Chapter 17
“I’m sorry Wy, I love you, but I won’t put you into danger,” Izzy said, and Wyatt felt his heart shatter. “I gotta leave.”
“Izzy, no!” Wyatt reached for him, but Izzy was already moving, already stumbling toward the door, and Wyatt’s fingers slid through air. He turned to Dad. “Dad!”
Do something, Dad, please.
But Izzy was already out of the room.
“Justin,” Dad said softly.
Justin looked at him, and looked at Wyatt, and then stood up and followed Izzy. Mrs. Rossi went with him. Wyatt expected to hear the front door slam, but he didn’t. He just heard low voices, and then silence. And then, a moment later, the snick of the front door as it closed softly.
It should have been a slam, he thought wildly. It should have been louder and more dramatic than that, when it was his heart breaking.
Justin walked back into the dining room. “He’s staying,” he said. “Towork. But he’s not welcome in this house, and Wyatt, you’re not to go to the trailers.”
Wyatt swallowed. “Justin, that’s not—”
“No.” Justin cut him off. “I am being more than fair here.”
And then he turned and walked away again.
Wyatt stared at the table numbly, and Dad came and stood behind him. Put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“I don’t get it,” Wyatt said, his voice shaking. “It’s okay to be a baker, and it’s okay to be genderfluid, but it’s not okay to love Izzy?”
“He’s worried about you,” Dad said softly. “So am I.”
There were a hundred things Wyatt wanted to say, but he couldn’t find the right words. So he nodded instead, and bowed his head, and let the tears come. And Dad stood there through it all and didn’t say anything. Maybe he couldn’t find the right words either.
* * * *
The next few days passed in a fog. Wyatt didn’t get out of bed much, and nobody made him. He didn’t even feel like baking, and that was a first. Dad made him an appointment with his old therapist, and Wyatt didn’t complain when Dad bundled him into the car and drove him there. He even felt a spike of something that felt like victory when he got outside and showed Dad his prescription for more Ativan:There! Told you I was messed up!
It hadn’t been a productive session, because Wyatt hadn’t wanted to talk. Not about gender, not about baking, not about Izzy. So he’d sat there and picked at a loose thread in the knee of his jeans while Dr. Taylor had done most of the talking.
That night he had his first nightmare in years. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, and Izzy was beside him, but when Wyatt tried to wake him Izzy didn’t move, and when Wyatt brushed his fingertips against Izzy’s cheek he was socold.
Wyatt woke up tangled in his sheets, sweating and panting for breath, and didn’t fall asleep again. It was still dark when he headed for the kitchen, needing to at least get that back. He made dough, punching it and pounding it until his muscles ached with the familiar burn, and the nightmare was nothing but a faint shadow.
Dawn was breaking by the time Wyatt got his bread in the oven and started to clean the kitchen counter. He heard footsteps once, but didn’t turn around. There was only one person likely to be up quite so early, and Wyatt wasn’t ready to deal with Justin yet. And Justin wasn’t ready to deal with Wyatt either, he guessed, because he didn’t come into the kitchen and try to talk to him.
A little while later he heard Lettie and the dogs heading outside for their morning run, and then Dad shuffled into the kitchen, yawning and stretching.
“You made bread?” Dad asked, peering into the oven.
Wyatt nodded, and untied his apron.
“Smells good,” Dad said.
Wyatt nodded again, wishing he could find that same comfort in the scent of baking bread that he usually did. But he couldn’t, not today. Everything felt muted and distant, as though Wyatt was watching from underwater.
“Coffee?” Dad asked, and went to the machine.
Wyatt nodded, and balled his apron up in his hands.
Maybe caffeine would help jolt him awake again, force him to break the surface. He leaned against the counter while Dad got the coffee machine started, and closed his eyes. He was tired, and he ached, and he missed Izzy. And maybe that was stupid because they barely knew each other, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t real. He and Izzy were supposed to be figuring things out together. Wyatt wasn’t meant to be doing it on his own.
