Confessions

Putting the groceries away in silence, I kept glancing over at Kevin. I couldn't help it. I could feel his eyes on me, as if he were weighing what was coming. The sensation made me shiver. I couldn't believe I was going to tell him.

Stepping over the bag containing the ground beef, Kevin came to stand at my elbow. I turned to retrieve the lettuce and cucumbers for the accompanying salad, but he purposefully got in my way. My eyes met his and, for the second time that day, I looked away first. I was becoming such a coward around him. I moved to retrieve them again, this time being halted by his hand gently on my wrist. He brought both our hands up until I looked at him again. Gently, he pulled me over to the couch in the livingroom and made me sit down.

"Let me finish that. You said you had something important you needed to talk about. I'll start dinner while you talk. You look about to pass out." His concern shot right through me. I watched, mute, as he moved back into the kitchen to finish what I had started.

He had already put the noodles in the pot of boiling water on the stove and was cutting up the lettuce into a large bowl before I could bring myself to speak. I sighed heavily and started to fidget with my hands, while I watched the back of him move with a familiar precision as he prepared our dinner. It was more than enough for the two of us, but that didn't matter. "Um... Dad... I... I don't know where to begin. There's something I've needed to tell you since I met you, but I've never been able to. I... I don't want... Oh, God. I don't want you to hate me afterwards. Or to get all weird with me or anything. It's just..." I smoothed the nonexistant wrinkles from the front of my shirt. "I've loved you for as long as I can remember."

His chopping faltered just the slightest, but his words were strong and I wanted to scream for what he said. "I've loved you, too. That's why we adopted you."

Wanting to jump up and roar my frustrations, I tried again. I had to make him understand me. "No... Not like that. I mean... I never wanted Carin here. I've never cared about her. I've never considered her anything but an obstical. A wall between us. I've been content being your best friend, being your confidant. But with her gone... I need you to know. I need to know where we go from here."

His shoulders bunched and he sat the knife on the cutting board. Slowly, he turned to me. I wasn't prepared for what I saw in his face. It wasn't the revoltion or uncertainty I thought would be there. It wasn't anything I had thought he would feel. His face was full of understanding, and... something else. I held my breath because I didn't want to hope that that something else could be what it appeared to be. As he came across the room, all I could do was watch him, like a deer caught in the headlights of an on-coming car.

I scooted over so he could sit next to me, and my breath rushed out of me when he took my hands lightly in his. I had dreamed about the moment I would tell him for ten years now. My heart was hammering so hard, I couldn't hear anything else. I felt like I was going to faint right there before he could say anything. It took all I had to raise my eyes the few inches to meet his.

Smiling softly back at me, his hands wrapped lightly around mine, Kevin just looked at me. At first, he didn't say anything. When I thought I couldn't handle the silence any longer, he took in a breath and opened his mouth. "I know what you meant. I still say the same thing. I've always known. It was a source of arguing between Carin and I many times. Always in the middle of the night, though. I never wanted you to know." At the look on my face, he quickly added, "Don't worry. You're not the reason she left. I really tried to make our marriage work. She just... didn't want to anymore. Her leaving has nothing to do with you. I promise."

I wanted to cry. I couldn't believe he knew! He had known all this time, and yet they still adopted me. They still brought me into their home and treated me like family. Or, rather, he did. Now I could understand part of the frostiness Carin had always turned toward me, no matter how hard I tried to get to know her. Did she think he was sneaking around and coming into my room at night? Did she think there was something between us?

Seeming to read my thoughts, he shook his head. "She knew there was nothing going on. As far as she knew, it was an adolescent's infatuation; one-sided. But... If we're going to be completely honest and open with one another, I have something I need to tell you, too."

"Here it comes," I thought. "He's going to tell me I'm a fool. That I've wasted the last ten years of my emotions on someone who wouldn't, couldn't, return them." I moved to pull away from him, only to have his grip tighten. I looked up at him then, peering into his deep blue eyes, waiting while my world was held by this one, singular, moment.

Taking another deep breath, he spoke softly, just above a whisper. "There were times I hugged you when what I really wanted to be doing was kissing you. You've brought more happiness and contentment into my life then I ever thought possible. There have been nights when, yes, I've wanted to come to you in your room. If for nothing else than just to talk. To tell you, and have you know, just what you mean to me.

Carin's always known that you've been closer to me than she has. She hated that I could talk to you about things that I couldn't tell her. She convinced me that adopting you was the right course of action simply because she thought you and I got along so well. She thought I needed someone to be there where she couldn't. She was right. I've never told anyone, though. I've never told anyone just how much you really mean to me. I've never been unfaithful to her. Never. But... I think she knew that if I ever was, it'd only ever be with you."

My head was reeling and at some point, I had started to cry. He reached up and gingerly wiped the moisture track from beneath my right eye. I wanted to fall into his arms and stay there forever. I couldn't believe he felt the same way. "I've got to be dreaming," I said to myself. "This has got to be some cruel joke of a dream and I'm going to wake up and everything is going to be the way it always has been..."

Regretfully, he slowly stood, letting my now numb hands slip from his as he headed back to the kitchen, checking on the noodles before shutting them off and draining them. He kept glancing at me as he worked, his body going through the familiar motions almost on its own. As he pulled the baking pan from it's place under the counter, his brow furrowed in concern. "Are you alright?"

Glancing at him with only my eyes, I couldn't bring myself to speak, so I nodded dumbly at him. Was I alright? Everything I thought I had known, I had just found out that I didn't. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was still foreign to me. The one thing I had ever truly wanted, I had just found out had wanted me, too. I didn't know how to react, so I simply sat there, watching him make dinner.

As he set the temperature on the oven and layed out the layers of the dish, I watched the muscles work under his shirt. There was tension in his shoulders that wasn't there before. However, the rest of him seemed more relaxed than I think I had ever seen him. Like a huge weight had been lifted from him and now he could breath, and move, freely again. I sighed softly as the smell of the ingredients hit me like a ton of bricks. Until that very moment, I hadn't realized how hungry I was.

Getting up slowly, I moved across the room, into the kitchen, intent on helping. I had to do something. Picking up the large bowl for the salad, I slid the lettuce into it and then proceeded to chop the cucumbers into quarter rounds. We never bothered with peeling them. Glancing at him, I realized he was watching me silently, glancing down from time to time to make sure the lasagna was layered just right. I offered him a small smile and said weakly, "I couldn't just watch." Grinning, he wordlessly bumped his hip into mine as if nothing of great importance had just passed between us. It helped me relax more than any words he could have said.

Placing the lasagna in the oven to bake, he leaned his right hip against the counter and crossed his arms while he watched me slice the second tomato, as he had layered the first into the lasagna. I furrowed my brow at him and he let out a short bark of a laugh. Shaking his head, he took the knife from me, his fingertips brushing mine. "You're mutilating that tomato. Again. I don't know what it is you and tomatoes have against each other, but you two need to call a truce." Laughter dancing in his eyes, he took to cutting the tomato and fixing the lovely mess I was making of it.

Muttering, I washed my hands free of the sticky tomato juices and busied myself making our home-made salad dressing. Carin had always thought we were gross for eating it, but it was something we had created together and it had always made me smile. The pungent aroma of the lemon juice filled my nose and I made a sour face. Laughing again, he dumped the pieces of tomato into the salad bowl and washed the knife and cutting board, purposely bumping into me and making a joke of it, saying, "Oh, excuse me. Pardon me. I didn't see you. Will you get out of my way?" I laughed with him. It was an old, familiar, pattern and falling into it helped to ease the tension that had built up.

Once I was finished and we had mixed the dressing into the salad, I put the bowl into the fridge to keep it chilled. Now, all we had to do was wait. The sudden silence that filled the apartment was deafening. I was suddenly very aware of us being the only ones here and my nerves were instantly on edge. How did I act around him now? What should I do?