Free Finding Zach by Rowan Speedwell

said from behind Richard.
    David groaned. “I take it you heard everything?”
    “Enough,” Jane said. “Enough to hear you discouraging him. David, we’ve known—or suspected—that Zach was gay for a long time, but he never seemed to think of you as anything but a big brother, and so we didn’t worry about it. He never seemed interested in sex of any kind….”
    “Which in itself was a little weird for a teenage boy,” Richard said, “but Zach is hardly your average teenage boy.”
    “We meant to have this talk with you sooner or later,” Jane said uncertainly. “We just thought we had a little more time.”
    “So, what?” David asked, looking from one to the other. “You want me to leave, right? Take that scholarship you offered me? And go—where, someplace like the Sorbonne? University of Moscow? Is that far enough?”
    “We’re not asking you to leave, Davey,” Richard said. “Particularly after hearing what we did.”
    “And what was that?” David asked in confusion.
    “You said just what we would have asked you to. That Zach is too young for a relationship—with you or with anyone else—and that he should wait until he was older. Zach’s brilliant, but he’s still emotionally a kid. He’s not ready for anything like that. And when he is—whether it’s with you, or with someone else—we’ll deal with it then as appropriate.” He hesitated. “Zach was accepted by the early admissions program at MIT. We weren’t going to let him go because he is so young, but we’re reconsidering it. It would mean relocating to Boston for the school year, but there’s no reason I can’t work from there; it’s just been more convenient to be so close to home. I’m not saying this because we plan to keep you two apart, but because hopefully the excitement of college will distract him from feeling resentful of us trying to rein him in a bit.”
    “I’m not in favor of the idea,” David said bluntly. “At MIT, he’s gonna be meeting and working with guys even older than I am, who are used to students who aren’t as young as Zach. They’ll think of him and treat him like a contemporary, particularly since he doesn’t talk or act like your average fifteen-year-old. If you don’t want him in a sexual relationship, keep him away from that kind of environment.”
    “You have a good point,” Jane said, nodding. “Zach is not the only brilliant kid around here, Davey.”
    David shook his head. “Not brilliant. It’s just common sense. I’ve visited friends at college and I know what kind of crazy-assed shit goes on. Jeez, guys—you aren’t that old—don’t you remember how it was?”
    Richard actually flinched. “Shit.”
    “See?”
    “Yeah. So we deal with it as is.”
    “Zach’s upset, though,” Jane said. “He’s angry with David, and hurt.”
    “I’ll apologize,” David began, but Richard shook his head.
    “No, don’t. Zach needs to learn that he can’t get everything he wants.”
    “I wonder….” Jane said thoughtfully.
    “What, Jenny?”
    “Well, my sister Alicia’s been asking for Zach to come visit her. She’s the one who’s got a grant to study climate change at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Zach was excited at first when she invited him, but then he lost interest.” She glanced at David. “I think I know why, now. But maybe it would be good for him to go see her after all. It would be a distraction….”
     
     
    A ND how , David thought wearily as he watched the sun slip behind the mountains. Quite a distraction for all of us, particularly after Zach disappeared from the San Jose airport in Costa Rica….
    Still, that was all over.
    Right.
    A wave of grief as strong as any he’d had during Zach’s five-year absence washed over him, and he clutched the porch railing. The grief didn’t care that Zach was home, safe, recovering. All it cared about was that Zach was as irrevocably lost to David as if he had died in that jungle.
    “Shit,” David