Page 46 of Honeysuckle
“I didn’t have a golden retriever, or a mom who made me dinner every night. I didn’t have a dad who played catch with me, or siblings to carry the blame when something got broken by accident. It was just me and my mom in some shitty apartment that permanently smelled like smoke and sex. Quit trying to fucking relate to me Dean. You're from the side of the tracks where boys get yellow as a favorite color. You don’t get it—you never will."
“I’m sorry,” I said, and the fact that I meant it rattled him. It was written all over his face as his shoulders relaxed and he settled back into his seat. He pressed himself up against the window and turned away from me.
It wasn’t his whole story, but it was something to go on, and by the sounds of it, nothing in his life had been even close to normal. The bus jolted, and I swallowed tightly to keep the nausea from rising as I leaned back against the seat for a split second before sitting up again.
"You know what? No," I argued. "No."
He didn’t move, but I saw his brow arch.
“You think my life is perfect just because I grew up with money?” I bit out. “It wasn’t. I grew up in a house where I couldn’t be anything but whattheywanted me to be. A gilded cage is still a fucking cage, Josh. Say what you want, but my life was far from perfect."
Silence.
“Yeah, Dad played catch with me, but the second he finds out he’s never getting a daughter-in-law out of his golden children, he’ll never look me in the eyes again. My Mom? She openly talks about how horrible of a sin gay people are at the fucking dinner table on Sundays. And sure, I’m eating my favorite food, but I’m doing it while she rants about how people like me don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her at the grocery store. So, maybe it looks perfect—but it’s fucking not. I’m not taking that shit from you."
“Why not?” Josh laughed, it was hollow and quiet, and he didn’t bother to look at me when he asked. “You take it from everyone else.”
LOGAN
Idozedoffonthebus, my thoughts plagued by the look on Dean’s face when he fought back about his family. It was startling to see him so heated—rare for Dean—but clearly, there was a lot to unpack about his mother.
What he told me didn’t compare to or dismiss my own past, but it showed me a different side of him that I hadn’t realized existed before that moment. That was the Dean who disintegrated a bat against a tree, the one I had been looking for since the first time I saw him.
It rattled me.
The buzz of my phone finding service woke me, forty minutes from Harbor, and I was scared to look at how many more messages had flooded in since the other day. Once she realized they were being delivered again, she probably flipped out. Dealing with the fallout from camp was oddly worth it? The last few practices had been promising for a season that might actually be good. We had a chance to win if we could just keep our focus on the game and not on the issues underlying each and every player. Our personal problems needed to be left in the parking lot, which, for this group, was easier said than done. They wore their grievances like patches on their jerseys, on display for the world to see. It was more annoying than Dean trying to pry my favorite color out of me.
My answer wasn’t meant to get under his skin; I’d truly never had one.
I’d never stopped to think about it long enough to pick one.
Even after he had yelled at me, I sat there staring out the window, trying to decide, but nothing came to mind. Green was too… green. And blue was too bright, but also too dark and sad. Red seemed obnoxious, and maybe I only owned so much red because we got handouts at Lorette. Yellow was his, so I couldn’t have that or it would seem like I liked yellow because he liked yellow.
After a while, I realized that I was arguing with myself about the rainbow and got mad at the distraction. For a whole hour, I had forgotten every problem that itched under my skin whilst I just tried to pick a color.
Unsuccessfully.
Dean fell asleep an hour into the bus ride; his head leaned back against the seat, exposing his strong neck. His lips were slightly parted, his chest slowly rising and falling as he found peace in his dreams.
I was envious that his life didn’t seep into his sleep; it wasn’t easy to close your eyes and see your demons waiting for you.
An hour later, the bus turned, and his body shifted, the full weight sliding across the seat and resting against my shoulder. I hissed from the contact at first, but didn’t push him away. I just breathed through the burning that the connection brought on, and slowly counted the curls of his hair to distract myself. Each one was perfect—like honey-dipped straw.
I lifted my hand and ghosted around a solitary curl that rested against his forehead, wanting to touch it–needing to know how soft it was, but unable to bring myself to do it. His breathing hitched, and I dropped my hand as he stirred from his sleep to the realization that he had fallen over.
“Sorry,” he mumbled in a sleepy tone.
“You weigh more asleep,” I muttered, shifting away from him, creating space and wishing I hadn’t all at the same time.
“Where are we?” He asked, brushing his hair back and flipping his hat over on his head to conceal his messy curls.
“Twenty minutes out,” I estimated. “You snore.”
“I do not.” Dean rolled his eyes and looked around the bus. Everyone was awake, give or take, from what I could see, and their anxiousness to get home and into their beds was tangible.
My anxiety was high for a whole other reason.
The last two weeks at camp had been hard, but they were nothing compared to being stuck inside Dansby House with them. We hadn’t even pulled up to the stadium, and I could already feel the walls closing in on me.
