Page 41 of Brad & Finn (Gomillion High Reunion #3)

Once Ms. Willson got going, though, the words seemed to spill out of her.

She spoke of fear and pain and so much guilt…

and then when Brad’s father left, it was like he’d forgotten to bring all the bad with him.

Ms. Willson had still been saddled with an overwhelming fear of letting Brad down and not being able to support them with her minimum wage job.

She’d watched Brad shoulder some of that burden, and she never wanted him to go through that again.

There were tears, and Chloe and her mom did a fantastic job, as they always did, of saying the right things and pressing just hard enough to get Ms. Willson to drop her walls.

When she did, they surged in to wrap her up in their kindness.

Finn tried to comfort her, too, but he did his best by listening.

Underneath the surface, past the remnants of alcohol and the ache of longing that seemed to be a living, breathing thing in his chest, he felt a numb acceptance take hold.

Brad had been his beautiful, sweet, people-pleasing, absurd self for almost forty years, and there was no way one weekend with Finn was going to change that.

For their one, glorious night together, it had felt like maybe Brad was going to fight for himself, for once.

But Finn knew that wasn’t something that happened overnight.

Finn had watched him and Kendall be pushed together over and over again for three years.

He’d watched Brad run himself ragged on and off the football field, and apparently, he’d gone on to do it through three separate careers before finally landing on one that maybe, just maybe, he might actually want for himself.

But then that job had called—or emailed—on a Saturday night when he was supposed to be out of town, and he’d gone running.

Finn couldn’t even pretend to understand what Brad’s life had been like.

Finn had been fighting quietly for himself his whole life.

He fought quietly but assuredly to get through high school and to get into, attend, and finish college, even when focusing and studying sometimes felt impossible.

He fought quietly for his gender, and when he needed louder advocates, he’d let Kendall and Chloe stand by his side.

He’d never fought for a job because, to him, work was just work, giving him the money he needed to live his quiet life with his well-behaved dog and his best friend a few doors away.

He didn’t know what it was like to spend his whole life fighting for someone else.

The one person who was supposed to be on his side, to make the phone calls to administrators and set up doctors’ appointments to get him diagnosed with ADHD and help him figure out about his gender, hadn’t.

The one person who was supposed to care about him and fight for him and love him when his mother never got the chance to…

hadn’t done any of that either. His dad had never fought for him, and Finn wasn’t sure he knew how to fight for someone else.

But for the first time, he wanted to try.

He massaged his jaw, rubbing that place that held all the words he’d needed to say for years but never could.

This time, when he opened his mouth, words tumbled out not from his messy head, but from his heart.

They came from four years of friendship, twenty years of space that maybe they could have avoided if Brad hadn’t been drowning in his expectations of himself, while Finn had been busy fighting to find himself.

He started by affirming what an amazing parent Ms. Willson was, but he also acknowledged that she’d let Brad’s worry and self-doubt morph into something vicious that nipped at his heels.

He told her what a wonderful man Brad had become and that he was nothing like his absentee father.

Brad was committed, mainly to her but also to his friends, and if he could just catch a break for once in his life, maybe he could be committed to Finn, too.

“But,” Finn said, “I hope maybe it can be a softer kind of commitment—the kind that doesn’t keep him running himself ragged but instead lets him settle into the life and work he’s fought for and lets him enjoy the fruits of his labor, with friends and loved ones who care about him.”

No one interrupted him. Ms. Willson made a lot of affirmative noises and gave a sorrowful hiccup, but she let Finn speak until his voice was hoarse.

When he finally finished, she gazed at him across the coffee table and leaned forward, extending her arm to him.

He bent forward, Chloe’s stabilizing palm on his thigh, and grasped her hand.

“You went to Gomillion High School,” she said, which Finn had alluded to but never quite said out loud.

“I did.”

“You were…Chloe and Kendall’s friend. The other cheerleader,” she said, cautious to avoid using his old name.

Finn was eternally grateful for mothers who had some knowledge of gender identity.

He remembered Brad saying he often called his mom to ask advice when students came out to him, and Finn understood that now.

If he’d had even the smallest inkling of who he was back in high school, maybe Ms. Willson’s kind eyes and gentle grip would have been exactly what he needed.

Because it was exactly what he needed now.

“I was,” Finn confirmed.

Ms. Willson squeezed his hand. “It’s so good to see you, sweetie.”

Finn’s eyes filled with tears, and Ms. Willson pulled on his hand. He got up on baby foal legs, trembling at the knees, unsure if he could make it even one more step. She guided him around the coffee table, and Chloe’s mom quickly got up and took Finn’s place next to Chloe.

“Oh, you poor, sweet boy,” Ms. Willson said, wrapping him up in a hug only a mom could give. “I’ve really gone and made a mess of things for you, haven’t I?”

Finn tried to protest, but she shushed him and gently petted his hair. This had the undesired effect of making Finn cry even harder.

He cried for himself, for the fact that he’d never had a mom to hold him like this, and that, unlike Brad, he’d had a dad—but his dad hadn’t held him like this either.

He cried for Brad, for everything he’d shouldered for so long and for having to witness his mother’s pain, which Finn had only gotten the briefest glimpse of tonight.

Then, he found himself crying for love, for the pain it inflicted on those that held it tight, cramming it in their pockets and stuffing it in their mouths, trying to hold onto it for dear life.

He cried for those who didn’t know how much they were loved.

For Chloe, who thought that, just because Finn also sought romantic love, her platonic love wasn’t one of the brightest lights in his life.

For Brad, who Finn loved so dearly and whose mom wanted to give him the world, even though he insisted on giving it right back to her.

Then, one last time, he cried for himself, because he acknowledged that some part of him had never thought he deserved love and had never sought it out or fought for it because it seemed easier that way.

He was going to fight now, though.

Slowly, he, Chloe, and his two surrogate moms for the night devised a plan.

Prom and the proposal had been a bit of a letdown, but that didn’t mean he and Brad couldn’t have their night together.

Chloe took charge of contacting the few friends they trusted, including Naomi, Mariana, and Atlas.

Ms. Willson said she knew of a carpenter in town who had been very kind to Brad back in high school.

Chloe got his number and she put out all the calls to see who would be in town the following evening.

When Naomi and Mariana agreed, Chloe looked to Finn to provide an explanation. They ended up video calling with the two women, who were snuggled up in their hotel bed, having also ditched the rest of the official prom.

“I knew you looked familiar,” Naomi said after Finn gave a thirty-minute explanation and Chloe offered an addendum on her and Christian. “Or felt familiar, I should say. Something about your calming energy was ringing bells in my head.”

“You know,” Mariana said, punctuated by a yawn. “While I am so grateful to get to know you both better, and we’d love to come out and meet Christian someday, you could have just told us you were polyamorous, and that was why Finn was doing this all for Brad, and we would have believed you.”

Chloe slapped a hand over her forehead, and Ms. Willson chimed in from behind them that she also would have believed that. Finn buried his face in his hands, but Mrs. Abernathy’s laugh eased some of his embarrassment.

Finn was shocked to learn that the carpenter was actually Miles from the bar.

He quickly ran Miles through the much sparser details: that Finn wanted to do something for the man he loved.

Miles agreed immediately. When they told him the guest list, including Atlas, his voice changed, and he informed them that Atlas was flying home in the morning to accept a new job.

Finn and Chloe exchanged loaded looks, as it seemed maybe Finn and Brad weren’t the only two being put through the relationship wringer that weekend.

Finn decided to reach out to Atlas anyway, and when he confirmed he would be gone by then, he also volunteered to have Miles video call him during the party.

When the preparations were in place, and all that was left was the execution—and, of course, a very long, possibly painful conversation with Brad—Finn finally got his childhood best friend’s phone number from his mom.

It rang through to voicemail once, then twice, and Finn hung up before it could ring through a third time. He could have sent a text, asking if he and Brad could speak in the morning, but he decided he’d do it in person tomorrow.

He said goodnight to the other members of their makeshift command central team, and Chloe drove him back to the hotel.

His conviction—and his composure—lasted until he made it to their corner of the hallway, by which point he couldn’t help himself.

He knocked gently on Brad’s door and then knocked a bit harder.

There was no noise on the other side of the door, and Finn wondered if he was at the bar or out for a walk.

Back in high school, Finn remembered one particular evening Brad ran all the way to Finn’s house on the north side of the city because he’d had a really bad practice and needed to clear his head.

They hadn’t talked for long; Brad was mostly just pushing to see how far he could make it.

Finn’s heart clenched, and he leaned his forehead on the door, then turned and pressed his back into it.

Brad had been pushing for so long, and Finn knew that there was a very real chance he wouldn’t want—or even be able—to stop now. All Finn could do was lay his cards on the table, offer up his own version of the future, and hope.

Finn slid down the door until he was sitting on the dingy hotel carpet, just like two nights before. He put his head in his hands and tried not to wonder if he was making a mistake.