Page 95 of Confessions of a Virgin on a Dating App
“I have a boyfriend.”
It was like a bomb went off. The normal dinnertime sounds of food rustling, mouths chewing, and silverware scraping screeched to a grinding halt. My parents were frozen in an eerie, tense silence.
“Oh, sweetie.” My mom fumbled for her words, shocked but not necessarily unhappy. “Congratulations! When did this happen?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“Wow, so it just started? And he sent you flowers?”
“Well, we’ve known each other for a long time.”
And he told me he loved me last night. But I kept that part to myself.
“Well.” My mother sat up straighter, her excited-squeaky voice at an all-time high. “Who is he? What’s his name?”
“Devin,” I replied flatly, after doing a quick replay of our time at the Critical Games to confirm that I never mentioned his name.
“Does he go to your game shop too?”
Oh boy.We were inching closer to the truth. I felt like I was playing a racing game, about to turn the corner on the final lap and cross over a very dangerous finish line.
My eyes flicked up to my father. His face was set in stone, and I knew his mustache was concealing a heavy-set frown.
“He was the one behind the counter.”
My mother’s face twitched for a second, betraying her joyful exterior. I could see the muscles my father’s neck tightening like a noose.
“The guy with the black hair?”
“Yes. He’s the owner.”
Absolute silence. I felt like my dinner was about to come crawling back up my throat.
“You see this?” My father’s sudden exclamation made blood pound in my ears. “First she runs away from home, and then she spends the next five years avoiding us, not going to church, and now she ends up with—”
“What?” I suddenly found the courage to speak. “What were you about to call him?”
My father’s bushy eyebrowsnarrowed.
“You know nothing about him. You’re just judging him based on his appearance, aren’t you?”
“I know enough.” A loud, grating squeak made me cringe as my father pushed his chair back and dumped his Styrofoam container in the garbage.
A low, pulsing ache stabbed at my abdomen, and I placed a hand over it. I needed to lie down and continue recovering from my surgery, one that I’d had just a few hours earlier. I did not need to be arguing with my father over this.
I stood up, ignoring the stinging tug of my stitches.Be the bigger person.
“Look, I’m finished eating, and I’m going to go lie down and get some rest. If you want to talk about this without acting like my boyfriend is a monster, feel free to knock on my door.”
I dumped my own takeout container in the trash, determined to walk away from my dumbfounded parents and disappear into my bedroom while keeping a straight face.
But as soon as I was alone, all the air came bursting out of me. I sat down gingerly on the edge of my bed, taking a few deep beaths and trying to calm the adrenalin spike.
I peered over at my phone, which hovered on the edge of my end table.
Hey Dev?
Hey sweetheart. You done with dinner?
