My mother smoothed her skirt with both hands and sat back slightly, though her posture remained stiff and formal. “You looming over me is giving me a crick in my neck. Please sit down.” Her eyes cut briefly to Taylor. “You as well, I suppose.”
“Gee, thanks,” Taylor murmured, but only loud enough for me to hear.
My father sank back into his chair, while I surveyed the setup. There was a matching wingback just to my left and two small poufs tucked beneath the coffee table that were better suited for small children than a grown man.
Taylor lifted his chin, gesturing toward the second wingback. “You take it. I’ll stand.”
I lowered myself into the chair, and Taylor moved to stand behind me, his hands settling on the back of it like my own private sentry.
My mother leaned forward to pick up her martini, watching us all with narrowed eyes. “Now, let’s discuss this like civilized adults.”
“Remind me what we’re discussing again?” I asked with faux innocence, glancing between my parents. The man who’d spent his life walking on eggshells around these people had left the building, replaced by someone who no longer had any fucks left to give.
My field of fucks was officially fallow.
“In the list of transgressions I’ve supposedly committed and need to be called to task for, which is the worst? Is it that I’m gay? Or that I’ve embarrassed you by being outed against my will? Because from where I’m sitting, I’ve done absolutelynothingwrong.”
My mother leaned forward, her eyes sparking. “Youdidembarrass us. You could have given us a heads-up, let us get ahead of the news cycle. We were blindsided, Sebastian.”
“And you think I wasn’t? What part of ‘outed against my will’ do you not understand?”
My father snorted loudly again, and my head swung quickly in his direction. “Do you have something to say?”
He shot me a withering glare. “Are you really that naive, Sebastian? Your sexuality was the worst-kept secret in Washington. Everyone who's anyone knows you're a poofter."
I heard Taylor suck in a shocked breath as my blood ran cold, a deep and terrible sense of calm washing over me. “You knew?”
“Of course, we knew,” he replied, his lip curling as his gaze bounced to Taylor and then back to me. “We’ve known since you were in college.”
His implication was more than clear. All this time, they’d known about Taylor and me. How, I couldn't even begin to guess, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.
They’d known I was gay, and they’d let me twist myself into knots, trying to keep my identity—this essential part of who I was at my core—a secret from the world.
They’d let me live in shame.
No. They hadn’t justletme—they’dforcedme to live in fear of discovery, terrified of the repercussions of that truth.
They’d known, and they’d let me suffer anyway, supporting dangerous, hateful politicians who would have sooner seen me stripped of every single right I had than accept me for who I was.
This wasn’t just betrayal; it was cruelty.
My body went numb, my legs turning to jelly, and I felt myself dropping into the chair, my vision going blurry at the edges.
Instantly, Taylor was crouched in front of me, his big hands wrapped around both of mine. Dimly, I was aware of his mouth moving, but through the ringing in my ears, I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I watched him turn his head sharply toward my parents, who were now standing side by side a few feet away. When had they moved?
Through the high-pitched squeal in my brain, I heard him roar, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
My mother said something, then my father. Taylor fired back, and I watched it all like it was happening on the other side of a very thick pane of glass covered in Vaseline.
I looked down at his hands on mine, focusing on his red, cracked knuckles. At the long white scar near his right thumb, the one that I knew was from a skate slicing him open two seasons ago, as the spike of adrenaline receded and the ringing finally faded.
I focused on the warmth of his hands around mine until my heartbeat slowed, and I found that still place inside of me Isometimes went to when I needed to ground myself. The place I’d spent more and more time in the last few years. The place I hadn’t felt like I needed all that often since Taylor had come back into my life.
I looked up at my parents, the people who were supposed to love me most in the world, the people who were supposed to protect me. My eyes began to burn. “Do you really hate me that much?”
My mother’s face flushed red, and she raised her eyes to the ceiling, her lips moving as she murmured something so quietly that I couldn’t make it out.
