Page 86 of Exchanged

Gina places her hand over her mouth and turns half away, as if trying to avoid looking at a murder scene.

Emma clutches her elbows. Lana excuses herself to wait outside, muttering something about “wrapping this up” as she leaves.

But I’m focused on Garrett as he transforms before my eyes. When his parents arrived, I saw him pull into himself, hiding everything that would give away too much of who he is or whom he cares about. And then I saw the pain in him build as he watched our families sign away the rest of his time in Irontown. Then the embarrassment at the way his father treated us.

Now I see rage.

His face grows red, a vein bulging in his neck, his entire body tensing, like he’s ready to tackle something. He steps toward his father, grabs his arm, and spins him around to face him. Brock’s hands ball into fists, his chest heaving from yelling at Dad, but Garrett doesn’t let go. Their faces are inches from each other. This man hit Garrett before, and I have no doubt he’d do it again.

It is suddenly quiet.

“Enzo didn’t do anything to me,” Garrett growls, his voice an overtightened cello string. “Neither did Corey or Lisbeth or my teachers. You love blaming everyone else, don’t you? Anything to convince yourself that this isn’t who I am.”

“It isn’t—”

“Shut up,” Garrett snarls. “For once in your goddamn life, just listen. I love Enzo. I loved him before he even knew I was bi. It wasn’t something he did to me, some gay trance he put me under. I chose to love him and was lucky enough to have him love me back.”

Garrett lets go of Brock’s arm and takes a step away from him. He looks between his parents.

“I don’t fucking get it,” he tells them. “The two of you. Dad, your boss is lesbian. You’ve met her partner. You pretend to like them. Mom, most of your church friends don’t even believe half the shit Pastor Reeves says about queer people. So why the hell is it so hard for you to handle the fact that I’m bi?”

Gina pulls her anxious gaze from her husband and settles it on her son. Her face looks like a half-broken eggshell, her voice soft. “Can we talk about this later?”

Garrett shakes his head. “No, we damn well can’t. I just spent a year not telling you about this incredible boy I’ve fallen in love with. I’m tired of hiding shit. We talk about this now.”

Some of the bluster has left Brock. He takes a deep breath. “Garrett, you’re our son.”

It takes me a second to realize that this is his answer to Garrett’s earlier question: Garrett is his son, which makes him the one person Brock can’t handle being queer.

Garrett squints at him. “No shit.”

“Your mom and I, we just want what’s best for you.”

Garrett shakes his head. “You’re a walking cliché, you know that, right? Who the fuck beats their kid and sends him to Michigan for a year in the hope that he’ll get turned straight and then has the balls to tell him that he just wants what’s best for him?”

Tears pool in Gina’s eyes. “I know it feels like we haven’t shown it very well, but—”

“Haven’t shown it well?” Garrett snarls. “Which part? Separating me from my friends? Using my college fund to control me? Dad trying to beat the shit out of me?”

“Garrett,” Gina pleads. She takes a step toward him, placing her hands on his cheeks, a last-ditch effort to hold on to him. “If this … if this is who you think you are, then your father and I … we can work to be okay with it. Right, Brock?”

Brock’s jaw twists. He runs his tongue across his teeth. Then he grants her an almost imperceptible nod. Her. Like he’s giving consent to her to say whatever it takes to get Garrett home.

Garrett stares at them for a long time. How long has he waited for his mom to say this? For them to give him even this much? We all watch him, his eyes traveling between his parents, fingers tapping against his leg. He hangs there, suspended in silence and uncertainty, between two families and futures, and all I want to do is reach out and hold him.

His arms hug around himself. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, his anger leaving him, replaced by want. He wants his parents’ promise to be true, wants to believe that things could be good again, that he could go back to the home he wishes he still had.

Standing in the circle formed by his family and mine, he seems so small.

I step forward. “Garrett.”

At the sound of his name, he turns toward me. He looks like he’s about to shatter.

“You deserve more than this,” I say, my eyes flicking toward his parents. His own words—from that night long ago when he held me against his rough hunter’s jacket and told me what he thought I deserved—echo across my memory. “You deserve a real home. You deserve a family who already loves you, not one who wants to change you.”

Brock moves behind Garrett and clamps his hands on his shoulders. “We are his family,” he tells me. “Not you.” He turns Garrett to face him, his voice growing softer. “We brought you home from the hospital,” he tells him, and the forced gentleness feels jarring and out of place compared with his fury from a moment ago. “We watched you take your first steps. Your first word was your brother’s name. Remember?”

Garrett nods.