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“Shit,” I said with a grimace. “That’s rough.”

“Yeah. Grandpa’s still alive, but I’ve been asked not to visit him when I’m home.”

“You—really? Because you’re gay?”

“No,” he whispered. “Because he’s so confused and out of it these days, he barely recognizes people. I don’t look anything like I did last time he saw me, so it would just confuse him and upset him, you know?” He swallowed. “It sucks, but I don’t want him to be upset.”

“Oh. Yeah. I can see that.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I’ll never know how any of them would have reacted to my sexuality had they known. I don’t know if they taught my parents to be this way. I just… I don’t know.”

I nodded. “And now you’re not sure if this plan will work?”

“No. Though the more I think about it…” His shoulders dropped. “I don’t know. They act like they’re just confused and concerned, but at the end of the day… they don’t like what I am.”

“What we are, you mean?”

He seemed to consider that, then shook his head. “Me more than anything. Us, as in a couple, sure. But I don’t think they really care about other people being gay. Just… me.”

“So they’re not across-the-board homophobic—they just don’t want a gay son?”

Riley quirked his lips. “I think? I… I honestly don’t know. Like if they were really homophobic, would they keep going to a church where same-sex couples have gotten married?”

“Fair point.” I poked at my own ramen. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Just so we’re clear.”

“No, I do,” he whispered. “I need to. I’m just scared of how it’s going to turn out. And I kind of…” He chewed his lip.

I watched him, not sure if I should press.

Dropping his gaze into his mostly abandoned ramen, he said, “What if I’m overreacting?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they love me.” He swallowed hard before meeting my eyes again. “I know they do. They’re proud of me. They support me. It’s just this one thing, and they’re just… like I’ve met people who’ve been abused for being gay. This is just my mom basically wrinkling her nose and asking, ‘Are you, though? Are you really?’ every time I mention it.”

I scowled. “Fuck that.”

Riley’s eyebrows rose.

“I wouldn’t want to put up with that shit. Just because they’re not screaming at you or calling you slurs doesn’t mean they’re not mistreating you.”

“Still. Like, in my job—I see people who are really abused all the time. Domestics and all that. And it—”

“And is a spouse who’s been screamed at and called every name in the book not abused because someone else put their partner in the hospital?”

Riley’s teeth snapped shut.

“If you don’t like the way someone is treating you,” I went on, “you don’t have to stick around and put up with it. Not even if they’re your family.”

He exhaled, but didn’t speak.

I shifted in my chair and folded my arms behind my ramen bowl. “You know, back on Iwakuni, I knew this guy who married a Japanese woman. His family wasn’t—like, they were generally‘nice’ to her, I guess? But they kind of treated her like an exotic pet.”

Riley made a face. “Oh God. One of those families?”

“Yep. And he told me once that they acted like they were just humoring him until he came to his senses.”

That got Riley’s attention, and he sat up a little. “Yeah?”

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