Page 53 of Offside

What was the fucking plan here?

“I’m s-so sorry,” he breathed out in stutters, chin wobbling like he was going to cry.

Like, he didn’t choose this outcome.

Something in me started to die at his apology. I wanted to be wrong–I wanted to be wrong so badly, but his apologising meant I was right.

It meant he was Metal.

And he did know.

“You’re sorry?” I asked, scoffing as my face heated and tightened against my will. My eyes rimmed with tears I wouldn’t let fall. “That’s all I get–you’re fucking sorry?” I almost shouted, forcing myself up from his couch–away from him.

“How long have you known it was me?”

Sam swallowed hard, and I already knew I didn't really want that answer. “A while,” he managed to croak out, awkwardly forcing himself up to stand with me.

And fuck me–my first fucking thought was still to make him sit back down and accommodate him.

Fuck me!

“Since you got hurt–”

“You’ve known since last year?” I actually shouted, jaw dropped in horror. “It’s almost April, Sam! What the fuck?!”

“What was I supposed to do, Landon?” he suddenly yelled back, surprising me–I wasn’t sure I'd ever seen or heard Sam yell before. “You got hurt–I went to check on you, and I saw your fucking legs! I freaked out–”

“That’s why you left me,” I mumbled under my breath, letting out a low groan in frustration. “Why didn’t you just tell me then?”

“Because.” His voice cracked, his face all red, and his eyes so close to crying that I almost bought it. “What was I supposed to say, Landon? That I knew who you were, and now things were different because you were comfortable in your closet, and I knew? I knew I loved you then, and I wanted to protect you–I would rather you have hated me for ghosting you than know and feel like you were walking on glass at work–”

“You left me,” I corrected, making him stop to just stare at me again. “Stop trying to make it sound better–you made a choice, Sam. You found out who I was, and instead of giving me the chance to talk about it with you, you chose for both of us–why did you even come back? Why not just let me get over you–”

“Because I love you,” he whined, messily wiping a few rogue tears from his face. “Because I wanted you to get over Metal and love Sam, but you wouldn’t do it–you were hung up and…I missed you too much. I couldn’t take it anymore–”

“Oh please,” I huffed, dropping my head back and groaning out hard to vent some of the pressure in my head. “You cared that a month went by without getting to jerk off together–”

“That’s not true!”

“It is!” I shouted, my eyes locking back on him now with mostly rage in my chest. “It is because it was working, Sam–I was falling for you, but I kept swatting it away because I loved Metal. I kept hoping he'd come back, but if you'd just stayed away, then yeah, it would have worked–it just didn’t work for your dick’s timeline–”

“If that’s true, then why did it take so long for us to start doing that again?” he asked angrily, wiping some more tears, but they weren’t being replaced anymore. “And why did it take you prompting it, if that was all I missed? Why are you so quick to assume that was what I cared about? I love you, Landon–I wanted to be around you as Sam, because Sam got to touch you, but came back as Metal because he got to actually have you.”

“You know why?” I huffed, shaking my head as I grabbed my phone and stepped towards the door. “I assume that stuff, because if you actually loved and cared about me, then you would have told me,” I said, surprisingly calmly. “You would have come to me and told me you knew, so we could figure it out together, but you didn’t. You’re using my being in the closet as the excuse, but that wasn’t it–you’re just a liar.”

“I’m not–”

Slamming his door on my way out may have been the step too far, but it felt good. It felt like the first good moment in a sea of shit, the last fifteen minutes of my life.

How my day had altered so much in the last fifteen minutes was just…fuck.

What was I supposed to do now?

Being back in my apartment was lonelier somehow. I suddenly felt foreign in my own home, looking around at things that used to bring me comfort as if they were poison now. I couldn’t watch those movies because I watched them with Metal or Sam. I couldn’t enjoy that takeout, because I'd just think about Metal or Sam.

I couldn’t even look at my own bed without thinking about Metal.

And how lonely I suddenly felt again.