“What’s wrong, Dylan?”
I sigh. “There’s this guy,” I begin, and then chew the inside of my lip. “He’s here as a guest, and he’s come into my studio twice.”
“Once with his boyfriend,” Mom guesses.
“Yeah,” my shoulders sag.
“You don’t go after someone else’s man, baby. I raised you better than that.”
“I didn’t. I haven’t.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
“Mom…”
“This one’s different, is he?”
I close my eyes and think about him. “I don’t know him,” I admit. “We’ve talked a little, but I don’t know him. Still, I can’t stop thinking about him. Everything inside mefeelsthat he’s the one for me.”
Mom clucks her tongue. “If he left tomorrow, and you never saw him again, how would you feel? Would you get over him in time—this man you don’t know?”
My chest tightens, and my stomach churns. The idea is awful, but Mom’s right. I don’t even know when he’s leaving. He could already be gone. Oh god.
“I wish you could feel what I feel right now,” I whisper, curling in on myself and closing my eyes. “Yes, I’d have to get over him, right? What choice would I have? But I’ll compare everyone to how I feel about this stranger. I think I’ll miss him every day. How do you miss someone you don’t know and never had, Mom? What do I do?”
Mom doesn’t answer right away, and I know she’s wavering. As my mom, she wants me to have what I want. As a person with a good moral character, she doesn’t want me to split up a couple.
“Does he feel the same way?”
“I don’t know how he feels, but every encounter we’ve had makes me believe he feels it too.” The way he stares at me! He came back to the studio alone and did a naked shoot, and he was hard for me the entire time. We flirted.
Then he left hard and horny to return to his man. The thought makes me green.
“Listen,” Mom says. “Sometimes we’re dealt a difficult set of cards, and we need to determine how to play them. Perhaps you need to shoot your shot, Dylan.”
Chills trickle down my spine. “I do?”
“I think you do. If you feel this strongly about him and you think he feels something similar, then perhaps this is how the universe has arranged it so you two meet when you otherwise never would.”
That’s true. How else would I ever meet a hockey player?
“What about his boyfriend?”
“That’s something you’re going to have to live with, baby. It’s time to weigh your options. Either you put it out there to this man that your heart is his and see how he responds, living with the knowledge that perhaps you broke up an otherwise happy relationship—assuming they’re happy. Or you don’t and spend the rest of your life knowing that the man who might have been yours is somewhere else, with someone else. It’s up to you and only you.”
I sigh. “Both sound like awful ideas,” I mutter. “I’m either a shitty person or potentially miserable for the rest of my life. I can’t be a divaandmiserable. No one will work for me!”
Mom laughs. She was the first one to call me a diva. I was four and demanded to wear her lipstick to pre-k so I could make a good first impression. The same lipstick she always wore when she had to make a good first impression.
“I think you have some things to think about, baby.”
“Yeah,” I say, pouting. “How’s Becca?”
She hums again. “Doing okay. I think she’s finally understanding that she’s safe here. I’m not going to return her.”
I smile, closing my eyes. Mom went through all the steps to become a foster parent just after I left home. She’s the best mom, and I’m glad she decided to be a mom for those who don’t have one anymore for whatever reason. She’s had three foster kids,always choosing to take the older ones because no one takes a chance on the older ones.
Becca is the third and the youngest she took in at fourteen. I don’t know Becca’s story, but I know she’s been through it. In and out of foster homes since she was six, she’s been classified as a ‘difficult child,’ but Mom says, “Of course, she’s difficult. She feels abandoned over and over again. Unwanted. How would you feel?”
