Lucas called to invite me to his victory party at the bar that evening and I couldn’t very well tell him no, even though it meant I might see Kate. It had been almost an entire month, but I wasn’t sure I could be in her presence without falling to my knees and begging her to take me back. Needless to say, it took me a long time to work up the courage to drive to the Lone Star Lounge that evening.

The bar was unusually busy, so I had to park a few blocks away. I sat in my car for a while before going in, just trying to work up the nerve. While I was sitting there trying to find my strength, my phone pinged. I looked down to see that my genetic results had been processed and uploaded. Curious, I opened up the app and took a look.

It took me a moment to process the pie graph I was seeing. I was from… everywhere. The little pie chart was divided into dozens of slices. I had genetic ties to every continent except for Australia. The majority of my ancestry seemed to be around the Mediterranean, especially Spain, Italy, and Northern Africa. That would explain my tan skin and dark eyes. The chunk of my ancestry that came from northern Europe helped explain my above-average height. The part of me that was—score—from the Polynesian islands helped explain my heavy build and more almond shaped eyes. I was Samoan just like The Rock! I mean, I was lots and lots of things, but Samoan was one of them.

My fingers were dialing up my mom before I realized what I was doing. She answered on the first ring, as usual. My mom practically lived with a phone in her hand at all times. She always had friends calling, and hated missing the latest gossip.

“Hey sweetie!” her voice was a comforting, twangy southern balm.

“Hi mom. I just got my genetic results. I wanted to tell you I’m from everywhere.” I sounded excited even to my own ears.

She laughed. Her laugh was light, airy, and happy. I could see her smiling face in my mind. “Tell me all about it, darlin’,” she ordered me.

I carefully explained the pie chart I was seeing, telling her how the genetic markers showed that I’d probably been the product of two extremely multiracial parents. There must have been a lot of interbreeding in my family over generations, possibly indicating that my family might have been merchants, or lived in cities that saw a lot of international trade. There was no one country that had a majority on my ancestry. I was, literally, from the entire world. Except Australia. And, I supposed, Antarctica.

“You’re the future of humanity, aren’t you?” she mused. She sounded impressed by my motley background.

“I guess so.” We were a long way from a world without race or racism, but it was a nice thing to think about. I’d never come across as being any particular race, so I’d never encountered any real racism. Sometimes people just assumed I was from their race, whatever that may be. Black people sometimes thought I was mixed. White people sometimes thought I was just swarthy. Usually I just got a lot of second looks and questions I couldn’t answer about where my family was from. Until now. Now I could tell people confidently that I was from everywhere.

“Well the future is going to be very handsome just like you,” she told me. “And very smart and talented. Oh, and probably very tall if they’re all like you.” My mom, who was five-four in her church shoes was very glad that I’d turned out to be tall. She made good use of my height whenever I was around. I felt like I spent a lot of my time getting things down from high places for her.

“Thanks mom.” My mom was never light on her praise of me in general. She’d always been that way, even when I was a fat kid with bad skin, bad grades and low self-esteem. Back when I’d had a face only a mother could love, she did.

“You’re welcome darlin’. They certainly took long enough to give you your results though. I thought they said it would only take a few weeks.” She made a disapproving clucking noise. It was the same noise she used on the cat when it jumped on her kitchen countertops.

“Well, I didn’t turn the test in right away.” I hesitated. “Actually, I was kind of worried about it if I’m honest.”

“Why’s that?” She sounded mystified and I relaxed. Kate was right.

I felt silly now, but I wasn’t going to keep the truth from my mom. “I was worried you would think that I was rejecting our family if I looked. I didn’t want you to feel rejected or anything. I just wanted you to know that I don’t want any other family than the one I’ve got.”

She was quiet for a minute. I heard her sigh over the phone. “Jimmy said you would feel like that. He said I was putting you in a situation where ‘you’d be as lost as last year’s Easter eggs’. I told him he was being overly sensitive. I guess he was right. I never wanted for you to feel like that. I just wanted you to know it was ok to look into your birth family if you wanted to.”

“I liked learning about where my biological family came from in the world,” I said carefully, “but I don’t really want to know anything else about them. I know who my real family is.”

I could almost hear my mom smiling into the phone. “I know honey. I know. But you can always change your mind and I won’t be mad. You can look into your birth family whenever you want. I won’t be offended. I know you’re always gonna be my son, and I’m always gonna be your mom.”

Talking to her made me feel a lot better. I ought to call more often. “How is Uncle Jimmy?” I asked.

She made an unladylike noise. “Getting into trouble as always. Yesterday I thought I heard some squirrels up in the attic. I told him about it and instead of calling the exterminator like a normal person, he went on the internet and found out that if you put a radio up there it will run them off. So, he decided to climb up in the attic during the heat of the day and damn near killed himself. But you know him, if he isn’t as busy as a one-legged cat in a sandbox, he thinks he’s going to seed.”

I laughed with her, feeling my spirits lift. “I miss you guys.”

“We miss you too, sweetie. What are you doing tonight?”

“I’m going to a friend’s celebration party. He just had a—” I didn’t know how to express the concept of selling an app to a private equity investor in a way that my mom could easily grasp. She didn’t do technology. “—a good thing happen to him at work.”

“That sounds like fun. I don’t want to keep you. Besides, I’ve got book club.”

“Ok, mom. Thanks for talking to me. Have fun with your friends! I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye sweetie! Love you.”

“I love you too, mom.”

When I hung up I had a smile on my face, but it didn’t last very long. I was glad that my mom was supportive of whatever I wanted to do with my life, and supportive of me seeking out my birth family if that’s what I wanted to do, but talking to her had also reminded me how lonely I’d been lately. Not having any real social interaction for weeks was beginning to take a toll on me both physically and psychologically.

I’d lost weight—something that I knew was going to happen and needed to happen based on my conversations with my nutritionist—but at a rate much faster than intended. I just wasn’t hungry. I was also much sleepier than usual. Both were symptoms of depression.

But the physical symptoms paled in comparison to the psychological ones. I was still holding things together well, but the more functional I seemed to become, the more real the loneliness at night was. The haze that had settled in front of my eyes had started to lift up like mist burning off in the morning, and all I could see ahead of me was loneliness.

My mom had raised me to believe that it wasn’t necessary to be in a romantic relationship. She was happy with her friends and her family. She didn’t have or want a mate. There aren’t that many people out there who actually admit that they are asexual. Due to social stigmas and all sorts of stupid prejudices that people hold, it isn’t always easy for them to be honest. But my mom was honest from the start. She was happy and complete just the way she was. Jimmy was the same, although never in so many words.

But me? I didn’t feel happy or complete by myself. From an early age, I knew that I wasn’t destined to be like my mom. I saw my friends’ parents and thought that I wanted what they had. A little family and a partner to help run it. I’d never imagined that I’d find myself looking down the barrel at thirty and still be single. In my childhood dreams for myself, there had always been a wife at my side. Someone to care for, and to care for me. Someone that I could protect and cherish and love. Someone who would be there in the mornings when I woke up, and evenings when we went to bed.

These fantasies of mine were never sexual in any way. I was too young for that. I just thought that it would be nice to have a partner that I could live my life with. Like a best friend, but better.

Now, I feared that I’d met the woman that I was supposed to have as my partner in life and failed to make her mine. I wasn’t worthy of her, and I’d made too many mistakes, and she’d figured that out. So instead of having a partner in my life, I was going to end up like my mom after all, only not because that was how I wanted it. I would be alone forever, because no one else would ever be as perfect for me as Kate.

Reluctantly, I made my way down the block to the Lone Star Lounge. It was twilight, and the sound of happy people in the bar carried down the street on the evening breeze. It sounded like people finding their partners to me. That sound was the music of people finding love. I feared if I failed tonight that there was nothing but silence in my future.

It occurred to me then that I had nothing at all left to lose. Kate had already dumped me. It was time for me to go all-in. I might not be able to win Kate back tonight, but I wasn’t going to let indecision or fear get in the way of trying. It was time to tell her the whole truth, and I still had one ace up my sleeve. I loved her.