Page 83 of Necessary Time

“I told my parents,” he said, so soft I barely heard him.

“What?”

“I told my parents on Sunday. I told them about you. Told them I…”

“You came out to them and you didn’t tell me?” Emotions churned in my gut, partly excited for Colin because I knew how scared he’d been to come clean, but also worried because the tone of his voice, the way he was holding himself, it didn’t align with someone who’d had a good experience.

“I didn’t…it didn’t go well.”

“Was it because of my age?” I looked down again at my clothes, having gone from feeling grown up and mature to a child playing dress up in the blink of an eye.

“It didn’t even get that far.”

“Oh.”

I hated the space between us because all I wanted was to wrap my arms around him and hold him, even though I knew it wouldn’t change anything between them, or between us. So I stayed rooted to my seat.

“They fixated on the gay…rather, the bisexual part, but the semantics of the whole thing don’t matter to them.”

“They’re upset?”

I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him. I’d never worried about telling my parents. Hendrix had come out years ago and they’d been fine, so I knew what to expect. I wasn’t even worried about telling Hendrix I was attracted to men. I was worried about telling him I was attracted to older men.

To Colin.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Colin swallowed down the whole contents of his complimentary glass of wine in one go.

“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know what to say,” he muttered.

“I thought that, like, when shitty things happened to you, you were supposed to talk about them with the person you’re involved with,” I said, scrunching my nose. I mean, I knew I was pretty much at a beginner level in all things, but Colin was the first person I wanted to talk to when things went wrong…or right.

Was that childish of me?

Was I getting this all wrong?

“I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it,” he said.

“Right, but…” I’d started to sweat, and I popped open the top button of my shirt, wishing I’d just worn short sleeves. “I didn’t think I was just anyone.”

“You’re…” He snapped his mouth closed.

“I’m what?”

“Nothing.”

“I’mnothing?” I grabbed my wine glass and carried it out to the patio. I needed some air before I really showed up for this man and acted my age.

He left me on the patio for what felt like a lifetime, but was probably only a couple of minutes. I heard his chair push back against the floor, then the soft thud of his footsteps as he approached me, stopping short.

“I would love to go back to how things were,” he said, voice soft and unsure. “When it was just you and me. Ours.”

“That wouldn’t last forever.”

“I know,” he agreed. “But just a little bit more of that before I ruined my relationship with my parents, Wesley.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.” I whirled around toward him. “They did. It was them, not you.”