“I’ve seen him solve a thing or two,” says Austin, eyeing me, “but can’t say a math problem’s been one of ‘em yet.”
“What’s he solved for you?” asks my mom, delighted to hear.
He studies me with sincerity. “TJ keeps me from drownin’ in my own head, every day.”
The thoughtful sentiment of his words linger in the air for entirely too long.
Is that something a friend says to another mere friend?
My mom drinks in his answer, unaware of the subtext, as she nods, picks up her sandwich, and says, “Well, we all sure can use someone like that in our lives, can’t we?” before taking a bite.
Austin and I meet each other’s eyes across the table.
It’s almost too much, what he does to me with his words to my mom. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t that he’d turn out to be a secret parent whisperer.
After lunch, my mom says, “You boys go ahead and do your thing. I’ve taken enough of your time. No, no, really,” she insists when Austin tries to help with the dishes. Then she teases with, “If only my own son offered to help half as much as you do.”
I can’t escape to my room fast enough, dragging Austin with me. The door shuts and my back’s immediately against it. “That …can’thappen again.”
Entirely unworried, Austin walks around my room, taking in everything a piece at a time. I stay with my back against the door, watching him for a while, as the quiet atmosphere of my room settles in my ears. After that talkative and eventful lunch, I suddenly realize how desperately I needed this silence.
He stops in front of a picture on the wall. “This your prom?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t go to mine,” he says, crossing his arms and sighing at the picture. “Didn’t have a date. Buddies wanted to go in a group, singles-crashing-the-prom sort of thing. But I wasn’t about that. I was too much of a romantic. I was still holdin’ out, tryin’ to work up the courage to ask my crush to the dance.” He shakes his head. “Didn’t happen. He took someone else. I juststayed home with my guitar and wrote my very first heartbreak ballad.” He faces me. “I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is … I learned pretty early on not to sit on chances that can slip away—” He snaps his fingers. “—likethat.”
I swallow. “Is … that what I am? A chance?”
He moves away from the picture and stands in front of me. He gently takes my hands into his. “I don’t know what you are, TJ, but it’s somethin’ I’ve needed for a long time. And I sure don’t want to miss out on it.”
I pretend my guts aren’t leaping around inside me even still, despite the calm between us now. “I would’ve taken you to prom.”
He smiles. “That so?”
“And I want to hear that heartbreak ballad sometime.”
“We’re queuing up a whole setlist I owe you someday.” After a second, he smirks. “I think your mom likes me, by the way.”
Panic is still sitting in the driver’s seat, racing through every horrible way this can go so wrong. But the confidence in Austin’s eyes keeps me grounded right here in front of him, a tether of serenity in my ocean of crazy.
I need to tell my mom Austin isn’t just a friend.
It’d be so easy. Just a short cluster of words and it’s over.
But what is he? What would I replace the word “friend” with?
And why have I built coming out to her so much in my head? For someone who seems constantly starved for a big change in my life, am I actually afraid of it?
“Yeah,” I finally admit. “She … She does like you.”
“She cares a lot about you, too.”
I avert my eyes. “Well, then, you’d better not break my heart,” I say as a joke, then realize how awful that sounded.
Austin doesn’t take it that way at all. It’s like he accepts it as a challenge, bringing a hand to my chin and lifting it up, bringingmy eyes right back to his. “I’ve got no intention whatsoever,” he softly says, lips near mine, “of ever hurtin’ your heart.”
I stare back at him. I can suddenly picture him joining us for dinner later. Meeting my dad whenever he gets back. Making my parents laugh and fall in love with him. Me, sitting there at the table, dying inside slowly as I watch them get along better than I ever could’ve dreamed.