Page 69 of Sapphire Spring

Mason rose, moved to him, and extended one hand. “Let’swalk. On the beach.”

Naser looked out at the dark expanse of sand and thought,Thisis the part where he drowns me and I endup onDateline.

He shook off thoughts of Connor and Logan giving tearfulon-camera interviews to Andrea Canning, kicked off his shoes, then peeled offhis socks, one after the other, and the next thing he knew, Mason had taken hishand again. The cold, soft sand suckled his bare feet as they walked away fromthe house’s blaze of light. The beach felt like it belonged to them.

“Maybe we even the scales a bit, though,” Mason said.

“How’s that?”

“Share one uncomfortable fact with me about your dad.”

“Well, he’s been dead for about thirteen years, so there’s that.”

“Oh, man. I had no idea. I’m sorry,Nas.”

“Heart attack. Happened my freshman year. It’s why Itransferred to Laguna Mesa. My mom had to drive me to school, and Pari wasalready up in LA at Otis College of Art and Design, so she needed me somewherecloser to the hospital where she worked.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You were also wicked smart, andLaguna Mesa’s hard as hell to get into. Unless you buy your way in like my daddid me.”

“You were plenty smart. You were just trying to hide it.”

“Second time I’ve heard that tonight.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Sweet, actually. My friend, from the meeting, she told me Iwas a sweet boy, but I’ve worked all my life to cover it up. Anyway, we’retalking about you.”

Being jealous of a woman he didn’t know for calling Mason asweet boy was a reaction so ridiculous he had no choice but to turn his face tothe sea so Mason wouldn’t see a trace of it in his expression. He stared out atthe night-dark ocean then closed his eyes against the wind, hoping it mightsand off some of the hard edges of his past.

“I never got the chance to come out to my dad. I’m not surehe could see it. If he did, he ignored it. I mean, I felt loved. I felt like Imattered to him, but one night when I was twelve…” He closed his eyes and sawthe same glittering chandeliers that had haunted him the night of his sister’sevent, saw the jeweled walls of the mirrored mosque rising above him as theynever had in real life. Only in pictures he’d enlarged in his mind. In hisdaydreams. In his fantasies of what could have been. He and his dad, travelingIran together. The missing pieces of the puzzle that was his family slidinginto place. Assembled in full, if not exactly healed.

But too much of that history—of his family, of Iran—seemedtangled up in one story, one confession, and he wasn’t sure where to begin.

“Hey,” Mason said softly. “It’s fine if you don’t want to,Nas. We can talk aboutsomet—”

“One night when I was like twelve, my dad talked about theidea of the family making a trip back to Iran, and my mother heardhimand she got this look on her face and called him intothe kitchen. I overheard her saying they could never bring me because of theway I talked, the way I walked. I was twelve, but already I was too gay to meetthe rest of the family without bringing shame down on everyone.” Naser broughthis sparkling water to his mouth, but he couldn’t bring himself to take a sip.“He died without ever going back.”

“They were protecting you,” Mason finally said.

“Maybe. But so many things come between the diaspora and thecountry they knew, the country they loved. I’ve never really been able to getover the fact that I was their barrier to reentry.”

“Nas.” He pulled him close, as ifwhatever tone he heard in Naser’s voice had hurt him deeply. “Nas, no.”

“I mean, I was twelve. Did they really think the familywould have run screaming from me because I wasn’t ready to throw a football?”

“Look, I’m no foreign policy expert, but did your parentsleave because of the revolution in ‘79?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Itkindasounds like you’reblaming yourself for world events here. You weren’t the thing standing betweenyour parents and Iran. The ayatollah was.”

It was a good point. One Connor had made various timeswhenever Naser showed the wound.

Never in all his life had he expected to hear it out ofMasonWorther’smouth.

“Too much?”

Naser brought him close by one hand, resting his head againsthis chest. “More like just perfect.”

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