He’s shy and armored and afraid but still — still — himself. Never stopped being himself even when it cost himeverything. Even when it cost him Eldridge. Marcus. Everything he knew.
Exactly himself. I don't know how to do that.
I've been performing a version of myself for so long I'm not sure I know what's underneath it anymore.
I'm not sure there's anything underneath it.
I'm not sure my father left anything underneath it.
I can’t do this.
I can’t.
Please don’t make me do this.
I’m crying for the first time in who knows how long.
I’m weak.
Just a broken toy that no one wanted to play with, that you can’t fix.
My phone again.
I let it ring.
It stops.
Then:
Rhys:
okay
One word.
And that's the one that does it.
The way I can hear him in it — stepping back, giving me room, not making me explain. Because he knows. He's always known the difference between when to push and when to just put it down. Because he knows me.
But I hurt him.
Every time I get like this I hurt him and I don’t know how to stop.
Make it stop.
Please.
The crack in my chest opens up and I press the heel of my hand against it and I lie back on my bed and I stare at the ceiling and I think about a locked door at fourteen.
About my mother breathing on the other side and saying nothing, always nothing.
About a boy who smiled at me across a yard and how for thirty seconds I felt like a person who got to want things.
About how I got that beaten out of me.
About how I've been grateful for it ever since because it made me safe. Made me this. Made me someone who could survive the locker room and the draft and the career and the life I've been building toward since before I knew what building was.
I've been grateful. I lie there and feel how grateful I've been and it tastes like the worst thing I've ever fucking swallowed.
