“It’s not a phase,” I say, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it. “I love him.”
He laughs at that. It’s a short, disbelieving sound meant to make me feel small. “Love? You don’t know what love is. You know fixation and dependency. You know how to mirror what people want from you so they keep you around.”
Each word slices deeper than the last. I feel myself shrinking under it, my thoughts going fuzzy. I force my hands to stay still, because if I start moving—if I start stimming, if I start rocking, if I start doing any of the things that keep me from dissolving—he will weaponize it. He always has.
“I will not allow this,” he says, his voice hardening. “I didn’t raise a faggot.”
The slur lands like an anvil dropped somewhere deep in my chest. I can’t move, can barely breathe, but I don’t dare flinch. It would make it worse.
“I should never have allowed you to come here, knowing that degenerate was here as well,” he sneers. “So, effective immediately, I’m pulling you out of this school. You’ll finish the season, because appearances matter, but after that, we’ll reassess. I’ll speak to your coach again. I’ll speak to your doctors. We’ll get you back on track.”
“I don’t want to swim,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them.
His head snaps toward me, and the look in his eyes makes me shrink back instinctively. “You don’t get to decide that. You get to do what’s best for you.”
“I hate it,” I whisper. “I’ve always hated it—”
His hand slams down on the counter, the sound making me jump. “You hate it because you’re undisciplined. Because you indulge every feeling instead of mastering them.”
I fold in on myself without meaning to, arms crossing protectively over my stomach. My vision blurs at the edges. My heartbeat is so loud that it’s drowning out parts of what he’s saying, but the tone is familiar enough that I don’t need every word. This is the part where he takes me apart, piece by piece, listing my failures as evidence in a trial where the verdict has already been decided.
“You are broken and already require more management than most,” he says coldly. “Your coaches bend over backward to accommodate your… sensitivities. You think Damien will keep indulging that? You think he’ll keep treating you like some delicate little thing when you stop being interesting?”
My chest squeezes so tight it hurts, and I want to scream that he’s wrong, that Damien is gentle, that Damien asks and waits and watches my reactions. But I can’t get the words out. My body is locked. My mind is already retreating, pulling the shutters down. “There’s nothing wrong with—I’m just… me.”
He laughs again. “You’re a boy who had everything handed to him and still managed to come out wrong.”
That’s the moment when something in me finally snaps. Not in a loud way, or even with shouting or tears. Just a clean, internal break—a wire pulling loose.
I stop arguing.
I stop responding.
I stop trying to explain.
I make myself small and compliant and empty. I say “yes, sir” and agree with what’s best for me because that’s the only way to survive this. That’s the only way it ever ends.
Eventually, satisfied that he’s reasserted control, my father straightens his jacket. “I’ll be checking in frequently. Don’t make me regret not handling this more aggressively.”
“I understand, sir,” I whisper automatically, because my body is trained to agree, even though my ears ring and my eyes sting. I don't know what I’m agreeing to anymore.
“And eat something,” he calls over his shoulder. “You look like hell.”
The door clicks shut behind him, and the silence that follows is enormous. The pressure is building behind my eyes, and my ribs feel too tight to expand.
Eat something.
That part echoes.
I drift to the kitchen without really deciding to. My limbs feel disconnected, like I’m a puppet whose strings have been cut. I open the freezer and stare at the tubs inside until my eyes land on the ice cream—mint chocolate chip, the flavor I always buy, even though I know what comes next.
I don’t think. Thinking would hurt.
I grab it and a spoon and sit down on the floor with my back against the cabinet. The cold seeps through my pants, grounding me in a dull, physical way. I scoop mechanically, not tasting anything, just shoveling it in, one bite after another.
My mind goes blank. That’s the goal. Blank is safe.
I eat until my stomach feels tight and uncomfortable, until my chest feels heavy, until the container is empty, and my hand is shaking from the effort of holding the spoon.
