“I didn’t plan this.”
“If you had, you couldn’t havefound a more perfect way to turn this whole fiasco into the biggest shit-showever.”
“Why don’t you tell me when thiswasn’t a big shit-show? There’re psychos trying to fucking kill me. Or did youforget that?”
No sympathy in his expression. Justjudgment. And for the first time, I understand why.
“That’s what this is fuckingabout,” I say. “You still blame me for this.”
“I don’t fucking—”
“Yes, you do. You think that if I hadstayed in the closet—kept everyone from finding out my dirty little secret—thenwe wouldn’t be dealing with this right now.”
“It’s true.”
“I didn’t come dancing out of thecloset. Riley Kiefer dragged me out. And as pissed as you were and as scared asI was, it was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me—”
“How can you possibly believe thatwhen it’s led to this mess…you being the target of these maniacs—”
“I got to live!Because themoment I was exposed, I had a chance to be free, and to do things without beingterrified that anyone was going to find out since it had already happened, andI was still alive. And it was the first time in my life that I realized youradvice was bullshit, because you had me fearing and stressing and—”
“Don’t you remember what it waslike in the beginning? They were constantly scrutinizing your every move.Criticizing you. You don’t think that was because—”
“I knew what it was, so I didn’tcare. Butyoucared, and you reminded me of that every fucking day. Notwith your words, but with your disappointed looks. Your silent disapprovals.You let me know every day that I was on my own because you couldn’t tell mewith a straight face that everything was going to be okay even if they threw meoff the team and I never got to play again. You couldn’t make me feel like Icould still be a whole person even if this all went away. Then when I finallygot something in my life that mattered to me—when Jordan—”
“How can you say that about himafter all he did to you?”
“Because I loved him more than I’dever loved anyone in my life. And as shitty as he was, I’m not afraid to saythat I cared so fucking much that it hurt. It still hurts. It burns in my chestevery time I think about how much he hurt me. About how alone I was when heleft because I couldn’t talk to my own father about it since he was justreveling in the fact that he knew he didn’t have to deal with thatinconvenience anymore.”
“That wasn’t what it was.”
“Then what was it?”
“You scared me. That was the firsttime I ever heard you consider taking breaks and needing time away from thegame. Do you forget how hard you worked to get here? How hardweworkedto get you here?”
“I’ll never forget.” I just don’twant it. Not like he does.
“Sometimes I’m worried that I’llwake up and find that I don’t even know you anymore.”
But that day already came. The dayI came out to him.
He sighs, like he finally has toaccept this like he had to accept when the reports of me being gay were crawlingall over the internet. This isn’t a victory, though. Once again, despite himgiving in, I know he would rather I just play by his rules.
“Is that what you want?” he asks.“For everything we dreamed…everything we created…to just disappear?”
Sometimes. “I don’t know.”
“Love is like what you experiencedwith Jordan. You know I loved your mother with all my heart. I wouldn’t havelet it go on as long as it did if I hadn’t. I cared about her as much as I everthought I could care about another person. I didn’t even think it was possibleto love someone more than I did your mother, but what good did that do me? Didit keep her in my life? Did it spare her the agony of battling constant,miserable depression? Do you know how often I would come home and find hersprawled out across the bed? It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get up and livelife. It was that shecouldn’t. So when you asked me how I could let herfall prey to those crackpot ideas that were out there, let me just ask you whatthe fuck you would have done? How do you give someone a reason to keep goingwhen nothing around them makes them feel like any of it is worth it? When everyday is a battle just for them to crawl out of bed and you don’t understand. Youcan’t help them when they’re reaching and grasping and begging for help, butall you have is anger because you feel like they’ve ditched you. That’s what itfelt like. Like she left the two of us. So no, I didn’t give many shits whenshe finally up and left because I saw it for what it was. She’d left a longtime before that. She had my heart and soul and everything that she could haveever wanted from me, and she took it and ran off with it. And what was Isupposed to do?”
I see the hurt in his eyes, anddespite how mad I still am at him, I can see why he had such a differentexperience with Mom. And I have to admit that I knew that she’d left us a longtime before that day, but I’m not willing to give him that I was happy abouther leaving…or okay with it…or that it was something I could ever be okay with.
“You can’t spend the rest of yourlife blaming me for her decisions…decisions I had no control over.”
Can’t I, though?
“And I can’t do enough to convinceyou that I did everything…went to every doctor…every specialist. And I wouldhave kept on trying if she had stayed. If she hadn’t given up. But she didn’tjust give up on me. She gave up on everything. And there’s only so much someonecan do when someone’s given up on everything…even life.”
It makes me think of Bryce. Aboutthat place I know he’s reached where he struggles and grapples with the natureof living, of survival, and I wonder if there can be a way to bring someoneback when they’ve gotten to that point. I feel terrible knowing that someone asincredible as he is has ever been in that dark place, and it leaves mewondering if that’s what Kiernan had to face…that dark moment where he was face-to-facewith someone he cared more about than they cared about themselves.
