Page 95 of All the way home

“I’ve heard they say that’s a good thing.” Kieran winks, and Zach’s brain goes pleasantly fuzzy as he tries to work out whether there’s something he’s supposed to be thinking other than opposites attract.

Fortunately, Kieran saves him the trouble by changing the subject. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“You said you have a thing about people not being who they said they were. Why?”

It’s an abrupt, twofold surprise. First: Kieran’s so thoroughly distracted him that he’s forgotten he has an unread message from Seth. Second: Zach really wants to tell him the whole story, and he hasn’t even told Tove about why he and Seth broke up. Mara knows, because Mara automatically gets to know things like that, but besides her, the only other people on the planet who know the details are him and . . . Seth.

Zach swallows down the way that feels and vows to shove it away. “You know the guy I mentioned who was my first kiss?”

Kieran nods, and doesn’t press him for more details.

Probably that’s why Zach keeps talking. “He made a lot of promises he couldn’t keep.”

“Hm.” Kieran pauses. “You said you dated for a while, right?”

“Yeah.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, were you guys out?”

“Sort of. Yes.” At Kieran’s raised eyebrow, Zach smiles. “I didn’t really have to come out to anyone. My parents are pretty chill about this stuff, so we’ve all known since forever that they didn’t expect any formal announcements if we didn’t feel like making them.”

Something softens around the corners of Kieran’s eyes. “That’s really nice.”

“So when Seth and I got together, I just brought him around and that was that.”

With a shake of his head, Kieran blows out a huff of air. “I cannot imagine.”

“Are your parents . . . ?”

“No, they’re cool. They’re not, like, bigoted; they’re very accepting.” Kieran catches a breath. “They’re just really big on talking about feelings all the time.”

“Ah.”

“So, yeah. I had to make a formal announcement. And then have a follow-up discussion, and a follow-up about the follow-up, and . . .” He trails off, wincing. “All I’ll say is that I’m never going to forget explaining why I’m gay to both of my parents with my sister in the room.”

Zach claps a hand over his mouth to keep his laughter contained. “Sorry. Sorry. That’s just . . .”

To his relief, Kieran laughs too. “Yeah. I mean, they asked, like, ten hundred times, so in my opinion they lost the right to complain.”

Barely composed, Zach lets his hands drop.

“And fortunately, none of them ever asked again.”

“God.” He runs a hand through his hair. “That sounds horrifying. And coming out is already bad enough. I mean, I’ve only had to do it once and that was scary.”

“Yeah?”

“Mara.”

Telling her had been harder than he’d thought. They’d been thirteen years old and way too old for one-on-one sleepovers, but they’d always forget to watch the time on Friday nights and inevitably realize it was time to go home well after the buses had stopped running.

Zach had been lying flat on his back on the carpet in her bedroom, staring up at the pot light until he was quite sure it had burned itself into his retinas forever. All night he’d been telling himself to say it. And all night he’d been chickening out.

So he took a deep breath, and just—told her. “Mara?”

All he got was a noncommittal grunt from above, where she was furiously scribbling in a sketchbook.