I asked.
Tom caught me by the sleeve and spun me around to face him, effectively causing a ripple of pedestrian displacement on the narrow sidewalk. His lips were parted and his eyes wide and this was the wrong moment to shove my hands into his hair and kiss him but I did it anyway.
Against my lips, he whispered, "What did you just ask me?"
Shit.I stepped back, dropped my hands to my sides. "I meant, like, hypothetically. You want to get married, hypothetically, at some point in the future to someone? I mean, you want to be married to someone? Someday?"
I wasn't positive but it looked like he mouthedWowas he slowly shook his head at me.
Because I couldn't stop myself or stop the constant repeat of "my wedding" in my head, I kept going. "Hypothetically, that is. Not necessarily now or me or anything but ever? You know, do you want to go to the Solomon Islands? Like that. Hypothetical."
He studied me as if he was searching for my malfunction while people streamed around us. And that was fair because I couldn't control the words spilling out of my mouth and there was a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead and my stomach was twisting itself into an acidic knot. Tom wanted to get married and all I wanted was to put my head in his lap and turn back the clock to yesterday morning when everything was undecided and nothing was awful.
Eventually, he said, "Let's go inside. I get the sense I'm going to need a drink to occupy my mouth and some food to push around while you talk."
If I'd thought things were uncomfortable on the sidewalk, silently staring up at a menu board while standing a shoulder's width apart for five solid minutes bested it by a thousand percent. But I couldn't explain why it was uncomfortable. Yeah, I'd created a fine trap for myself in the way I'd asked Tom about his desire to get married and I'd compounded the damage by repeating the wordhypotheticallyuntil it served as nothing more than a loud indication this topic stressed the shit out of me.
Because everything was going to be complicated today, the only available seats were at the end of a long community table. Goddamn, I should've heeded the warning I'd received when I fell earlier.
Tom curled his hands around his iced mint tea, his gaze steady on the tabletop as he said, "Yes, I want to get married. I've always wanted that. I want to make a home and a family. Perhaps not children of my own but a Yorkie or a cocker spaniel with a saucy name like Winnie Pancakes or Lord Chesterfield." He paused to sip his tea and jerk a shoulder up, his standardit's no big dealgesture. "A cute niece or nephew would be great to spoil and that would prevent me from worrying about the right schools and orthodontics and teaching kids about internet safety or god knows what else. And, yes, I want a wedding. A big, elaborate party and a custom tuxedo and I want an amazing blowout event with my closest friends and surrogate family."
Instinct had me bringing my hand to my mouth. I didn't know whether I was saving myself from saying something irretrievable or steeling myself against a lurch of panic-vomit.
His brows peaked as he smiled down at his tea. "And you don't think you want any of it."
The panic answered for me, saying, "IknowI don't. I know I can't. I couldn't get married without coming out to my parents and I can't do that."
Still smiling at his tea with a hollow sort of serenity, he said, "I know you think that. I also know you're living a fractional life and it's bullshit. Your parents are supportive. They love you. They'd never turn you away or even bat a disapproving eye. I think you know that. If you don't, you should."
I flattened my hands on the table in an effort to calm the heart clanging in my chest, the dread swirling in my stomach, the blood whooshing and whooshing in my head. It didn't help. Nothing helped. I should've gone back to Will's house. Should've listened to my intuition when it fired a clear, obvious signal.
"You know your parents are good people," Tom continued. "They love you without condition."
"My father enforced Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He exited sailors from SEAL training for admitting or even suggesting they were gay. I watched it happen, Tom. I heard the conversations he had with naval commanders about it. I remember being a kid, being a teenager, and knowing which sailor wouldn't be coming to any more of the Commodore's barbeques because he'd been spotted atone of thosebars and now his SEAL career was over. My father is as old-school as it comes. Yes, they're good people. They're loving people. But what you don't understand is—"
"And it's still bullshit," he interrupted. "If you want to know what a bad reaction from parents looks like, take a look at my experience. Extreme, perhaps, but I was homeless because my family wouldn't allow me under their roof. Because their faith said it was wrong, that I was wrong, and they chose their faith over me without question. The truth is, Wes, you'll never be homeless. Not now and not twenty years ago if you'd come out to your family then. You'd never be hungry, never have to break into empty homes to sleep, never wonder what you'd have to sell in order to get by. I know this is real for you but you'll never see photos of your sister's wedding on social media and know your invitation wasn't lost in the mail. You'll never be shut out or scrubbed from your family's memory. They're the best kind of people, your family, and it's long past time you stop inventing reasons to avoid being the person you are. That's what it is, by the way. You can't tell your parents because that would require you to fully commit to being that person when you've found every imaginable loophole to avoid it up until now."
It wasn't until Tom stopped speaking that I became aware of the attention we'd garnered from the community table. Fingers stopped flying over keyboards, mobile phones were put down, food was ignored, and six strangers were bearing witness to this tragic moment of my life. I shifted to cordon off our conversation but there was no pretending these people weren't hearing everything.
"You're right, my family wouldn't show me the door," I conceded, hoping that turned down the volume on his gently spoken censure. "You're right about that though it doesn't mean I won't have my own version of awful to contend with."
With a flippant wave of his hand, he said, "If the response to you telling them who you are is awful, then you learn their love was conditional anyway and there's no value in love like that. There's no reason to honor family ties if they're contingent upon sexual preference, gender identity, body shape, political views, any of it. You're gay and if your parents can't keep on loving and accepting you, you shouldn't keep on loving and accepting them. You should build a life independent of them and shield yourself from that poison."
"That must be why you stalk your sister's social media," I said. "Because you're shielding yourself from that poison. Right?"
"Don't," he whispered.
"Don't what? Don't point out the holes in your argument? Don't try to explain how my family issues are just as real and valid as yours? What is it, Tom? What is it you want to control now? Because we both know you can't sleep at night if you don't have a stranglehold on everything around you."
"You don't know who you are," he whisper-yelled. "You just like playing make-believe gay. Because your justification for staying closeted is threadbare at best. Your parents, the adorable, loving sitcom parents everyone wishes they had, won't give a second thought your preferences and you damn well know it. You just haven't accepted yourself yet and you're hiding behind your parents."
