He Called Me His

Chapter Eight: The Rumor.

We never got the chance to talk to our parents on our own terms. Sasha beat us to it.

I walked into the living room the next afternoon to find my mother and Richard already seated, expressions grim, Sasha's mother — who apparently sat on the same school board committee as Richard — having called ahead with a story that had clearly been twisted into something far uglier than the truth.

"Sasha's mother says there's video," my mother said without preamble, her voice tight with barely controlled panic. "Video of you two doing a lot more than dancing at homecoming. She says other parents are talking about reporting this to the school administration. Ivy, if this is true, this isn't just embarrassing anymore — this could have real consequences."

"That's not what happened," I said immediately, my heart pounding. "We kissed. Once. At homecoming. That's the entire truth, and I don't know what video Sasha's mother thinks exists, but whatever she's describing didn't happen."

"She showed me a video," Richard said carefully, though something uncertain flickered behind his eyes. "It was dark, hard to see clearly, but it looked—"

"It looked like whatever Sasha wanted it to look like," Xavier interrupted, his voice hard with anger. "She's been trying to destroy this since the moment the first rumor started. Have either of you considered that maybe the story you're being told isn't accurate?"

The room fell into tense silence. My mother looked between us, exhaustion and worry etched into every line of her face. "I want to believe you," she said finally. "But Ivy, I need you to understand — this isn't just about us anymore. If the school gets involved, if this becomes some kind of official issue, it could affect your record, your future. I can't protect you from consequences if this spirals out of our control."

"Then let us show you," I said, an idea forming suddenly, desperately. "There were other people at homecoming who saw exactly what happened, who can confirm the truth. Priya was there. She saw everything. Let us prove Sasha's lying before you assume the worst."

Richard and my mother exchanged a long look, some silent conversation passing between them. "Fine," my mother said finally. "But Ivy — if this is worse than you're telling us, I need you to be honest with me right now, before this goes any further."

"It's not," I said firmly, meeting her eyes without flinching. "I promise you, Mom. It's not."

Priya, when I called her in a panic that evening, agreed immediately to speak with our parents, confirming exactly what had actually happened at homecoming — a single kiss, brief and public, nothing remotely close to what Sasha's fabricated story had implied. Two other students, reluctant but honest when directly asked, corroborated the same account.

The "video" Sasha's mother had shown Richard, once actually examined, turned out to be nothing more than the same brief kiss from a slightly different angle, dramatically mischaracterized to sound far more scandalous than the footage actually showed.

Richard, to his credit, immediately called Sasha's mother to address the misunderstanding directly, his own anger evident at having been so easily manipulated by exaggeration. My mother, for her part, sat with me privately afterward, some of the earlier tension finally easing from her expression.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "For assuming the worst so quickly. This whole situation has scared me more than I think I let myself admit, and I let that fear make me doubt you instead of trusting what I actually know about who you are."

"It's okay, Mom," I said, and meant it, understanding better than most exactly how fear could distort even the most well-intentioned judgment.

"It's not, entirely," she said. "But I want to try to do better. Both Richard and I do. Maybe... maybe the rules we set were more about our own fear than what's actually fair to either of you. I'm not saying everything changes overnight, but I think we need to actually listen to what you two want, instead of just dictating boundaries out of panic."

It wasn't a complete resolution. It wasn't permission, exactly, or full acceptance. But it was something — an opening, however small, toward the honest conversation Xavier and I had wanted to have all along.

I found Xavier later that night, both of us exhausted from the day's chaos but strangely lighter, having weathered Sasha's worst attack yet and come out the other side with our families' trust, however cautiously, intact.

"She's not going to stop," Xavier said, referring to Sasha, staring out at the dark yard from our familiar spot on the porch. "Even after this. People like her don't just give up because one plan failed."

"Maybe not," I said. "But we're stronger than her plans now. Our parents believe us. We survived her worst shot. Whatever she tries next, I think we can handle it, together."

He looked at me, something soft and certain replacing the exhaustion in his expression. "Together," he echoed. "I like the sound of that."

I leaned into him, finally allowing myself to feel something like hope after weeks of fear and secrecy — hope that maybe, despite everything working against us, this thing between us might actually survive long enough to become something real, something lasting, something worth every difficult step it had taken to get here.

I didn't yet know that Sasha's next move wouldn't be aimed at exposing us at all — but at exposing something far more devastating hidden in Xavier's own past, something even I didn't know about yet, that would test everything we'd built far more severely than any rumor ever could.