Dark feelings, Bilal thought. Anwar didn’t know the half of it.
“But the last twenty-four hours has also all been really confusing for me. I think I findyouconfusing most of all,” Anwar continued.
“In what way am I confusing?” Bilal asked defensively, despite thinking of a few ways he might have given off perplexing signals.
“Well, for one thing, we literally spent the night together but then this morning you acted like nothing monumental had happened. And then this afternoon you kissed me and—I don’t know what I’m supposed to read into anyof this. I’m not even sure thereisanything to read into, maybe you were just blowing off some steam.” Anwar’s face was drawn into a frustrated expression. “Honestly, trying to understand you is more confusing than trying to understand Chaucer,” Anwar said.
“I have always loved your metaphors, Wari,” Bilal replied with a smile.
Anwar didn’t return the smile but there was a small jolt of surprise at the nickname. Bilal hadn’t called him that in a very long time.
“It’s actually a simile, not a metaphor. But to my point, what is up with you? Do you or do you not want to be together? I’m tired of playing this guessing game. I won’t be offended if you don’t want to be. I just need to know.”
Bilal was quiet for a few moments, gathering all of the thoughts he’d had over the past eight months. He had really missed Anwar, truly missed him, in a way he missed no one else in the entire world. In a lot of ways, losing Anwar was like losing his closest friend. Things had been great between them—up until the last two months of their relationship, when Bilal had felt his own decline, mentally and physically. After winning his first Olympic gold medal, he’d been under an unimaginable amount of pressure to keep up with his successes, to get the next gold and the next one after that and so on. To live up to his alias,the Olympian. This meant longer training hours, early morning until late at night, never seeing his friends, always pushing himself way past his limits. Until one day a few weeks ago, he finally broke. He felt a twinge in his left leg as the fragmented memory of that night played again in his mind.
The night he’d hurt himself on purpose… not in an accident like the reports said he had.
He remembered what his father had said when he’d found out the truth. He called himweakanddisappointing. Called himuseless. Even though the rational side of his brain knew that Anwar would never think of him that way, he couldn’t help but hear his father’s words echo in his mind. The
irrational parts of him were scared that Anwar would secretly think
the same.
Bilal had so many things he wanted to say to Anwar but had been too scared to. Like how he knew he hadn’t been the best partner to him in those final days, and how he knew he was bad at talking about his feelings even though he really wanted to, and how much he still cared for him.
Most of all he was scared to tell Anwar the truth, the truth that might change how Anwar saw him for good. But maybe the truth would finally set him free.
Now was his chance, probably the only chance he’d get.
“I want to be with you,” Bilal answered hoarsely, and a flicker of something crossed Anwar’s face. “But I can’t be,” he finished.
Anwar’s eyebrows were knitted together. “Why not?”
“So many reasons… too many,” Bilal said.
“Tell me all of them, I have time,” Anwar replied stubbornly, folding his arms, his face pinched in a way that made him look even more adorable.
Bilal forced himself to stand up straight, against his better judgment and his strong desire to slump over. Earlier he hadn’tjustbeen having another one of his existential crises, he also hadn’t been feeling too good. He was sweating profusely, his pulse felt weaker than usual, and he was lightheaded.
“Well, first of all, I am probably not going to have a career anymore. Even if this leg heals, it’ll never be the same,” he said. Omitting the part he truly wanted to say.I made sure of it.“I’m going to be a washed-up ex-prodigy who was once great and is now sad and pathetic. A failure at the one thing he was meant to be great at. The one thing he spent his entire life training to be great at. You deserve someone great, Wari, and I’m not that. I don’t think I ever have been.”
Anwar shook his head, clearly wanting to refute it all, to tell Bilal that his worth wasn’t in his talents or abilities, but in him just existing. That was enough. But Bilal was talking again.
“I’m not the person you think I am, Wari. I’m not a good person. Partly because of my father, partly because of myself and my own faults.”
“You’re not a bad person, Billy,” Anwar said in a soft voice that made Bilal’s icy exterior melt. He moved closer to Bilal, who was now shaking his head.
“I am, trust me.”
“Name one heinous thing you’ve done, and I promise you it won’t change how I see you. You could tell me you kick puppies in your spare time, and while I’ll tell you to stop and ask you to seek serious help, it won’t stop me loving you.”
“Wari,” Bilal began, but Anwar stopped him.
“You’re not your father, you’re a good perso—”
“No,” Bilal said, forcefully cutting him off. His voice was hoarse now, tears caught at the back of his throat. “I did something really bad. Really, really bad… I hurt someone;wehurt someone.”
Anwar was staring at him, worry digging a pit in his stomach. He’d never seen Bilal like this before. “What do you mean?”
