“Well, it just so happens I’mnotinterested in her.”
Dad leans back against the wall, arms crossed. Silent. Watching.
Mum plants her hands on her hips and clicks closer on her heels, like a general advancing into battle. I don’t move.
“Sebastian, don’t be ridiculous. Why do you think we arranged that lunch? The Wellands are an extremely influential family. Besides being valuable business allies for your father, they have the right connections to helpyoubreak into high society. An engagement to Cressie would open doors you can’t even imagine. And she’s hardly difficult to look at.”
“Cressida’s… unique, I’ll give you that. But she’s also completely unhinged. Did you not notice how she kept touching me?She licked my face, Mum. And you’d just hand your son over like some prime cut of meat, for business?”
She laughs sharply, leaning in.
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. It’s for your benefit as much as ours. And really, what choice have you left us? Ever since you ended things with that poor girl Maddie, you haven’t introduced a single girlfriend. I’m doing you a favour, Sebastian. Cressida Welland is a perfectly respectable match.”
I shake my head, drained, and glance at Dad before drawing in a slow, steadying breath.
“Mum, Dad… haven’t you ever wondered why I haven’t brought home any other girls since Maddie?”
It’s time. I can’t keep circling around it. The anxiety coils tight in my stomach, but underneath it, there’s something else, a strange calm. Like stepping into cold water and finally going under.
“The reason is simple: I’m not into girls. I’m gay. Completely, entirely gay.”
My voice lifts slightly at the end. I brace myself for shouting, for disbelief, for tears.Something. But instead, they exchange a look. Wordless. Weighted.
Seconds stretch.
Mum twists her hands, visibly flustered. Dad starts pacing, tracing slow, familiar paths across the carpet. And then it hits me.
I bring my hand to my mouth. “You… Oh my God. You already knew?”
The room tilts. The floor feels unsteady.
They don’t deny it. They don’t even try.
“Who told you?” I whisper, dread thick in my throat.
Their silence answers for them.
“May,” I say quietly. “It was May, wasn’t it?”
The realization hits like a punch to the gut.
I always knew May had flexible boundaries, rubber, really, but I never imagined she’d crossthisone. She took something sacred and made it strategic. Transactional.
She stole my choice. My timing. My right to come out on my own terms.
Tears sting my eyes, blurring everything. I try to blink them back, but it’s no use.
“How long?” I manage, my voice breaking. “How long have you known?”
Mum’s tone snaps back into cold, clipped composure.
“May contacted us a few weeks ago, after you got back to London, and didn’t bother to visit. She was concerned. Said you were planning major changes to your repertoire, changes she didn’t support.”
“May also mentioned that she threatened to quit?” I shoot back, trembling. “Or said that those changes were a massive success?”
“That’s not the point, Sebastian,” she says flatly. “One successful performance doesn’t make a career. May sees the bigger picture, something you clearly don’t.”
She locks eyes with Dad, then continues in that same measured tone.
