Crazy Love (mxm)

Chapter Twenty-Six

James' POV

Things were so great with Carter, I was constantly on cloud nine. But, unfortunately, the view from cloud nine made it awfully hard to see bad things coming.

It started after a really great day at work. I'd been at Al's Autobody for a little over a week, and I was gaining the respect of the other mechanics. I was good at the job and enjoyed it.

When I got home, Dillon was sitting at the kitchen table with a letter in hand. He stared at me wordlessly when I walked through the door and I could tell that something was wrong.

"You okay?" I asked, not loving the sinking feeling in my gut. "What's up, kid?"

"Um—" He cleared his throat and looked down at the table. "Um—" He took a deep breath and held out the envelope. "I can't open it."

My heart dropped the second I saw the to-fancy cursive on the front. It was addressed to me. The sender was Gregory Folan.

"It's from our dad?" I asked, beyond puzzled. "I don't even...how does he know where we live?"

Dillon looked up at me, those puppy-dog eyes of his filled with sorrow. Whereas usually his confidence filled an entire room, today he looked small and uncertain. "I guess, maybe from Elijah?"

Our uncle Elijah was the one family member who'd bothered to keep in touch after our parents threw us out. For the most part, our extended family (as small as it was) was on board with our parent's decision. Elijah, however, invited us to stay with him the first year of being on our own.

He was the reason we were able to save up and get an apartment. Dillon even managed to get a degree, fully funded by federal aid, of course. We had Elijah to thank.

"We don't know that he'd—" I began.

"He's a bastard," Dillon spit, staring at his hands. "Of course he would. He only took us in because he hates mom, not because he cared about us. Half the time he was trying to beat you to shit anyway."

"We owe him a lot," I countered. But Dillon was right; if dad wanted to know where we were, Elijah would tell him. Elijah didn't care any more for us than he did for our parents.

It had been over a decade since I thought about being kicked out because of Dillon's sexuality. It brought back pain and resentment— although it was muted compared to the way it was before. As a kid, it was easy to feel like my parents' judgement mattered. Now, it was hard to care.

"I'll open it," I said, sitting at the table next to Dillon. Part of me just wanted to throw the letter in the trash, but I knew neither Dillon nor I could follow through with that. There had to be a reason that our dad was contacting us after ten years of radio silence.

I opened the envelope and unfolded the piece of lined paper that was inside. His handwriting was way too perfect for the shitty piece of paper.

I scanned the words before saying anything to Dillon.

James,

It's unfortunate that I must write this letter in such trying times. Your mother has passed. She was diagnosed with cancer a few years back and it finally caught up to her. She was only fifty-seven.

Before she passed, she expressed a desire to have you and your brother at the funeral. It is on Saturday. I'll leave the address at the bottom.

-Greg

It was like the moment after a bomb explodes in a movie— everything went still, my ears started ringing, and there was this bizarre sense of nothingness.

My mother was dead.

My mother, who didn't want me in her life until the very last moment, was dead. My mother, who never thought to inform her children that she was dying of cancer, was dead.

I handed the letter to Dillon. I bit the side of my tongue so hard that I could taste blood, but I still didn't feel anything. I didn't know what to feel.

Feeling came back when Dillon read the letter, and tears slipped silently down his cheeks. He looked at me, expression wholly shattered, and the first words out of his mouth were, "He didn't even say my name, James. He didn't say my name."

All I needed to do was open my arms and Dillon was in them. It brought me back to a decade ago, when Dillon came to me crying. I'd been reading a Stephen King novel and he'd burst into my bedroom, tears streaming down his cheeks.

He'd told me that he was gay, and that our parents hated him. He didn't want to tell me, because I was popular at school and he thought I'd make fun of him. But after our parents had told him to drop the act or pack his bags, he had nothing left to lose.

It snowballed into hours of screaming between me and my parents. Dillon was just a kid, and his heart was broken. So I'd fought for him— and in the end, they wanted me gone too.

I wrapped my arms around Dillon, hating how fragile he felt. He'd built up a wall of confidence so tall and thick that even I forgot what it looked like when it was broken.

"We don't have to go," I found myself saying. "I'm so sorry, Dillon. They're evil. They're evil, okay? We don't have to go."

The two of us curled up on the couch, and Dillon wiped at his face. "I can't believe she's dead, James. Is it bad that I'm angry? I...I wish that I got to see her before she died. She really hates me that much? She didn't even want to see me before she died, one last time?"

I didn't really have answers for him. I didn't know why there were parents who stopped loving their children over something so insignificant. I had no idea how to make him feel better.

"They'd hate me too if they knew, Dil," I said. I didn't know if it was comforting, but I didn't want him to feel alone in his parent's hatred. "If they knew I was dating a man, we wouldn't have gotten a letter at all."

Dillon didn't answer, but he hugged me closer.

He ended up falling asleep on the couch with his head in my lap. I couldn't sleep.

I ended up going to the bar that night.