“What?” I scoffed, endeavoring to play it off as if his question was ludicrous. He was unfazed by my display.

“Have you found a man you want to be with since Cal left?” Maks inquired, gnawing on his bottom lip. “Or do you miss him too much to try to build something with someone new?”

“I don’t …” I began, taken aback by how causally my cousin was asking me crazy questions, “know what you’re getting at?”

“I have loved you for as long as we’ve lived, Viktor. I may have loved you before that, too. Who knows? I’m not an expert in reincarnation, but I don’t think anyone can be if they don’t remember if they were reincarnated or not. Like, I could have been a dog in a past life, but unless I remember licking my own balls and pissing on fire hydrants, who knows?”

“What does that have to do with the bushwa you’re spouting right now?” I groaned. Maks never met a tangent he didn’t want to get lost in. While I should have let him go off in order to escape the line of questioning, it was too aggravating to ignore.

“It has to do with the fact that you should trust me enough to talk to me and know I would never think of you any differently since I haven’t, and I’ve known for a while.”

“Known what?” I whispered, terrified of the words that were going to come out of his mouth.

“That you were a pansy, fairy, homosexual, or whatever you want to be called. I’ve known it for as long as I’ve known I liked girls.”

“Fuck you,” I spat. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Okay,” he shrugged. “If you’re not ready—I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. I just want you to know I know, I guess, and that I don’t care. It’s kind of funny you think I didn’t know.”

“I’m glad you find lies amusing. Did Cal tell you something when you met with him for moonshine? Is that where this is all coming from?”

Though I knew Cal would never sell me out, I felt it necessary to deny that Maks was right. How could he have seen something in me that I had strived my whole life not to show? Had I been so transparent when I believed myself opaque? While Cal had made feel it was okay to be who I was when I was alone with him, it was disorienting to hear Maks tell me the things I never wanted anyone to know about myself.

“He never told me anything,” Maks tsked. “It was you who told me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, exhausting the vehemence my denial had been supported by moments before.