18. Mother Knows Best Tabby

A ll the tears made driving incredibly dangerous, but I risked it to get to Mom’s house. I sobbed like I hadn’t in years. The look of betrayal on Jax’s face would haunt me until I spoke to him again. Calling him wouldn’t have helped, because I couldn’t give him the answers he really wanted.

But I could tell Mom.

Keeping the secret from her for a month was hard enough; now that he’d spent even more time with me, he would become even harder to hide. The fact Annie knew still scared me, too, and telling Rob was out of the question. If he knew my first love was living with Ethan, he would explode with irrational jealousy. Like we needed more reasons to fight.

Mom’s bungalow in the bay was petite and appropriate for one. She had a great view of the green hills behind Sausalito and wasn’t so close to the marina that it smelled like pond scum at low tide. In “the sweet spot,” as she called it. Fortunately, there was space on the street out front for my small car, and I ran up to her door without texting that I was on my way.

The porch light flashed on, and she peered through the window, yelping in surprise. “Sweetheart, what’s going on?”

“Mom?” I sniffled and wiped my face with both hands, careful not to rub my eyes since I still had contacts in. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay...come in.” She held me close and draped careful hands on my strange clothing when we sat down. “What is all this?”

“I went out. You know, with that friend.” I took a few tissues from the box on her side table.

“Oh, no. Did something happen with your friend?” She cupped my face. “Tabby, what did he do to you?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. He’s fine. He’s sweet. He’s charming. He’s generous.” I hiccupped, unable to control it. “He’s gorgeous. He’s—”

“ Not Robby,” Mom said, squinting. She had her issues with him like everybody but helped ground me when I felt like giving up on us.

“Nope. He’s not Rob.” I shrugged and barely squeaked, “He’s Jax.”

She squinted even harder. “What do you mean, like Jax?”

“No, not like Jax. He is Jax.” I felt like my age reversed by ten years. Nobody but Mom could see my panic. “He found me.”

Mom was stunned. She offered nothing else.

“Guess now you know why I said I was sure you’d love him.” Burying my face, I broke down in more bitter tears. “I still love him, too.”

She dragged her fingers up and down my spine, still not saying anything at all. We marinated in our respective shock over his reappearance.

“He doesn’t know it’s me. Doesn’t recognize me. It’s a dream and a nightmare together. He’s here, he’s grown up, and he’s just as wonderful now as he was when our lives were nothing more than potential plans. Now reality’s here.” I wiped my face again and righted my spine, staring at the ceiling as if that would help the downward flow of tears. “Tonight, we spent hours together, laughing and bonding like no time went by. But he asked to come meet you, and I shot him down. I’m so terrified of him finding out who I really am that I’m pushing him away.”

“Oh, Tabby,” she said, in a judgmental tone that screamed disapproval. “If that boy is anything like the one I remember, I’m sure it’ll be fine if he knows. His father raised him right, that’s for sure.”

I frowned at her. “What would his dad have to do with it?”

Mom paused for a moment, halting the movement of her hand, then spoke with slow, careful words the way she did whenever she talked about me from the past. Helped her not use the wrong pronouns, so I was used to it. “Dale taught Jax how to be...respectful, I think, is the best word for it. Traditional. Jax came to our door when he got his driver’s license and asked for my blessing to tell you he loved you. You two had been together for a while by that point, but it was very sweet to see a young man, dressed in a smart shirt and tie, nervously confessing his plans with my kid. It’s the kind of thing your father would’ve wanted to see.”

Like it did many times over the past few hours, my heart rushed. “He asked for your blessing just for that?” Even years in the future, his actions caught me by surprise. I recalled every moment of the first time he said it, the anxious tremble of his hands and the awkwardness afterward. But in retrospect, it wasn’t spontaneous—Jax recited a well-practiced script.

“Of course not. He asked me not to tell you so it would be a surprise. I laughed about it with Dale later.”

I tried to let her lightness set the mood and wiped my tears. “I can’t believe you remember his dad’s name.”

She cocked a brow. “You didn’t think I’d let you two go places without checking in on his end, did you? Parents talk, as they should. Especially when their teenagers might be sleeping together.”

“Jesus, Mom.” I turned away, not wanting to discuss it any more now than I did at sixteen.

Mercifully, she changed the subject back to the existing issue. “How long has Jax been in San Francisco?”

“Over a month. Now it feels too late to say anything.” Shame forced me to surrender to her shoulder. I played with my tie, not wanting to remove it since his hands put it on me. “And I shouldn’t say anything anyway. We have no future. I’m with Rob. I love Rob. He’s been doing so much better lately, and I can’t risk screwing that up over Jax.”

Mom ran through my hair and relaxed, letting us both fall into the soft cushions of her oversized, green couch. “What does Rob think about all this?”

I scoffed. “Are you kidding me? He doesn’t know. Jax moved in with Ethan, so if Rob found out our connection, he’d go ballistic. Can’t risk it.”

“So, your plan is to live happily ever after with Rob, never tell Jax who you are, and hope you can keep your feelings for both of them separate?” Mom tipped my chin up to her. “Sorry, son. I know you too well.”

My eyes fell and focused on nothing just to escape her mind-reading glance.

“I don’t have an answer for the next right thing to do. It’s your choice. But remember what your therapist said all those years ago? You can’t expect people to respect and accept you for who you are if you never show them. If you don’t give Jax a chance to see who you’ve become, that’s such a shame. I bet he would be proud of you.”

This only made me cry harder. The truth was red-hot and cut through me. Of course he would. He’d say it, too, and would ask me what I wanted to be called. Would whisper that I was a handsome man, and yield to my want to charm him in return.

Yet I owed someone else the same chance to prove himself. “If I tell Jax the truth, and he fully accepts me, I’d be giving up on what Rob and I have. I can’t risk what we’ve built for a chance with my teenage dream. Rob’s better than that. God, how selfish can I—”

“Stop that,” she said, attempting to halt my downward spiral of thought. “You deserve to have what you want in your life, Tabby. Telling Jax the truth won’t change what you have unless you want that to change. Don’t conflate telling him with having to be with him. One does not equal the other.”

I sniffed and tried to focus on her through my waterlogged eyes. “But what if I do want to be with him? What then?”

She sighed. “Then you need to tell Rob.”

“Ugh... Rob ...why did Jax have to show up right when Rob seems to be getting his shit together?” My upset turned to frustration, and I stood to pace in front of the couch. “Seriously. Since he moved in, he’s an entirely different person—except it’s not perfectly consistent. One day, he’ll bring me flowers or write me a cheesy note. The next day, he’ll harp on me for not losing enough weight, or he’ll ask if I’m considering surgery again. I keep tellin’ him that I’m fine the way I am, and for a little while he’ll act like he heard me, but then the cycle repeats.”

“Have you actually talked to Rob about the good things, or are they just happening for no reason?”

“That’s the thing—it’s spontaneous. Like he stumbled on a blog post of ideas for charming your boyfriend. It’s weird. And I think it’s weird because the things he does...” I stopped myself, not wanting to say it out loud.

“What?” Mom leaned forward again. “Come on, say it.”

I deflated my lungs and folded my arms. “He does things the way Jax would. It’s like...Jax showed up, and now Rob is more like him than ever.” There were no more words to help me pinpoint how to feel about Rob’s change. Only one sufficed, and I said it while holding up both my hands. “ Bizarre. ”

She stood and hugged me, pecking my cheek as she did. “I don’t have an answer for you, sweetheart. But I trust that you’ll do the right thing.”

I groaned. Sure. Except I can’t be trusted with anything right now.

––––––––

I n too deep. In too deep. In too deep.

I couldn’t very well Google, How late is too late to tell someone the truth? Without doubt, somewhere between he asks if he knows you from somewhere and you could jump into the past without missing a beat .

Guilt was a suffocating weed, and I’d spread the seeds all by myself.

As if keeping my secret from Jax wasn’t enough, keeping it from Rob felt even worse. If I couldn’t tell my boyfriend about my past, how could we ever move forward? My sideways betrayal of his trust had little to no justification. I debated the right way to tell my partner that my first love had emerged in our lives, and my heart hurt. Rob’s volatile nature meant he could easily break up with me for keeping it from him or punish me by sticking around to rub the secret in my face for years. It really could go either way.

I drove home straight from Mom’s place after changing back into my scrubs, determined to sit down with Rob as soon as I saw him, baring my soul and the minutiae of my life that he didn’t already know. Even rehearsed certain phrases out loud in my car, all the way down to comebacks for all the hard questions I could imagine.

“Yes, Jax was my boyfriend a long time ago. No, he doesn’t know who I am. No, I’m not still in love with him. How could I still be in love with him? I love you , Rob. Nobody else. You know better than to ask me that. Well, if you paid a little more attention, you might’ve noticed how my ring disappeared the night he came to D&D. This might come as a shock to you, but that ring? It came from Jax. If I wore it, he’d know, alright? It’s too much. Too big. If anything, it proves how well he knew me then. Now? Yeah...yeah, he knows me pretty well. Understands me. No, I swear it isn’t because I...I don’t know if there will ever be a right time. But that’s why I wanted to tell you , okay? You’re supposed to love me back in this scenario. Our anniversary is coming up. If you don’t want to stick around, guess I have a good choice for backup, don’t I?”

The fake argument in my car felt too real, so I had to stop before it made my blood boil. My confession needed a delicate touch—not a rush of misplaced, defensive anger.

Here we go. Come on. I let out a long exhale and hopped from my car. Every step toward the front door of our building grew by another three feet for how long it took me to get up the stairs. The door was unlocked, and I said a silent prayer that Rob would be his newfound, patient self.

“Hello? Rob?” I called to the rest of the place, surprised he wasn’t in the living room watching TV. Instead, from the back of the hall, I heard moaning.

Not just any moaning. Rob crying. A heart wrenching noise that made my stomach flip.

Dear lord. What happened?

I took ginger steps to the bedroom, finding him face-down in the black cotton pillowcases. A complete mess. It had been a long time.

“Rob?” I whispered, sitting at his side and rubbing his back. “Tell me what happened.”

He choked into the fabric and pounded the mattress with heavy, strong fists that were powerful weapons. I was sure to stay clear of his rage. “My cousin Serena called me. Found me and called me. Wanted to let me know our grandma died.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, deflating to comfort him. “Rob, I’m so sorry. When is her service?”

“They already had it,” he screamed, curling into himself even more. “Serena noticed I was missing and wanted to reach out so I would at least know. They didn’t invite me. Didn’t even fucking tell me. It’s like I don’t exist.”

What came out of him was more than just tears. He wailed. Alone. A whole family out there who didn’t want him, all because he’d rather be Rob and not Rachel.

“My mom told me I killed her baby. But her baby’s right here. I’m right here , and I need her. Fuck my dad. Fuck my brother. All the assholes who judged me. But Tabby, I need my mom.” He coughed and stopped talking, drained of all feeling, having poured every last drop into the bedspread.

I spooned him tight against my chest and cried right alongside him, unable to pretend his words didn’t hurt me, too. For all Jax might struggle to get over me, Rob was here, and his struggles were ten times as large. He understood me in ways Jax never could.

Our lives, no matter how joyful or good, were always tinged with a large dose of fear. Fear for our loved ones, our family, our friends. Fear for our jobs, our doctors, our care. It was fear that drove Rob and I into each other, and fear that made sure neither of us would leave.

So I kept Jax to myself and my lover by my side. “I’m here, Rob. I love you. I love you, I swear...”