Page 113 of Finance Bros

“No. I’ve never told anyone this.”

“Other than your therapist,” he says, like he’s speaking for me.

“No. Not her either.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because it’s fucked up?”

“Isn’t that what therapists are for?” he asks.

“It might not seem like it at the moment, but I do have some dignity I’d like to keep intact. Telling my therapist I wanted my mom’s cousin to satisfy me sexually isn’t exactly the kind of thing that would reassure her I’m adjusting well.”

“You couldn’t possibly have understood that at the time.”

“No,” I agree. “But I understood enough. And I definitely understood it with you.”

He blushes. Full on, red cheeks, blushes. I don’t take it as necessarily positive.

“So what was the problem?” he asks. “What stopped you?”

“I thought I was vile, Ryan. I thought I’d lose you if you knew.”

“But…” he trails off, and I have a feeling he’s thinking about what he told me that day. When he had the flu.

“Fantasy and reality were two different things. I was old enough to understand that, too. I could want something—but if what I wanted was unacceptable, then it couldn’t become a reality.”

He presses his lips together and looks down. I can’t see his eyes anymore. His hair falls to obscure his face.

“I don’t want to fight this anymore,” I say quietly. “I don’t want to fight anymore, period.”

“So, you’re gay.”

There’s not much room to argue it. “Yeah. I’m gay.”

His hair flips back, and I get the annoyed look again. “Then what the fuck was the deal with Kaylin?”

“I can’t possibly be the first gay teenager who tried like hell not to be.”

“And then what?” he asks. “I showed up with a decent haircut, and it all clicked?”

“Yeah,” I say simply. And I wish it really were that simple.

He scoffs at that. Understandably.

“I might need some time with this,” he says.

It’s the last thing I want to hear, but it doesn’t come as a surprise. “You want me to go?”

“No…not really.”

I climb off his lap, and he allows it this time. I sit beside him so he doesn’t have to look at me if he doesn’t want to.

He turns my way anyway, lying sideways in the chair and sighing heavily. “Listen. I wanna be honest with you. I’m not planning to stay in San Francisco,” he says. “This is a sublet. The plan is to leave at the end of summer. The end of the internship.”

I take this in without reacting immediately. I let each word settle as they pelt me. My eyes start blinking beyond my control. My stomach takes a very unpleasant turn. He’s speaking in present tense. “Why?” I ask, but it comes out as a whisper.

“There’s someone I’ve been interested in. She lives in Seattle. I thought I’d take a chance. See what happens.”

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