“I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you when you told me. I... I can’t promise to regret it because I still think we needed time to grow up, but please believe me when I tell you it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
I trace the circle of his cheek with my thumb as my heart does its best to try to beat out of my chest.
His eyes move fast, like he’s cataloging a million details in less than a minute, and I can’t know for sure if he’s going to forgiveme, if he’s going to give me a chance, but I also know that the only way to know for sure is to let him think it all through.
After an eternity, his eyes still on me, his mouth hardens into a determined line, and he gives a tiny nod that I doubt I’d have noticed if I wasn’t holding his face.
“Can you say it now?” he asks in a whisper. “In the present. Is it real in the present?” The heartbreaking hope I feel is reflected in his eyes. I can’t—won’t lie to him. Not anymore.
“I’m scared,” I confess, my voice just as fragile as his, and I inch a little bit closer to him. “I think it would break me if I get to have you then lose you, or if it comes to a point where I have to choose.”
“You shouldneverhave to choose, Lex.” The conviction in his voice is something he didn’t have back then. Hell, I think it’s something he didn’t even have two months ago, but how the hell would I know when exactly he learned his worth?
It all comes back to me being a shit friend.
“I don’t want to.” That’s as much as I can physically allow myself to tell him right now.
“Then don’t. We’ll figure something out.” There isn’t an ounce of naïve hope in his words, it’s all confidence coupled with a sob before he’s jumping on me, wrapping his arms around my neck like a vise, and burying his face against my shoulder.
Having him in my arms is enough to have my heart slowing down, it’s enough to make me feel like I already won everything that’s worth it, but then he speaks.
“If you’re willing to try,” he whispers in my ear. “Then I’m going to make sure you never have to choose, and that you get everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Whatever words I can think of get stuck behind the rock in my throat. How is it possible for him to be this giving? For him to be willing to fight for me? For him to declare so boldly that he’ll make sure I get everything I want?
I know damn well I’ve never done anything great enough to deserve this, to deserve him.
I love him, that’s just obvious and something I wish I could tell him. But despite this beinga moment, I know it’s not the moment forthat.
I don’t want to tell him when we’re full of fear and uncertainty—yeah, I am more than him, but there’s still so much up in the air, it feels fragile.
We live on opposite sides of the damn continent, and the whole country thinks of us as brothers. I can’t afford a scandal, I’m living on borrowed time as it is.
“Eli.” I finally find my voice, but then he silences me again, pulling his face away from my neck. I can tell he’s thinking about it, going for it, and once more I have to break our hearts. “No, Eli. Please don’t.” I choke out the words, my eyes watering already from having to say it.
“Why?” he whispers desperately, fisting my shirt on my shoulders and shaking me as much as he can. “Why won’t you let us have this?”
“Because it would be a lie!” I snap. “Because we’d have to hide and lie to people. We’d have to pretend, and I don’t want that for you, for me, for us.” Suddenly I need air, I need space, I need?—
As gently as I can, I pick him up by the waist and put him back down on the couch next to me, then stand and pace to the window and back. The loss of contact hits me immediately, it’s a type of grief that never gets easier.
His eyes are no longer full of tears, no, they’re running down his cheeks as he looks up at me with confusion and pure pain.
I hate this, I hate this so fucking much, but it’s just one of the reasons why I put distance between us in the first place.
“The last thing I want is to have to lie about another thing. I promise I’m not going to lie to you, I promise I’ll text more, we’ll do video calls, I’ll send you tickets to every game I have on the East Coast if you want,” I beg. “The way things are now, Eli, they would crucify us if people found out we’re together. They’d make a show of it and call us deviants or worse. You are so good and you don’t fucking deserve that. So no,” I conclude finally, stopping right in front of him. “I won’t let our first kiss happen when I’m not allowed to keep kissing you for as long as I want.”
The tears have stopped, thank all the gods, but he’s still looking up at me like I killed his puppy, and I’m weak.
I just did the hardest thing I’ve ever done since I swallowed back an “I love you” after telling him I was moving all those years ago, and now I have no strength left.
I fear for what we’ll become if he tries to convince me.
Just one word out of him would?—
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I ask, maybe a bit too loudly, but I’m fucking surprised, relieved, and disappointed all at the same time.
