Page 62 of Saving Wyatt

“What’s up? I thought we were friends now,” he said.

He looked at me with his bright green eyes. Eyes I had confided in so many times. Eyes I had looked into many-a-nights when he was making love to me. Eyes that had haunted me for five years since he put an end to us. But now all I could see was Dare. Just a friend. A friend I’d shared something deep with once upon a time, but a friend.

“I slept with Ari,” I said.

It slipped from my mouth before I even realized, but as soon as it was out, I felt a sense of relief take over me. Like I wasn’t being weighed down by it anymore.

“Dr. Ari? Warren’s Ari?” Dare raised an eyebrow.

“He’s not Warren’s anything. I checked,” I said.

“Yeah, I know.” Dare chuckled. “Okay. And you’re freaking out?”

“I wasn’t. Until I woke up.”

“And you realized what you did the night before?”

“No, when I woke up and read a message he received. From his boyfriend.”

Dare’s eyes went wide, and he sat back on his seat. “Oh,” he said.

“Yeah. I mean, it figures I’d screw it up again.”

“Huh? But you didn’t screw anything up. He did. He’s the one who cheated.”

“Yeah, but it’s me we’re talking about. I ruin everything I touch.”

Dare grimaced. “Is that what you think? That you ruined me?”

“I ruined us, and that was enough.”

Dare sighed. “You didn’t ruin us. Your fear did, Wyatt. Your fear of coming out. Of being true to yourself.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I asked.

“Then why don’t you do something about that? What are you so afraid of?”

I thought back to my time in Camp Hell, and the hairs on my arm rose, but I shook my head.

“I’m too old. What point is there in coming out? Everyone already thinks so little of me. Besides, Ari is taken, so…there really is no point.”

Dare shook his head and reached for my hand. “You wouldn’t be coming out for a guy. You’d be coming out for yourself. I don’t know what you’re so scared of. Ninety percent of the guys that moved here are some kind of queer or another. Do you really think they’d kick you to the curb considering they found the love of their lives because of you?”

“You’d hate me.”

“Why would I hate you?”

“Because I ruined us? Can you imagine me coming out now after I destroyed what we had?”

Dare squeezed my hand and pierced me with his gaze. “Sweetheart, you need to move on. The past is the past. What’s done is done. If it would make you happy to finally be true to yourself, why would I ever hate you?”

I chewed on his words for a moment, but I shook my head after a second or two. “It’s…it’s fine. I was doing fine for so long without someone. I don’t need to rock the boat now. Besides, I've got bigger fish to fry.”

“And yet this fish keeps coming back to haunt you. Maybe it’s time. Maybe that’s why it keeps bugging you when you’ve got bigger things to worry about. Maybe Ari wasn’t the one, but you shouldn’t be doing it for a guy anyway. You should be doing it to find your own inner peace.”

I almost laughed at that.

What inner peace?