“Your father and I realize that we took you out of your familiar surroundings quite unexpectedly. I just want to make sure you’re doing okay. We want you to be happy.”
“I’m fine.” My mother raises an eyebrow skeptically and I smile.
What she doesn’t know is that I’m at home quite a lot before 5 p.m. when the twins are still at school and my parents are at work. To avoid meeting anyone, we go for a walk with Flocke before they come home. We usually stop at a bench, on the dragon meadow or in the vineyards, and sit there until we both have to go home for dinner.
“Are you with someone?”
“I told you about Jannis. You asked the principal if we could be in the same class, remember?”
My mother looks at me with a frown. “But I thought he was just a casual acquaintance?”
“He was at first.” A smile creeps across my face.
“And now?”
“You’re nosey, Mom.” She grins. My mother is cool, maybe because she’s only forty-five and was still pretty young when she had me. No, I wasn’t planned, but I was no less loved. I just spent a lot of time on campus as a toddler.
However, this resulted in that large age gap between the twins and me. The two of them were planned.
“Tell me about your friend. Why haven’t you brought him home yet?”
“We’re here a lot, but not when anyone’s home. His name is Jannis, he lives here too, and he’s nice.” My mother’s expression changes and I immediately wonder what I’ve done wrong.
“What kind of nice are we talking about? Because if you hadn’t told me we were talking about a young man, I could’ve sworn he was a girl.” I know how she got that idea and I hide my face in my hands. “Now tell me about him.”
“He’s funny, we laugh a lot together, we like similar music and movies. We can talk about anything. Flocke loves him.”
My mother smiles gently. “And is he good-looking?”
“He’s tall, at least four inches taller than me, maybe five, with blond curls down to his shoulders and those eyes. Mom, no kidding, I bet you’ve never seen eyes like his before. They sparkle like amber in the sun, a bit like a cat’s.”
My mother watches me filling my glass with water, and I’m afraid she can see right into my heart, as she always does. “Do you have feelings for Jannis?”
Half of the water I was about to drink finds its way out through my nose and I choke heavily.
“Mom?! Getting straight to the point, don’t you?”
“Life’s too short not to.”
I take a deep breath and stare at the ceiling. “It’s complicated, okay?”
“Are you afraid he doesn’t feel the same way?” Oh God, this woman is killing me.
“I don’t even know what I feel myself.” That’s not true. I feel the same way I’ve always felt about girls when I was in love with them. The butterflies in my stomach, the insatiable need for closeness, the desire to touch and be touched.
“Are you nervous because you suddenly have feelings for a man?”
My mother has always been my closest confidante, but she demands answers to questions I’ve successfully avoided until now. “Surprised is more like it, and I’m afraid of what it means for us. What will happen to our friendship if he doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about him? Right now, everything is so easy and relaxed, and I want it to stay that way. I don’t want to lose him as a friend.”
“You think he doesn’t reciprocate your feelings?”
“It’s complicated.”
Mom laughs. “Yeah, we’ve already established that. But I feel like I’m missing some basic information.”
Did I mention that my mother is a psychologist and just can’t help herself?
“Is Jannis straight?”
