Page 80 of Awakening the Sheriff

He sighed. “Pretty much, yeah. It sounds so stupid when you say it, but I really thought that…”

“It kinda does. I wished you’d talked to me. It could’ve saved us both so much pain.”

“It gets worse, Dad. When we moved, I thought… I thought Troy and I were together. He said he missed me. We texted…and stuff. But then I saw on his Snap that he was with someone else, this girl he was making out with. And when I asked him about it, he laughed it off, said if I thought we were exclusive or something special, I was tripping.”

My heart shattered for Byron. I reached out and placed my hand on his. “I’m so sorry, Byron. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.”

He nodded, sniffing back tears. “I talked to Mom again and told her what had happened. I thought she’d understand and could help or give me advice. But she told me that now that I knew better, I should stick to girls. She said being bi was bullshit, that bisexuals were cheaters because they couldn’t commit to one gender, and that it had brought her nothing but heartbreak.”

Anger flared within me, but I kept my expression calm for Byron’s sake. How could Mandy say such hurtful things to our son?

“Mom told me your bisexuality was the reason you two broke up.” Tears rolled down Byron’s cheeks. “She implied you cheated on her, and I was furious with you for doing that. I told her about you having sex with men in Seattle, and she said it only confirmed what she’d been saying about sleeping around.”

My jaw tightened, but I willed myself to stay composed. How had he known about my weekends in Seattle? That was a question for another time. It didn’t matter right now. This wasn’t about me. It was about Byron and the pain he’d been carrying for so long.

I stared at my son, my mind struggling to comprehend the depth of betrayal Mandy had inflicted on him. How could she do that? And how could she keep this from me? The whole time I’d wrestled with Byron’s behavior, she never said anything while she knew the root of the problem. In fact, she’d helped create the problem.

“I never cheated on your mother, Byron. I promise you that. What she told you was an unfortunate lie.”

He looked up at me through tear-streaked eyes. “I believe you, Dad. What you told me when we had that fight about you dating Auden… I wanted to believe Mom, but you were so sure of your side of the story. And I couldn’t help but think you’d never lied to me before and always kept your word, whereas Mom is more…flaky. Like, she’ll say she’ll do something, and then she forgets or changes her mind or whatever.”

To hear him say that meant the world to me. Not the part about Mandy, but him recognizing and acknowledging I had been the dependable parent. I would cherish that small victory. “Your mom isn’t the most dependable person.”

“No, she’s not, so last week, I called her and asked her straight out about everything. About why you split up and whether you cheated, about her wanting custody and the child support…and I found out she’d been lying about all of it.” His voice cracked, and he wiped his tears away angrily. “I believed all of it, only to find out it was a lie.”

I didn’t know what to say to him. To be betrayed like that by his mother was the absolute worst. “I’m so sorry she did that. No one deserves to be lied to like that, especially not by their parent.”

He sniffled. “I don’t understand why she did it, Dad. Why would she lie to me like that?”

I had never spoken badly about Mandy to our kids, but I had to draw the line here. No matter her reasons, she had been in the wrong, and Byron needed to hear that from me. “It was very wrong of her to lie to you like this, and I’m so sorry you got caught in the middle of it. I don’t know why she did it. I honestly don’t. It makes no sense to me either.”

We sat in silence, our hands clasped together. I was connecting all the dots in my head, the puzzle becoming more and more complicated. “Was that why you ran away? Because you found out your mom lied to you?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I felt so ashamed, Dad. I’d believed her, and I’d been so mean to you, done and said such horrible things… I thought you wouldn’t want me around anymore, especially now that you’re with Auden. I did everything I could to destroy your happiness, and I didn’t know how either of you could ever forgive me.”

Hearing that from my son broke my heart. Maybe my failure wasn’t that I hadn’t been able to connect with Byron. Maybe my failure was that he hadn’t been certain I would still love him, that my love for him was unconditional. I vowed to tell him as often as he needed for him to believe it. “I love you, and nothing can change that. Yes, your behavior hurt me, but I understand now.”

I took a deep breath, ready to ask about another difficult topic. “So, what happened with the fight with Gabe Everett? Because I have a feeling that was connected to all this.”

Byron shifted in his seat. “Well…what I told Auden was only half the truth. I talked to him about having an issue with you being bi, and he called me out on being homophobic.”

Auden? He’d talked to Auden about this? This was news to me. “Auden never told me about that conversation.”

“He didn’t?”

“Not a word.”

Byron blinked. “He promised me he wouldn’t say anything to you, but I figured he had by now.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about Auden keeping that information from me, but it wasn’t something I wanted to deal with right now. My focus needed to be on Byron and helping him heal from the pain he’d been through. “Tell me about the fight.”

“The kids at school were talking about you, speculating about you being gay. Gabe saw I had heard and came up to me to say it was okay because his dad was gay too.” He paused, looking down at his hands. “Then he told me it was okay if I was gay because he was too. And I got scared that everyone would think I was gay, that they would all see what he had picked up on, so I started the fight with him.”

He buried his head in his hands. “I blamed you for all of it. Hated you for it.”

“It’s easy to see why you hated me for the thing you hated about yourself,” I said softly. “After what your mom said, you must’ve detested being bi.”

He looked up. “I did. I still do. I wish I were straight. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about all this.”

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