There was something about fresh-cut grass that turned Jaylin's stomach.

He powered off the lawn mower and shed his shirt from his sweaty chest. He wasn't quite sure if it was the smell or the summer sun, but he couldn't go a second longer without a break.

He lunged inside, where his mother sat on the couch, playing a farm game on her phone and watching trashy daytime television.

"So what is it today?" he asked, fetching a glass of water and dumping far too much lemonade mix inside.

"He,"—she pointed with her phone—"is cheating on that woman right there with her own mother. A woman older than me. Can you believe that?" She snorted when she laughed, the way she always did on a good day—the whimsical titter that Jaylin so loved the sound of. He wished he could capture it from the air and bottle it. Then he wished he didn't have to wish for things like that.

"Well, would you?" She was flashing her powder blue eyes over her shoulder at him, and it took Jaylin a moment to realize he'd missed her question entirely.

"Sorry, what?"

"Would you sleep with an older woman, Jaylin?"

He choked on his lemonade, wiping the cold river from his chin.

She's caught his expression and laughed again, that effervescence bubbling out of her like a good champagne. "I just want to make sure I'm not leaving you here with some strange Oedipus complex. Or was it Electra? I never paid much attention in psychology."

"Mom. There are no... 'complexes'. Nothing's complex."

"Oh, don't be so embarrassed. Age is nothing but numbers. And gender too, you know. All just a bunch of hooey."

"What is up with you today?" He grinned at her from behind his glass of lemonade. "Hoping I'll get laid this summer? Want to set me up on a blind date with one of your friends from your quilting club?"

"Oh heavens no," Julia said. "Not those sluts."

Jaylin choked on his lemonade.

"I'm just saying, it would be nice to see my only child find the love of his life," his mother said. "Whether that love is a girl your own age, or a man in his forties. So long as you're happy, dear."

Jaylin stopped pinching his searing sinuses and turned to her, those words a brazen breeze on his face. "You think the love of my life could be a man?"

"Oh, honey." She pushed herself up off of the couch with far too much effort. She was only forty—too young to be moving like this. At first, she wobbled a bit and Jaylin felt himself flinch, ready to hurdle his body over the sofa and catch might she fall. But she balanced herself with a smile and shuffled slowly on her little pink slippers to meet him.

"There ain't no such thing as straight." Her hips knocked into him as she took the counter at his side. "Especially with you. Now hand me a mug, will you?"

Jaylin stood on his toes to reach the cupboard. "The hell does that mean?" he asked, fetching the creamer from the fridge while his mother filled the cup with stale, reheated coffee. "With me?"

"You've always been a bit different when it came to boys, that's all I'm saying." He watched her pour a disgusting amount of creamer into her cup. She always liked things sickeningly sweet. "Anyway, I remember the way you used to watch them during soccer. That one boy, Brian—"

"Brian Delgato." Jaylin scratched his had as he recalled the foreign exchange student from Sophomore year with the straight teeth and knee-quivering accent. "Yeah, I remember him."

"You had the biggest crush on him!"

All her teasing flushed him down to the fingers, but Jaylin didn't deny it. In fact, he fell quiet altogether. Because she was right; Brian Delgato had abs you could melt butter on—abs so defined, you could roll a quarter down his sternum, and it would keep propped up like a wagon wheel. At sixteen, he thought, maybe if I just stare long enough, I can build up some kind of sexual tolerance. Stop getting a woody every time Delgato was on the skins team. It never happened.

"So do you?" his mother finally piped up. "Do you like boys?"

Jaylin traced the tiles in the counter. "Can't I like both?"

"You can like both," his mother said, gently turning him by the biceps to face her. Her smile was warm, her brows much thinner than they used to be. "You can like boys or girls, or anyone in-between or out. Or you can like no one—no one at all; I hear some people are like that, but you know—it doesn't matter to me. Not one bit." Her eyes crinkled and glistened, and her fingers were thinner than he remembered when she reached for his face. "It doesn't matter because I love you more than anyone else ever could."

He shut his eyes as she brushed a lock of blond from his brow, and held his cheeks in her bony hands. It hurt, those words. It hurt because Jaylin knew the truth in them—he knew she truly did love him more than anything else on earth. No one would ever love him like this again.

And for how much longer would he have this love?

"You need to eat more," she said, giving his cheeks a pat. "You're too damn handsome to be skin and bones. I'll get us some Pizza. You finish mowing the lawn."

Jaylin nodded and her warm hands slipped away. He ached at moments like these. Every time, it felt like a predetermined goodbye. Like she wanted their farewell to be a sweet one because no one knew just what time death would come knocking. Just that he would. Very, very soon, he would.

Jaylin blinked to dry his misty eyes and flee the place before his mother noticed the sheen of tears. But as he tried to escape the kitchen, she struck up a sudden "Oh!" and Jaylin turned to face her.

"I just thought of another boy you had a crush on! That Tyler boy—Tyler Black. The one that lived next door. Used to do the mowing before you had the muscles for it."

A cold feeling settled in between his ribs.

"I wonder how he's doing," she pondered, and Jaylin's eyes swept to the floor, where they lingered on the dust and the dirt and the tiny house spider that skittered towards him. He felt as if he should be down there with them. On the ground, with the pine needles and the cobwebs. He was just so small under the weight of that name.

His shoulders jumped and his feet carried him past the linoleum, his shoe pressing down on the little spider. "Who knows."