Chapter Text
Yuna sighs. What is she supposed to say to that? “I know”? Well, she doesn’t.
Tapping her fingers against her phone case, she looks up and peers out the windshield, trying to come up with anything, anything at all, to reply with. Every new option feels wrong—she could say “Shane understands”, but as far as she knows, he hasn’t spoken to them in days and might not understand after all. “Are you sure we can’t get you a plane ticket?” would be too pushy. And “Is work more important than my son?” is just downright not happening. It’s just her stress talking.
David reaches over the center console to place a hand on her thigh. Like clockwork, one of her own hands goes to rest on his. It means she can’t keep tapping on the phone, whose screen has gone dark.
In the backseat, Shane is sitting with his head tipped down, eyes seemingly shut. His breath is even, just loud enough she can hear it over the sound of the road. This morning exhausted him.
Opening her phone again, Yuna decides that Lily will just have to deal with being left on read for a bit. There’s something else she needs to do, and with David’s grounding touch and Shane sleeping behind her, she finally has a moment to do it.
In her e-book app, there are a lot of options for parents of LGBT kids.
Yuna’s heart pounds as she scrolls through them. It’s possible that she and David are completely off-base with this, and she’ll be wasting her money. But at the same time… she glances at Shane again. Swallows.
Mothers know their children, and Yuna knows Shane very well, excluding this whole secret partner thing. So she knows it’s not impossible.
The problem is that a lot of the books are for LGBT youth. As in, children. Which Shane most certainly is not.
Still, she finds a few that look good. One about supporting your trans family members, which isn’t quite what Yuna needs, but close enough, and another about how parents can support their LGBT children. She makes sure it covers all ages before she buys it.
“I found a few books,” she tells David vaguely, though of course he understands what she’s referring to. He’s the one who’s been sending her articles. “I’ll add them to your tablet once we get home, okay?”
“Mmm, thank you, honey.”
She squeezes his hand. For a while, the car is quiet, soft jazz filtering through the speakers. Yuna begins reading the second book, trying to absorb every word.
When Lily texts again, Yuna has to blink a few times, her mind shifting gears slowly.
“Mom?” Shane’s voice floats up to the front seat. Yuna looks over her shoulder, surprised to see him awake, and finds him staring at her with slightly-too-big eyes. “Who are you texting?”
Yuna tries to sound as casual as possible when she says, “Lily.”
Shane inhales sharply and looks away. His voice is wobbly when he asks, “Who’s Lily?”
This morning, the doctor said it would be possible that Shane had forgotten things that had happened immediately before and after the concussion. It’s normal to be unclear on the details of what happened while under strong pain killers, too. So Yuna pushes down the stab of fear that rises at that question, tells herself this is not a bad sign, and squeezes David’s hand again.
“Your friend, honey. You told Hayden to text them, do you remember? We’ve been texting them updates the last few days.”
David adds, “Those flowers are from Lily, son. They couldn’t make it, so they sent those instead.”
Yuna watches as Shane peers at the flowers, strapped delicately into the seat beside him, with a look on his face she can’t parse at all. “I thought…,” he mumbles. Then, still not looking at her, he asks, “You’ve been talking to h—them?”
“Yes.” Twisting around to face him more, she remembers the moment she first texted Lily and wondered which breach of privacy was worse. If Shane would hate her for overstepping, for speaking to someone he clearly wanted separate from them. “Is that okay? Lily’s been… very worried about you.”
Shane doesn’t reply right away. Snuggled up in his hoodie, one arm in a sling and his face still bruised, he looks small and tired. His expression is… the only word she can think of is ‘haunted’. He avoids her eyes like he’ll catch on fire if he doesn’t.
He looks, honestly, terrified.
Yuna takes a breath, and forces herself to not react. To wait until he says or does something first. The urge to protect him is so strong, but what can she do?
She doesn’t know why he’s hiding from them, though it must be something they’ve done, something she’s done. Pushing him right now is the worst thing she could do, but at the same time, she just wants to blurt out, you can tell us anything. We love you! Even if the cheating theory is correct, the scolding could come later. Once Shane knows, again, that he will always be safe with them.
Finally, he glances at her, just a skimming of his eyes over her own. They land somewhere over her shoulder, and he does not speak.
It’s David who cuts into the moment. Gently, he says, “Shane, it’s okay, really. We already know that Lily exists and is important to you. You told us a few things about them, and they sound lovely. There’s no need to panic.”
Shane’s whole body goes impossibly still. “I told you—what did I say? I can’t remember. Was it, did I—”
Though it’s uncomfortable and probably quite unsafe, Yuna reaches a hand into the back seat. She touches his knee, feeling how tense he is under her palm. He jumps, then minutely relaxes. His eyes are wet.
“You told us really nice things. You said that sh—they are beautiful and funny and take care of you. That’s all.”
“And that they’re your favorite.”
David is clearly going for a smile, but Shane doesn’t crack. Working his jaw, he doesn’t speak for a long moment, looking between them fearfully. Yuna can’t hide the way her own eyes are shining, but she can put on a smile, something that hopefully tells him he has nothing to worry about.
Finally, he says, “Yeah.”
Just yeah, but that’s okay. It’s better than terrified silence.
Carefully, she squeezes his knee. Her arm is twinging from the position, but she won’t let go until he’s ready. “That’s wonderful, honey. I can see why you like them.”
Shane sniffles a little, staring up at the ceiling of the car. “What… what have you been talking about?”
“Just you, how you’re doing, that sort of thing.” Of course, that doesn’t cover most of it, including the ways Yuna overstepped. She’s not trying to hide it, they’ll have to talk about it sooner or later, but now is not the time to bring it up. “Lily was just asking me to text when we get home.”
She watches his face, and though he doesn’t smile that same carefree grin from the hospital, he does soften. Under her hand, he relaxes further.
“They really care,” she says.
“Yeah, um, yeah they do. Thank you for doing that, Mom. For texting Lily, I mean. It… it means a lot.”
Yuna sniffs, nodding her head. She thinks again about what she would do if David was in hospital and she had no way of seeing him, being with him—if her only lifeline was texts from a stranger. “It’s no problem at all, honey.”
Hesitantly, he asks, “Is… are they okay?”
“I think so. They’re back at work, it seems like, but they’re still asking about you. They were making jokes earlier, actually.”
When he only nods, Yuna glances at David, who seems content to let them talk this out. Both of his hands are back on the wheel, but his eyes are warm when they meet.
Taking a breath, she turns back to Shane. “Can I ask? … How long have you been together?”
Maybe it isn’t fair to ask it, maybe it should wait until they’re home and Shane isn’t trapped in the car with them. But she hopes he can see in her face that she’s only curious, that she won’t press him to answer if he doesn’t want to.
It’s just, among all of the questions that have arisen from this, all of the things that have plagued her—this is something she wants to know almost more than anything else. How long has this been going on?
Shane huffs out a little laugh. “Years. It’s been years, sort of.”
Yes, Hayden said that too. But—“How long is years?”
The words come without permission, too quick, too much. She opens her mouth to take it back but Shane is quicker. For just a moment, he meets her eyes and says, “Since rookie season, Mom.”
Fuck.
It feels like her heart stops in her chest for one, two, three painful beats. All the air leaves her lungs. Just like Shane had before, she goes still.
She knew it was serious. She did. But… rookie season? He’s known this person since then, loved them since then?
“I don’t… my head hurts,” Shane says after a moment where all three of them are completely silent. “Are we almost home?”
David clears his throat. “Yep, just about ten more minutes.”
“Okay,” he mumbles, and closes his eyes, leaning up against the window.
Yuna doesn’t have to be asked to take her hand back. Turning back around in her seat, she watches familiar trees and bends in the road go past, and thinks, over and over again, Since rookie season…
It’s only once they’re inside, Shane getting settled into his old bed and David pulling out their luggage from the car, that Yuna is able to really react.
Stepping onto the back porch, she pulls up Lily’s contact, and rereads every message they’ve sent in the past 48 hours. Reconsiders it all with this new information, and can’t wrap her head around it. Since rookie season?
She doesn’t think, doesn’t consider how stupid it is or how upset Shane will be, and hits the call button.