“I know,” Linden whispers, his lips grazing my collarbones. “I’m sorry, too.”
I snort at that, finally returning his embrace by pulling him closer. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Lind.”
“That’s the point—I didn’t do anything. We all knew something was wrong, Micah. I should’ve asked about it earlier.”
The corners of my lips curl in a joyless smile at his words, and I let my chin sink on top of his head.
“I might not’ve told you anyway,” I admit. “Because I would’ve been too embarrassed if you caught on.” Hell, I’m embarrassed now. Not just about not having money but also about spending what the school gave me on other things, like my dad’s irrational demands. I don’t even want to know what Coach would have to say about that.
“Micah.” Linden laughs. It’s a soft sound, with a slight note of exasperation vibrating in it. “I don’t think there’s anything you need to be embarrassed about. Not after everything you found out about me over the past months.”
“Like using a romance novel to pretend to be a gay sex god?” I ask innocently, earning myself a pinch in my side.
“Hey! But yeah, that.” Linden laughs, then tilts his head back to look at me. “Will you tell me if I ask now? About your family, I mean?”
I close my eyes, holding my next breath. I’m scared to talk about it, but at the same time, I’m oddly relieved. We’ve already talked about it before while watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Maybe it’s time to give him the full picture.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, my voice shaking from nerves. I’ve never talked about this before. Yes, people noticed. They danced around the subject or politely avoided it, but no one ever demanded to know outright.
“Everything,” Linden says. “Tell me everything you can.”
Micah, July 31st
“They haven’t always been like this. My parents, I mean,” I tell Linden. It’s important to get that off my chest first so that heknows. Knows that my parents love me in their own way. That some of this will sound bad, but it doesn’t make them bad people.
He doesn’t respond to that at first, too busy walking around my little shoebox, his gray eyes darting over the interior. There isn’t much to see—a banged-up closet that our landlord had stored in here, which then came in handy, my desk, a few textbooks, and the bed I’m currently lying on. A fan andKeeping Noahmostly consume my bedside table: no memorabilia, no plants, no family pictures. I used to have one, framed and all, but looking at it hurt, so I left it at my dad’s place when I moved to Bonham.
“So what have they been like? Tell me,” Linden asks when he slowly trails back to the bed. I scoot to the side to create room for him, but he sits down on the edge, one hand reaching out for my ankle, squeezing it gently. My skin prickles beneath his warmpalm. I didn’t realize how much I missed his touch until now. I clear my throat to force my focus back to our conversation.
“Wonderful,” I say, the first thing that comes to my mind. “Like, really wonderful. My mom—she told the best stories, baked the best cookies, although I still don’t know how she did it, because, for a long time, we didn’t have a real oven, and she”—I press my lips together, my cheeks flushing—“she gave the best hugs.”
I cringe at the description, very aware of how odd that must sound for a guy my age. But it’s the first thing that always stands out when I think of her—her softness and warmth when she wrapped her arms around me.
“That does sound wonderful,” Linden agrees, a small smile playing around the corners of his lips. I’m pretty sure he’s thinking of his mom right now.
“Why didn’t you have a real oven, though?”The question comes completely unexpectedly, and I blink at first, confused about where he’s going with this, until he carefully adds, “Was it a…financial thing?”
“Ah, no.” I laugh, shaking my head. “I mean, I’m not sure. We weren’t rich or anything, but if we had money problems back then, my parents didn’t let me notice. It was because of the van.”
“The…van?” Linden echoes, his eyebrows drawn together now as he’s filing away that new piece of information.
I lick my lips, then push up into a sitting position, scooting closer to the wall until I can feel the headrest against my back.
“Yeah. We lived in a van up until I turned eight. It was amazing. We drove all over the country. I mean, that was before it was cool on the internet. They did mostly seasonal work. A lot of farm stuff and construction. I loved it!” I put a little too much emphasis on the last part, even when I’m serious. I did love that time, which is probably why I have such clear memories of those early years.
My dad teaching me to swim on Californian beaches, my mom lifting me so I could pick a peach in Georgia, and me babbling about wanting to see wolves while hiking in Yellowstone.
Linden, however, doesn’t seem fully convinced. “Okay. And…school?” he asks tentatively.
I shrug. “My mom home-schooled me until I entered third grade. By then, they had made plans to put down roots. To be honest, I think the van became a little too crowded as I got older, and my parents had this dream of a homestead where they wanted to live mostly self-reliant. We talked a lot about getting a puppy—by that point, I had begged for one probably every day—and my mom kept asking me how I’d feel about being an older brother.”
“How did you feel about that?”
I laugh when I detect his grin. “Great, actually. I was always kinda jealous of kids with siblings, low-key still am sometimes. But I also would’ve been okay with just a puppy.”
“Can’t relate,” Linden snorts, but then a different thought must cross his mind because his face falls. “But you never got a sibling? Or did they…”
“...no. No! No one died,” I assure him with my hands raised. This is a story of loss, but not that kind of loss after all.
