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I’d waited ten years for this moment, and now I couldn’t find the words to let him know how much I hurt, for hurting him. None of that mattered. Not how I’d felt when I did it. Not even my reason, messed up as it was for trying to protect him by bullying him. Were I to bring that up, he would laugh at me.
All I’d done was hurt him. The man I still carried every day with me in my heart. I could never be at ease with any other partner. I’d tried and failed epically because I couldn’t get him out of my head. The need to make things right between us was too strong.
The need to replace the resentment in his eyes with the kind way he used to look at me.
He’d adored me in high school. He’d never been afraid to show or say it, but I’d fucked up.
“Is that all you have to say?” he asked. “Because you already said that to me ten years ago. In voice notes, voice mails, cards, text messages. Why do you think it’ll make a difference this time?”
“I don’t know if it can, but I’ve got to try. I can try to justify what I did by talking about my shitty father, peer pressure, and all that nonsense, but I won’t because that would make light of what I did to you. I had no right to treat you that way. I shouldn’t have treated anyone that way, much less someone I cared about.”
“Then why did you do it? Yeah, your friends Evan and Ryker treated people that way all the time, but you never did. You only picked on me. Why? Was it some internalized homophobia that made you loathe yourself for sleeping with me? Did you have to punish me for what we did?”
“No, I swear it’s not that.”
“Then you know why? Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
A few seconds passed in silence. “Well, some apology this is.”
Troy stalked past me. Shit, I was messing things up again. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Please don’t go. I don’t want to say because now I realize how stupid it was.”
He stopped. “Are you going to tell me or what?”
I inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly. “I didn’t get the idea to…bully you until that day I broke your glasses. I’m sorry—”
“Just skip the sorries, man.”
“Yeah, well, I hated seeing you like that with Evan standing over you. I wanted to smack the shit out of him, but he was my best friend. We came from way back, and I couldn’t do that without ruining our friendship. So I told him to back off and slammed you in the locker for him to leave you alone. He couldn’t bully you if I was doing it.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you bullied me so your friend would stop bullying me?”
“It worked. And I tried not to be hard on you. Not as hard as he and the other guys would have been.”
“Jesus, you’re right.” He shrugged my hand off his arm. “That’s a dumb excuse if I ever heard one.”
“I know, but believe me, I didn’t want to bully you. At the time, I felt like I had to.”
“Okay.”
Okay? What did okay mean? Did he forgive me or what? I was too afraid to ask.
“You explained. Now take me home.”
My heart fell. “Troy, please.”
“Please, what?”
Please be mine again.
But that was wishful thinking. He didn’t feel for me what I still did for him. He had a life back in Atlanta now.
“Can you forgive me? I know you’ll not likely forget, but can we be…friends?”
Silence stretched between us. He averted his gaze and looked over the city. If only he would look at me so I could tell what was going on behind those eyes. But I might not. He was pretty good at guarding his secrets now.
“Take me home.”
