I’ll Give You the Sun(71)
Author: Jandy Nelson

He’s a broken umbrella. Has he always been one? We both are. Like father, like son.

Because I know it too. I don’t have a chance either. “It’s done with us. It has to be. Okay?”

No, it is not okay. Nothing is okay! They’re kissing again. I think my eyes are going to fly from their sockets, my hands from my arms, my feet from my legs. I don’t know what do. I don’t know what to do. I need to do something.

So I run.

I run and run and run and run and run and when I reach one of the last bends before the trailhead onto our street, I see Brian walking with Courtney.

His meteorite bag is wrapped around his shoulder and their arms are crisscrossed behind them, his hand in the back pocket of her jeans and hers in the back pocket of his. Like they’re together. There’s a smudge of bright color on his lips, which confuses me for a second until I realize it’s her lipstick. Because he kissed her.

He kissed her.

It starts as a tremor deep inside, growing quickly into a quaking, and then it’s all erupting together, what happened at The Wooden Bird, what happened in my bedroom last night, what’s happening right now, all the rage and confusion, the hurt and helplessness, the betrayal, it’s a blowing volcano inside me and out of my mouth flies, “He’s gay, Courtney! Brian Connelly is gay!”

The words ricochet around in the air. I instantly want them back.

Brian’s face slides off and there’s loathing underneath it. Courtney’s mouth drops open. She believes me, I can see it. She steps away from him. “Are you, Brian? I thought—” She doesn’t finish her sentence because she sees his expression.

This is what his face must’ve looked like when he was inside that storage closet all alone hour after hour. This is what a face looks like when all the dreams get sucked out of it.

And I did it to him this time. Me.

• • •

I can’t stop seeing Brian’s face hating me as I bolt across the street. I’d do anything to take my words back, to put them again in the safe silent vault inside me where they belong. Anything. My stomach’s like I’ve eaten nails. How could I have done that after what he told me?

I’d do anything to not have seen what I saw at The Wooden Bird too.

Once in the house, I go straight to my room, open a sketchpad, and start drawing. First things first. I need to get Mom to stop this and I only know one way to do that. It takes a long time to get the picture right, but eventually I do.

When I finish, I leave the drawing on her bed, and then go look for Jude. I need Jude.

Fry tells me she went off with Zephyr, but I can’t find them anywhere.

I can’t find Brian either.

There’s only Prophet, who as usual won’t shut up about Ralph.

At the top of my lungs, I yell, “There is no Ralph, you stupid bird. Ralph does not exist!”

• • •

When I get back home, Mom’s waiting for me in my room, the picture I made on her lap. It’s of her and the sculptor kissing by The Wooden Bird in the foreground and Dad, Jude, and me as one blur making up the background.

Her mascara’s making black tears. “You followed me,” she says. “I really wish you hadn’t, Noah. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have seen that.”

“You shouldn’t have been doing that!”

She looks down. “I know, which is why—”

“I thought you were going to tell Dad about me,” I blurt. “That’s why I followed you.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to.”

“I heard you say on the phone ‘something happened with Noah last night.’ I thought you were talking to Dad, not your boyfriend.”

Her face stiffens at the word. “I said that because when I heard myself telling you last night that it was your responsibility to be true to your heart, I realized I was being a hypocrite and I needed to take my own advice. I needed to be brave like my son.” Wait, did she just use me to justify her traitorous actions? She stands, hands me the drawing. “Noah, I’m asking Dad for a divorce. I’m going to tell him today. And I want to tell your sister myself.”

A divorce. Today. Now. “No!” This is my fault. If I hadn’t followed her. If I hadn’t seen. If I hadn’t drawn the picture. “Don’t you love us?” I meant to say don’t you love Dad, but that’s what came out.

“I love nothing more than you and your sister. Nothing. And your dad is a wonderful, wonderful man . . .”

But now I can’t focus on what she’s saying because a thought’s taken over my entire brain. “Is he going to live here?” I ask her, interrupting whatever she was saying. “That man? With us? Is he going to sleep on Dad’s side of the bed? Drink out of his coffee cup? Shave in his mirror? Is he? Are you going to marry him? Is that why you want a divorce?”

“Sweetheart . . .” She touches my shoulder, trying to comfort me. I pull away from her, hating her for the first time in my life, real live squawking hatred.

“You are,” I say in disbelief. “You’re going to marry him, aren’t you? That’s what you want.”

She doesn’t say no. Her eyes are saying yes. I can’t believe this.

“So you’re just going to forget about Dad? You’re going to pretend everything you had with him is nothing.” Like Brian’s doing to me. “He won’t survive it, Mom. You don’t see him at that hotel. He’s not like he used to be. He broke.” And me too. And what if I, in turn, broke Brian? How can love be such a wrecking ball?

“We tried, Dad and I,” she says. “We’ve been trying very hard for a very long time. All I ever wanted for you kids was the stability I didn’t have growing up. I never wanted this to happen.” She sits back down. “But I’m in love with another man.” Her face slides off her face—no one can keep their faces on today—and the one underneath is desperate. “I just am. I wish things were different but they’re not. It’s not right to live a lie. It never is, Noah.” There’s begging in her voice. “You can’t help who you love, can you?”

This silences the racket in me for a moment. I can’t help it, that’s for sure, and I suddenly want to tell her everything. I want to tell her that I’m in love too and I can’t help it either and that I just did the worst thing I could’ve possibly done to him and I don’t know how I could’ve done it and can’t believe how much I wish I could take it back.