Page 53 of Wrap Around
I shake my head, thinking about how different our lives could have been if we'd all just trusted in each other. The people that we knew and loved the most were the ones we were working the hardest to hide ourselves from. None of it makes any sense, exceptthat we were afraid. It's hard to trust that someone else won't judge you when you're too busy judging yourself.
"He thought that I'd betrayed both of you," Silas says, finishing the thought I'd left open when my mind went off in another direction. I dip my chin to tell him it's okay to tell her the rest.
"Don't feel bad for not seeing what was right in front of you, because neither of us saw it either. Not until the same day that we told your parents about the pregnancy. We'd been out swimming, I think you'd gone in to take a nap, or you were feeling sick or something. And it just happened. We kissed, right there on the bank where everything else important happened in our lives. I think maybe I was in shock. It didn't feel real. A million thoughts ran through my mind, and at the same time there was nothing but empty air in there. Everything felt muddled and confused. I questioned if it was just a curiosity thing. I all but convinced myself that I'd forced myself on you and you just laid there and took it because you didn't want to hurt my feelings," he says, looking at me. "A big part of me wondered if I'd made the whole thing up, because I was scared, too. Everything was about to change, and there wasn't a thing I would have done to change it. So I walked around in a haze for the next few hours, and then suddenly we were standing in front of your parents. That was the moment I knew I'd made a mistake, not about claiming Addy as mine and marrying you," he says quickly to my sister. "But I didn't find a way to warn you about what was going to happen. I didn't give either of you a chance to bring each other into the fold. Gideon didn't know that you knew I was gay, hell we never had the conversation or said the words, so he didn't know it for sure either. All we had was that one kiss, and then I dropped a bomb on him without warning. And because I couldn't tell you what had happened with Gideon without outing him, I couldn't tell you why he was so upset. And then you were gone," he says, looking back at me again.
"I should've given you the benefit of the doubt," I say. "I was all mixed up about it."
I don't say that in the hours between the kiss and the bomb, as he called it, I'd made a whole plan for us to escape that place. I didn't trust that we'd be safe there, that either of us wouldn't be beaten or brainwashed against the other, or at the very least we'd have to hide and look over our shoulders every moment for the next year or however long it took us to get away. I'd researched how to get our GED's, called a friend that I knew would be safe to stay with while we looked for jobs and somewhere to live. The entire plan I'd used to run away on my own was concocted to escape with him. Originally the plan was to do it all over the summer, but my friend in Knoxville was willing to let me come right away when I called and said I needed help.
Even if I'd waited, the plan would have had to change, but we would have been better off, sticking together and protecting each other.
I look at Lily. "No matter what was happening with us or how mixed up I was, I should never have left you there. We all missed something that was right in front of us when it comes to me and Silas, but I knew you didn't like it there. That you weren't able to be yourself. That that church would wear you down, especially once you'd gotten married and had a baby."
"I had Silas," she says. "But it really doesn't matter what we would've, should've, could've done. What matters is that we got here eventually. And we can start making all this right, starting today."
CHAPTER 21
SILAS
The drive back to the arena is quiet. It's not tense exactly, the quiet is peaceful in a way I haven't felt in a long time. It's a comfortable silence, with an underlying playfulness that's making me very aware of being in a small, confined space with Gideon. He's leaning back on the window, tapping his fingers on his knee to the rhythm of whatever song is playing softly from the radio. I'm too distracted by him to notice what song it is. The way he's tapping his thigh, and the teasing way he cuts his eyes over to me have me smiling like a lunatic.
I don't know that I've ever felt this light. It's like revealing all our secrets finally released us from some kind of spell that made life dull. Now all of a sudden, colors are brighter, the air smells sweeter, and I'm more aroused than I've ever been in my life, including both of the times I came in my pants thanks to the very man sitting right next to me. Close enough to touch.
"Thank you," I manage to say when we pull into a spot facing Gideon’s truck. The parking lot is dark and empty except for us. "For trusting me. I know it took a lot of bravery to come out to your sister."
"Well, except for the part where she guessed before I even said the words. I was almost ready to say them."
"Have you ever said it before?"
"Not out loud."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Wow." I turn towards him. "Say it now."
"What?" he laughs.
"Why not? It feels right that I should get to hear it first."
"Oh yeah, how do you figure?"
"Don't you want to hear me say it?"
He blinks back at me, licks his bottom lip, then nods. "You go first."
"Alright…" I lean towards him and lower my voice. "Gideon, there's something I think you should know."
"Yes, Silas?"
"I'm gay, and I've been in love with you since I was too young to know what it meant."
A smile breaks out across his face and he chuckles, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes like he's soaking it all in.
After several long moments of staring at him pointedly, he cracks open his eyes and looks over at me. "Oh, I'm sorry. Were you waiting for something?"
"You're a dick."
