Tears cascaded down my face, hot and salty and never-ending, as I drove home. I couldn't stay there. In that house. With Emmett talking to Duke. Saying all those things. I shouldn't have been eavesdropping. I knew that. It was wrong. But I froze in the middle of the living room the second I heard Emmett say, "Translation: you're horny."

That shattered something inside me. The word heartbroken had never made so much sense to me before. I imagined a glass sculpture of a heart (not an anatomical heart, but one of those cartoony commercialized Valentine ones) in the place where my actual heart should be. It fractured each time Emmett proved he didn't want me. Surely there were enough cracks now that it was irreparably damaged. Any day now, it would crumble to dust.

I didn't care that my boxers were still damp. I put on my clothes, ready to bolt.

Everything Emmett said pointed to the fact that he wanted Duke. I knew it was over before it ever got a chance to begin. I left as the tears started.

Emmett wanted Duke.

Alfie.

I had to stop fighting the fact that this would never happen. Emmett would never be mine.

If I were thinking clearly, I would've gone around the side of my house to my private entrance to avoid being seen. But I wasn't. So I didn't. Instead, I rushed in through the front door, past my mother in the kitchen. Flinging my bedroom door shut, I collapsed on the bed and buried my face in a pillow, hoping it would muffle the sounds of my sobbing. I couldn't believe I almost confessed everything to him. My feelings, my fantasies, my hopes for what we could be.

There was a knock on the door.

I shouted, "I'm not hungry." My voice sounded so heavy and hoarse.

The door creaked as it opened. I raised my head and said, "I told you, I'm not hungry."

"It's a good thing it's not time to eat then," Mom quipped.

I didn't have the strength to muster a fake laugh at her stupid joke. "Can you please leave me alone?"

Mom sat beside me on the edge of the bed and laid a hand on my forehead. "Are you feeling sick again?"

"I'm fine. Just go." I sounded so desperate, even to my own ears.

"Clayton, what's wrong?"

"Ugh!" I hated my given name. I'd been Clay since I was five years old. No one called me Clayton. Except my mom when I was in trouble, pulling out the triple-barrel-name-drop for effect.

My mother must've thought this a serious occasion to drop a "Clayton" on me.

"You can tell me anything." She stroked her fingers through my hair. "I will love you no matter what."

My eyes went wide as all the air escaped my lungs. I stared at the red and black checks on my bedspread. "What?"

She couldn't know the truth. There was no way. I was just projecting my issues onto her motivations.

She moved on to rub circles on my back. "Just talk to me. I'm worried about you."

"I'm not sick anymore." I hoped that would be enough to get her to leave.

It wasn't.

"You should take one of your pills." Mom grabbed the orange pill bottle off the nightstand and fished out a single pill.

This wasn't a panic attack. I'd had enough of those to know the difference. But it could easily turn into one if I didn't calm down. So, I accepted the pill from her hand and dry swallowed it as a precaution.

"Maybe you should start seeing someone again," Mom said. "I know Dr. Gold retired, but we can find you someone else."

"I don't need another therapist," I insisted.

"If you can't tell me, I want you to tell someone. I'm worried that you're dealing with some very serious things, Clay." She gripped my shoulder. "Things that might be confusing you. Maybe even scaring you."

My heart stopped. Okay, that was overdramatic. It didn't stop. It just felt like it did to me. The gnawing sick pain in my stomach wasn't helping matters. "Why would you... Why would you say that?"

I sat up and scowled at her, feeling betrayed. There was only one way she could possibly know what I was going through. I'd only said my true feelings out loud once. "Were you eavesdropping on my conversation with Summer?"

I admit it was very hypocritical of me to be angry at someone else for doing that, when I did the exact same thing to Emmett not even fifteen minutes ago. But I did not care about right and wrong.

"Summer?" She furrowed her brow and shook her head, confused. "No."

"Then what are you talking about?"

Her face softened as she stared at me lovingly. "I wanted you to be the one to tell me, but I'm worried about you. I haven't seen you this upset since your dad died, honey. And I think I know what's going on."

"What did you want me to tell you? What do you think is going on?"

Part of me wanted her to say it and be right. To just have it out there and be done with it. No matter the fallout. It was so hard living like this. Another part wanted her to be wrong. Some off the wall theory that I could easily explain away, like her believing I was on drugs. I could disprove that with a blood test. Hell, they sold drug testing kits at the pharmacy. I could just pee in a cup right in my own bathroom and have the results in a matter of minutes.

"When you were sick, I don't know if you were delirious from the fever or just having vivid dreams, but you were talking in your sleep. You used to do that all the time when you were little." She brushed the hair off my forehead, pressing her hand briefly against my cheek. "You kept calling out a name. Over and over. You kept telling them how much you loved them and how much you wanted them to stay. It seemed like they were leaving you. You were so upset."

I could barely breathe. I couldn't even blink. My chest felt so tight and heavy. There was only one person I'd dreamed about for weeks. "What name?" The words came out barely above a whisper.

I knew the answer. And I could tell that she knew I knew it by her pitying stare. But I needed her to say it. It wouldn't be real until she said it.

"Emmett," she said. "In some form or another, you kept saying, 'I love you. Emmett. Please don't leave me.'" She reached up to wipe a fresh tear from beneath her eye with her index finger.

I swallowed past the pit in my throat and sniffled. My lip quivered. My eyes stung as fresh tears broke through, rolling down my cheeks. "I'm sorry."

Now she was full-on crying too. "Why, baby? Why are you sorry?"

"Because I shouldn't feel like this."

"Why not?"

"Because he's my friend. And... because he's... he's—"

"Because he's a boy?"

I nodded. "None of my friends will understand."

"Then they aren't real friends." Mom threw her arms around me, squeezing me so tight I couldn't catch my breath. But I was barely breathing right before, so I didn't fight it. It was nice, actually. I broke down sobbing as she rocked me back and forth, softly crooning "You're All I Need to Get By." My dad's favorite song.

After I'd calmed down, she pulled back to grip my shoulders, staring me in the eyes, ignoring the tears pouring down both our faces. "There is nothing wrong with the way you feel, sweetheart. If it's for a girl, or a boy, or someone somewhere in between."

"I don't know if I'm actually... y'know." I couldn't muster the courage to say the word aloud just yet. Even though I was pretty certain that's what I was. If I were anything else, surely I would've been a attracted to at least one girl in my life. But that didn't matter at the moment. My feelings for Emmett were the only relevant topic. "I just know that I love him."

"That's okay. That's all you ever really need to know." She wiped her thumbs across my cheeks to clear away the tear trails. "I really like Emmett. He's a sweet boy. And you've been so much happier since you met him. Which makes me like him even more."

I took a deep, ragged breath. "I don't want to lose him, Mom."

"Why would you lose him? I hope you don't think we would ever keep you from seeing him." She laid a hand on my face. "We just want you to be happy, Clay."

That meant more to me than she would ever know.

"Thank you." I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, using the heel of my palms to clear away the tears still coming, though not as rapidly. "But it's not you. It's him. He doesn't feel the same way about me."

"How do you know? Have you asked?"

"No, but he—"

"No." She cut me off, jabbing a finger toward my face. "He might be sitting in his room crying his eyes out to his own mother about how he thinks you don't feel the same way about him."

"He also has a boyfriend."

"Oh." Mom's eyes widened. "That makes it a little more complicated. Although your dad—David, not Mike—had a girlfriend when I first met him."

"Mom, you were a home-wrecker?" I had to laugh. The moment of levity felt nice.

She made a scoffing sound that devolved into a chuckle. "I did no home-wrecking. Besides, we were only twenty. Very few people end up with the person they dated at twenty."

"What happened?"

"We just clicked right away. It's like—" she shook her head with a far off look her in eyes "—the Earth shifted and everything was brighter, more colorful."

"Wait. I thought you guys didn't get together until law school."

"We didn't. We were friends for almost two years because one of us was dating someone else the whole time. When he broke up with that girl he'd been with, I had started seeing another man. Our timing just never seemed to work out. I honestly thought we'd never happen."

"How'd you finally get together?"

"We were in a study group together—about six of us. And we all were cramming for a test at my apartment until almost three in the morning. Everyone finally gave up and went home, except David, who stayed to help me clean up. He was telling me about this girl he'd just started seeing. He didn't like that she called him Davey. And I just said, 'I can't do this anymore. It hurts too much to watch you love other people.'"

"What'd he say?"

"He said, 'Okay.'"

"'Okay?'"

She nodded. "He said, 'Okay,' then he put his coat on and headed for the door. I was so angry because I thought he was just going to leave me like that. I asked where he was going, and if that was it for us. Then he turned back to me with that beautiful smile of his." She tapped my chin. "That same smile as you. And he said, 'I have to leave right now before I kiss you, and someday we have to tell our kids I was a cheater when we got together.'"

I smiled. "He was confident."

"Too much for his own good sometimes." She had the faint trace of a smile. "The next day he broke up with the girl he'd been seeing and asked me out as we were handing in our tests in class. He said, 'it's about damn time our life together starts.' He proposed a month later and a year after that we were married, and you were on the way."

And nine years later he was gone.

"That doesn't really help me," I said. "Are you saying I should wait? Just stew in my misery for potentially years."

Mom shook her head and brushed the back of her hand across my cheek. "No. The exact opposite. I wish I hadn't waited so long to be honest with him. We lost so much time that we could've had together because I was too afraid to tell him the truth. And that's all you can do. Be honest. With yourself and with Emmett. Then it's up to him to decide what happens next."

"But what if he still doesn't want me?"

"If you're anything like me when I lost my first love, you cry your eyes out, eat way too much ice cream, get a really bad haircut—" she cringed at a memory "—and then you meet the second love of your life. And the third. And the fourth. And the tenth. Because, baby, that whole one true love thing is a huge fucking crock of shit."

"Mom!" I laughed. "I'm surprised. The only time I've ever heard you cuss is when you get road rage."

"Sometimes the situation just calls for saying a fuck or two."

I cracked up again, feeling lighter already. "Who are you?"

"Don't act like you're so innocent, little boy." She gave me a gentle push. "'I love you' wasn't the only thing you were saying in that dream. You kept yelling at someone to 'fuck off.' I assume that wasn't also directed at Emmett."

I shook my head. "It was probably Duke."

"Duke? Why would you say that to him?"

"Duke is Emmett's boyfriend."

"Really?" The look of shock on her face was the look I expected from my confession that I was in love with another boy. I was actually glad that I didn't get it.

"You can't tell anyone," I demanded. "Not even Dad."

"I won't. I promise."

Just like when I told Summer my secret, I felt lighter now that I had one more person to help shoulder the load. Maybe she was right and the real burden was hiding it. Telling Emmett could be the key to ending this torment, and the wrenching ache that I always carried in my gut.

"I love you, Clay." My mother leaned in and kissed my forehead. "Always remember that."

I gripped her hand and squeezed it. "I love you, too, Mom. Maybe now more than ever."

She patted my leg. "Now, go tell that boy how you feel. Don't waste anymore time wishing things were different. Do something to change them."

"Do you mind?" I motioned toward the door.

She smiled and nodded. "Sure."

After she'd gone, I took out my phone and called Emmett, who sounded frantic when he answered. "Are you okay? Why'd you leave like that?"

I picked at a loose thread on the hem of my shorts. "I wasn't feeling well. But I'm better now."

I heard him take a deep breath. "About today, before Alfie called—"

"Emmett," I said, interrupting him.

"Yeah?"

With my heart pounding in my ears, I asked, "Would you maybe wanna have dinner with me tomorrow night? And we can go to Jackson's party afterwards."

There was a long silence on the other end. So long that I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure I hadn't been disconnected. The timer was still counting.

"Emmett?"

Finally, he said, "I'd love to."

"Okay. It's a date." I couldn't stop smiling. "Um, I'll let you go now. And I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

"Bye, Emmett."

"Bye," he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.

I hit the button to end the call and tossed the phone aside, falling back against the mattress, an excited giggle bubbling up from my throat. I did a little happy dance, which to an observer would probably look like I was a turtle stuck on its back trying to flip over. But I was alone, so I kept squirming around, unable to contain my excitement.

Although this was just the first step. I still had to tell him how I felt.