Autoboyography
Page 49

Dad’s brows twitch, like he’s puzzling out my grin. “Autumn?” he asks, but sounds unsure. He knows I don’t look like this when I’ve been hanging out with Autumn. Or anyone.
“Sebastian.”
His mouth makes the Ahh shape, and he nods again and again as his eyes move across my face. “You’re being safe?”
Oh my God.
The smile wobbles under the weight of my mortification. “Dad.”
“It’s a legitimate question.”
“We’re not . . .” I turn to the fridge, opening it to grab a Coke. Warring images flash through my thoughts: Sebastian on top of me, over me. Dad sitting here, eyes tight and invested. “You know Mom would murder you for that, for your semi-unintentional blessing that I deflower the bishop’s son.”
“Tanner.” I can’t tell if he wants to laugh or smack me. To be honest, I don’t think he knows either.
“I’m kidding. We’re not there yet.”
Dad puts his mug down, and the ceramic scrapes across the countertop. “Tann, eventually you might be. I just want to know you’re being careful.”
The top to my soda cracks open with a satisfying hiss. “I promise I won’t get him pregnant.”
His eyes roll skyward, and Mom chooses this exact moment to walk in, stopping short just inside the doorway.
“What?” Her voice is flat, eyes wide. I take a moment to appreciate that she’s wearing a nightgown that says LIFE GOES BY TOO QUICKLY, with rainbow-colored words highlighting the LGBTQ acronym.
Dad laughs. “No, Jenna. He was out with Sebastian, but it’s not what you think.”
She looks between us, brows furrowed. “And what do I think?”
“That he and Sebastian are . . . serious.”
I blink over to Dad. “Hey. We are serious.”
“Serious as in love?” Mom asks. “Or serious as in sex?”
I groan. “Which would be a bigger problem?”
“Neither would be a problem, Tann,” Dad says carefully, eyes on Mom.
Based on this silent exchange, I’m convinced my parents spend more time talking about me dating the bishop’s son than they do talking about everything else combined right now.
“You’re lucky, you know,” I tell them, walking over to envelop my mom in an enormous hug. She melts into me, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“How’s that?” she asks.
“I’ve never freaked you guys out before.”
Dad laughs. “You’ve given us a few heart attacks, Tanner. Don’t kid yourself.”
“But this one seems to really have thrown you.”
His expression sobers. “I think this has been harder for your mom than she’s let on.” Mom makes a noise of agreement into my chest. “It’s brought up a log of feelings, a lot of anger. Probably some sadness, too. She wants to protect you from all that.”
My ribs seem to grow too tight around my lungs, and I squeeze her tighter. “I know.”
Her words come out muffled. “We love you so much, kiddo. We want you in a more progressive place.”
“As in, as soon as I get my college acceptance letters, I should run and never, ever look back,” I say with a grin.
Mom nods against me. “I’m praying for UCLA.”
Dad laughs. “Just be safe, okay? Be careful?”
I know he isn’t just talking about the physical stuff. I walk over to him next, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “Will you quit worrying about me? I’m fine. I really like Sebastian, but I’m not unaware of the complications.”
Mom shuffles over to the fridge to get a snack. “So, putting aside his parents and their feelings, you know he could be kicked out of school for just being with you tonight? The church might be more accepting than when I was growing up, but you’re aware the BYU honor code doesn’t allow him to do whatever it is that you did tonight?”
“Mom, when does it get to just be this exciting thing I have?” I swear, the last thing I want to do right now is analyze every little bit of how this could go wrong. I do enough of that all day long anyway. “The problem isn’t with Sebastian and me; it’s with the rules.”
She looks over her shoulder at me, frowning. Dad jumps in. “I get what you’re saying, but it isn’t that simple. You don’t get to say just because the rules are wrong that you can do whatever you want.”
My high over Sebastian’s touch, over what we did, starts to fade, and I want to get out of the room as fast as I can. It sucks feeling this way with my parents. I like that I tell them everything. I like that they know me so well. But every time we talk about this, their concern becomes this dark shadow that slides in front of the light. It eclipses everything.
So I don’t reply. The more I argue, the more they’ll calmly reason. Dad sighs before giving me a small smile and lifting his chin like Go. Like he can see I need to escape and pour this night out somewhere.
I kiss Mom, and then run upstairs to my room. The words are bursting out of my head, my hands. Everything that happened, everything I feel pours out of me, liquid relief.
When the words are gone but the feeling still fills my chest—of seeing Sebastian collapse back on the hood of my car, wearing that lazy revelation of a grin—I pick up my Post-it pad and climb into bed.
WE SPENT THE AFTERNOON BUILDING
“FOR SERVICE,” HE SAID.
NEW PIECES, NEW PLACES, NEW PARTS
TO BE PUT THERE AND TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
BUT IT FELT GOOD, AND I TOLD HIM THAT.
HE RESTED A PLANK ON HIS SHOULDER
LIKE A BAYONET.
AND I NEARLY LAUGHED, THINKING,
IS THIS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO FALL IN LOVE
WITH A SOLDIER ON THE OTHER SIDE?
I close my eyes.
• • •
I should probably have predicted this. After Saturday night, I should have known that things would be awkward in class on Monday, because in between those two days was a whole lot of time back at church.
Sebastian doesn’t look up from what he’s reading when I walk into the Seminar on Monday afternoon, but I know he senses me the way I sense him, because his shoulders pull back a little, his eyes narrow, and he swallows thickly.
Even Auddy notices. At my side, she shuffles her books onto the table and tilts her head to mine. “What’s that about?” she asks under her breath. “Are you guys okay?”
“What?” I look at him like I don’t know what she means, and shrug it off. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
But inside I’m tripping over my own heartbeat. He didn’t text me yesterday. Won’t look at me now.
Something feels off, and the flippant way I brushed aside my parents’ concern feels like it’s about to bite me in the ass.
Asher rips into the classroom with a shrieking McKenna on his back, and the entire room goes still as he lets her down in the lewdest way possible. She slides down his back, all giggly, and his hands are basically glued to her ass. Their entrance is so preposterous, so attention-whorey, even Burrito Dave lets out a bewildered, “Dude, seriously?”
They kiss in front of the entire class, announcing their reunion.
“Okay, then,” I say. Anger spikes in my chest. McAsher can PDA it all over campus and, outside of a little eye rolling, no one cares. They’re both Mormon, by the way, and if I’m not mistaken, shouldn’t be engaging in this kind of behavior anywhere, let alone in the middle of school, but will they be ridiculed or shunned or threatened? No. No one is going to report them to their bishop. They can’t get kicked out of school. And yet they’re chaos fodder, getting back together because they’re probably so bored with the lack of gossip they’re subconsciously making something for people to talk about. I’m willing to bet that McAsher has had sex in every conceivable manner, and yet Asher will still go on his mission and come home and marry a good Mormon girl—maybe even McKenna—and be as self-righteous about LDS values as any of the rest of them. Meanwhile, Sebastian can’t even look at me in class, probably because he’s beating himself up over our comparably innocent touches on Saturday.