Page 77 of Finding Delaware

After a minute, she speaks. “So. Tell me what’s up.”

“Huck still staying with you and Logan?” Apparently, he’d asked if he could sleep on their couch shortly after everything went down, stating that being in his dad’s house again was what set him off.

“You know he is.”

Sitting up, I put my smoke into the ashtray on my nightstand before stretching out on my back. “How’s that going?”

She purses her lips under her septum piercing. “I stay out of his way and he stays out of mine.”

“Don’t do that.” I turn my head to frown over at her. “Don’t let what’s going on between Huck and me ruin shit for you and Logan. I won’t have that.”

Her eyes meet mine as she lifts a brow. “And what is going on between you two, exactly?”

Ain’t that the question.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” I groan, covering my face with my hands, and Salem just hums. Waiting for me to continue.

Taking a deep breath, I speak into my palms. “I have to tell you something.” Hard swallow. “Right before school ended in the eighth grade, I kissed Huckslee under the bleachers in PE. And he kissed me back. I was so fuckinghappy that I fucked up—I was babbling about him at home, about how fun I thought he was, and how I couldn’t wait to spend every day over the summer racing with him. Of course, my dad had to go and say some shit.”

She’s silent for a moment. “What did he say?”

“I’m not going to repeat the word he called me.” I huff a humorless laugh. “Basically, he made it really fucking clear he’d take away my bike and keep me from racing if he found out that I was gay.”

“Ah. So that’s why everything changed between you two.”

Blinking up at the ceiling, I give her a nod, not ready to meet her gaze yet. “God, I was such a little asshole to him, Salem. Didn’t respond to any of his texts all summer and ignored him at races. When he got too close, I’d lash out.”

“I remember.”

“Motocross was everything to me.Iseverything. I couldn’t let it get taken from me. And then our parents married, and we moved in together. And I really fucking liked him. Some things happened between us...but then he won that scholarship, and I was so pissed off. So confused. It felt like he’d ruined my life. And when I saw him kissing Royce behind that curtain, I lost it. I was jealous, ok? So I snapped and made the biggest mistake of my life.” With a groan, I turn away from her and curl onto my side, burying my face in my arms. “Everything’s so fucking complicated.”

“Hey.” She crawls over my body to my other side, prying my arms away from my face. “Tell me why you’re freaking out. Is it because he’s a dude?”

I shake my head, and she blinks in surprise before nodding.

“Ok. Is it because he’s your stepbrother?”

That makes me hesitate because I’ve actually never processed that.

“Mm-hmm.” Salem nods again. “What else?”

Swallowing, I drop my gaze to our connected hands. “I ruined his life.”

“No, you didn’t, Tay,” she sighs heavily, rolling onto her back, and I follow until I’m half on top of her.

“Yes, I did. I almost killed him.”

“We’ve been over this. Your therapist has been over this. What happened was not your fault.”

“But I was the catalyst. And he blames me.”

She tilts her head. “How do you know? Have you asked?”

“He’s made it pretty fucking clear with his actions toward me.”

“Look, Tay, I think you’re focusing on all the wrong shit here. You were jealous, so you opened a curtain. He was jealous, so he hit you. Those things are kind of far apart on the fucked up scale.”

“It was more than that, and you know it.” I squint down at her, frowning. “I outed him to the entire town and his dad before he was ready. Took that choice from him.”

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