Page 147 of The Revenge Game

Hector’s Diner is where Mom used to take me as a treat when I was a kid, when I couldn’t get enough of their pancake stack with alternating bananas and cream.

“Okay,” I agree, starting the engine. “Comfort food sounds pretty good to me right now.”

Hector’s looks exactly like it did when I was ten. The ancient jukebox croons Patsy Cline like it’s stuck in a country music time loop.

Mom chooses the booth farthest from the door. She smooths the already-smooth paper placemat in front of her before she raises her gaze to mine.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on? There’s someone you’ve left behind in London, isn’t there?”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know what heartbreak looks like.”

Heartbreak. That sounds about right.

I blow out a deep breath. “Yeah, there’s someone. I screwed up, and then he screwed up…”

My mother blinks. “He?”

Fuck.

Being gay is such an insignificant part of the whole equation right now that I didn’t even think this through.

But I realize that’s maybe not the case for my mother. Just because the gender of who I love isn’t an issue for me anymore doesn’t mean it won’t be an earthquake for her, reshaping everything she thought she knew about her only child.

My stomach hollows, but I raise my gaze to meet hers.

“I’m gay.”

She nods slowly before her eyes fill with tears.

“Mom…” I’m not sure how I’m supposed to handle this moment. All those nights that I lay awake calculating the precise angle of her disappointment, measuring the exact weight of her rejection…none of them prepared me for the reality of her tears glinting under harsh diner lights.

She reaches across the table lightning-fast, grabbing both my hands in hers. “No…no, I’m not upset about you being gay. I don’t care about that. I love you no matter what, you know that, right, hon?”

I nod slowly.

“I’m just upset because it makes it even worse how I failed to protect you from Bobby Ray. I can’t imagine what that did to you, hearing the things he used to say.”

Now it’s my eyes prickling with tears. I blink them back because Bobby Ray doesn’t deserve to have any more tearsspilled over him. But I don’t argue with her. She did fail to protect me from Bobby Ray. And that failure left a permanent mark on me.

“Is the guy Drew?” my mother asks in a soft voice.

I startle. “How did you know that?”

“You talked about him once. And there was something about your voice that made me think… I just realized I hadn’t heard you sound so happy since… Well, for a long time.”

Since before Bobby Ray.

The words lay unspoken between us.

“His actual name is Andrew.” I run a hand through my hair. “I went to school with him.”

My mother blinks at me, her forehead creasing as she processes this information, her hands still gripping mine across the sticky diner table.

“You met someone in London who went to school with you in Texas?”

“Yes. Except I didn’t recognize him at first. And I….” I swallow hard. “I used to bully him in high school. For being gay.”