“I’m not worth the risk?” I make it sound like such a petty, trite excuse. But isn’t it? I’m hurting like I haven’t hurt since we were breaking up over a decade ago.
“Fuck off, you know that’s not what I’m saying,” Abbott snaps. He closes his eyes and takes a slow, deep breath before continuing. “I don’t want to come out. I’m sorry. I just can’t right now.”
“Well, I haven’t changed my mind, Abbott. I don’t want to be in a closeted relationship,” I reply firmly. “I’m not a scared teenager anymore, and I won’t act like one.”
“I know. And I’m not asking you to be in a secret relationship,” Abbott replies quietly.
I stare at him. He’s staring back. The waves are crashing rhythmically in my ears through the open windows. And that’s when I realize it wasn’t a shoe that would feel like an anvil that he was going to drop on me. It was both. The shoe was Abbott telling me he isn’t going to come out. The anvil is Abbott being okay with me breaking up with him for it. And it lands directly on my chest, flattening my heart like a pancake.
“So that’s it? We’re done?”
“I love you, Declan.” He swallows so hard his Adam’s apple pushes hard against the skin of his neck. “But… this has to be over. For now.”
I can’t look at him. I can’t because I want to scream, or cry, or fucking slap him because I feel like this is some nightmarish déjà vu we need to wake up from. We’ve been here before. We weren’t supposed to be here again. He promised. Fuck him. I look past him, trying to figure out how to calm down, and I notice the laptop on the island. It’s open and I realize it’s on a real estate site when I see a bunch of listings on the screen. “Are you buying Aspen a place?”
“No, I was looking for you.” His words are a blow and I actually wince. “I know you’ll need a place to live now. And you don’t want to move in with your parents and probably don’t have money for a deposit and stuff, so I figured, I mean it’s my fault so I…”
He stops talking and I know it’s because the look on my face is growing red with rage. Outrage. “This is what you do now? You buy off your exes? Did you pay for Bentley’s law school or something when you dumped him? Are you the Richard Fucking Gere of closet gay dudes? Well, spoiler alert, I’m not your hooker sofuckyou.”
“Fuck you!” he bellows back.
“And FYI, there is no ‘for now’ Abbott,” I bark out. “This is over. Forever.”
Those last four words are sharp, strong, and decisive. I surprise myself because inside, I’m four very different things — wounded, confused, furious, and heart-broken. I turn and walk out the front door.
23
DECLAN
“But I don’t wantto go.”
Sean cocks his head. “Because…”
“Because I’m not the bachelor party type of guy on a good day,” I explain. “And this is not a good day. It’s not a good week. Month. Or year.”
Sean smiles. He fucking smiles. “I don’t deny that this is a rough patch. You wouldn’t be here if you had it all figured out.”
“It’s not that. I think… I guess I feel like I’m on better footing, personally, since I started seeing you,” I reply, because I feel kind of guilty. Like what I’m saying to him right now, how in the bell jar I feel at the moment, is somehow a reflection on these sessions not working. “But I was stupid to let Abbott convince me that things would be different this time. That he was ready.”
“You weren’t dumb,” Sean argues. “You gave someone a second chance because you wanted to, right? That’s what I’ve been subtly trying to tell you to do. Be you. Follow your gut. Stop stressing about who or what other people might want you to be.”
He leans back in his chair and drops his hands into his lap. He looks so relaxed, like we’re two friends discussing sports playoffs or something. If I did that type of thing. “Look, Declan, remember how we talked about that time when you were nine and Finn busted your lip open tobogganing?”
I nod and absently pull my lips into my mouth. I can still feel a hint of a scar on the inside where my teeth almost cut right through my lip. He continues walking me down memory lane and I wonder if I’m going to regret telling him about this. “You told me you knew he was too young to steer the toboggan. Your mom had warned you that the twins shouldn’t go down without you in control. But he wanted it so bad and you wanted to be the cool brother so you let him. And you ended up with three stitches and a lecture from your parents.”
“Where is this going?”
“You constantly do what youthinkother people want of you,” Sean says flatly. “Even when it goes against your gut. And then you double down on whatever choice you’ve made, even when it’s clear it’s not what people you love want. What they want is you to be you.”
I sigh. “What does this have to do with me not wanting to go to Jake’s bachelor party?”
“If you really don’t want to go because you hate surfing or you’ve got something better to do, then don’t go,” Sean says. “But if you’re not going because you think they won’t want you there, you’re wrong. And it’s self-sabotage.”
“I’m not exactly the best company,” I say. “I’m miserable and if they ask me why I’m sad I can’t even tell them. I only told you because apparently you can’t tell anyone. Terra told me that when she first suggested therapy.”
Sean smiles again. He’s lost that placating smile he had when I first started coming. It’s more genuine. “Yeah. I can’t. And you don’t have to tell them details. Just say you’re in a funk.”
I think about it. Finn and Logan might bug me for details, but probably not. And who knows? Maybe it will even take my mind off Abbott. At least a little. That would be nice since he’s all I think about day and night. Well, it’s only been one day and one night since I walked out of his house, and I guess his life, but still. It aches everywhere, not just in my chest like the first time we imploded.
