It’s funny how so many of us struggle with the same stuff: feeling like we’re not enough. Not good enough to be loved. Not beautiful enough to be worthy. Not talented enough to be accomplished. Not significant enough to feel important or seen. Without the proper words to tell another that we love them, that we hate them, that we something-in-between them, that they hurt us when they think they love us. Hearing Jack say that what we have can withstand all that bad stuff makes me realize I’ve had it wrong all along.

Fairy tales are nice because they paint a rosy picture of love: Meet, sing a cute song, and bam! Marriage. But that’s not love. That’s fantasy. This? Facing the hard, gritty shit together, realizing you can survive the trials on your own, yet don’t need to because someone is willing to hold your hand as you grow? That, I think, is real love.

And I love Jack.

“I didn’t come out for you,” he continues, his blue eyes piercing my damn soul. “I did it for me. I knew by then that there was probably zero chance you’d take me back, but I think that losing you made me realize everything I was willing to sacrifice for lying to myself. And to them.”

“How’d they take it?”

He snort-laughs. “Funny story. I told them when Cal wasn’t around—he’d left to pick up my brother—and it came out so fast that they didn’t register what I said, and they were sort of stunned, I guess? And they asked me to repeat myself, and I just lost it on them. Started screaming that I was gay.”

Jack laughs hard now. Meanwhile, I’m absolutely horrified.

“They still didn’t say anything. Not a word. But the look on my father’s face said it all. I freaked out and just grabbed my stuff, which I had packed already, just in case they threw me out. I grabbed my shit and booked it. Huffed it to the bus stop and just kept going until I ended up back here. The stupid thing is, my parents ended up being fine with it. I didn’t hear from them until I got back from the ski mountain Friday night, and when I did, they were there waiting for me. Not Cal. Just my dad and mom.” His eyes are watery. “Told me they loved me and that they wished I had stayed around. That they were shocked, but that I overreacted.”

Jack reaches behind his head and scratches his neck. He looks like a cute farm boy I want to kiss.

A warmth stretches over me. “So they’re cool?”