Page 67 of His Secret

He steps inside as I wait in the hall. Crossing one foot over the other while he slips his hands in his pockets, he doesn’t seem to care one way or the other if I join him.

The doors begin to close and I rush in.

Maybe he knew I was coming all along.

“Are you being weird?” he asks without looking at me.

“No.”

He laughs. “Okay.”

It’s silent for a while, then he says, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“My wife might disagree.”

His jaw tenses but he doesn’t say anything. The doors open, and we walk out and head to the room.

Once inside, he tosses the key on the counter and removes his tie. “I don’t want to talk about your wife anymore.”

“When have we ever?”

“I don’t want to hear it. That word. That title.”

I swallow, taking in his anger. “It’s easy to do when you don’t have one. When you have no one to answer to. No one to hurt.”

He lets out a mocking laugh. “Well, you know all about hurting people. Glad to see you’ve gotten to a point where you actually care. You didn’t used to.”

Matías stands at the window, looking out.

“I did care about hurting you, Matías.”

He spins around. “You did it anyway, and yet now you’re so morally conscious. Afraid to cheat on a wife you’re not even attracted to. A wife you can never love in a way she deserves. However, you didn’t seem to think twice when it came to hurting me—the one and only person to love you for exactly who you are.”

“Marriage is different. There were vows.”

He scoffs. “Don’t even get me started, Adrian. Those vows were tainted the moment you uttered them. Don’t kid yourself.”

“You used to care about obeying the rules and you were always worried about someone’s feelings being hurt.”

“Yeah, look what that got me.”

The words are like an arrow to the heart.

I step closer to him. “I wanted to be with you. I never wanted it to end.”

“But?”

“My father controlled my life. He knew. He confronted meabout it on Thanksgiving weekend, threatening that I’d have nothing if he ever found out his son was gay. He was ready to disown me, and I’d have no money or job security. I lived off his wealth through college, not concerned with having to save or work for my own. I was always aware he’d give me a job when I graduated.

“I went back to school trying not to think about it. I still had half a year, and I wanted to spend every second of it with you. I hoped I’d come up with a plan. I hoped it would work its way out one way or another, but the job was in Chicago. I was always going to leave. I spent too much time living in the present that I wasn't thinking about the future. But the present was perfect. The present had you, and that’s all I wanted to think about. I knew you weren’t gonna go to Chicago. You had your own plans.”

He stares at me for a while, exhaling his frustration. “You could’ve told me. We could’ve talked about this and came up with a plan.”

I shake my head. “That’s because you don’t know what happened during Christmas break.”

“What happened?”

The Past

---