Page 202 of Goodbye Note

“Yes?”

“You said you’re not enough, that she deserves someone who loves her…” I stared at him.

“Yes. She loves me. I don’t love her. I couldn’t even fuck her. It’s not fair to her to stay with me anymore.” He downed his drink.

“What are you saying?” My ears started ringing, and my vision narrowed.

“She left me.” His voice carried no emotion.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I threw myself to my feet, not sure if I should be chugging from the bottle or making an escape so I didn’t do anything stupid.

“I tried before you bolted from the elevator.”

My brain was on information overload. “Wait, you couldn’t fuck her?”

“We tried a handful of times because she wanted another kid, but turns out, I can’t get it up with the meds and stuff.”

“Not at all?” I didn’t want to believe any of this, but deep in my bones, I knew he was telling the truth. I looked anywhere but at him. I was on the verge of doing something really stupid.

“I don’t know if it’s because I’m gay and maybe not bisexual after all. But more than that, I’ve been in love with you for half of my life. I can’t settle when I know you exist.”

We collided.

Coming together more like stars than lovers.

But maybe our crash was as unavoidable as gravity.

FIFTY-SIX

VARIAN

Hope bloomed in my cold, dead soul for the first time in seventeen years.

The way he kissed me was nothing like those nights we’d met in hotels.

We’d slept together then, but he was cold. Broken. Checked out.

This was like the sun returning after the long, dark night.

His warmth spread through my veins, reminding me how it felt to be alive.

How it felt to be alive with him.

Fear crept up my throat. I didn’t want this because he felt bad for me. I wanted my best friend back in any capacity he’d let me. I clung to him as our tongues twisted. He gripped me just as tight, which gave my anxiety some relief.

He walked me backward until my ass hit the counter. The pressure of our hips coming together nearly sent me over the edge. Electricity crackled over my skin. I touched every place I missed. Every part of him I’d dreamed about for so many years.

He dug his fingers into my thighs, picking me up to sit me on the counter.

“What the fuck?” He’d never have manhandled me like this before.

“I’m not the same person you knew,” he said between gulps for air.

“You feel the same to me.” I shoved my hands under the back of his shirt, desperate for nothing to be between us. Not clothes, not the years of mistakes we’d made, not the weight of what other people wanted from us. I wanted our rawness back.

“I’ve embraced who I am. All of me. All the parts I buried away to be palatable for society.” His green eyes burned with a fire I’d never seen before.

“I want it all.” I want you. I was too scared of scaring him away to admit the last.

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