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As the sound of unanswered ringing cah the landline, Blay held the receiver to his ear and sat down on the edge of his bed This eird His parents should have been hoht It was so close to dawn -

"Hello?" hisand slow, and shifted hi the bottos, he cleared his throat "Hi, it&039;s me"

The happiness that suffused the voice on the other end et your father so he can hop on the other extension - "

"No, wait" He closed his eyes "Let&039;s justtalk You and me"

"Are you okay?" He heard the sound of a chair streaking across a bare floor - and knew right where she was: at the oak table in her precious kitchen "What&039;s going on You haven&039;t been hurt, have you?"

Not on the inside "I&039;mokay"

"What is it?"

Blay rubbed his face with his free hand He and his parents had always been close - ordinarily, there was nothing that he didn&039;t talk to them about, and this breakup with Saxton was exactly the kind of thing he&039;d usually bring up: He was upset, confused, disappointed, a little depressedall the usual emotional stuff he and his mom processed in a tay street of phone calls

As he stayed silent, however, he was re he had never broached with the

"Blay? You&039;re scaring me"

"I&039;m okay"

"No, you&039;re not"

True enough

He supposed he hadn&039;t come out to them with respect to his sexual orientation because your love life was not so most people shared with their parents And ical it was, that worried about whether or not they would look at him differently

Take out the lymera&039;s policy on homosexuality was pretty clear: provided you were never overt about it, and you mated someone of the opposite sex like you were supposed to, you wouldn&039;t be expelled for your perversion

Yeah, &039;cuz getting hitched to so to them about sustained infidelity, was so much more honorable than the truth

But God help you if you were a male and had a boyfriend on the up-and-up - as he had had for the last twelve months or so

"Iah, I broke up with someone"

Annnnd noas crickets on his mother&039;s side "Really?" she said after ait

You think that&039;s a surprise, guess what&039;s coht

Because, holy shit, he was going to

Wait, was he really going to do this now, over the phone? Shouldn&039;t it be in person?

What exactly was the protocol here?

"Yes, I, ah" He sed hard "I&039;ve been in a relationship for most of the past year, actually"

"Oh him "I - we - your father and I never knew"

"I wasn&039;t sure how to tell you"

"Do we know her? Or her fa "Ahyou know the family Yes"

"Well, I&039;m very sorry it didn&039;t work out Are you okay? How did it end?"

"It just died, to be honest"

"Well, relationships are so very difficult Oh, my love, my dearest heart - I can hear how sad you are Would you like to come home and - "

"It was Saxton Qhuinn&039;s cousin"

There was a sharp inhale over the connection

As hisso badly he could barely hold the phone

"II, ah" His mother sed hard "I didn&039;t know That ah, you"

He finished what she could not in his head: I didn&039;t know that you are one of those people

Like gays were social lepers

Oh, hell He shouldn&039;t have said a thing Not one fucking thing about this Goddamn it, why did he have to blow his whole life up at the same time? Why couldn&039;t his first real lover break up with himand then he&039;d wait a couple of years, maybe a decade, before he came out to his parents and they shut him down? But noooooo, he had to -

"Is that why you&039;ve never talked about who you ith?" she asked "Because"

"Maybe Yes"

There was a sniffle And then a hitched breath

Her disappoint over the connection was tooon his chest and rendering it impossible to breathe

"How could you - "

He rushed to cut her off, because he couldn&039;t bear to have her sweet voice say the words "Mahmen, I&039;m sorry Look, I didn&039;tI&039;m just - "

"What have I or we ever done - "

"Mahht about quoting her so it up with a whole lot of it&039;s-not-your-fault, you&039;ve-done-nothing-wrong-as-a-parent stuff "Mahmen, I just - "

He broke down at that point, weeping as quietly as he could The sense that in hiswho he waswas a failure of acceptance that he was never going to get over He just wanted to live, honestly and out front, with no apology Like everyone else To love who he loved, be who he wasbut society had a different standard, and as he had always feared, his parents were a part of that -

Diled to pull it together and end the call -

"to make you think you couldn&039;t coe hoe feel about you?"

Blay blinked as his brain translated what he&039;d just heard into soe that made any kind of sense "I&039;m sorry? What?"

"Why have youwhat did we do toabout you would make you somehowdiminished in our eyes?" She cleared her throat, as if she were gathering herself "I love you You areoutside of my chest I don&039;t care who you are mated to, or whether they have blond hair or black hair, blue or green eyes,as you are happy, that&039;s all I worry about I want for you what you want for yourself I love you, Blaylock - I love you"

"Whatare you saying"

"I love you"

"Mahain

"I just wish you hadn&039;t toldyou right now"

He laughed in an ugly, sloppy way "I didn&039;t mean to I mean, I didn&039;t plan this It just caht

"And I&039;s didn&039;t work out with Saxton He&039;s a very nice gentlemale Are you sure it&039;s over?"

Blay scrubbed his face as reality recalibrated itself, the love he&039;d always known clearly still with him In spite of the truth Or maybebecause of it

In moments like this, he felt like the luckiest son of a bitch in the world

"Blay?"

"Sorry Yeah, sorry About Saxton" He thought about what he&039;d done in that office down in the training center when he&039;d been alone "Yes, Mahmen, it&039;s over I&039;m very sure"

"Okay, so here&039;s what you have to do You take so You&039;ll knohen you&039;ve done enough Then you have to be open tosomebody new You are such a catch, you know"

And here she was, telling hiuy

"Blay? Did you hear me? I don&039;t want you to spend your life alone"

He ain "You are the best mother on the planet, you know that"

"So when are you co home to see me I want to cook for you"

Blay relaxed into the pillows, in spite of the fact that his head was starting to ache - likely because even though he was alone, he&039;d still tried to hold things together during his crying jag Likely also because he still hated where he ith Qhuinn And he still missed Saxton in a way - because it was hard to sleep alone

But this was good Thishonesty went a long way for hiht off the pillows "Listen, I don&039;t want you to say anything to Dad"