Oxytocin

Chapter Two

After breakfast, Wes and Jeff went back to finish unpacking. There were running footsteps, and Maddy darted into their room, plopping herself down on Jeff's bed.

Jeff was about to ask why when Lily walked into the room, groaning when she saw her sister. "Maddy! Shoo!"

"I wanna know," Maddy said stubbornly, crossing her arms. "I'm ten now, you can tell me big-kid things."

"The fact that you call it 'big-kid things' and not 'adult issues' proves that's not true," Lily pointed out.

"They aren't adult issues! You aren't adults! So I can hear it, right?" she asked, looking at Wes.

Wes hesitated. "Well... It's not my call. And I have bad judgement when it comes to these kinds of things."

"It's about you, isn't it?" Maddy pressed.

"Yes," he said cautiously.

"Then it's your decision whether I get to know or not."

He bit his lip, knowing he was backed into a corner. He didn't want to upset anyone, but that seemed impossible, no matter what he did.

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Oh, come on! I know about the Blaine thing, how is this worse than that?"

Wes's jaw dropped, horrified. "They told you about that?"

Jeff set his hand on Wes's arm, quickly correcting what his sister had said before Wes got the wrong idea. "She means when he got beat up at the school dance, Wes. Not the... other thing."

"There's another thing?" Maddy exclaimed.

"There's another thing?" Lily repeated.

Wes sighed. "I think I'm going to just stop talking now before I say something worse."

"It gets worse than worse-than-Blaine?" Maddy asked.

Wes sighed again, deeper, clamping his mouth shut.

"How about you go ask Mom? She knows everything," Jeff asked, hating to throw his mother under the bus but knowing she would handle it better than he could.

Maddy seemed to like that idea, leaving the room.

Lily shut the door behind her. "Alright, spill."

Wes sat down on his bed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Can I be blunt and not give details?" he asked Jeff.

"About the Matilda thing? Yeah."

He nodded. "Okay, because I really don't want to mince my words and talk circles around what actually happened." He spoke to Lily. "I never asked my parents why I couldn't read Roald Dahl books because if I questioned their judgement on anything, they'd beat me."

"Oh," Lily breathed. "I'm so sorry."

Wes shrugged. "They're away from me now, so I'm alright."

There was a silence.

"And... Blaine?" she asked hesitantly.

Jeff shook his head. "It's both personal, and just... You don't want to know. He doesn't want people to know either."

"If I asked—"

"No," Jeff said firmly. "You cannot ask him. If he somehow decided he wanted to talk about it, fine, but under no circumstances do you bring it up. Do you understand?"

She nodded quickly, knowing it was serious. Much as she wanted to know, she respected Blaine's privacy. "Okay. I won't ask. Promise."

"Thank you."