Chapter 25
Lunaris had optimistically brewed two cups of tea when we returned, and so must have been disappointed in me when I bypassed them for the liquor under the sink. I pulled out the whiskey and gin.
“G&T?”
“I thought you hated gin,” Kessian said.
“I do. You don’t.”
I’d bought it for him, but I didn’t want to say so, particularly after our conversation in the changing rooms. Might scare him off. The extra mug, the color of my bedroom door, gin stocked in the liquor cabinet … I’d held off sleeping with him so long, but the signs I’d already let him in were there.
Presenting him with his drink, I sat across from him in the dining booth. A sip of the whiskey warmed me up and gave me the courage to reach out and link our pinkies again.
He smiled weakly. “You’re going to think I’m a bag of cats.”
“I like cats.”
He took a deep drink and, studying the glass rather than me, said, “I never used to drink, ’cause one time my mum came home wasted and told me she liked her life better before she had me.”
“God, Kessian.”
I didn’t know what to say, and it looked like he might not say more, but then he did. Much more.
“It’s a pattern. I need a lot of personalized attention or I get neurotic and needy, so she left first chance she got. My first serious girlfriend left me because I was trans, and she wasn’t into men. Dom left because I was sick and dying, and he couldn’t handle that. And maybe that’s life. People come and go, things change, or the world changes and you no longer fit in where you used to, but for me it felt like every time I became more myself or more vulnerable, the people I loved stopped loving me back.”
It broke my heart to hear it put that way. My goodbyes had been many but brief. Apart from leaving Shearwater, I’d never had the time to get attached. I didn’t know which of us was better off.
“But you … you know all those things about me and said I was worth the risk anyway.”
“I didn’t mean you’re a risk because of any of those things.”
“I know what you meant. You were risking your heart. And if I’d known you would, I’d never have let you.”
“Why?”
“They say it’s better to have loved and lost, right? Somewhere along the line, I started to believe no one would choose me for good. So I chose Shearwater. It felt safe. Places can’t leave you, but people can.”
“Then Warwick evicted you.”
He nodded, smiling mirthlessly and taking another drink. “Every time I think I’ve got something stable going … Poof. Gone. We haven’t known each other long, but I go one of two ways. I either never fall, or I fall fast and hard, and I knew you’d be the latter, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. What if you, after accepting all those vulnerable things about me, found some new reason I wasn’t worth keeping? Something else that made me feel even harder to love than being disabled, trans, and more high maintenance than a bonsai tree. ’Cause being rejected by someone who doesn’t know me, that’s fine. But you … I don’t think I could take it from you.”
I wet my lips. Now came the hard part. I could see where the conversation led, the two of us bound for different destinations. This past week was just the brief slice of time in which our paths intersected.
“I said I’d risk a broken heart. You’re saying you can’t.”
Tears sprang to his eyes again. This time, he didn’t stymie them. “If we survive this, I can’t afford to stay in Shearwater.”
“You could come with me and Lunaris—”
“No, I can’t. I need my independence, Tal. I was completely dependent on Dom, and it left me in a terrible place when he left. I had friends in that city, but it’s hard to keep them when you only see each other once in a blue moon. I don’t want to feel like my entire life dissolves every time I have a breakup or have to move house. I want to find something with just ashredof plausible permanency. And I can’t ask that of you after a week, and you can’t promise it to me, either, so …”
His home had to be a place. I wanted mine to be a person. The Venn diagram of our needs was two circles.
“Oh.” Pain sliced through me, sharper than it had any right to be. We’d only known each other a short time, but it hurt like I’d known him much longer. “I … get it. I think. But …”Fuck, it hurt.
He made a noise like he’d been physically cut, too.
The sound of tearing fabric accompanied it, though. Kessian screamed and grabbed his leg. I jumped up, eyes wide.
