“You want to know the worst part?” His eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I would have helped you. If you’d just been honest. If you’d just said, ‘I’m gay and I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.’ I would have been there. I would have supported you through coming out. Through everything.”
My chest felt like it was caving in.
“But instead you tried to use me to run away from yourself. And that?” His voice broke. “That I can’t forgive.”
I stood there speechless.
“Get the fuck out of my room, Alex.”
His voice was raw. Wrecked. And final.
“And don’t ever do that to someone again.”
I stepped out of the doorway as he closed the door. The sound echoed down the hallway—final as a coffin lid closing.
I stood there, staring at the wood grain, at the dry-erase board covered in doodles and inside jokes from Ethan’s friends. A photo strip from a photo booth—Ethan and some guy I didn’t recognize, laughing, kissing, making faces.
He has a whole life I know nothing about.
The realization hit me like a sledgehammer. I’d been using Ethan as an emotional crutch since we met. Coming to him with my problems, my fears, my anxiety about the team and my father and the constant pressure. And I barely asked about his life. His dreams. His struggles. His fears.
I’d treated him like a resource instead of a person and tonight I’d proven it.
I started walking down the empty hallway, my ribs ached, my knuckles throbbed under the band-aid, and hose pains were nothing compared to the hollow feeling in my chest.
Everything was falling apart. The race. The fight. Now this. And underneath it all, the truth I couldn’t escape:
I wanted Liam. Had always wanted Liam. Would probably always want Liam.
And that want was going to destroy me. By the time I reached my own dorm room, the tears had started. Silent, hot, unstoppable. I locked the door behind me, slid down the wall to the floor, and let myself break.
For the first time since I was a child, I cried. Not neat, quiet tears. Ugly, gasping sobs that ripped through me like earthquakes. Everything I’d been holding back—the fear, the loneliness, the exhausting weight of pretending—came pouring out.
My father’s voice echoed:You need to crush him, Alexander.
Liam’s eyes going cold after he’d saved me.
Ethan’s face when he pushed me off of him.
I’d just destroyed my only real friendship because I was too much of a coward to face myself. And worse—so much worse—I’d hurt him. Violated his boundaries. Used his kindness against him. I’d become exactly what I feared: someone who hurt people.
I didn’t know how long I sat there. Long enough for the sobs to fade into silence, and long enough for the sun to start touching the horizon, painting my room in shades of gray.
I can't keep doing this.
Something had to change—I had to change—or I was going to lose everything that mattered… including myself.
I pulled out my phone and opened a new text to Ethan. Typed: I’m so sorry.
Deleted it.
Typed: I’ll do better. I promise.
Deleted that too.
Alex
You deserve better than how I treated you. I’m sorry.
