Page 152 of Wrath

I fight with myself in my head about it. Desperate to believe…but I can’t.

Dad and Suzanne are nice to us on Sunday. Suzanne cooks pancakes, and after that, Miller and I go out on the boat.

We end up in its belly on a blanket, looking up at the trees that hang over an isolated little inlet.

"I can't believe that's how it went down," he laughs.

"I know. Seems too good to be true."

"But it's not, angel. I promise. It's not."

Peace.

It's not the thing I thought it would be. It's not out of reach or unrealistic. Doesn't involve a different life, or turning into someone else.

It's...really small stuff. Like, I still have nightmares—this week, almost every night—but he's always right there. Miller. When I wake up, I see him, I feel his arms around me, and I come out of it. Leave it behind.

Football season's winding down, and it's been great. I can't deny that. What I like the most, though, isn't all the scouts and scoring touchdowns. (Although I do like that shit). I love the little stuff that's the same every game. Like all the rituals our team has—putting Pop Rocks in Brennan's locker—and the dumb halftime jokes. Walking out of the locker room to see Miller, and how we always race to my Jeep and drive straight to the old baseball fields.

Every Sunday, Suzanne makes us pancakes. At some point, she adds chocolate chips, and I liked them, so for a while, every Sunday they would get more chocolatey—with chocolate syrup and then whipped cream, and then those chocolate flakes those lunatics put in their "smoothies." I call them chocolate deathcakes, but I can't help eating four or five, covered in syrup.

I've been bulking the fuck up—even more than before. Miller and I work out on his bench in his room every other day, and I've got at least twenty pounds of muscle that I didn't have when I moved down here. Miller's gotten thicker, too. And tighter.He’s been working out with the team.

Saturday mornings, we go to his soccer games. Where he wears a helmet. He told his coach about the seizure—I think mostly just for me. Nobody minded. Not even the college scouts who came to see him play two weeks ago.

Saturday nights are movie nights...sometimes downstairs, sometimes in my room. When we do them downstairs, Dad and Suzanne skirt around us, like they want to give us privacy orsomething. But sometimes we see them smiling. They don't mind that we're together. Every day, it blows my mind.

Last week, Carl asked if my "depression" was because of being gay, and he said Mom had told him I was at Sheppard Pratt for four months. I didn't know she had. I mean, I'm not surprised...but when I first got here, I guess I didn't care what he knew.

I wasn't sure what to say, so I just told him "yes." He asked if I had talked to mom about it—like, come out—and I told him no; I told him that's because she's so religious. He seemed like he understood.

Dad said he thinks God would be happy about me being gay, and he would want me to be happy, too—not hiding or ashamed. Then yesterday, when I got home from school, I found this post-card-looking printout on my bed of a Jesus figure surrounded by a bunch of rainbow-colored sheep. There was a yellow sticky note on it that said "-Dad" and had a funny little smiley face. I don't know what that shit was, but apparently Dad is down with the rainbow.

"Ez?"

I jump, clutching the book in my hands, as Miller strolls into my room in just a towel.

"Hey," he says with a soft smile. He steps closer, tilting his head to read the book's spine. "The Color Purple. That one's pretty heavy, right?"

I nod.

His eyes move over my face—checking on me.

He sits on the bed beside me, leans his cheek against my shoulder.

"Don't be doing that," I whisper. We're leaving for Miller's Dad's house in...supposed to be ten minutes.

He rubs his cheek against me, tease that he is. "You can't feel my cheek without getting your dick up?"

I give him a light shove. "Yeah, I can't."

"Maybe I should suck you off," he whispers. "Hate to have this problem on the drive to Dad's."

Fucking Miller. He's got me out of my nice khakis—well, his—and on the edge of the bed, gritting my teeth to keep from groaning and then lying on my back, wrapping a leg around his shoulders as he sucks me so good I come hard enough to make him choke.

Then we're both laughing.

"Can’t let it be one-sided,” I say.

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