true. But I’m the adult here, and I can do what I want.” Mom giggles to herself and sets the dishes aside. “So, what did you do today?”
“Nothing really. Drew a little bit, worked on a few projects that are due after break, nothing too exciting.” Again, just withholding information.
Mostly my day comprised absolutely freaking the fuck out about what I was about to do, rewatching videos on YouTube about how people did this, rereading old messages from Mariam, and almost throwing up the peanut butter sandwich I’d made for lunch.
You know, typical, everyday stuff.
Mom sets the last of the dishes on the drying rack just as I’m stacking the Tupperware in the fridge. “Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t eat anything weird, did you?” Mom reaches up to touch my forehead again, but I manage to avoid her.
“I promise, I’m totally fine.”
Liar.
“If you say so.” Mom carefully folds the dish towels by the sink. “You still up for the movie?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Maybe he won’t make us watch Home Alone for the twentieth time,” Mom mutters, mostly to herself I think.
“It’s a classic,” I tease, and she smiles at me, grabbing the little baggie of peppermint bark she made a few days ago, before she disappears into the living room.
When she’s gone, I drape over the sink, bracing myself in case my dinner comes up. I can do this, it’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be okay and this is most definitely the right thing to do. I know my parents, they know me, they deserve to know this thing about me as well.
And I want to tell them, I really, really do.
So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“Ben, bring me the popcorn,” Dad calls from the den, and I feel my insides clamp up again. I grab the huge tub from the counter, the kind with the four different flavors that Dad always buys at Christmas, and migrate my way into the den, except it’s like my feet are covered with cement blocks.
It still looks like Christmas in here. Mom and I actually agree that people don’t appreciate the holiday nearly enough, so she tends to leave the tree and decorations up until the first of the year. I’m not really sure if that’s how other families do it, but it’s my favorite of her mom-isms.
She’s already decided that Elf is the movie for tonight, except we don’t own a copy of it, so it’s my responsibility to find somewhere we can rent it.
“We can watch Lampoon next.” Dad crunches on a piece of popcorn.
After a little exploring, I find it, enter Mom’s credit card information, and settle in. It’s weird, I usually love this movie to death, but tonight? It’s almost irritating. But I don’t think that’s actually the movie’s fault. I feel uncomfortable, no matter how I sit, it’s like I have to escape my body somehow.
And then the movie gets to the weird scene where Will Ferrell’s character is singing with Zooey Deschanel while she’s in the shower, and I get that his character is supposed to be naïve or whatever, but it still creeps me out a little.
“Now, that’s a woman.” Dad chuckles, feeding himself another piece of the chocolate-covered popcorn. “Right, Ben?”
“Right.” I try my best to act like I’m in on the joke, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. I wonder if they’ve ever seen through that disguise, if they’ve ever entertained the idea that I was anything other than their perfect son.
I don’t like lying to him.
Or Mom.
I’m basically always living a lie. They don’t really know everything about me.
And that’s what I’ve been working up to tonight, or really, the past few weeks. It’s the reason I didn’t have an appetite, the reason why I couldn’t really focus on anything over the past week. Christmas break seemed to glide by at a snail’s pace because I promised myself it’d happen now, at some point over the break. Tonight feels like the right moment, even though I can’t really explain why. Maybe I’m riding some magical Christmas high.
’Tis the season, I suppose.
Too bad I don’t feel very jolly right now. Maybe I should’ve donned some more “gay apparel” to lighten the mood.
Some commercial starts playing, and a car company is running a sale for the “Ho-Ho-Holidays,” and out of the corner of my eyes, I see Dad shake his head.