He lifted his arms and linked his fingers atop his head, blowing out a heavy breath before turning to pace the length of the room. “All this time, I’ve thought the biggest obstacle to any relationship we might have was you being in the closet. But you built the fucking thing forhim, and have voluntarily locked yourself in it despite having the gall to claim you wanted to come out for so damn long.” He lifted his hands and made air quotes with his fingers.
I was on my feet before I even knew I’d moved.
“You think I don’t know that?” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care. “You think I sat in that office today and didn’t come to the same fucking conclusion? That I don't know every choice I’ve made for the last seven years has been for a man who used my mind to build his career and my body to get off?”
Taylor turned to me, his face red. He opened his mouth to respond, but I beat him to it.
“I know what I gave up. I know what it cost me. I know better thananyonethat I’ll never get those years back.”
I was shaking again, worse even than before. I balled my hands into fists at my side so he wouldn’t see just how badly.
“So don’t you dare stand there and throw my words back at me like I was performing for you. I have wanted out of this for so goddamn long that I forgot what it felt like to want anythingelse. And the fact that I couldn’t do it—that I was in too deep, too afraid, too … whatever—doesn’t mean I don’t fucking want it.”
My chest heaved, and I couldn’t breathe. The room suddenly felt too small. Too hot. My vision tunneled, the edges going dark and fuzzy. I gripped the arm of the couch because my legs suddenly felt like jelly. I sat down hard—or maybe I fell, I really wasn’t sure—and bent forward, gulping air that didn’t seem to make it to my lungs.
At some point, I became aware of Taylor’s hands on my wrists, gently pulling them away from my hair. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
His voice sounded muffled and far away, as if he was speaking through water. “Breathe, Seb. You’re okay.”
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t do anything except try to force air into lungs that had forgotten how to work.
Taylor’s hands moved to the sides of my neck, his thumbs pressing lightly against my jaw, tilting my face up. “Eyes on me. Breathe with me. In through your nose.”
I tried, but my breath shuddered and stalled.
“One more time. Slower.”
I managed a full inhale on the second attempt, and then another.
Taylor continued breathing with me until the room stopped spinning.
“You okay?” he asked eventually.
I nodded and pulled away.
He settled back on his heels, his hands dropping to rest on my knees. I stared down at them—at the knuckles raw from the punches he’d thrown on the ice a couple of nights ago—and felt nothing.
No, not nothing.
I felt broken.
And so fucking angry.
Taylor had taken the most honest thing I’d ever said and thrown it back in my face. Had mocked me while doing so.
A feeling of coldness settled over me, the same one I got right before I went for the jugular with an opponent. The part of me that knew instinctively where to cut so it wouldn’t stop bleeding.
“You want to know what the real tragedy is?” I asked, my voice low and devoid of emotion. “None of this had to happen. Not Wyatt. Not me being in the closet. Not any of it.”
Taylor’s brow furrowed with obvious confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“College,” I spat. “If even once you had said what we were doing together meant more than just getting off, I would have come out. I would have called my parents and detonated my entire fucking life for you. All you had to do was ask.”
I watched the color drain from his face and felt a momentary surge of vindication.But it wasn't more. I was a greedy beast that needed more.
“There would have been no Wyatt," I continued. "No closet I built for someone else. No lifetime of hiding. I couldn’t do it for myself, but I would have gladly done it for you.”
I stood, and Taylor’s hands slid off my knees as I stepped around him. He didn’t move from where he knelt on the floor, just watched me move away from him, completely rocked to his core.
