Page 296 of Untouchable

Parker nods, as though this will help him get his thoughts in order. He honestly hadn’t thought he’d get this far, and now he wishes he had a list or a slideshow or something to guide him through the muddle of emotions swirling in him.

“Okay. Um. Well—”

Parker stops and regroups.

He realizes then that all he can give Harp is his honesty. He owes that to Harp, and more importantly, he owes that to himself. With Cole, he’d always been afraid to set down boundaries. If he had, Parker had always known Cole would leave him. And so he’d stayed quiet, stayed docile, had let Cole do whatever he wanted. All because he couldn’t bear the thought of being without him.

But Parker doesn’t want things to be like that.

He doesn’t know the right things to say, but maybe if he simply lays out every thought and feeling and emotion, like a jumble of yarn on the table, he’ll find some kind of clarity.

And they can go from there.

No modifications. No justifications. Just the truth of his feelings.

“I, um—it, uh—” He shakes his head, licks his lips, then tries again. He’s terrified, he realizes. “That thing you said in the bar—about how, if I talked differently, Gil would respect me more. That, um—that wasn’t okay. That’s the kind of thing Cole said to me, and I—I can’t go back to that. I can’t… be with someone who treats me like that. And I know you apologized for it, and I—I really do believe you, it’s not like I think you’re lying or something, but—but—”

Parker’s hands are shaking. He hadn’t realized honesty would be quite this hard, quite this painful.

“I just need you to know how much that hurt. To hear you say that. Because—because you’re the one person who’s never asked me to… change or be different. And you’re the first person to… help me learn how to… be okay. With who I am and how I am. And so to hear you say something that… Cole has said to me before was scary. It made me wonder if… if I rushed into things. Because I do that—I mean, you know. But it made me question everything. And that’s terrifying. But maybe it’s good, too, because it made me think a lot about… us. And myself. And the kind of person I want to be, and the kind of person I want to be with.”

He falters.

“Does… does any of that make sense?”

* * *

Harp is struckby that same snarl of emotions he felt the other night when Parker stood up for himself with Gil at dinner—proud and wrecked at the same time, flushed with happiness and despair.

Because Parker has grown so much since they met a few months ago. Harp can't imagine Parker from before sitting here with him, saying these things, letting Harp know that even though Parker loves him, what he'd said hadn't been alright.

Of course Harp knows this—has mulled over the moment a hundred times in his mind to try and understand why he'd said it, why he'd felt that way, how he'd let himself get to a point where he'd rather ask Parker to change something about himself than to ask his brother to behave himself. It's a mistake he won't make again, but he doesn't know how to promise that to Parker with words that mean anything. That’s the problem with this whole thing: he never knows what to say—and until now, he and Parker have always overcome it.

But even as Harp feels some piece of himself crumble, understanding that he'd done more damage than he'd thought at first, at the same time there's warmth in his chest like the first promising blossom of a campfire.

Parker is such a wonder—and he'll never stop changing, and he'll never stop surprising Harp. If they can make it, if they can do this, Harp knows that Parker will keep changing, improving.

Harp can't wait to love that version of Parker, too.

"All of that makes sense," Harp says, finally. "I am so sorry. I understand. It wasn't right—and I don't want you to be any different. That's why I know I need to work on these things. I never would've said that to you sober, and I'm sorry. You're right."

* * *

Parker is flushingand he’s not even quite sure why. It’s strange, he realizes, to have someone simply… accept what he’s said. Without argument, without asking for clarification, without making him justify what he’s asking for.

He would have thought that that alone would be enough for him. It is, and it isn’t. More and more he’s been realizing that things are not nearly as black and white as he’d always thought. You can love someone and still be hurt by them. You can forgive and still ask for changes. You can stand up for yourself and still wonder if you’re doing the right thing.

“I… appreciate you saying that,” he says at last, trying to choose his words carefully. “And… it means a lot to me that you thought about how to keep that from happening, you know? In the future? With, um, drinking and stuff.”

He draws a deep breath, not quite able to meet Harp’s eye anymore.

“That’s more than other people I’ve dated would have done. So… yeah. Thank you for that. It can’t happen again. But… I think I trust that it won’t. Or that you’re really working on it. And, y’know, it’s scary to me. Because then I start to wonder if I’m just making excuses and allowing someone to treat me like shit again. And then I feel like I’m tripping over my thoughts and all confused, but—”

He looks up at Harp.

“I think I can trust you. So… that’s what I’m going to do.”

"I'm going to work as hard as I can to be a person that you can trust," Harp says.

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