“It’s not like we planned that.”
“Still,” she says. “It’s not fair.”
“Mmm.”
“You should invite him over for the New Year.”
Right. January first may have been last weekend, but the Lunar New Year is coming up in two weeks. I should do some cleaning.
“I’m sure he has plans with his own family,” I say.
“We’re flexible.”
I thought I could put off this meeting, but now that Auntie Lisa has met Taylor, I’m not so sure. Lisa might keep bringing it up, keep asking my mom if she’s met my boyfriend, and Mom won’t appreciate it.
Hmph.
I don’t usually eat while I’m on the phone, but I slide a bite of cheesecake into my mouth in an attempt to make myself feel better.
“At first,” Mom says, “I wondered if you were lying about having a boyfriend.”
I choke.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I chug some coffee to wash down the cheesecake. “Why would you think I was lying?” She didn’t show any signs of skepticism during our last phone call.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Just this funny feeling I had in my gut. I thought it was mother’s intuition, but maybe it was my lactose intolerance.”
“Mom!”
“Anyway, I’m glad he’s real. Please ask if he will come over, okay?”
“Okay.”
I do mean it—I’ll ask. Because my mom might get another funny feeling in her gut if I don’t. But I will make it very, very clear to Taylor that he doesn’t need to spend New Year’s with my family.
We talk for a little longer, and then I end the call and check how many pictures of heart-shaped cakes I received in the last fifteen minutes.
Six. I chuckle in spite of myself.
I consider texting Taylor to ask about New Year’s, then figure I’ll wait until our date next weekend.
The end of my first week back at work falls on Friday the thirteenth, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m not superstitious, and to me, four is more of a bad luck number than thirteen anyway.
“Plans for the weekend?” asks Kellie, aka the grad student who informed me that I’d become a GIF.
I take a bite of my sandwich and look up from my phone. I’m a little annoyed at being interrupted at lunch, but I did plan to do this at some point.
“I have a date tomorrow,” I say.
“You do? That’s awesome!”
I manage a smile. “Yeah, I have a boyfriend. And tonight, I’m going out for drinks with a few friends.”
Kellie’s reacting the way I expected. I’m changing the narrative about my personal life at work. Not that everyone will instantly forget about what happened last February, but this helps me feel more in control. It’s something I chose to share, rather than something they stumbled across online.
Definitely an improvement.
