Chapter 56

My hands spread on the tray before me. I thought my parents would have wanted me to settle down. They approved of Elena. They would not have approved that I was gay.

After our team won the competition, the next day I proposed to Elena down the hill from Monticello. Several months after that, before we got married, Elena told me she was pregnant. With Chelsea.

I couldn’t imagine life without Chel. And yet life would have been different if I was honest with myself. There would have been less pain, no one would have died.

“You know, Xavier, maybe you should have taken advantage of me. I would have woken up in bed with a knight in shining armor the next morning, and not gotten married.” 29