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I looked back at Alvin. Omar had said something. Alvin’s head tipped back as he laughed, and the sunlight caught the chipped polish on his thumb. He looked happy. He was smiling. And it wasn’t the huge, artificial smile he’d worn for his father. He was actually happy.

Omar leaned closer. I couldn’t hear what he said, but Alvin’s ears turned pink. And I felt this odd sensation in my chest. Something I wasn’t used to feeling around many people. Jealousy. I knew what it was because I had felt it before. I’d just never allowed myself to call it that when it came to Alvin.

I’d called it irritation. Possessiveness. Protectiveness. Childhood habit. Anything except the truth.

Alvin was mine. He didn’t belong to anyone else. In fact, from that day he climbed through my window, he never had. Probably before that too.

The realization startled me so badly I nearly laughed.

Because at the very same time, he wasn’t mine. He had never been mine. I’d spent years making sure of that.

And now, after kissing him on a dock and watching him nearly drown because I was an idiot, I wanted to act like I had some kind of claim on him?

No. I had no right. Besides, Alvin deserved someone better. Someone who wouldn’t look at him and remember every reason he was afraid. Someone who wouldn’t make him choose between wanting and being wanted.

I turned away. That was when Pastor Carter found me. Again.

He’d returned from the meeting house alone. His expression was pleasant in the way unpleasant people became pleasant when they wanted something. “Mr. D’Angelo.”

“Pastor.”

He looked towards where Omar was still talking to Alvin. “I wanted to circle back to our earlier discussion… about your mother.”

My spine stiffened. “What about her?”

He’d been quick to tell me my ma was asking about me, then left just as quickly. His way of planting a seed of doubt in my head before coming back to water it with more bullshit. The thing was bullshit was the perfect fertilizer for self-doubt and Pastor Carter knew that.

“She talks about you a lot in church. How proud she is of the man you’re becoming, how she hopes this little… dalliance with the law won’t turn into something more… nefarious.”

“Nefarious?” I parroted. I didn’t think I’d ever heard that word used in normal conversation before.

The pastor smiled faintly. “She mentioned she hopes her son finds a nice girl to settle down with.”

“Isn’t it a little soon to settle down? I’m only twenty…”

“It’s never too soon, son.” Pastor Carter grabbed on to my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “The woman isn’t getting any younger. It’s better you should give her some grandchildren while she can enjoy them.”

A little prompting, and my mother’s voice appeared in my head. “I hope he meets somebody good. A nice girl. Someone who makes him happy.”

She had said things like that my whole life. Without realizing the damage she was leaving behind. My ma loved me with all her heart, but she had built a picture of my future before I was old enough to object to it.

A wife. Children. A house near hers. Sunday dinners. Everyone crowded around the table.

She had never looked at me the way Pastor Carter looked at Alvin. She had never called anything inside me sick or disgusting. A plague on this earth. But she expected normal.

Maybe not expected. Hoped for. And I cared what she thought about me. I cared more than I wanted to admit.

Pastor Carter watched my face. “Your mother is a good woman.”

“She is.”

“She deserves to see you settled.”

I looked towards Alvin again. Omar reached out and brushed something from his hair. Alvin froze. Then he smiled. And my chest hurt.

Pastor Carter’s back was to them. He didn’t see. But his voice lowered. “You understand the importance of making the right choices for your future. For your mother’s future.”

I thought about my ma sitting at home, telling people her son was doing well. Telling them I was dating. Telling them I was happy. I thought about Cindy, and instinctively my eyes flicked towards the building where she was seated with all the campers. Eating her dry peanut butter and jelly sandwich and plain white milk.