I write the following message.
Bay,
I’m sending back the money for this past month, and I want to thank you sincerely for all the support you’ve given me over the last few years, but starting today I can’t accept any more money from you. Please don’t send any more transfers. I’m already working as a teaching assistant now, and I’m getting part of my income from articles and from chess tournaments as well.
I can support myself from now on, since the house is mortgage-free.
I can’t express how deeply grateful I am for all those years when you didn’t have to help me, yet you still did. You were and you are an absolutely wonderful person.
I will always love you.
Alex
Then I send the email, feeling a treacherous sting of wetness in my eyes.
I can’t take his money and sleep with another man, or even with Bay, but with theideaof another man in my head. I haven’t sunk that low morally, that would be downright wrong. Maybe I’m not the best person in the world, but I still have some fragment of integrity left in me, and I’m not going to cross that line, not toward someone who showed me only kindness.
Then I walk to my bed, the horrible misshapen nest I made so half-heartedly without feeling that anything made sense, and I crawl into the middle of it, rest my arms over my head and fall asleep.
???
The next day is Saturday, but I wake to a suspicious silence.
I know there’s no one in the house besides me. I simply feel it.
Frowning, I jump out of bed, open my bedroom door and head upstairs, because Dereck’s room is on the first floor.
It’s empty.
His laptop is gone, his knickknacks are gone, I open the closet and find nothing inside, no clothes at all.
There’s something white on the windowsill that catches my eye, a short letter for me.
Sorry, but I can’t keep living with you, the level of weirdness in your life has gone beyond what I can handle. But thank you for everything, Alex, for letting me stay under your roof, although our paths should part here.
Dereck
I crumple the letter with a grim expression and toss it to the floor.
Damn it all, why haven’t I been happy a single day since Bay left? Is it the consequence of my choices, or should I simply make a firm decision to move on?
What happened yesterday really suggests that my state of mind isn’t normal or healthy, and I can’t imagine any other responsible person doing something like that and thinking it was hot.
I clearly need some help, maybe a therapist, maybe someone who can finally put me back together, I just don’t knowwho that could be when the only person I feel I could truly open up to is Bay.
My restless hands reach for the familiar drawer that holds Bay’s diary. I open it, promising myself that whatever page it falls open to, I’ll take it as a sign, a message from him in this fucked-up, bizarre situation. Maybe it can give me something to hold on to, a thought to guide me.
My eyes land on an entry, one of the last ones.
"To pay off my debt, I’ll have to fight in a cage. The idea makes me uneasy, even though Ennio promises he’ll give me a mask so I won’t be recognized. But I’m doing this for Alex, so he can have a home, a place where he’ll be safe. I know how much he liked it there. I saw it in his eyes, the way they lit up, full of wonder. I’d do anything for him, even if it means stepping onto a dark path. Only Alex matters.
But how do I tell him? I don’t want lies between us, and yet the shadows keep creeping in, secrets piling up. It feels like I’m circling him, hiding in the bushes, making plans to protect him from getting hurt. And yet, in the end, am I only hurting him more by doing this?"
BAY
I’m sitting in my tiny VIP box, the one I only managed to get because of Ennio, since they normally cost a fortune, staring at the cage where Luca Ferro is fighting another purple alpha named Benzo.
I don’t come here often, only when the Ferro brothers take part in the fights.
