July 27, 2018

The Friday night before the third regatta race, my grandparents came over for dinner. "Can I invite a friend over?" I asked Mom and Dad once I heard that Grandma and Grandpa were coming.

"Of course," Mom said. "I'd love to have Eden over, and I'm sure your grandparents would be happy to see her too."

I had been hanging out with Eden all week, and inviting her over normally would have been a great idea, but I wasn't thinking of her. "Actually, I wanted to invite Véro over," I said.

"Véro's that girl who's crewing for you for the regatta, right?" Mom asked.

"I think that's right," Dad said.

"I'm fine with having her over," Mom said.

"I'm not so sure," Dad said. "We don't know her very well."

"It will be fine," Mom said. "I'm sure Véro's a nice person. I trust Sylvie's choice in friends."

"Thanks, Mom," I said.

"Fine," Dad said. "Sylvie, you can invite Véro over if you'd like."

I immediately texted Véro and asked her if she wanted to come over for dinner. I had already eaten dinner at her house a few times, and it was about time that I return the favor. Besides, I had other reasons for inviting Véro. Although we had been sailing, our relationship hadn't been the same since the second regatta race. I still had the feeling that she didn't trust me. I had to tell her the truth, and the best way to do that was to let her see for herself what my family was like.

Véro soon texted me back and told me that she could come. By that point, both Véro and my grandparents were coming over in less than an hour, so all I could do was wait.

As it turned out, Grandma and Grandpa arrived before my girlfriend. Grandma excitedly told me about some book that she had read that she thought that I would enjoy, while Grandpa talked to Dad about both the Clearwater Lake Regatta and the Junior Regatta. "My money's on Sylvie for the Junior Regatta," Grandpa said. "She's a good sailor, and as long as she does well in the final race, she has a good shot at winning the whole thing."

I hated that qualification - my success in the regatta as a whole was far too dependent on my performance in the last race. Véro and I had to make sure that we did well. All of our preparations seemed insufficient when I considered the odds that we were up against. It was all up to chance now - we didn't have enough time to do much more practicing.

Grandma and Grandpa both ended up talking to Mom and Dad as they cooked dinner, leaving Everett and I alone to wait for Véro to arrive. "Mom!" Everett complained once he heard that I was having a friend over. "Why can't I invite a friend?"

"You should have asked earlier," Mom said.

Everett glared at me, and I said, "It's not my fault that you didn't think of inviting a friend earlier."

"It's totally your fault," Everett said as he turned on the TV. He then started to play some idiotic video game, and because I had nothing better to do, I sat on the couch and watched my little brother yell at the TV.

All of a sudden, I heard a knock on the door. "Hey, Véro," I said as I opened the door.

"Hi, Sylvie," Véro said as she entered the house.

"I don't think I've ever formally introduced you to my family," I said. "My mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa are right there in the kitchen." I gestured to each of them as I mentioned them. "Everyone, this is Véro Arkoun."

"It's nice to meet you, Véro," Grandma said, but Grandpa, Mom, and Dad clearly weren't paying attention.

"I recognize your father," Véro said. "He's the commodore."

"That's right," I said, grinning as we headed into the living room. "This is my brother, Everett. Everett, this is Véro."

"I'm still annoyed that you got to bring a friend and I didn't," Everett said.

"He doesn't know either?" Véro whispered to me.

I sure hope not, I thought, knowing that Everett would never shut up about it if he knew that Véro and I were together. I couldn't tell Véro that though, not when our relationship status was such a sensitive topic. "He wanted to invite Louis, and now he's mad that he didn't think of it before I invited you," I said. It was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. However, I knew that Véro would figure out why I didn't want to tell my family about our relationship before the end of the night, and hopefully, she would forgive me.

"That makes sense," Véro said.

"Sylvie! Everett! Véro!" Mom called. "Dinner's ready!"

All of us rushed into the kitchen, and we all took more than our fair share of food. Véro seemed especially thrilled with Grandma's homemade cooking. "This is delicious, Mrs. Morrison," she said as she helped herself to her third bowl of soup.

"I'm glad you like it," Grandma said.

"So what's new with you all?" Grandpa asked. "Obviously, I know about how well Sylvie and Véro have been doing in the junior regatta, but has anything else been going on?"

"I've been meaning to tell you about the Keep Clearwater Clear protest that we've been planning," Dad said.

"Tell me about it," Grandpa said.

"We had dinner with Theo and Molly Reinhart and their kids a few weeks ago, and we realized that Pigglyville wasn't going to listen to us, so we decided to protest at their shareholders' meeting on August 9th," Dad said.

"That's a great idea," Grandpa said. "It's about time that someone did something about the chemicals that Pigglyville's been dumping in Clearwater Lake."

"Will you join us?" Mom asked.

"Lorraine, do we have anything going on that day?" Grandpa asked Grandma.

"I don't think so, but I'll check the calendar," Grandma said. She pulled out her phone and then said, "We're both free on the 9th."

"Fantastic," Grandpa said. "We'll definitely be there."

"Sandra would be so proud," Grandma said.

"Who's Sandra?" Everett asked.

"She's the one who founded Keep Clearwater Clear," Grandma said. "Unfortunately, she died before you were born."

There was a moment of awkward silence before Véro asked, "Can I join the protest too?"

"Of course," Dad said. "The more people we have, the better."

"I agree," Mom said. "It would be great if we could get the whole yacht club involved. Maybe you should mention it at the next yacht club party."

"I don't think so," Dad said. "Greg Stafford's going to be there, and he'll be mad at me if he hears that we're planning this protest."

"How are we going to promote it then?" Mom asked.

"I'll post it on Facebook and hope that Greg doesn't notice," Dad said.

"I could post about it on my Instagram," Véro volunteered. "A few of the younger yacht club members are following me."

"That would be great, Véro," Dad said.

"Speaking of local news, did you hear about the mayoral election in two weeks?" Grandpa asked.

"I did hear about it," Dad said, but already, I was zoning out. I wasn't old enough to vote, so political discussions didn't particularly matter to me.

"Do you know who you're voting for, Phil?" Grandpa asked.

"I'm not sure," Dad said. "I don't know much about either candidate."

"Neither of them are very good, if you ask me," Grandpa said.

"Edward, let's not talk about politics right now," Grandma told him, but it was too late. Grandpa was already on one of his political rants.

"Erica Weber was on the town board when Daniel Sharp was the mayor and decided to waste all of Clearwater Lake's money on the new city hall, so I can't really get behind any of her policies," Grandpa said. "She's not nearly as bad as Lucas Carlson though. His policies are better, but I can't support a gay man running for mayor. He's a terrible role model."

I could see that Véro wanted to say something, but I whispered, "Just stay quiet," to her, and she did. I didn't want Grandpa to hate Véro already. What surprised me more was that nobody else was willing to call him out. Mom and Dad simply nodded along, while Everett suddenly became very interested in the carrots sitting on his plate. I wanted to say something, but I was too afraid of what Grandpa would think of me if I did.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Dad said, "That's good to know, but we still have some time before the election. I don't have to decide right now."

"That's true, but I always taught you to think carefully about who you vote for, right Phil?" Grandpa said.

"You definitely did," Dad mumbled.

"When's dessert?" Everett suddenly asked.

"We'll have dessert once everyone's done with dinner," Grandma said. "You can leave if you're done eating though."

"Okay!" Everett exclaimed. He hopped out of his chair, ran into the living room, and went back to playing with his Xbox.

Véro finished off her fourth bowl of soup and then got up from the table as well. "Come on, Sylvie," she said, and I followed her into the living room.

"Everett, can we have the TV?" I asked him.

"No," Everett said as he kept playing his game.

"Please?" I asked, but he gave the same response. "I guess we'll have to do something else, Véro." I headed back to my bedroom, and Véro followed me. Once both of us were in the bedroom, I closed the door and crashed onto the bed, while Véro looked around in awe.

"You have a very cool room, Sylvie," Véro said. "I like the animal paintings."

"Thanks," I said. "Eden's mom painted them when I was little. At one point, I wanted to replace them with characters from High School Musical, but now I'm glad that I didn't."

Véro laughed and said, "I like your room just as it is."

"I'm sorry about my grandpa, but I think you can see now why I didn't want to tell my family about our relationship," I said.

"I understand now," Véro said. "I forget that people here aren't as tolerant as they were in Paris."

"I wish they were," I said. "It would make my life a lot easier."

"I just don't understand why you couldn't tell Julianna," Véro said. "She wouldn't care."

"I know, but I was worried that Grandpa would find out somehow," I said.

"She wouldn't tell him," Véro said.

"You're right," I said. "Maybe I can tell some people, but let's take it slow. We'll decide together who we tell about our relationship. Eden already knows, but right now, I don't think I'm ready to tell anyone in my family."

"I'm okay with that," Véro said. "I'll stay quiet if that's what you want."

"I'm glad that you understand, Véro," I said. "I really do like you, and hopefully, I'll be able to tell my family about how wonderful you are someday. Do you forgive me for not telling Julianna?"

"Of course," Véro said as she moved closer to me. "I like you a lot too, Sylvie." She kissed me gently, making my heart melt. I kissed her back, and before long, words became superfluous. Our kisses became more and more passionate, and I wanted nothing but Véro Arkoun. She was the only thing that I could think about, and the regatta, my family, and even the lake itself seemed insignificant in comparison to her.

All of a sudden, the door swung open. I suddenly pulled away from Véro, but there wasn't enough time to wipe her lipstick off of my face. I looked up and saw Dad standing in the doorway. "What's going on in here?" Dad asked.

I didn't know how to respond, but everything got much worse when Grandpa arrived. "You know what she was doing, Phil," Grandpa said. He then looked at me and said, "Sylvie, I can't believe this."

"I'm sorry, Grandpa," I mumbled, not knowing what else I could say. Just from the way he looked at me, I knew that he hated me now. My relationship with my grandfather would never be the same.

"Edward, what's wrong?" Grandma asked as she rushed toward my bedroom.

"Our granddaughter is a lesbian," Grandpa replied, as if it was the worst thing in the world.

"You didn't know that already?" Everett said.

"Did you know that Sylvie and Véro were together?" Dad asked Everett.

"No, but I knew that Sylvie was gay," Everett said.

"How long have you known?" I asked.

"For the last two years," Everett said. "I overheard you when you came out to Eden, but I never told anyone about it."

It was crazy to think that Everett had been keeping my secret for so long. I had always considered him to be an obnoxious pest, but this was the first time that I saw that my little brother could be an important ally.

Grandpa, on the other hand, was already on the phone with Véro's parents, asking them if they knew that their daughter was in an "illicit relationship." Véro assured me that her parents probably wouldn't care all that much, but everything about this situation still worried me.

The whole house was in a frenzy, but all I wanted was to hide in a corner and get away from all of this. Véro clearly had a similar idea. "I'm going to head home," she said. "I'll see you on Sunday."

"See you then," I said, hoping that Grandpa wouldn't do something to keep Véro and I from sailing together. I couldn't let his bigotry prevent me from winning the regatta.

Grandpa wouldn't speak to me over dessert, and he and Grandma left shortly after we finished eating. Once they were gone, I returned to my bedroom and burst into tears. I knew that my family finding out about Véro and I wasn't the end of the world, but it sure felt like it. My whole life was ruined now, and there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it. Everything that could go wrong in my life had gone wrong.