Page 70 of Unrecognizable Player

“But you do.”

His eyes water and a tear falls from the bloodshot eye. He wipes it and sniffles. Another one leaks out before he can stop it and I reach out and wipe it away for him with my thumb.

He grabs my hand and keeps it held against his face, letting himself cry. His shoulders chugging as he sobs. As much as it breaks my heart seeing him like this, I know he needs it, so I just sit with him while he cries it out. My hand getting wetter by the seconds where he has it pressed against his face.

When he’s calmed down, he turns his face enough to kiss the palm of my hand. The sensation of his lips against my skin sets butterflies flapping in my stomach.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice thick with tears.

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I do. I shouldn’t have kissed you and then freaked out.”

My heart starts pounding in my ears.

“I’m gay,” he says.

Say the right thing. It was a big thing for him to come out to you like this.“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” He says it so matter-of-factly. “It’s never gonna be okay. Not with my dad.”

“There’s nothing you can do about that.”

He takes a stuttering breath and drops my hand. “I know.”

“You have a right to not have to hide.”

“I just need to get a job, help him out, then one day…” he trails off.

And what if you meet someone before then?I want to ask, but the words get stuck in my throat.

He sniffles up the last of the tears. “Sorry, it’s the concussion, it can make you act weird. Mood swings.”

“Yeah right, it said that online.” I go along with him. But I don’t think that was about the concussion. I think that’s been building inside him for years.

He wipes his face and collects himself. I want to say something, ask him more questions, but he’s tired and concussed, and maybe now isn’t the time. He lifts his arms above his head and yawns. “I’m gonna take a nap, you can wake me up in an hour if you want. Ask me who the president was in 2016.”

“Okay.”

I set an alarm on my phone when he goes to bed and turn the TV back on, keeping the volume low so it doesn’t disturb him. Torn between wanting to protect him and bundle him up, and hurting over how much I want him.

While he’s napping,I cook some of Alice’s mom’s beef and radish soup for him to try when he wakes up. It always makes me feel better when I’m sad or sick. Maybe it’ll do the same for him?

I fall asleep and wake up with the alarm beeping on my phone.

“Shit!”

I jump up, knowing it’s okay, but still worrying about Alexei.

Even though he told me to wake him up, I still feel weird about going into his room while he’s in bed. Or going into his room at all.

Since I moved in, I haven’t even seen inside here. He always keeps the door closed.

It’s dark, but the light from the street light creeps around the drapes the way it does in my room, illuminating bookshelves and a desk, Alexei’s unmoving form under the comforter.

I crouch by his bed and press my face close to his mouth. He’s snoring gently, so I decide to give him a few more minutes before I wake him up. With his eyes closed and his dark hair coveringthe cut in his head, he doesn’t look hurt and I watch him for a minute, wishing I could see him look this peaceful all the time.

All the anger balled up inside him makes so much sense now. I can’t even imagine what it would be like holding all of that in. If I didn’t have Alice, I could at least speak to my sister, or someone in the orchestra. But Alexei has no one. Just some guys on a hockey team and a dad who wouldn’t support him. I don’t know how old his sister is, but she looked really young. Too young for him to confide in. And I don’t know if his grandmother would share his father’s sentiments when it comes to his sexuality. Maybe he doesn’t know either?

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