Three: I don’t need to stand here and be screamed at if I don’t want to.
So, I turn on my heel and go right back out the front door. “I’m going for a walk.”
I slam the door in the face of her reply.
* * *
I sit in the park for a while, watching the sun slowly set. As the darkness creeps in, fear starts to scrape at my chest with shadowy fingers. Maybe yelling back only went okay because she was so shocked. Maybe you’ve made it worse. Maybe when you go back, she’ll have something planned to make you regret what you did.
But if that’s the case, I can leave again. I can go to a hotel, I can go to Jon, I can even go to Zach in Portland.
It’s okay for me to leave.
So, psyching myself up with this mantra, I walk back home.
Mom and Dad are both on the couch watching TV when I enter. There’s no yelling. Mom looks up at me with a cloudy face, but all the redness is gone. Dad places a hand on her arm, and neither of them speak.
“I’ve been wanting to come out publicly since I was sixteen,” I say, by way of a greeting. “Chorus never let me. Whenever I tried to push back, they pushed me further into the background in the band. They make me dress plainly. They won’t give me any good solos. They never wanted me to be too big, just in case people saw too much of who I really am. When we got overseas, it got bad. They didn’t let us leave the hotel. They stopped allowing us to have visitors or speak to friends. They didn’t make time for us to eat every meal. Then, when Zach and I happened, they turned on us even more. They basically told us we could never make it public. They lied to the media about our personal lives, and forced us to lie, too. They separated us in public, and they punished us if we even looked at each other onstage.”
My throat is tightening, and it’s getting hard to force the words out. Usually, I’d swallow the sensation down, and breathe until everything loosened up. Instead, now, for the first time in a long, long time, instead of my emotions coming out in a tangle of anger and anxiety, I don’t fight them.
“I decided to come out anyway,” I say, the words fractured. “Which is not against our contract terms. It was so, so important to me that I don’t have to lie about myself anymore. I want to be myself. I want to be allowed to have boyfriends without hiding them. And then … I … started … and they turned my mic off.”
The anger has disappeared from Mom’s face. Dad’s nodding, but it’s a severe sort of nod. A funeral nod.
Finally, tears well up in my eyes. And I don’t fight them.
For the first time in a long, long time, I just let them fall.
“They turned my mic off,” I repeat helplessly.
Mom rises to her feet and wraps her arms around me. I fall against her chest, and everything feels hot and humid and wet. The tears flow more freely now, and I break into sobs as she rubs a flattened palm over my back.
At least she’s stopped screaming at me. It won’t be the last time she does it, but at least, in this moment, I don’t have to deal with her fury on top of everything else. Right now, I’ll take it.
“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs.
I don’t know how to believe her. But I try.
* * *
Jon’s mom calls a group meeting at her sister’s apartment in Orange County the next day.
When Mom and I arrive, Zach and his mom, Laura, are already there. Dad wanted to come with us, but he had to work and Mom convinced him she’d give him the rundown when she got home.
I make a beeline for Zach as soon as we step out of the private elevator, which opens into a hallway attached to the main living area. We throw our arms around each other while our moms give each other pleasant, if detached, greetings. All of our parents know each other, of course; they met during our performance at Camp Hollow Rock years ago, and have sat together at numerous concerts and events since. I suspect that Laura isn’t the biggest fan of my mom, though. I also suspect that’s mostly because Zach’s told her his very strong opinions about my mom.
Mrs. Braxton is a petite woman, shorter than Jon, with a halo of dark brown, curly hair, and a smile that’s usually beaming, but today has a tired, tight edge to it. Jon messaged us last night and told us by the time we’d landed back in LA, she’d already packed his stuff and taken it, as well as herself, to stay here for a while. I doubt either of them got much sleep last night.
She nudges a pizza box toward us. “Hungry?”
Mom blinks like she’s been assaulted with something hideous and confronting. “Oh. Pizza. Maybe later.” Her smile is convincing, now. Smooth recovery. “Thank you so much for hosting, Shantelle,” she says. “This was a wonderful idea, getting everyone together to strategize before we have the chance to be bowled over.”