Autoboyography
Page 34

“I don’t know what to say beyond that.” He scratches his jaw and then reconsiders. “No, that isn’t quite true. I know what I want to say, but not where I should start.”
Pushing to sit up, I swivel to face him. “Okay?”
“I know how you feel about Sebastian. And I’m pretty sure it’s reciprocated.”
“Yeah . . .”
“I also know that you feel this genuinely, and not out of some curiosity or rebellion.”
How do I even respond to this? I nod, aware that my expression is mostly one of vague confusion.
“Does Autumn know?”
I blink, confused. “Auddy?”
“Your best friend, yes.”
“I’m not out to Autumn, Dad. I’m not out to anyone, remember? Like Mom wants?”
“Look,” Dad says, resting a hand on my knee. “Two other things I want to say. I’ll start with the easy one. It’s tempting, when you fall for someone, to ignore everything else in your world.”
“I’m not ignoring Audd—”
“I’m not finished,” Dad says, voice gently stern. “I need you to promise me that you are taking care of your other relationships. That you are spending time with Autumn and Eric and Manny. That you are still being a role model for Hailey. That you are being an attentive and helpful son to your mother.”
I nod. “I promise.”
“The reason I say that is because it’s important you keep your life full, regardless of how deep your relationship with Sebastian becomes. This is independent of his religion. If it continues, and works out somehow, then you’ll want friends who accept and support you. And if, for whatever reason, it does not work out, you’ll need to have people you can turn to.”
I stare at the floor, feeling an odd warring reaction inside. He’s right. It makes sense. But I hate the implication that I don’t know this already.
“The other thing I wanted to tell you . . .” Dad scratches his jaw, looking away. “I don’t share your mother’s history with the church, so my reaction to your relationship is drastically different from hers.” He meets my eyes again. “That said, I don’t think she’s wrong. I don’t necessarily agree with each of her reasons for warning you off, but I do agree that it’s complicated. I assume his parents wouldn’t approve?”
“I think it goes a shade beyond disapproval.”
Dad is already nodding at this. “So anytime you’re with him, you’re going behind his parents’ backs.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t love that,” he admits quietly. “I like to think that if the situation were reversed, you would either be open with us, or not betray our wishes while you lived at home.”
“The difference, Dad, is I can be open with you.”
“The thing is, Tann, you’re eighteen, and what you do with your body is your choice. But what you do under my roof is still something I have a say over.”
Oh.
“I love you and your sister and your mother more than anything on this planet; you know that.”
“I know.”
“And I know you are attracted to girls, and boys. I know you’re going to experiment, and I never, for one second, begrudge you that.” He meets my eyes. “The complexity here is not that Sebastian is male. If I had walked in on you with someone outside the church, I probably wouldn’t have even said anything, and we’d exchange a knowing look across the dinner table and that would be that.”
My desire to curl into a ball and rock in the corner rises. This is so awkward.
“But I don’t want you and Sebastian using our house to sneak around behind his parents’ backs.”
“Dad,” I say, face hot. “We don’t have a lot of other options.”
“Sebastian is an adult. He can move out if he wants his own space with his own rules.”
This, right here, is essentially Dad closing the door on any discussion. I know this opinion comes from experience. And sitting here, staring at the face I know nearly as well as my own, I realize how hard it is for Dad to say this to me.
After all, according to his family, he fell in love with the wrong woman twenty-two years ago.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Autumn’s mom answers the door, stepping back to let me in. She gave her daughter the dimpled smile genes, but that’s about it. Auddy is all red hair and freckled nose and bright blue eyes. Mrs. Green has black hair, brown eyes, olive skin. I wonder what it’s like to every day look at a daughter who is so similar to Mrs. Green’s dead husband. It’s either wonderful, or heartbreaking. Most likely it’s a combination of both.
We have a routine: I kiss her cheek hello, and she tells me she has some Yoo-hoos in the fridge, and I act excited. They’re the weirdest thing, like watery chocolate milk in juice boxes. I mentioned I liked them one time to Mrs. Green, my first summer here, and she’s been buying them for me ever since. Now I always feel obligated to take one with me on my way up to Auddy’s room, but, actually, I can’t stomach them anymore. We’ve been doing a small science experiment with a plant on her shelf: Can African violets survive solely on Yoo-hoo?
Princess Autumn is sprawled on her floor with a draft of her chapters in front of her. She’s even marking it up with a red pen; I can’t make this shit up.
“Auddy, you are the cutest, nerdiest person I have ever met in my entire life.”
She doesn’t even look up when I enter. “Don’t be patronizing.”
“Don’t you know that red pen can be viewed as harsh and can hurt students’ esteem? Better to use purple.”
Blue eyes turn up to my face. “I like red.”
Her long ginger hair is piled in an enormous bun atop her head. “I know you do.”
Pushing off her elbows, she moves to sit up, cross-legged now. “What are you doing here?”
This hurts a bit, because it tells me Dad is right. Before Sebastian, it wouldn’t be weird for me to just come over here anytime. Now I see Auddy maybe once a week outside of school, and spend so much more time alone, writing words and words and words about him, no matter how much my brain screams at me to start the new book. “I can’t stop by and hang with my best girl?”
“You’ve been busy.”
“So have you.” I give her a meaningful eyebrow waggle. “Did you have fun with Eric the other night?”
“If by ‘fun’ you mean ‘make out until our faces fell off,’ then yes.”
My jaw drops. “Seriously?”
She nods, blushing through her freckles.
“And how many ‘your mom’ jokes did he make?”
Laughing, she sings, “None!”
“I don’t believe you.” To Eric, everything is an opportunity for a your mom or that’s what she said joke. It doesn’t matter how many times we remind him it’s no longer 2013.
“It was fun,” she says, leaning back against her bed. “I like him.”
I reach forward, pinching her cheek. There’s something tight inside me. It isn’t jealousy exactly, but it’s some weird sense of loss, like it isn’t Tanner and Autumn versus everyone else anymore. We both have other people now.
Even if we don’t know it yet.
“What’s that face?” She draws a circle in the air in front of me.