Dawson made a muffled sound of distress and I reached for his hand before I could think better of it. To my shock, he didn’t withdraw from my touch and God, I wanted to do a fucking cartwheel.
“Do you remember anything about it?”
“I remember feeling extremely tired and confused. I thought it was just the alcohol, but then I got really cold and clammy. My chest started to feel heavy and it was hard to take a full breath. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital and every inch of my body hurting.”
Dawson squeezed my hand, drawing my gaze up to his. The sadness I saw was enough to cripple me, but I kept going, giving him as much of the truth as I could spare.
“My dad was there when I woke up. I’d never seen him scared before, but he looked so terrified then. He told me what had happened and how close I’d come to…well, you know. He’d had Narcan in this kit from work that he used and it saved my fucking life. Guess being a pharmaceutical company CFO has its perks,” I joked weakly. The look Dawson gave me showed that my lame attempt to lighten the moment was not in any way appreciated.
“That still doesn’t explain why you disappeared on me the way you did,” he remarked without reproach.
This was the point where the truth fractured into pieces I had to sort through before sharing. He wouldn’t get why I was so adamant that he stay ignorant about what I really went through. I didn’t want him to know what I had learned about myself a few weeks before that had spiraled me out so badly I bought oxycodone off a shithead dealer at school just to cope. And that was only the first of many spirals I’d gone down in the years after.
“I slept for a few more hours and Mom was there the next time I woke up. She and Dad told me that I was being admitted to a rehab facility close to where she and Doug lived and after I was released, I’d be staying with her from then on. They said that I needed a “reset” to help me get better.”
Anger and despair spiked through my blood thinking about how I’d broken down when they’d told me the news. I’d begged, cried, screamed at them that I couldn’t leave Dawson. I even threatened things that didn’t help my case and cemented their decision to send me away for treatment. It was as though my whole world had been ripped away from me in a heartbeat and I had been powerless to stop it.
Dawson yanked his hand from mine and stumbled out of his chair. “So…you almostdiedand then told your Dad to keep me in the dark while you got shipped off to rehab hours away from here? Why the hell didn’t you trust me?”
“It wasn’t about not trusting you...”
That was my first lie.
“That’s exactly what it was about,” Dawson barked. “Tell me why you didn’t trust me with the truth.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you more when there was nothing I could do to change it. I was leaving either way,” I replied weakly.
Dawson scoffed coldly, marching up to me and coming within inches of my face. “You have always been a terrible liar, Theo. One more chance. Why did you not trust me?”
With him this close to me, stealing my breath and sanity, I panicked. We were tap dancing perilously close to the secret I’d held for years now. I had tried so hard to keep it from him, to not taint what we once had, but I cracked under the pressure of his glare.
“I didn’t trust that you’d still see me the same if you found out,” I whispered hoarsely. “I didn’t want you to know I was broken. I couldn’t stand to see you stop loving me.”
Dawson’s face crumpled, tears flooding his lash line in a wave of pain. I wondered how much I would inflict before he turned his back on me forever. It would only be what I deserved.
“You—” He broke off, his breath stuttering. He took a large step back and cold swept over my body at the loss of his warmth.
“You didn’t trust me to keep loving you? So when I gave you my class ring and I promised you my heart, my future…you thought I was what? Lying? Did it even mean anything to you?”
A sobbed broke through my chest, forcing its way out. He didn’t understand. His promise was the one thing that kept me alive every time the darkness came for me.
Every time my thoughts screamed at me to end it, to quit trying, to just stop feeling, I held his ring to my heart and remembered that Dawson had promised me forever…and I couldn’t take that away from him by giving up. His ring was all I had of him, the physical proof that I’d once owned his heart. I had promised him that I would always keep it close to me so I’d never forget that he was mine.
But fear can kill even the strongest of resolves, break the most powerful of promises. And it had broken mine.
“You’re wrong,” I choked out as my own tears broke free. “I didn’t think you were lying. What you said, it meant everything to me.Youmeant everything to me. I was just scared and I…I really thought it was better that way. I was losing you anyway, but at least you still loved me. If you knew the truth, I risked losing that too…”
I watched helplessly as he cried, wet trails running down his beautiful face as he turned away from me. His hands laced together on top of his head and he stared up aimlessly at the sky.
In all the years we’d been apart, we’d never felt as broken as we did in that moment. I had broken us over and over with my secrets and lies, and now finally, with the truth. What did we even have left to help us to repair the damage? I wasn’t sure it was even possible.
The worst fucking part was that I was still holding back the rest of the secret, the core of my distrust. He assumed the overdose was the source of my shame, and I was too much of a coward to let him think otherwise.
After an interminable silence, he turned around with a defeated slump in his shoulders. Dread slid down my spine at the cold, empty look in his eyes. I’d read once that the most beautiful, colorful cornflowers were meant to be worn by men in love to reflect the love given to them in return. But if the flower’scolor faded before its time, it meant their sweetheart’s love for them had faded as well.
Dawson’s cornflower blue eyes were dull and muted as though the color had drained away. I fought to breathe, trying to stifle the alarming hysteria building inside me. I had been terrified of losing Dawson’s love, of seeing the shift in the way he looked at me. Seeing him now was every nightmare come true, every fear come to fruition. He looked right through me and I wanted to die.
“Thank you for being honest with me,” he intoned. “I don’t want us to fight anymore, and to be honest, I don’t have the strength to keep being angry with you. I’ll agree to no longer bring up the past and wipe the slate clean if you will.”
