Page 41 of #Awestruck

“Trust me on this one.” She stood up, putting her purse over her shoulder.

“What am I going to tell them? I can’t tell them the truth.” My parents couldn’t keep a secret even if I stapled their lips shut. If I told them what was going on and then introduced them to Evan, my dad would be like, “Great game, my daughter’s only dating you to do an exposé on you, and could you introduce me to Coach Sitake?”

Our mom was a family therapist, and it was like keeping all the information about her clients private made it so that she had no filter and no privacy setting whatsoever when it came to her kids.

“Oh no. You definitely can’t tell them or Rory the truth. It’ll be on the six o’clock news by tomorrow if you do that. I don’t know what story you and Evan have made up for mass consumption, but tell them that.” She held out her arms, and I stood up to hug her goodbye.

“We don’t have a story planned out yet. Just that we’re going to stay engaged for a few months.”

“I don’t envy you having to have the parental conversation. But your lie will be blown apart if some press come to talk to Mom and Dad. It will seem weird that the world knows about your engagement but you didn’t bother to tell your parents about it.”

As I walked her to the door, she hesitated, playing with the zipper on her purse. “So what if he’s not lying, and this is who he really is?”

I’d done nothing but consider it since our dinner. “I wish I could let myself believe that, but this Evan feels ... fake. Like my thirteen-year-old self dreamed him up and brought him to life. So he’s saying everything I want him to say and telling me I’m beautiful, and I can’t trust it. It so goes against everything I’ve thought about him for years, and I can’t buy into the fantasy.”

I thought of Evan’s comparison earlier—only I was the atheist who didn’t know what to think when Evan showed off his angel wings as he descended from the sky. It rocked my worldview, and I couldn’t figure out how to reconcile it with what I’d always believed. All of my interactions with him felt like they were happening to someone else. Because it couldn’t possibly be my life.

She stood quietly, not responding. Which I recognized as another lawyer tactic—people felt compelled to fill in the silence. And even though I knew it, I still kept talking. “Not to mention it feels like it’s all just an act to win me over so that he doesn’t have to feel bad about whatever part he played in what happened to me.”

“Well, he is real. You didn’t conjure him up, and nobody’s forcing him to say or do anything he doesn’t want to. If you think he’s being fake, I guess you’ll find out one way or another eventually. No one can keep up an act like that for forever.” Then she hugged me again. “And call Mom.”

“I will!” I said and told her good night. As I shut the door behind her, I realized she was right about my parents. I had to call them. Since Evan and I didn’t have our stories straight, I was just going to have to wing it. I entered my mother’s phone number into my cell.

She picked up immediately. “Are you pregnant?”

“What?” Was she serious with this? “Yes, the most famous virgin in the world impregnated me. It was an immaculate conception. Do you ever even read anything about him? His celibacy is, like, this whole big deal.”

“Well, people slip. Especially when they’re in love.” She let out an overly dramatic sigh. I could deal with my mother’s drama. It was her criticisms and suggestions about how I should live my life that made me feel like I couldn’t cope. “You had such a crush on him in high school.”

“I remember, Mom. Thanks.”

“What I can’t figure out is why you’d become engaged to Evan Dawson of all people without even telling us you were dating him.”

I headed into my bedroom and got under my plush comforter. If I was going to be interrogated, I was at least going to be relaxed while doing it. I could picture her in her kitchen, cutting vegetables to calm her stress. My mother considered herself to be a bohemian free spirit, but nobody had told her about the usual optimism that went along with it. She wore the flowy skirts and chunky necklaces but generally thought the world was always on the verge of ending.

And now she was on a melodramatic roll. “Were you going to tell us? Ever?”

“Obviously I was going to tell you, Mom. It’s just ... things happened so fast. We didn’t know people were taking pictures of us. I didn’t call you earlier because I had this thing, and then Evan and I had to figure out where we were going from here and what to tell people.” All true. Sort of.

“I suppose it’s sweet in its own way that you two found each other as adults, but I’d hate to see you get hurt like that again.”

“So would I. That’s not going to happen.” She would assume I meant because he loved me, but I meant it wouldn’t happen because I wouldn’t let myself get hurt like that by him again. I had learned my lesson in the worst possible way. Even if he hadn’t been directly responsible for what had happened to me, he had been a silent bystander. If I had to keep him at arm’s length in order to focus solely on advancing my career, then that was what I would do. “Things are different now.”

Just not in the way she imagined.

“Well, your father and I would like to meet him.”

That didn’t sound like something I wanted to have happen anytime soon. “You’ve already met him.”

“Ten years ago. You said things were different now, and it is customary to bring your fiancé home to meet your family.”

She skipped right over the rest of her planned guilt trip and headed straight into logical, rational arguments. But it sounded like a terrible plan. If I waited long enough, our engagement would be over, and then my two worlds would never have to collide.

How could I get out of it?

“Oh!” she said. “I know! We can meet him tomorrow after the game.”

“Maybe. But he’s going to be really busy after the game with interviews and stuff.” That wouldn’t be happening. If I had to fake a heart attack to get my family to leave the stadium, I would.

---