Page 72 of Inevitable

“I don’t have any intention to die yet.” He promptly turned back serious again. “But I’m starting to realize I’ve been taking time for granted.”

He sighed and pressed his palm over his mouth for a second before he looked at Drew again.

“I was so proud when you were born. So happy. We both were. I suppose, as any parents, we had certain images of how life would turn out. You changed them.”

“Would you really have preferred I live a lie for the rest of my life just so you two could keep your dream about a perfect life?” Drew asked.

The way his parents both looked down at their hands in unison was answer enough.

Drew felt a ridiculous desire to apologize. He pushed it down mercilessly.

“Wow,” he said.

“We don’t expect you to do that,” his mom hurried to say.

“How considerate of you.”

“There’s no need to be snippy.”

Drew clamped his mouth shut. If his mom disapproved of his supposedly snippy answer, she certainly wasn’t going to enjoy everything else that threatened to come out of his mouth.

“We’ve talked to a lot of people who are in a similar situation over the last year or so,” his mom continued after spending another few seconds glaring at Drew.

“I’m sorry, similar situation?”

“Parents who have homosexual children. People who’ve struggled with it and found a solution that suits everybody.”

“I didn’t know they made support groups for that.” If his parents heard the sarcasm, they ignored it.

“They’ve made us see things in a different light,” his dad interjected. “It’s a good thing.”

Drew counted to ten in his head. “Sure.”

“You have to understand, even after all these years, it’s still difficult for us to adjust. But we’re willing to work on it,” his mom said.

“The bottom line is,” his dad said, “we want to be a family again. I have hope we can make it work.”

Drew nodded. This hadn’t exactly been the acceptance he’d craved, but he supposed it might have been too much to ask for right off the bat. They had time. And they had all expressed their willingness to work on their relationship, so all in all, he had to consider it a success.

They had taken the first steps. Nobody had tried to ask him if he was really sure he was gay or whether or not he was willing to hide it. Nobody had yelled or caused a scene.

He let out a deep breath.

This was good. There was a path forward now. A way to heal.

He sent his dad a tentative smile, and when the man leaned forward and squeezed Drew’s shoulder, it was difficult not to grab onto the warm palm and keep it there. It’d been a decade since his dad had last touched him. His mom’s hand covered his on the table, her eyes shining with emotion as she squeezed his hand once more before she picked up her fork and pulled her plate in front of her.

“Goodness, we have so much catching up to do. Tell me about your job. I’d love to hear more about what you do.”

The rest of the lunch went by without a hitch, and when they said goodbye in front of the restaurant and his mom squeezed him in a long hug, Drew felt hopeful for the first time in years.

24

“Mr. Morgan, can I see you after class?”

Ezra stopped and waited until the other students had passed him before he made his way to the professor’s desk.

He stood in front of the man, feeling strangely fidgety. Weren’t people asked to stay after class when they’d majorly screwed up? That was Ezra’s experience, at least. Right now, though, the only thing he could have messed up was his test. Shit. What if he had failed? It had felt almost impossible considering the amount of studying he’d done, but maybe he’d been overconfident in his abilities. The test had seemed easy enough when he took it, but maybe that was because he was too dumb to realize he was fucking it up?