It isn’t, though. “His big interview airs tonight. He sent me a text saying it’s okay if I don’t watch.”
“Oh, we’re watching,” Mom says cheerfully. “Who could stay away?”
My stomach rolls because I’m nervous for Wes. What if the interviewer was an asshole? What if they edited it so thatWessounds like an asshole? I feel sick for him. He never wanted this kind of attention.
Mom drains her tea and checks her watch. “And we don’t have long to wait. Time to make the popcorn?”
Forty minutes later I’m sitting on the couch beside her, myhands fidgeting and sweaty. My dad is in his recliner reading a newspaper.
Maybe Ishouldn’twatch. Wes’s message said:It wasn’t too bad, and I didn’t say anything remotely personal about you. I promise. But don’t watch if it makes you uncomfortable. Life is too short, right? Call me later. I miss you.
My phone is in my pocket, torturing me. I miss him so bad. But whenever I imagine explaining my work woes, I want to throw up. If I get fired, it will be more embarrassing than hearing my name on TV. And if I can’t get another job, what then? Will we have an awful slow-motion breakup when he realizes I can only get a job in the states?
And will I regret giving up my shot in Detroit only to be fired in Toronto?
I’m way too young to have a midlife crisis, damn it.
That’s when Wes’s face appears on the screen, wearing a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression, and there’s no way I’m bailing now.
“Aw,” my mother says beside me. She sits up a little straighter. “We love you, Ryan!”
“You know he can’t hear you, right?” my father asks from behind the op-ed page.
I hold my breath for the first ten minutes of the interview. The story about the broken arm just kills me, because I’ve never heard it before. I think ImetReggie, too. I’m pretty sure he drove Wes to camp that first summer, and then picked him up again.
Until right now I don’t think I ever really understood how alone in the world Wes is. I mean—when we’re together, he’s not alone, right? So how would I know?
Oh.
Fuck.
Fuck me.
He’s aloneright nowbecause I made it that way.
As the interview goes on, I sink lower and lower down into the sofa. My mother makes these little noises whenever Wes makes another self-deprecating joke or mentions his father.
By the time Wes says that I’m his real family, I pretty much want to punch myself.
And when the reporter asks Wes if he wants to get married, I stop breathing entirely.
“Wouldn’t you like to put a ring on this?” he jokes. Then he laughs to himself, as if he’s already convinced it’s a pipe dream. He wears the same cocky smile I’ve always seen on his face. But now I know how much pain it hides. It was right there the whole time, too. But I didn’t understand, because my man is really good at appearing confident.
My parents are both staring at me.
“What?” I croak.
My mother bites her lip. This woman who always knows the right thing to say is silent for once, which only makes me feel worse.
I can’t take it anymore. I get up and go into my childhood room, taking a seat on one of the twin beds. When Wes spent Christmas here, it was weird waking up to see him asleep in the opposite one. He looked as peaceful as I’d ever seen him.
Goddamn it. What have I done to us?
I’m ready to do something about it now, if it’s not too late. I whip out my phone and find the old email with Wes’s itinerary on it. Fuck, he’s in Dallas for at least another day. They have a game there tomorrow night. The private jet won’t get him back to Toronto until the following afternoon.
But there’s always FedEx.
That idea gets me up and rummaging around in the closetof my old room. On the top shelf, under some of Scotty’s old football pads, I find something that will do.
