Coming clean to the family.

We all showered and spent some more time together before leaving Diana’s house. As fun a night as it was, we had ended it with a lot on our minds. Still, it was needed. We had relieved stress, reaffirmed our desire to stay together and made up our minds. Now it was time to start making our moves. We still had time left, but it was better to not waste any of it.

That’s why I was ready to have a very awkward conversation with mom and Isabelle when I got home. I didn’t know what to expect, honestly. Would they think me crazy? I had ways to prove I was telling the truth. Would they be worried about me? Would they see me being possessed as a bad thing? Would mom ask me to stay away from Mr. Allen and avoid the deal? What should I do if that was the case? Like the girls said, we could just ignore them and do our own thing, but we still love our families. If possible, we want to have their support and approval. Though my case was so strange I couldn’t predict what was going to happen.

Isabelle was almost finished with lunch when I got home, so I went to my room for a change of clothes and then back down to the kitchen to eat. I kept thinking of how to start to approach the subject, but I also didn’t want to do it while we were still eating. That caused me to be very quiet, more so than usual.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Isabelle asked me. “Did something happen? You look out of it.”

“What did you guys do last night?” mom asked me with a worried look.

I shook my head. “We played Monopoly, cards, we talked… It was fun, really. We just… talked about our after school plans. We’re trying to figure out what to do.”

“Oh, of course.” Mom sighed and nodded. “It’s not rare for families like theirs to have their children’s paths decided for them.”

“Yes, well… We think we might have an idea of what to do. We don’t want to get separated, after all.”

“And? What’s the plan?” mom asked.

“...” I pursed my lips. My heart beat hard and I felt it in my ears. My hands felt stiff and my mouth dry. “B-Before that, there is something important I need to tell you two.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. My tone put her on alert. This was serious and she understood it. Isabelle felt the tension rise and kept quiet, watching and listening.

“What is it?”

“I’m… sure you noticed. Something happened to me some months ago, near the start of the school year. I… changed.” Neither said anything. Isabelle nodded and mom kept her eyes on me, but they waited for me to go on. “I… I told you I’d been working out in my room during summer, but the truth is… I woke up and found myself like that one day.”

Their eyebrows rose and their lips parted. “Wh-What do you mean?” mom asked.

“Exactly what I said. I woke up and my body had changed. Fit, strong, healthy… I didn’t know why. I was freaking out. I didn’t want you or anyone to… I don’t know, I’m not sure what I wanted, but I was afraid of what people might think, so I said I’d been working out. Now, though, I understand what happened.

“I was… dammit. I was possessed. A spirit named Frey who calls herself a Spirit of Lust. She possessed me, changed my body and gave me… abilities. I only found out about this a couple months ago. She’s… the reason I have multiple girlfriends, why our relationship works. I know. I know it sounds like I’m insane, but I can prove it.” From my pocket I took out a market. With it, I wrote the runes for Stasis on the table. “Isabelle, mom, try to move the table.”

The two women looked at each other with a mix of worry, skepticism and confusion. Still, they tried to move the table, pushing and pulling lightly at first, but when it didn’t budge, they pushed even harder. The table was completely still.

“This… is magic,” I told them. “It’s real, apparently. Frey, the spirit, has taught me a couple of things. I sometimes talk to her in my dreams. She’s not evil. She… supports me. She worries about me.” I groaned. “Dammit. I know I sound like I’m insane, but I don’t know how else to tell you. The girls know about Frey, we’ve talked to her through a Ouija Board. I’d show you, too, but the board is in our club room at school. Frey’s powers are… S-S-Sexual in nature, which is why… Well, why I have six girlfriends now, I guess. I know it’s hard to believe, and I didn’t mean to keep this hidden from you, but it wasn’t something I felt I could talk freely about. Now, though… I have to tell you. My future involves this stuff. Frey, the magic, the girls… It’s all a part of my life now, whether I like it or not.”

“...Isabelle,” mom said.

“Yes?”

“Pour your mother a glass of whiskey, please.”

Isabelle stood up, looked for the bottle, poured mom a glass and gave it to her. Mom downed half the glass in one go, groaning as it burned her on the way down.

Isabelle sat back down, taking deep breaths. Her eyes were on the runes I’d drawn. She tried to move the table again to no avail. Mom, meanwhile, was rubbing her temple with eyes closed.

There was silence for a long while. I fought the urge to continue explaining myself. Mom and Isabelle needed a moment to let it all sink in. It was very awkward, but I kept quiet and waited. It was probably only two or three minutes, but it felt longer.

“Your grandmother believed in this type of stuff,” mom finally said. “She always talked about curses and similar things. I grew up hearing stories about witches, demons and ghosts. I never paid much attention to it. Not because I thought it was dumb, but because it creeped me out.”

“Oliver… How do you feel?” Isabelle asked me.

It was a strange question. I hadn’t been possessed yesterday. It had happened months ago. I didn’t feel any different than I had since September last year. Still… “Better than ever,” I told her. “I was scared and confused at first, but somehow this ended up being the push I needed. I finally feel like I have some control over myself, that I’m growing to be the person I want to be. I’ve been putting effort into the things I was always afraid of doing. The gym, a job, a social life… I have people I care about and who care about me. Even if the push came from something weird and unexpected, I’ve come to accept it and embrace it.” I sighed and looked at mom again with a grimace. “Am I wrong to feel this way? Am I crazy?”

“I… I don’t know, Oliver. This is all too sudden.” After that first gulp, mom didn’t touch her drink, only keeping her eyes on it. “But I can’t deny that you have grown. You’ve become more cheerful, proactive, social… I’m happy about that, but…”

“You believe me, then?” I asked them.

“I mean, no offense, brother, but it makes more sense this way. Not that I don’t think you could’ve gotten a girlfriend, but… six? And it’s hard to deny… this.” Isabelle shook the table again without response.

“Yes, I believe it too,” mom said. “I thought your changes were strange. I had to believe you were just a late bloomer. No, maybe that’s still true. Still, I think the idea that something else was at play was always in the back of my mind. But… Are you sure, Oliver? Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded solemnly. “As weird as this sounds… This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And it’s not going away.”

That… went well. Like I said, I didn’t know what to expect, so that they didn’t completely freak out was already a big win.

It wasn’t over yet, however.

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