Page 165 of What We Brave
We've been in a bubble. This house. This weekend. Nobody watching, nobody judging. What happens when we leave?
The world is going to have opinions.So many opinions.We've been lucky so far — Blake and I went on dates and nobody we know saw us. We weren't making out in the middle of a crowd, but we definitely looked like a couple. Holding hands. Kissing. And that's just one pairing. What happens when all three of us go to the grocery store? Do I hold both their hands? Walk down the cereal aisle like some kind of throuple parade?
Stop it. You're spiraling.
But my brain's already off the leash.
My parents.
My stomach tightens.
Mom and Dad are the best people I know. And they operate within a very specific framework about how love works. One man, one woman, sanctified by marriage. That's it. That's the whole menu.
Hey Mom, remember how you prayed I'd find a good Christian man? Funny story. I found two.
I almost laugh. Almost.
Part of me wants to just send an email. A long, carefully worded email explaining everything. Hit send. Turn off my phone. Move to a different country.
Coward.
Yeah. I know.
But the alternative is sitting across from them — probably at some folding table in a half-built community center in Guatemala — watching their faces as I explain that their daughter is in a relationship with two men. Watching the confusion. The concern. The way Mom's hand would find her cross necklace, the way Dad would go very quiet, which is somehow worse than yelling.
They wouldn't reject me. I know that. They love me too much and too stubbornly for that. But they'd worry. They'd pray. They'd lie awake wondering where they went wrong.
You didn't go wrong. I went right. For the first time in my life, I went right.
"You're frowning." Blake pokes the bottom of my foot.
I blink. Pulled out of the spiral.
How does he do that?The man is basically a human seismograph for my emotions.
"Nothing's wrong, exactly." I shift so I can see both of them. "I just... I love this. All of it. Being here with you two. This whole weekend."
"But?" Reid prompts, fingers still moving through my hair.
"But I was thinking about telling my parents." I say it out loud and it feels both better and worse simultaneously. "Like, eventually we have to tell people, and my parents are..."
"Missionaries," Blake supplies.
"Conservative missionaries who've spent forty years believing there's exactly one way to do relationships. At least when it comes tome. Other people, they can accept." I sigh. "And I'm about to tell them I've gone completely off-menu."
Reid's hand pauses in my hair. "Have they ever surprised you? Reacted differently than you expected?"
I think about it. "When I told them I wasn't going into mission work, they took it better than I thought. But that was a career choice. This is—" I gesture at the three of us, the couch, the blanket, the general situation. "This is a little bigger than choosing nursing over church-building."
"You think they'll reject you?" Blake asks quietly.
"No." I'm sure about that, at least. "They love me. They'll always love me. But I think they'll be hurt. Confused. Worried." I stare at the ceiling. "And honestly? The worst part isn't the initial conversation. It's the image of my mom lying awake at night, praying for God to 'deliver' me from this 'sinful situation.'" I put the air quotes in with my voice because my hands are trapped under the blanket. "This doesn't feel like a sin. This is the happiest I've ever been."
"What about your dad?" Reid asks.
"Dad goes quiet. Which is worse than yelling. At least with yelling you know what you're dealing with. Quiet could mean anything. Quiet could mean he's processing or quiet could mean he's building a PowerPoint about the sanctity of marriage."
Reid snorts. "He does PowerPoints?"
