Page 35 of Rule 1: Never Accidentally Marry Your Teammate

I sink onto the bed, waiting, and I run my hands over the polyester apple green bedspread. It’s not a color I would have chosen. Everything is unfamiliar.

“You mean, honey, that it’s true that I shouldn’t believe the gossip?” my mother asks.

I hate the hopeful edge in her voice.

“No, Mom,” I say. “Everything is true. I am married to a man. Finn and I eloped.”

“Oh.”

One syllable.

One syllable of disappointment.

I swallow against the sudden acrid taste in my throat.

“Why didn’t you tell me before? I thought you were single. I-I thought I knew you.”

“You know me, Mom,” I assure her, but I don’t think it’s true. Or maybe she did know me better than I knew myself, making sure I didn’t spend time with the only gay guy in my teeny, tiny high school.

“Finn is great, Mom,” I say. “I’m happy.”

“A woman was supposed to make you happy.”

“Isn’t the main thing that I’m happy?” Tears prickle my eyes. God, I didn’t think I would be emotional.

I stare at the green-and-blue striped wallpaper and will myself to act normally. Just coming out to my mom. Perfectly normal. Totally.

“You don’t sound happy,” she says.

She’s correct about that.

“Finn’s parents are throwing us a party in Boston this weekend. It would be nice if you and dad could join.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Right.I imagine explaining how my parents are too busy to come to their only son’s wedding party.

“It’s important,” I plead.

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Do you want me to tell dad?” I ask.

She sighs. “Betterlet me tell him.”

“Right.”

Unspoken words flit between us, then she hangs up.

The I love you she normally says at the end of each call doesn’t come, but maybe my words have distracted her too much.

She loves me. This is fine.

I lie on the itchy bedspread as my heart pounds and pounds, as if desperately attempting to restore energy to me. It won’t work. Pain shoots through me, unrelenting and unstoppable.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Finn