“New and improved,” Alan repeated.
Jason worked a hand through Christina’s hair, twirling a lock, savoring the way it slid in electric strands across his knuckles.
“So are you going to tell me how you did… this?” Alan asked, taking a stumbling step toward his wife’s body, then veering off, eyes darting anywhere but the deep V still widening on the open shirt.
Jason shrugged, “Does it matter? I said up front: I’m not switching back until you and Christina deal with your shit. And this way, at least one of you gets a trial run as a functioning adult.”
Alan looked to the window, out across the cracked driveway and the wilted lawn, as if rescue might be barreling up the street in a siren-flashing squad car.
“Just… tell me one thing,” he said, “Why her? Why would you pick… your stepmom?”
“Because she’s the one you listen to,” he said, “Because you never listen to me, but when Christina tells you to knock it off, you actually stop and think for a second.”
He turned his back and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. After a second he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Jesus,” he said, almost to himself, “I need a minute.”
Jason—Christina—took three careful steps forward. He eased onto the comforter beside Alan, wrapping their hands together, “husband …and wife.”
“Look, Alan,” he said, lowering the voice to Christina’s best negotiating murmur, just at the border of a whisper, “I don’t want to drag this out. I want to fix things. Every time we shout, every time we—” He hesitated, searching for Christina’s phrasing, “—raise our voices in this house, it’s not just background noise.”
“Christina, I—” his Dad turned towards Jason, embarrassed, catching himself forgetting that his wife’s body was currently inhabited by his son.
“Babe,” Jason reassured him, “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just me, okay?”
He leaned in closer. Jason willed himself into Christina’s world, let her every microexpression float to the surface: the way she pursed her lips to hide a smile, how her lashes dipped when she needed a second to compose herself.
“Can you just look at me?” he said.
Alan’s gaze flicked toward Jason then away again.
“Look at me,” Jason said again, softer, and this time Alan did, eyes, wet at the corners. Not crying—Alan didn’t cry, not since Jason's real mom left—but perilously close.
“You’re right,” Alan said. The voice came out brittle, dry, “I never listened to you, and I never listened to her, either. I was always just trying to keep things together. After she died, I…” He blinked, “It doesn’t matter.”
Jason moved before he could think, before the words or the rules or the strangeness of the moment could stop him. He moved as Christina, as himself, as both, and wrapped his arms around Alan’s shoulders. The embrace was awkward—Alan stiffened at first, confused and recoiling out of old, unspoken habits—but then, as Jason squeezed tighter, Alan’s frame collapsed inward, all resistance gone. He shuddered, full-body, and pressed his face into the hollow where Christina’s neck met her shoulder. He was shaking, the sharp, dry sobs breaking loose in jagged hiccups. Jason felt it all through the bones and the skin and the muscle, the way Alan’s grief burrowed through Christina’s collarbone, the way it soaked into her shirt.
Alan clung to him, just holding on, and Jason tightened his grip, fingers splaying across the back, palm flat between the shoulder blades in a way that felt instinctive and right. For a second, neither moved. They just breathed together, the wetness from Alan’s cheeks dribbling into Christina’s hair, the heat of their bodies mingling.
Jason let himself merge with Christina’s muscle memory, the way she always knew what to do in a crisis—her hands making gentle circles along Alan’s spine, her voice a hush above the wreckage of someone else’s pain. Alan rocked, once, twice, then stilled, his breath turning ragged. He pulled back just enough to look Jason in the face, his eyes red and swollen, but full of something open and raw.
“I love you, Christina,” Alan said. His voice cracked, hopeless and sincere, “More than anything.”
“I—” his words shocked Jason, but his plan was working.
Alan looked flustered, “I, uh, never mind. This is confusing.”
Jason held the gaze, let the silence go awkward, then said, “It’s okay. I love you too, Alan.”
He even managed Christina’s little laugh at the end, the sub-vocal hum.
“Jason…” his dad protested.
“Come on. That was great! Let’s lean into it. Tell me about us.”
“By ‘us’, you mean…? Me and Christina?” Like… how we met? Or how we ended up in this mess?” Alan looked at Jason.
“Yeah, that. All of it.”
“I don’t know how to answer that. I was terrified after your mom left. I wasn’t even looking for anyone. But then Christina… I guess, I always thought she was someone who could fix things that were broken. But I never let her, not really.”
“Never let me, you mean,” Jason said in Christina’s register, “You’ve got to stop pretending you’re the only one who can hurt. That’s not what being in a family is. You have to let people in.”
Alan looked up, and for once, didn’t look away. Something dangerous and alive flickered in his eyes—uncertainty, longing, the raw hope of a man who’d spent decades starving himself of softness. Jason felt it, the fragile possibility of connection, and realized with a lurch that he wanted this to work. He wanted it for Christina, for Alan, for himself.
There was a long, slow moment where neither of them moved. Jason could feel the tension, electric and raw, arcing between their bodies. He reached across the bed, took Alan’s hand—surprised at the dry, papery warmth of it, the faint tremor running up the wrist—and squeezed. Alan clung back, desperate.
Jason leaned in, heart pounding, and this time there was no calculation, no game. He let Christina’s muscle memory guide him, the tilt of her head, the angle of her shoulder, the hush of breath as they both exhaled. Their lips met, tentative at first, Alan’s mouth trembling against his own. Jason felt the weirdness of it, his dad’s stubble scraping Christina’s chin, the press of their unfamiliar mouths together—soft and searching and nothing at all like kissing had been before. Alan’s hand rose and cupped the side of Christina’s face—his face, now—and Jason tasted the tang of salt, the old-cologne musk of dad-sweat, the sharp coppery bite of someone else’s grief on his tongue.
He expected revulsion, panic. Instead, Alan sat rigid, blinking hard, then let out a lungful of stale air and pressed his palm to his eyes.
“I’m a terrible person,” Alan whispered.
“No, you’re not,” Jason said.
“So what now?” Alan asked, voice steadier.
“Now?” Jason said, glancing around his parents’ bedroom.
Jason saw the room with new eyes. He felt the tentative hush, the way their presence changed the air—Christina’s scent, Alan’s body heat, the lingering aftershock.
He let the silence hang, then got up. Jason gathered himself—herself—and did a quick mental scan for the next step in the plan. Keep them talking, keep them from fighting, keep them… together. He perched on the chair by the dresser and crossed one leg over the other.
“We can start over. Clean slate. Just for tonight,” Jason said, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear. “Let’s do something that feels normal.”
“So you’re saying we just act like none of this happened and just—what, eat dinner together?”
Jason shrugged.
He smoothed the shirt against his chest, savoring the cool cloth on skin left suddenly hypersensitive, and said, “If you want to be a family again, you have to act like one. Just for tonight. That’s all.”
Alan pursed his lips.
“Fine,” he said.
“And that means we have to act like the couple we are.”
"That's... a big ask," Alan said, after a long, hissing breath, "You want me to just pretend? To go through the motions—"
"No, not pretend," Jason cut in, "You have to make it real. Otherwise it's just another dodge, and that's how we got here in the first place. We don't get out until we go right through the middle."
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