A/n: reader request of Everett whining to his mom about his crush xD
This takes place between chapter 13 and 14
Everett
I sighed loudly, collapsing onto the kitchen chair. My mom was busy preparing enchiladas and paid me no heed. I sighed again, louder this time.
She looked up in annoyance from the griddle where she was roasting the peppers. "Can you please have your pity party elsewhere?"
Aha! An opening I can use. It didn't matter in what context she spoke; she was now engaging and she couldn't take it back.
"Clementine definitely has some gay vibes right? Do you see it too?"
Mom clicked her tongue in irritation, not offering up a response. I had already asked her the same question several times since I'd met him, and she'd already established that she didn't care.
"If you're going to hang around here, at least make yourself useful." She slid a cutting board and a large garlic towards me, pointing a demanding finger. "Chop."
"The last counseling session got really weird," I started, spinning the garlic around the board like a top. "Holly asked us to say three things we loved about each other, and I said a lot of...stuff."
"Your counseling thing is stupid. You're always doing stupid things." She filled a saucepan with water, dropping in the roasted chilies. "If you wanted to ask him out you should've just done it, instead of doing...whatever the hell this is," she said, gesturing at me with barely concealed disgust.
"But he was very chill about going to couples counseling with me," I explained, "A straight guy wouldn't do that right? Unless he just thought it was funny...but then again, he didn't really seem to be having fun either...."
I considered this for a moment. Clementine had acted very against the counseling idea, but he had still gone for every session. He didn't really have a reason to keep showing up.
"He said he just wanted muffins...." I was muttering mostly to myself by now. "And I know my muffins are good, but it's still a lot to go through just for muffins."
I gave the garlic a particularly spectacular twist and it spun right off the table, rolling across the floor to where my mom stood.
"Do you think he is just obsessed with muffins?" I demanded as she shot me a baleful glare.
"I don't know, but you are obsessed with him."
"I'm not obsessed with him!" I protested, "I just want to know exactly what he's thinking and all about his life- I think that's a pretty reasonable request!"
"Just chop the garlic, that's all I ask!"
She picked it up from the floor and slammed it back down on my cutting board. I started breaking apart the cloves, peeling the skin away in a silence that lasted almost five minutes.
"But do you think he's straight?" I pestered for about the hundredth time, "I don't think so, but he never really told me."
"I don't think it makes a difference," my mom finally said, sighing as if it pained her to be a part of this conversation.
"What do you mean?"
"Even if he's gay, he still wouldn't like you."
I stared at her in shock, reeling for a moment from the blatant cruelty. "That's so mean, mom."
She grumbled something in Spanish under her breath. I wasn't very fluent but I understood all the interspersed swears.
"I don't like this boy," she stated, "He's just messing around and he's got you acting like a lovesick fool."
"It's not like that," I huffed, "You don't know the context of it."
"Please, don't enlighten me. Even if there's something between the two of you, I still don't think he's worth all this effort."
I couldn't imagine a universe where Clementine wasn't worth the effort. His annoyingly deliberate attitude—as studied as a script—falling to pieces, as his scarlet face gave way to every thought in his head. His consciously measured dialogue being rendered completely futile by the halting pauses in his speech.
His stupid pretty hair that I wanted to run my hands through till it was disheveled beyond repair. His bow-shaped lips that I couldn't stop thinking about whether they were really as stupidly soft as they looked. And his stupid pretty eyes as purple as a two day old bruise.
Mom was stirring the sauce by now, and the spoon she shook at me made gross onion and tomato pieces get in my hair. "Just date someone else; someone who isn't confused about who he is. What about that nice boy next door?"
"Ewwwww, Quin? That's so gross. It was like five years ago." I groaned. "And I wish I had never told you about it."
"You went on about it incessantly at the time too—and then you got over it. This thing with Clementine is likely going to be the same."
"But it wasn't because I liked Quin," I argued, "I was just discussing it because I was still figuring things out. And I was trying to come out to you."
"You don't need to come out that many times."
Mom snatched the garlic cloves from me and started loudly chopping them as she directed a pointed stare. I pulled up Clementine's chat log for what had to have been the hundredth time since we'd last spoken. We'd only texted once, the last message holding a text heart from me. Oh my God, what had I been thinking??
"We haven't spoken for days." I sighed, staring at the damning heart that had been left on read.
"Days?" she asked skeptically.
"At least three."
"The horror."
His texts seemed casual enough. Without any context, you'd think he was just being friendly. He was always careful to leave everything ambiguous—open to interpretation. But the way Clementine stared at me when he thought I wasn't looking. The way his cheeks caught fire whenever I glanced back. Only a fool would be dense enough to not figure it out.
And I may be an idiot but I'm not stupid.
Mom let out a disapproving sniff, looking to be clearly fed up of my pining. "Look, if you're going to text, then text. And if you're not then don't."
"That's so unhelpful, mom," I complained, pressing my cheek to the table as I used one hand to scroll back through the chat log. Nevertheless, I typed out a quick 'Hey.'
Clementine replied instantly; I almost kidding myself into thinking he had been staring at his phone just like I was. I uprighted myself, drawing my feet onto the chair as I asked whether he was okay. Clementine said he was fine—obviously—coming up with an excuse that I didn't believe for a second. I asked if he'd felt uncomfortable and he said of course not, because it was all part of the ruse.
-E
Right.
I was fucking sick of this stupid ruse.
My heart slammed into my chest, my fingers shaking as I typed out my next message. We'd both been using the ruse to justify wanting to spend time together, even using it as grounds to go on an actual date. I didn't want to make excuses. I didn't want to pretend anymore.
So I swallowed my doubts and typed out a message that could not possibly be misinterpreted. Not even by that idiot, Clementine.
-E
Except it wasn't.