"She says I have good instincts," he told me one evening, curled on the couch with his feet in my lap. "For matching people with books. A woman came in looking for something for her mother, and I recommended this collection of short stories. She came back the next day to say her mother cried reading it. Good tears."
"You made someone's mother cry. Congratulations."
"Shut up." But he was smiling. "It felt good. Helping someone find what they needed."
He was different now. Not the brittle, careful person who'd shown up at my door weeks ago. This version of Tobiashad opinions about book organization, strong feelings about cover design, and a running feud with Miriam about whether audiobooks counted as reading.
He was becoming someone. His own person, separate from the Langford name.
But some nights, the guilt still found him.
I'd wake to an empty bed and find him at the window, staring out at the darkness, or sitting at the kitchen table with a cold cup of coffee, lost in thought.
"My mother's birthday is next week," he said one night. "She always does this dinner. The whole family. Tristan flies in from wherever he is. Dad pretends he didn't buy her something ridiculously expensive."
"Do you want to call her?"
"I don't know." He traced patterns on the tabletop. "What would I even say? 'Happy birthday, sorry I destroyed your life, please pass the cake'?"
"You could start with 'I'm okay.'"
"And then what? She'd want to know where I am. She'd tell Dad. They'd show up here and..." He stopped, shook his head. "I'm not ready. Not yet."
"What about Tristan?"
He went still.
"Your brother," I clarified. "You said he didn't come to the wedding. That he knew something was wrong."
"He knew I wasn't happy. He just didn't know why." Tobias's voice was quiet. "I'm not sure I knew why, back then."
"What do you mean?"
He was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
"Junior year of college. We were both home for Christmas, both drunk on Dad's expensive scotch. I told him I'd never felt about any girl the way he talked about feeling. That something was different about me, but I didn't know what." He paused. "He just looked at me and said, 'Yeah. I figured. We'll work it out.'"
"That was it?"
"That was it. He never pushed for more, never tried to label it. Just accepted that I was different, even when I couldn't explain how." Tobias exhaled slowly. "When I told him about Elizabeth, he asked if I loved her. I said love wasn't the point. He said love was always the point."
"Smart guy."
"He refused to come to the wedding. Said he couldn't watch me do something that felt wrong." Tobias's voice cracked slightly. "I was furious at him. I thought he was abandoning me when I needed him most. But he was the only one who saw what I couldn't admit to myself."
I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine.
"And now? Do you know what you couldn't admit?"
He looked at me. In the dim light, his eyes were soft. Certain.
"Now I know." His fingers laced through mine. "It took meeting you to understand what I was missing, what I'd been searching for without knowing it."
"Tobias..."
"I'm gay." The words came out steady, as if he'd been practicing. "I think I always knew, somewhere deep down. But I couldn't let myself see it. Not until you."
I pulled him close and pressed my forehead to his.
