She feels like she's stuck in an endless prison of opaque glass, hard and stable like thick metal and as stifling as grasping arms of countless boys who'd lasted at most a couple of weeks. God doesn't think she deserves a happily ever after.
Ivy's fingers skim over the flat skin of her stomach. Despite everything, she's probably lucky. Nadia certainly thinks so, if her biting comments are any indication.
She's never thought she had anything against gay people. What other people did amongst themselves was none of her business. All the same, she'd always had a clear idea of what a gay guy would be like in her mind. Effeminate, no good at sports, not at all interested in girls. Someone like Peter in extreme perhaps, but Jason had kissed her so gently, even if he had then told her he was in love with someone else. It had hurt, but at least that was understandable. But a boy? Peter? What did he have that she didn't? Besides the obvious, but Jason claimed to love him!
He may never have looked at her like most of the other boys did, but even so, Jason had always seemed so normal, so very not gay. Ivy's fingers skim down over her flat stomach, the beginning of a plan forming in her mind.
Peter makes the long-overdue phone call to his mother, fingers clammy on the numbers as he presses too hard, mistyping till the number is almost unrecognizable. The dial tone is shrill and painful in his ears, and he'd never thought his mother took so long to answer the phone before, but it takes nearly an eternity and no time at all.
"Hello?" His mother's voice, soft and breathy with the remembered smoke of too many cigarettes, had never seemed so welcome and yet so terrifying. What if she hated him, for this, something he couldn't even control? He'd tried often enough to chase away those feelings, until his trousers were worn for reasons that didn't leave Jason boneless and moaning out Peter's name atop his bed.
"Mother, I need to talk to you." It's unexpectedly simple to say, but even so is teeth feel too big in his jaw, clashing with his tongue as if to stop him from revealing anything. He squeezes his eyes shut, and takes a deep breath. He opens them. He's still really doing this. It's not some kind of twisted nightmare.
"Peter!" she exclaimed, pleased. "Oh, honey, I was just about to call you."
"There's something that you need to know. I'm just going to spit it out." Peter says, aware that he's actually holding the inevitable off, yet unable to stop himself.
"How are rehearsals going? I miss you already, yet it's only been a week." It took an embarrassingly shorter time to make Peter miss Jason, but she didn't need to know that. She didn't need to know anything, whispered the traitorous voice of a serpent, but he ignored it.
"You probably guessed it years ago," How could she not have, when all he'd wanted for his eighth birthday was one of those toy ovens intended for little girls with plastic bracelets and silky ribbons in their pigtails? "Still, it's kind of hard to say."
His mother, in her usual fashion, started her own side of the conversation. Sometimes Peter wished for parents who either cared, or just plain didn't, like Jason's, not some weird state in between. He always hated himself a little afterwards, and held Jason harder, as if that affection could make up for the lack of another. "We're all so excited about the play. I called your father, he swore he'd be there, but I'll remind him again. You know how busy he is, he forgets sometimes. I'd like to tape it, but honestly, I'm not going to turn into one of those parents."
"Sometimes it's on the tip of my tongue, but it's so hard to admit it. And then silence seems the only way."
His mother paused, and Peter could hear her shallow breathing over the phone, like his grandmother's puffs after a cigarette. "Perhaps now isn't the best time. I'm taking Nana to lunch."
"I search for answers on my own." God, how come he'd never noticed how hard it was to get a word in. At least Jason, with all his refusals, at least let him finish, always before the same, same answer. I neither dance nor sing; lay off the crack, Peter, don't be naïve.
"She's so proud of you." She cut in again, with that parental quality of concentrating only on the little details she approved of. As far as Ivy's mother knew, her precious daughter hadn't gone much further than kissing.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm completely lost. Mom, please, don't say anything yet. Just listen to me." Even to his own ears, he sounds broken, desperate, so of course she ignored him. She'd married his father after all. His father couldn't stand weaklings (faggots).
"Berkeley took their wait list. When they called I swear I'd almost died. Would you really go there, I didn't even know you'd decided to apply. Where did Notre Dame go?" He'd applied there as well, because Jason had, but hadn't accepted either offer yet. He didn't know how much more of hiding who he was he could take, and at least Berkeley had a Gay-Straight Alliance, at least some sort of acceptance. But Jason had had his heart set on Notre Dame since they'd first met, and Peter had had his heart set on Jason for nearly that long too.
"Mom, please listen to me. God, I can't even get the words out. It's like they're all jumbled together inside my head. I know what I want to say, but it's like I'm trying to talk in a foreign language. I know it, but I can't seem to say it. Mom, I love you and I" can't seem to say it. It had become so easy to admit anything to Jason that he'd forgotten how difficult the world could actually be. Maybe his boyfriend (his boyfriend, it was amazing how right the word felt) was right, maybe Peter had started to see life through the rose-tinted glasses of some simple fairytale.
"You didn't say that you withdrew. People will be so disappointed, have you really thought this through?"
"Mom, this is important. Mom, you really need to listen. Please don't shut me out now, you really need to see."
"Peter, I'm really busy here. I need a break, whatever it is will have to wait, dear, but I promise I'll call you later." Her voice was cool, the tone he'd heard her use countless times with troublesome clients. It wasn't fair, not now, when all he wanted was for her to know who he truly was, finally notice something he'd been attempting to hide for six years.
"Please, it's really hard to say. I'm so afraid you'll turn away. I'm just afraid that if I don't tell you now, I'll be trying to muster up the courage again for so long."
"Darling, I really do need to hang up now. I'm picking Nana up, you know she can't drive herself any more, her arthritis is getting worse. We're going for lunch, I need to leave in a couple of minutes, and I have a meeting this afternoon. I'll talk to you later."
"Don't hang up!" bursts out of him suddenly, and for once there is an unexpectedly blissful silence on the line. "Just listen to me for a minute. Nana won't mind waiting for five minutes. This took such courage. I know you know what I'm saying but please, just listen."
His mother sighs over the line, and Peter can almost see her in his mind, ironed shirt beneath a soft jumper, sitting at the desk in her small, tidy office, tapping her long, painted fingers impatiently against the base of her laptop and glancing at her watch every couple of minutes. "Peter, please, I can't solve all your problems."
"Mother, you know nothing of them, and I'm not expecting you to fight delusions. Just be my mom and my friend again. Just try to understand, I didn't choose this, I couldn't help it." Even to his own ears, he sounds like he's begging at an altar of understanding, to a God who turns away and ignores him. "But I've been waiting to tell you this since I was twelve. Mom, I'm," He takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly. This is it, it has to be. He hasn't tried so hard, finally convinced Jason, to chicken out now like some primary school kid who can't bear to disappoint his parents, especially now that Nadia and Ivy both know. It's too late to do anything else, and it would be just like fucking Jason over, and not in the pleasant way at that. "Mom, I'm gay." He finishes, and is surprised that in the end his voice doesn't even waver, and even to himself he sounds almost eerily calm, like Jesus facing crucifixion.
There is a painfully loud silence on the other end of the line, and he can hear the clock in the office ticking down a countdown to his damnation.
"Peter." His mother finally says, voice choked up like she's trying her hardest not to cry but not quite succeeding. "You're still so young, you can't possibly know what you want yet."
"You were younger when you and dad started dating." Peter says, not bothering to point out how that had ended up, because it had all been his fault, and with two short words had destroyed so many happy years of marriage. Easy-Bake Oven. I'm Gay. What was the difference, really?
His mother is silent for several agonizing moments. "I'll call you back," she says finally, but it feels like a million miles away and its clear how much she doesn't really want to.
He barely puts his phone down, when the tears come gushing out like an unbidden flood, hot and salty against his cheeks, and he feels rather than hears Jason's footsteps behind him as strong arms wrap around him.
"Didn't go well?" Jason asks, warm breath ghosting against Peter's ear, the pad of his thumb brushing away Peter's tears, and despite everything Peter can't suppress a slight shiver. He turns in Jason's arms, and lets his head flop down against one shoulder. Neither of them say anything.
"I think it just needs time. She's not like my dad, so I think it was just the shock."
"Or maybe she's fine with it as long as it's not you," Jason mutters.
"You're really not helping." Peter points out, rolling his eyes and attempting to hide his slight smile against Jason's sleeve.
"Sorry," he says, sounding sincere. "At least you know she's trying." Jason adds, and they smile uneasily at each other, knowing that so many people out there wouldn't, like Ivy, too in love with her idea of Jason to try to understand him.