Page 148 of The Last Call Home

If only.

Maybe then, neither of us would be so fucking broken.

It doesn’t surprise me to hear that my father has taken charge of my ...‘problem,’ as he so delicately puts it.Jean-Luc Bélanger, in all his self-righteous glory, is working with my agent and PR team to “fix” my image.After that, he thinks therapy should be the next step.Not for my recovery—no, that’s not what matters.There are more pressing issues than my leg.

Jean-Luc’s real priority is making sure his firstborn remains flawless.Perfect.Not some broken, queer man who defies everything he’s built his reputation on.That’s not the image Dad, or the league, would stand behind.Coming out would be like setting fire to everything he’s worked for—ourfamily’s legacy going up in smoke, with me holding the match.

To him, I’m a disgrace—a defect to be corrected.He’s convinced that the last time he sought help for myproblem, it wasn’t the right kind.But this time, he’s sure he’s found the perfect solution.A place designed to make me understand just how wrong I am about who I love.

But I’m thirty-four.I know exactly who I am.And I know exactly who I love.

No matter what he’s done, I still lovethem.

Both of them.

That part has never changed.And do I miss the fuck out of Halsey?Every day since they took her from us.I wish ...Fuck, there’s so much I wish for.So many dreams I’ve clung to, even though they’re impossible now.But unlike everything else in my life, I can’t reach for them.I can’t reach out for her.It’s because I love her that I stay away.

And while I’m stuck here in this hospital bed, helpless, he’s controlling the narrative, making sure the headlines say it was the famous musician Dustin Haverbrook caught kissing another man—not me.Some outlets are even spinning it into a story about a friendly kiss on the cheek.Everyone knows we’re childhood friends, but there’s only so much Dad can do to erase one of his worst nightmares from the world.

But the truth?The truth is so much more complicated.We are ...everything and nothing.

We’re what’s left of a dream.

Hals created that dream, and when they ripped her away, we couldn’t survive the absence.We were shattered without her.Now, we take what we can, when we can.Mostly when I’m too exhausted—too exhausted by the world, by the lies, and too fucking drunk to care.

But even then, it’s never enough.Not really.No matter how much we try to fill the emptiness, no matter how many times we fuck, it never drowns out the ache she left behind.It’s just a temporary fix—a way to feel something, anything, other than the constant void her absence carved into us.

Some nights, I lie awake, wondering if she ever thinks about us.If she remembers what we were.If she wonders what we could’ve been, if they hadn’t taken her away.Or maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.Maybe we were doomed to fall apart, even before she walked out of our lives.

I keep telling myself that it’s better this way, that we’ve moved on.But deep down, I know we haven’t.We’re stuck.Stuck in this endless loop, reliving the past, clinging to whatever scraps of connection we can still find—even if they’re broken.

Even if we’re broken.