Gramma Sharon nods and, again, hugs me and does the cheek nuzzle against my shoulder. Okay, so Wednesday we’ll be alone, and I can tell her the truth. And then I’ll call Agent Grant and maybe he can even meet us here, away from the house.
I just have to avoid Marcus until then.
Thirty-Five
Miles opens his front door and ushers me in—I shout a quick hello to his parents in the kitchen—then we head up to his room, where he has to push Chardonnay out with his foot and close the door quickly behind her.
“So. How’d it go?” he asks once we’re in the quiet safety of his room.
“I didn’t do it.” He slumps and I drop down on his bed. “Valencia was there the whole time. Like she wouldn’t even go pee or anything.”
“So do we call Grant and tell him the truth? Gramma Sharon’ll find out pretty quick then.”
The muscles in my chest tighten. I can’t do that to her. How messed up would that be? Finding out her own daughter or son-in-law was responsible for not only poisoning her with glass but probably killing her grandson?
Oh, and also, the kid you thought was your grandson is a big gay imposter.
And for the first time, a new future fantasy comes to me. In it, Marcus is the one who killed Nate, but Valencia helped cover it up. Gramma Sharon is heartbroken when they’re taken to prison, but she adopts me. I end up being Easton’s brother anyway. We’re one—little—happy family.
“I know it’s stupid,” I say. “But I want to tell her first.”
Miles sighs and plops down next to me. We both stare up at the ceiling.
“It’s not stupid,” he says. Then quickly adds, “I mean, continuing to live in a house with someone who is obviously out to get you isn’t displaying Mensa-level intellect.”
I snort.
“But I get wanting to tell her yourself.”
When I turn, he’s looking at me and his face says yes, he absolutely understands. Probably because he’s been through something a little similar with his own parents.
“What was it like when you came out?” I ask.
He shrugs and shakes his head. “Not nearly as horrific as I imagined, but I’m lucky. I mean, I obviously don’t have to tell you.”
“Especially because it wasn’t a choice and resulted in me being homeless and now living with at least one psychopath.”
“Right. Like, you should write a memoir after this is all done.” He puts his hands up in the air like he’s framing a theater marquee: “COME OUT ALREADY: IT CAN’T GET MUCH WORSE THAN MINE.”
I fall into a fit of laughter that makes Miles giggle along with me.
“There’s a colon there, by the way,” he says. “Like the second part is a subtitle.”
“Yeah, I got that, thanks.”
Once we stop laughing, he continues. “I thought it would be... I don’t know. Scarier? And it was at first, before I said anything. The lead-up, I mean. Every day after I made the decision I would sit downat dinner, knowing I was going to say it and how. But I couldn’t. Day after day after day.”
“For how long?”
“About two years.”
“Twoyears?” I sit up on my elbows, looking down at him.
“Yup. And after all that worrying and hand-wringing and, like, a ridiculous number of script changes, none of it even mattered. You’ve met my parents. How could I even think they wouldn’t still love me?”
He’s right. The limited times I’ve interacted with Miles’s parents, they seem like the kind of people who are written as cute background characters in a silly TV show. The parents of the quirky best friend who show up only to help solve problems or have a funny misunderstanding with the main character’s messy parents.
“How’d you finally do it?”
