Chapter 10 – His heart is breaking
A/N: Wowza. I was not expecting to be gone for that long either. I just had the craziest busy period of my life, and if I tried to type out all that happened it would no doubt be longer than this chapter, which - partly in apology - is my longest one yet. I've been prioritising my other work so much that I finally had to promise myself that I wouldn't even go to sleep until this was posted, which is why I am now up hella late. Time for bed now! Hope you enjoy :)
ps: I hope you all appreciated all the cute and happy stuff that went down last chapter because this chapter has more than earnt its title. Can't wait to hear what you guys think of this one *evil smile*
Looking for Will hadn't been the plan. Nico had just said that he was going to see someone as an excuse to get out of there, but now that the idea of going to see Will had been planted in his mind he couldn't get rid of it. And if he had to be honest, it had already been weighing on him. He tried to tell himself that it was only because it would be a shame if he came all the way into the city and didn't see Will to catch up on any chemistry notes that he may have missed, but that was a load of bullshit. Truthfully, he had had a draining day and he wanted someone to relax with. Someone that he didn't have to be on guard with, or hide anything from. And Will was the first person that popped into his head when he thought of that.
Nico forced himself to not spend too much time questioning that reasoning and instead went searching for Will. A quick check of his timetable told Nico that his chemistry class with Will was running at the moment, so he made his way over to the usual lecture theatre. His intention had been to walk in, no matter how late he was, paying no mind to the fact that he hadn't been to a class in three weeks, and sit down in his regular seat next to Will. Even though he didn't have any of his books, or his laptop, or even a pen and paper to take notes down on, Nico had a sudden urge to go to his class and spend the next hour being completely lost and confused, as long as he could be lost and confused next to Will. As long as he could spend the next hour in his company, firing jokes and insults at each other, teasing each other, being on the receiving end of one of those beautiful Will Solace smiles, or just being in Will's company in general.
That was how Nico knew he was in deep. He had been a loner, an outsider, an introvert for his whole life, and here he was, practically sprinting just so he could get to class that little bit quicker and listen to some professor drone on and on about something he wouldn't understand just to be with Will.
As his arms were swinging and his legs were pounding against the ground and his heart was racing for more than one reason, the thought popped into his head that maybe this was a bad thing. Having a crush hadn't gone so well for him last time. Crushing on Percy had had him feeling absolutely crushed. But this was different, and Nico couldn't explain, not even to himself, why that was, but he knew it was true. Will wasn't like Percy.
All this movement and thinking came to a sudden halt when Nico reached the doorway of his classroom. He pulled it open, and strode forward to his empty seat next to Will...but it didn't exist. Or rather, there was a seat there, but it just wasn't empty. Instead it was filled with a boy that was animatedly engrossed in conversation with Will, and he had him laughing in the way that Nico had grown to hope to think of lately as a laugh that only he could evoke in Will. As though Will was as alone as Nico, and Nico was the only one that he found worthy of bestowing with such joy. But unlike Nico's, Will's world was huge. A guy like him must have so many friends, friends other than Nico that he had barely bothered to ask or even think about. Friends that he hadn't even considered would exist, even though that was ridiculous.
That's what being around Will was like for Nico. It made him feel like he was the only one that Will cared about. Like he was special, which was a feeling that Nico didn't get very often. Nico had thought that maybe Will felt that same way, that there was a special connection between them. But maybe that's just how it was with Will. He loved deeply, and he loved everyone, in such a big way that he made them all feel on top of the world. And that was a great thing - one of that qualities that Nico admired most in Will - but he hated it right now for unintentionally leading him on. Because while Nico had thought he was special in Will's eyes, here was Will caught up in someone else the way he was around Nico, unaware of his sudden arrival, even as every single other person in the room – including the lecturer – turned around to gawk at Nico. All the courage that Nico had had mere moments ago vanished, and soon enough he was in the corridor again, tittering laughs and catcalls following him out until being cut off by the door swinging shut behind him.
Now this. This felt like crushing on Percy.
The hallway was silent, Nico being the only one in it, and he dragged his feet on the floor as he walked away, painting a stark contrast to his arrival. He barely had time to wonder what he was going to do next, before he was haunted by the sounds of the laughter that had followed him out of the lecture theatre resurfacing. God, he had enough thoughts to deal with without being haunted by shitty memories. Though if his brain as going to chuck bad memories at him it had a lot to choose from and he should probably be grateful that it wasn't something worse than being laughed at.
"Nico!" Such as the sound of Will's voice. Of course. He had to be reminded of that right now. The sound of Will calling out to him as he always had, like he cared and was excited to talk to him. "Wait up!" Confused, Nico turned around, and blushed as he realised what had happened. "Hi Will," he said, trying to act casual, and mentally scolded himself for thinking that he had imagined the noises of the class following him again, which must have happened when Will opened the door, and then imagined Will's voice calling out to him. Good to know that he wasn't that far gone. Yet.
"What's up? What are you doing here?" Will asked, falling into step beside Nico, who froze.
"Why did you leave? You have class." Nico told him.
"Hasn't stopped you for the last few weeks, has it?" Will shrugged.
"But you never skip class."
"So I guess it's about time, huh?" Nico knew that there was more to it, that Will never skipped class, and he might have let himself hope what this could mean if he had been in a better mood. Say, the mood he had before he realised that Will was a treasure that probably treated everyone like they were important enough to skip class for.
"So, again, what are you doing? You're not coming back for classes, are you? Because if you are, it's right back there." Will pointed over his shoulder with a smirk. "I promise you didn't just relive your first week and walk into the wrong class."
"I told you not to tease me for that!" Nico protested, playing for the time to come up with a plausible excuse. "I, um, I was thinking about coming in to class, but I changed my mind. That's all." And it was true enough. It was just omitting the part where he explained what had changed his mind.
"Aww. Damn it. I thought you were coming to see my beautiful face." Will elbowed him in the ribs, and Nico stumbled sideways, caught off guard.
"Shut up."
"Or maybe you were planning all along for me to come out after you. You know, you could have just texted. You didn't need to be so dramatic-"
"I didn't ask, all right?" Nico exploded. This was what he had been waiting for. He had been on edge recently, still emotionally wound up from the call to his father that morning, and the meeting with Percy and Annabeth, and his realisation just now with Will. He needed someone to take it all out on. "I didn't fucking ask you for help in any way! I walked in the classroom, went to take my seat and sit next to you, but there was someone else there and I didn't want to sit anywhere else. I didn't want to sit next to some random and have to put up with them for the whole lesson, so I just left. That's all. I didn't ask you to leave your brilliantly entertaining conversation to come chasing after me and interrogate me! So just leave me alone."
Nico started off away from Will, but dragging his feet this time, leaving with a heavy heart. He knew Will didn't deserve it, but he couldn't help himself. He had bottled his emotions and kept them inside for so long that he had a terrible handle on them. Once he let out a few he couldn't stop and now it was way out of his control and he needed let off some steam. But maybe it was better that he pushed Will away now and just went back to the way things used to be. It would be safer, easier, if they stopped hanging out, even though that was the last thing he wanted to happen.
"Hey, hey, hey," Will said softly, coming around to face him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to piss you off. What's wrong? Do you want to talk about it?" And the fact that Will couldn't be fooled, that Nico couldn't push him away even if he tried, that Will was just so genuine in his concern, had Nico wanting to actually have an open and honest conversation for once. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
A few minutes later they were sitting in Nico's car. At first the plan had been to drive off somewhere, to a cafe or something, but now that they were here, Nico couldn't summon the motivation to focus on driving and finding a place to hang out. Instead, he sat in the front seat, fiddling with the keys in his hands, with Will in the passenger seat next to him, and talked.
Nico talked about a lot of things. He talked about the message he had left for his father that morning, and how much it had scared him. How tempted he was to race back home and delete it off the phone, knowing that his father wouldn't have listened to it yet, that he would be able to do it, and also knowing that he had to let it happen, that it was something his father needed to hear. He told Will about his meeting with Percy and Annabeth, about how he had come out to them, and confessed his old crush on Percy. He told Will about how those old feelings still lingered somewhat, and he hoped they would leave soon. About how he was scared that this would change things between the three of them, and that they would have a more difficult relationship now, that maybe Percy wouldn't be as comfortable around him.
Nico stopped just short of confessing to Will his feelings for him. He wanted to have more time to himself to think all of that through. He hadn't decided what he was going to do about that, or if he was even going to do anything. When he had had a crush on Percy there had never been any hope of having his feelings reciprocated. Percy was the poster boy for a straight guy, he was in a strong relationship, and besides - he was Percy Jackson. He would never go for Nico di Angelo. Not in a million years.
With Will there was slightly more hope, what with knowing that he was also gay, but that was about where it stopped. Will could do so much better than someone like him. He could barely even understand why Will even wanted to be his friend. Nico just had to resign himself to being Will's friend. That would be more than good enough for him. He was lucky to have a friend like Will. He couldn't risk screwing it up on something as small as a crush. He would get over it eventually.
So he let his voice peter out and turned to Will uncertainly, waiting for his reaction. "It's okay." Will coughed, and pulled a face. "This too shall pass," he said in a deep voice.
"What-" Nico frowned at him, trying to figure out what was going on. "Will-"
"MY NAME IS GANDALF THE GREY!"
"You fucking nerd!" Nico laughed. "Lord of the Rings? Really?" But he was laughing too hard to be to angry.
"Hey, you recognised it, so you are at least kind of nerdy."
"Am not!"
"I am the Master of Mythomagic." Will declared, imitating Nico this time, whipping his head to stare out of the car window. "And I'm so brooding and alone, but at least that gives me time to practise my art. No one can ever beat me! I am the all-knower of mythology!"
"Shut up!" Nico groaned, and Will snorted, returning back to his own voice.
"But in all seriousness, you'll get through it. Just give it time." Nico nodded, and they lapsed into silence once more.
"So how's it going with your family? Have you been seeing them?" Nico asked, to shift the focus away from him.
"It's going ok," Will sighed, "but I still haven't told them that I'm, you know, gay. I was going to, but..."
"Yeah. Yeah I get it."
"I'll do it." Will said, sitting up straight in his seat.
"I know."
"I mean, I'll do it now."
"What?" Nico cocked his head. "Now? Are you sure? How-"
"You're going back to Hazel's now, aren't you?" Nico nodded. "Well could you give me a lift out there? And then stay there for the weekend and then I'll find whatever way of getting back here, or I could-"
"Sure. And I can bring you back here too, afterwards." Nico exhaled steadily, finding himself coming to a sudden conclusion that had been weighing on his mind for days, just as Will had. "I want to go back to my dad's place and pick some stuff up, so we could drive back in a few days, and then could you go with me? Just in case he's there. I don't want to go alone."
"Of course."
Nico pulled the seat belt across himself as Will did the same, put the keys that he was still fiddling with into the ignition and started up the car. "Are you sure you want to go right now? You don't want to go back by your place first?" Not that Nico knew where Will lived, but maybe this would give him a reason to find out, a reason to see the place that Will called home.
"Just drive." Will said, shutting his eyes. "Please. Before I change my mind." Nico gave a silent nod that Will couldn't see, and then pulled out of the university car park.
Almost two hours later they were approaching their destination, and after spending most of the time in a comfortable easily slow conversation about music and university and people and nothing at all, they returned to the troubling topic that had been hanging over them for the duration: family. "So how has it been with your mum?" Nico asked gently. Will sighed, and turned down the volume of the upbeat pop music that he had convinced Nico to reluctantly let him listen to. Nico would have felt relieved for the sudden absence of the terrible racket if not for the reason of it going.
"It's been alright. Kinda feels just like old times. The others still live there, still going to school. Maybe still bullying other gay kids." Will's voice took on a hard edge, but he continued on. "It just feels a bit...wrong. Like it might still be the same there, but I'm not. I feel like I've been living a completely different life to the one I had when I was living with them. I always felt restrained never fully comfortable and in the time since, I've grown into my real self. And it feels so much better, but I also feel guilty for feeling better of without them. They're my family, and so I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I do and I can't help it. So living with them feels like I'm erasing all the progress I've made while I've been apart from them. I've gone back to holding my tongue and keeping my head down And the whole time they don't know what's going on because they don't even know that there's a new part of me that I'm hiding. They're just happy to have their old Will back, the one that they miss, the one they knew from before I left, but he doesn't exist anymore, and I don't know how to tell them that."
When Will finished, the silence that was left was heavy, and Nico was almost glad for the faint pop track to focus on. Because he didn't know what to say. He had no idea how to comfort people. Nico was no good around people, no matter how much better he felt around Will. So instead he decided to focus on how to comfort Will. Not people. Just Will as an individual.
"Just take it slowly." He said, trying to search for the words and notions of advice that Will had given to him. "Take it slowly and try to...judge it as you go? Talk to them?" He broke off as he saw a smile curling at the corner of Will's lips. "What?" He said defensively.
"You're terrible at this."
"Solace I swear-"
"But I appreciate the thought." Will continued, turning to face him, and the smile in his eyes was so brilliant that Nico almost forgot to keep his glances away from the road brief, and was tempted to never look away. But then he came back to his senses and focused his attention back to driving and not getting them both killed from his lack of paying attention. "Thanks." He muttered.
Soon enough, they were in the right neighbourhood, and Will started giving him directions to his mother's place, so they could no longer keep up a conversation. Once they had parked outside the front, Will took a shaky breath and blurted out "I think I'm going to tell her tonight." Nico, in true form, didn't know how to respond, leaving Will to continue on. "Hey, do you want to come in and meet my mother? I've told her a lot about you, and I'm sure she'd like to meet you, and-"
"Will," Nico interrupted, recognising the signs of Will rambling whenever he got nervous or stressed, but Will rolled on.
"-and also she was worried about how you are getting your work done, and honestly I am too. How are you going to keep up? There's only so much you can do online. There's going to be practical lab sessions coming up soon, you've already missed out on enough of those, and soon it will be exams." Will stopped to take a shuddering breath, and Nico hoped that maybe he was done, but kept his mouth shut because he knew that this was Will's stress release. Will done the same for him and put up with Nico's version of that before, enduring his rants and personal attack on him with the patience of a saint. But then Will continued on, and almost instantly Nico wished he hadn't. "And I was thinking, because I have my own place close to uni, and I live by myself, maybe you could move in with me? Like, I have a spare room, and sometimes it does get lonely, and I wanna help you out. I mean, if you want to, but-"
"Stop talking."
And that finally worked, the 'stop talking' sounding so different to the many times that Nico had playfully told him to 'shut up'. In the sudden quiet, Nico could hear his own heartbeat and the air rushing in and out of his nose in sudden shallow breaths, could feel the blood boiling under his skin and the panic rising up in his throat. It was too hot in this car and he needed to get away, needed to get away from Will Solace and his empty promises right now before Will could say any more things that he didn't mean. "Don't say that."
"Nico I want to help-"
"You don't just ask someone to move in with you!"
"How was I supposed to ask?" Nico groaned in frustration.
"You don't, okay? You don't say shit you don't mean. You don't grasp at straws and look for any excuse to put off seeing your own mother. Suck it up. Stop being such a coward. Just get out of my car already."
"How dare you." Will's voice was dark and deep and cutting, and Nico realised that he had never seen Will get angry before, or at least not like this before. It wasn't an emotion that Nico would previously have thought the usually sunny young man was even capable of. But here he was, having just pushed the most cheerful person in the world over the edge and having to watch them transform. "How dare you say that to me. You know what this feels like, you're going through exactly the same thing and I have helped you every step of the way. You haven't seen your father for weeks and you're telling me to suck it up and stop being such a coward?"
"You didn't see your family for months," Nico couldn't stop himself from muttering under his breath, and if Will heard him he didn't show it, because he went on.
"But I haven't said anything. I haven't pushed you into anything, because I know that you need space and time. Hell, I offered you a place to stay so you could go to uni and not have to go back to living with him. And I meant it, okay? I wasn't just rambling on and on. I've been meaning to ask you for a while now. And the offer's still on the table if you're willing apologise and get over yourself."
Nico stayed silent, staring out ahead of him through the windshield, refusing to look across to Will. He knew that if he did, he would crack, and say something stupid like 'I'm sorry' or 'yes, of course I'll move in with you' or even 'I love you'. Whether or not Will genuinely meant his invitation wasn't something that Nico could afford to dwell on. He had to stay strong. He didn't want to end up in another situation like with Percy, where he spent so much time in such close quarters with someone he liked yet could never have. Because for all of the connection that Nico had thought they had, it was obvious to him now that that was how Will treated everyone. And how could Nico have thought before that Will liked him back? They were completely different people. Will was all sunny, cheery, full of smiles and nerdiness. Nico was darkness, pessimism, scowls and spite. They were complete opposites. And Nico needed to squash the part of him that said maybe those differences didn't matter. He couldn't let himself hope.
Nico had spent too long thinking and not responding, and in that time Will must have gotten tired of waiting and considered the silence to be an answer in itself. He sighed, undid his seat belt, opened the door, got out, all without looking back at Nico, then turned around to shut-
"Wait." Nico heard the word, barely connecting the sound to the fact that he had said it, hearing it as though it came from outside of him, still staring straight ahead. Just barely, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Will halt his movement. Nico searched for the words that he had been meaning to say, but he hadn't thought this far ahead, hadn't thought at all, had just known that he couldn't let Will walk away from him and end this moment on such a low note. He knew what Will wanted him to say, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.
"Good luck." He said instead, hoping that it was enough to placate Will and stop him from being so angry. All that happened was that Will shut the door a bit less louder than he may have otherwise. Nico watched him walk up the driveway and did nothing further to stop him. Just watched him give up, leave, and escape. Nico knew that feeling so intimately, but he felt a sharp pang deep in his gut for bringing that upon someone else. With a soft sigh and a heavy heart, he started the car and made his own escape.
At some point, Will had begun to think of the house in front of him as as his mother's home. Not his own home, or his old house, but his mother's home. And so stepping through the front door didn't feel like coming home, especially when he no longer had his own set of keys and had to grab the spare from under the doormat. The other times that Will had come to visit over the last few weeks he had rung the doorbell and waited for someone to let him in, but this time he didn't to stay outside any longer than he had to. He had to get away from Nico. He needed some space, both physical and mental.
Will threw himself into greeting his mother and siblings with a bit too much forced enthusiasm. He half-wanted one of them to realise that something was wrong, to call him out on his so-wide-it-hurt grin, or his laugh that was too loud and too hollow and too often. After a few minutes however, Will realised that this behaviour was what his family had come expect from him. This was the personality that he had shown around them for the last few years. Why should they think there was something wrong?
But Will still felt wrong. He had changed so much in the time that they had been apart. He had changed from a boy that was timid, dependent, unsure of himself and his capabilities, to a man that had now learnt so much about what he was able to do and was now living on his own and on his own terms. Will was working hard enough at both at school and his job that he was paying his own rent and bills, building up his savings, and excelling in his classes. These experiences had made him grow and change shape and now the space that had left behind when he moved out no longer fit him. Trying to force himself back into his just pulled and tugged at his edges.
But what Will was most worried about was the possibility that in spending time back in his mother's house, he could go back to the person that he used to be. Maybe the ordeal would file him down at the edges, turn him back into his old shape and force him to fit. Maybe he would go back to being someone that always looked to his mother for guidance, someone that needed confirmation and validation to get on in life. He could see it happening. Listening to his mother each night. Being roped into helping his siblings with homework, then rides to school, then errands. Then Will would run into people in town, people that he used to know but also hadn't bothered to keep in touch with. And maybe in re-meeting them and reconnecting with this town, Will would again feel the pressure to be the person that he hadn't been in ages. He shuddered at the thought. He never wanted to go back to that.
So Will had to stop that from happening. He could stop these visits and go back to his life in the city, making excuses not to see them and pushing down his guilt. Or he could be brave and put his heart on the line and open up about all these thoughts. Tell his mother who he really was.
He breezed through the next few hours, feeling them spinning away from him out of control. Time flowed differently to how it normally did. It passed in stretches and bursts, long moments dragging on for ages like the silence at the dinner table after Michael asked him if he had a girlfriend, and then other periods vanishing before he could keep up, like the time spent next to Lee at the kitchen sink, doing the dishes and flicking each other with water and soap as they always had.
Will's brothers slipped away to their respective rooms afterwards, leaving Will sitting in the lounge room with his mother, as had happened the last few times he had stayed for dinner. She reached for the TV remote to turn it on, but this time around Will stopped her. "Wait, Mum," he said, feeling his heart beating in his throat. He knew, could somehow feel in his bones in a way that he couldn't describe, that this was the moment. He hadn't put too much thought into what her reaction would be, telling himself not to focus on that which he could not control, instead thinking only about what he would say.
Except now that this moment had finally come around, Will had forgotten everything that he had been planning on saying. All the carefully constructed sentences that he had been built up over the years whenever he pictured himself in this moment had left him, and in its place was the memory of him sitting in the car on the way home from the principal's office, listening to her warning him and his brothers about how 'the gays' would ruin them.
"I have something to tell you." But there was no way he was backing out of it now. Because now there was another memory in his mind, that of Nico telling him that he was a coward. Though he had tried to not take it to heart, it's hard to ignore it when people speak thoughts that are already in your own mind. "Something important."
"Of course." She smiled at him, and he was struck dumb for a moment by the oh so familiar smile that she, his siblings, and himself all shared. Her huge dimples were out and her crow's feet were crinkling at the corners of her twinkling eyes. With the sight came a pang of nostalgia for the old times when they had been a tight-knit family, and also a reminder of how she was his mother and had always been there for him. She loved him. That would be all he needed for this to go smoothly. He would be fine.
"So, is it good news or bad news?" She asked, raising an eyebrow and one side of her mouth in a smirk, confident in her mind that his answer would be the former. Will coughed to clear his throat that was suddenly tight and blocked.
"Well, it depends, really. I mean, I think it's good, and I hope you do too-"
"Did you get engaged to someone without taking her home to your mother first?"
"No, I-"
"Did you knock someone up?"
"Mum! I need you to be serious!" He cried, and she laughed.
"Just teasing, William. Gosh, you're so easy to stir up." She reached out and ruffled his hair, before smoothing it over again softly. "You know there's nothing you could say that could make me stop loving you. I'm your mother."
Will sighed, and the last piece of resistance that had been left in him melted. All of a sudden the words were back again, almost the way that he had planned them, except he hadn't accounted for the fact that he would be so emotional. "I want to tell you why I moved so far away and haven't been to see you. I know I kept on telling you that it was to go to a good university, to get the best education possible, and it was because of all of that that I was too busy to come home and visit. And that was true, but it wasn't that simple. It wasn't so much about where I was moving, but what I was moving away from."
He hesitated then, waiting for her to interrupt. The whole time he had kept eye contact with her to gauge her response, unable to look away. But she stayed silent, and nodded at him, wordlessly telling him to continue.
"I'm not quite who you think I am. I'm not your perfect son who is your ideal role model of someone who will take the normal path in life." Will took a deep shuddering breath, committing himself to the idea that that very same breath, on its way out of him, would take his secret out of him and deliver it to his mother. He kept that visualisation in his mind and focused on that instead of the words he was saying.
"I'm gay." The breath carried out those two words with a quiet that understated their importance. Though Will had been expecting he would want to undo it and breath them back in, those feelings of regret didn't hit him. He got the sense that they wouldn't no matter how she reacted. "William," she sighed, and he froze in anticipation, "thank you for telling me how you feel. It must have been hard on you. Are you scared? Confused?"
"A bit, but-" Will started, wanting to say that he agreed on the first count but didn't like the connotations of the second one, but she continued before he could elaborate.
"Now I understood when you said you wanted to move out and live in the city on your own. You're a young man now and you need your independence and your own space. I trusted that it was your own decision and your own life, and you said that's what you needed. But now I'm worried that maybe it was too rash, and you're still too young to handle being on you own. Maybe moving away from home was too big of a change for you."
"Yes," Will said, starting to panic now even though his mother's tone was still calm and soft. Somehow that was harder to handle than if she had started yelling. "I have changed, but-"
"And that's okay. You're growing, and trying to find yourself - or whatever you young people want to call it these days. You meet new people, start experimenting, trying new things. I know that I did some things when I was your age. Did you know I used to smoke? Tried weed once, too."
"Mum, are you really comparing me liking boys to you getting high?"
"What I'm trying to say is that you're still young. You're trying to figure out who you are and you're bound to make some mistakes along the way, and this is one of them. You know what my thoughts are on the whole gay business. And I know that you're better than this." His mother paused, then added more quietly, her voice weighed down with guilt, "I don't know why this happened." Even though Will was horrified by the words that were coming out of her mouth, his heart broke a little from watching his mother break down. "Maybe it was my fault. Your father left, and I didn't really date anyone after him. You grew up without a father figure. Maybe that's why you're so..."
"Wrong?" Will finished, his voice shaking with barely contained emotion. "Different? Abnormal?"
"No, honey," she corrected him, tears glistening in her eyes. "You're not like that. You're not one of them. It's just a phase. You'll find the right girl and fall in love with her. You'll be okay. You don't have to be scared, I promise."
She opened her arms towards him, trying to hold him close, but Will recoiled. Yelling and anger would definitely have been easier to deal with. Not this pity and belief that it was something that Will hated himself for. As though being gay was inferior, something that he should want to shun and deny. That was what he too had once believed from living and growing up with her. They were the thoughts that he had absorbed and held himself too, though fortunately the time separate from her had allowed himself discard them. But this short time in her company, back in his old home and town, he could see himself going back to hating himself, hoping that he would grow out of it, and wishing that he was actually just confused. Will had thought that the worst thing that could happen was that his mother would stop loving him, but this was harder. Though in a subtle way, it managed to cut deeper.
"Mum. Stop talking. Listen to me." She flinched and her arms sank, obviously surprised by his sudden sharp tone.
"I am." She frowned, and she reached out for him once more, before frowning and dropping her hands into her lap. "I'm trying to help."
"But you're not, okay? Don't talk to me like that. This is who I am." Will was sick of pleading and trying to get through to her calmly. It obviously wasn't working. He leapt up off of the couch and stood in front of her. "I'm not scared of being gay. I've accepted it. I love me for who I am, and if you're not going to do the same, at least don't take that away from me."
"I do love you!"
"But not all of me!" He turned away from her and started pacing, back and forth, needing to move. "You want to pick and choose which parts of me you love and tell yourself that this part of me isn't real. You're invalidating this piece of me and telling me to shut it off. That's not love, Mum. That's bullshit." He reached the end of his walking path, and instead of doing another about face and continuing to pace, he threw a hard look at her and headed for the door.
"Will? Where are you going? William! You don't have to leave!" And now she was up and off the couch, chasing after him, her tears finally spilling over.
"Yes. Yes I do." He wrenched open the front door and walked out before he could start crying too. His steps became faster and faster until he was sprinting down the street, trying to get away from his thoughts, but mostly trying to escape the influence of the suffocating memories and emotions that had always hung over the place he used to call home.