My blood approves

“What about you? You’re graduating before I am. What did you have in mind?” Milo turned the tables on me, and I squirmed a little. He knew my grades at school, and he was constantly trying to talk to me about my future, but I avoided it as much as possible.

“I don’t know.” Lately, with everything that had been going on with Jack, I had a new found appreciation for paranormal studies and biology. “Maybe I’ll go to med school.” I had meant it as a joke, but Milo just nodded, like it would make any sense.

“I could see you as a psychiatrist,” Milo commented. “I mean, not anything that had to do with blood or surgery.”

“No, that would definitely be out,” I agreed readily. When I had seen all the blood on Jack’s nonexistent wound, I had to fight the urge to vomit. “But I can’t imagine me being a psychiatrist.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, as if it seemed like a really obvious choice to him. “You’re a pretty good listener, and you love figuring people out.

Everyone is like a puzzle to you, and you’re trying to put all the pieces fit together.”

“I guess that is true.” Essentially, that’s all I’d been doing for the last few weeks, but until Milo had said it like that, I didn’t realize that’s what I did. That it was a part of who I was, even when bizarre behavior wasn’t involved.

“I mean, you figured out that I was gay.” Milo spoke quietly and kept his eyes down, so I knew it was still something that was uncomfortable for him to talk about.

“When did you know?” I had pulled my plate back over to me, but I just pushed the food around on my plate. My stomach was still much too full to take a bite, but when I felt awkward, I wanted to keep my hands busy with something, and this was better than biting my nails.

“I don’t know.” He sighed a little, and I wondered if I should change the subject, but then he went on. “I suspected for… ever, I guess. I mean, as soon as I learned what gay was, I thought, ‘maybe.’ But really, it was when I met Jack.” He blushed deeply, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. “I’d just never been so attracted to anyone like that before.”

“Yeah, Jack does that.” I had meant to comfort him with that statement, but I ended up sounding exasperated.

“But you’re not attracted to him.” Milo looked up at me, looking both confused and disbelieving. “How is that even possible?”

“I’m attracted to him, definitely,” I explained the best I could. “I just don’t want to have sex with him.” Then I remembered what he looked like last night, sliding shirtless into the hot tub, and realized that wasn’t entirely true either.

“But…” Milo shifted uncomfortably, and he sounded unsure of himself. “I don’t mean to sound gross, but that was all I could think about.”

“That’s not gross,” I replied quickly, but then recanted. “Okay. It’s a little gross, but only cause you’re my little brother. Not cause of the whole guy thing.”

“Even Jane went crazy about him, and she’s never crazy about anyone, except for herself.” He was waiting for an explanation, but I didn’t have one. I’d spent hours trying to sort it all out, but I had yet to come up with an answer that made any sense.

“I don’t get it either,” I told him finally. “I don’t see what you guys see in him, even. I mean, he’s attractive and funny and everything…” I trailed off, realizing that maybe I did feel the way they did about Jack, then suddenly, I remembered Peter. “I met his brother last night.”

“And?” Milo leaned in closer to me, his eyes shining brightly.

“And nothing. He’s gorgeous, like unbelievably so, but he hates me.” I shrugged, trying to make it look like it didn’t bother me as much as it did, and went back to picking at my plate of food.

“He hates you? Why?” At least he was incredulous at the idea of anyone hating me. Maybe I was more likable than I gave myself credit for.

“I honestly couldn’t tell you.” It physically hurt just thinking about the way that Peter had glared at me when I was by the hot tub. I would gladly throw myself under a bus than endure another look like that. “I don’t think I even spoke to him.”

“Then how do you know he hates you?”

“If you had seen the way he looked at me…” I shuddered at the thought of it and decided that that was enough of talking about Peter and Jack. I stood up and started to clear off the table.

“I don’t get you, Alice,” Milo muttered when I took his plate.

“There’s nothing to get,” I replied glibly.