Mr. Masters (Mr. 1)

“When can I have my phone back?” Willow asks me.

I stare at her, expressionless. “When you’re thirty.”

She exhales heavily and sips her hot chocolate. We’re sitting at the kitchen counter. It’s late at night and Samuel has already gone to bed. Willow has been hovering around me since Brielle left last week. It’s like she knows I’m a man on the edge.

“Have you spoken to Brell yet?” she asks.

“No.” I sip my hot chocolate.

“It wasn’t her fault, Dad.”

I nod once. I don’t want to get into this with her.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with her?”

I shrug as I stare at the counter.

“You need to fix this. Call her and ask her to come back.”

“Will, it’s not that simple. I wish it was.”

“Is this because she didn’t tell you about me being gay?”

I frown. “You’re not gay. Stop saying that.” I shake my head, exasperated. “Will, if you were caught in a normal nightclub last week with an eighteen-year-old boy and you told me that you thought you were interested in him, I would have had the same reaction.”

She watches me.

"If you come out and said to me, ‘Dad, I'm a Republican now', I would tell you that you're too young to make that decision. If you came home and said, ‘Dad, I'm an atheist now', I would tell you that you are too young to label yourself."

She frowns in confusion.

“Will,” I sigh. “I’m not going to like the first person you date.”

Her shoulders slump.

"I'm probably not going to like the second person you go out with, either or the third. Maybe not even the fourth."

“Dad…”

“You know why?” I ask.

“Why?”

“Because until you find someone who loves you as much as I do, they will never be good enough.”

She smiles softly.

“You’re one in a million, and so, so special—too special for just anybody. And one day you will meet that person and they will love you. That’s when I will finally be able to relax and you will have my blessing.”

She takes my hand in hers and I kiss it.

“I don’t care if that person is a man or woman, Will.” Tears fill her eyes.

“But I care that you’re sixteen, and these are adult labels that you don’t need to put on yourself yet. Why don’t you just see how it turns out? Stop trying to analyse everything.”

She smiles, and her eyes twinkle under the lights because of her tears.

“Okay?” I whisper.