“Tor? What are you doing up?” Mom asked, walking in the front door. Her scrubs were dirty and she dropped her purse on the kitchen table. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?” She came around the sofa and sat down when she saw my red, puffy eyes. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” She pulled me close and hugged me tightly, holding my head to her shoulder.
I couldn’t say anything and tears began to fall again. I slid my arms around her thin shoulders and clung to her like a child with a skinned knee. As I gasped for air and choked on my sobs, I began to hiccup and she held me tighter. I told her what happened while she rubbed my back.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“They hate me now. Wesley’s parents think I’m disgusting, and I know they’ll make Wesley break up with me.”
“Sweetheart, listen, as much as I want to punch Wesley’s mom in the face, you have to understand that his mom was probably surprised and didn’t know how to react. Once she calms down, maybe she’ll understand. But the world is full of different ideas and, I guess, this is just another lesson. But right now, Wesley needs you; not his parents, but the boy that he loves. Talk to him tomorrow and I’m sure he’ll put all your fears to rest. And, I don’t know if Wesley’s parents will ever understand, but it’s not up to them; it’s not their choice.”
Wesley said he’d choose me. I was almost scared to allow this little glimmer of hope into my heart.
“You know, the person you should talk to is your father. I’m sure he knows exactly how you feel,” Mom said, looking to the side with an indiscernible yet pained expression. She kissed my forehead and smiled weakly. “You should get some sleep. Go to bed, sweetheart, and if you need me, come get me. Okay?”
I nodded, wiping at my tears. She hugged me tightly, hesitant to let go, and kissed my cheek again. I smiled and felt like I was telling her that it would be okay.
I crawled into bed and hugged the bundle of sheets in my arms. I breathed in deeply and remembered Wesley’s face as he told me he loved me.
Chapter 19
I WENT to work with a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. My senses seemed fuzzy, like I wasn’t totally awake. I worked at the register, but I didn’t find extra things to do to fill in slow times like I usually did. I wondered what Wesley was doing. As time passed, I called his cell phone, but it went directly to voicemail each time. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t want to call his house in case one of his parents answered the phone. I took a lunch break around noon and Wesley still hadn’t called.
“Hey, are you all right, Toren? You seem a little off today,” my coworker Jeanine asked, fixing me with her sharp eyes from the floor where she was pricing imported chocolate bars. Over her khaki pants and white collared shirt, she wore a navy smock with the World Store logo in white, just like mine. She was really nice and funny and cute, with her long blond hair and petite figure; I liked working with her.
“Yeah, I’m okay, thanks,” I answered, sighing and letting my shoulders sag.
“Are you sure? It’s just that you’re usually so… chipper. You’re on your own plane of niceness—it’s like there’s normal-nice and then there’s Toren-nice,” she said, leaning back on her heels and resting the price gun on the floor.
I laughed quietly, embarrassed. She placed the chocolate bars on a sloped rack in front of the checkout and came around the register. Leaning against the counter, she folded her arms. I stared at the ground for a long moment and fidgeted with my hands.
“Well, it’s the person I’m seeing. The parents don’t like me very much,” I confided nervously, carefully avoiding pronouns.
“What? Are they crazy? You’re like every parent’s wet dream! You’re smart, cute, funny, nice, polite. Should I keep going?”
I laughed self-consciously and glanced at the floor again. “It’s, well, sorta complicated.”
“Well, she likes you, right? That’s all that matters. Besides, if you just be yourself, her parents’ll warm up to you in no time,” she advised, bumping into me with her hip. She smiled warmly and then furrowed her brows. “Do you know why they don’t like you, or at least, why you think they don’t like you?”
I took a deep breath. Just yesterday, I kissed Wesley on the street in the middle of the day. People were gonna find out about us now, one way or another. Maybe it was better if I told people at work, rather than having them hear it secondhand. Besides, I liked Jeanine; I trusted her.
“They, um, they don’t like me ’cause I’m a boy,” I said, squeezing my hands together. “I mean, his parents don’t like me ’cause I’m a boy.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding. She unfolded her arms and placed her hands on her hips. She knitted her brows and shook her head side to side. “Do people actually still think shit like that? You’ve gotta be kidding! But seriously, Toren,” she said, touching my arm, “if he likes you, who the hell cares what his parents think?”
I chuckled lightly at her immediate conclusion. But maybe she was right. Wesley, my mom, Alycia, they’d all told me that other people’s opinions didn’t matter. It was true; I should only care about what people close to me thought. Wesley loved me; he said so. I sighed heavily, though, because I cared about what people close to Wesley thought too. I didn’t want to cause trouble between him and his
