Page 90 of Breakout Year
Eitan: I like you any way, really
Eitan: Sensible. I disapprove.
* * *
The night after Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah
Eitan: OK, I googled Shemini Atzeret and I still don’t know what it is. We never celebrated that one.
Akiva: That’s the secret. No one knows.
Eitan: Did you have a good secret holiday?
Akiva: I did. We had a party at synagogue.
Eitan: Wish I had been there. I’m on end-of-season rest. If I don’t start conditioning again, I’m gonna start eating the walls.
Akiva: wish you’d been there too
Akiva: I wish you were here right now
Akiva: wallboard isn’t kosher
36
Eitan
@shootthemoon (4:30PM): What’s the over-under on where Rivkin ends up? I put him at five years, $30 million annual
@shootthemoon (4:31PM): How sure are we about his ankle?
@shootthemoon (4:32PM): And about those off-field rumors?
Mid-November
Eitan was halfway through brunch with Kiley when she set her fork down on the edge of her plate. Looked at him appraisingly. “You seem morose.”
“I’m not—” He cut himself off with a long sigh. It was possible that he was being morose.
“Was New York not good?” she asked.
“New York was great. Well, not the busting my ankle part but…” He trailed off. He knew what he needed to say—what he’d been avoiding saying. That he was gay. That he was happy. That he was sorry for what had happened between her and him, a guilt he couldn’t seem to shake. He hadn’t really come out with any sort of formality. With Akiva, he’d done it in between kissing him, so Akiva had probably guessed from, like, context clues. With Gabe, he’d blurted it out and hoped for the best. With his parents…his mother had asked when Akiva from Instagram was coming to visit him in Cleveland and frowned when Eitan said he wasn’t.
With Kiley, he didn’t have to tell her. They’d promised to be friends. Here they were at brunch, with no need for declarations. He wasn’t afraid of telling her, per se, just of hurting her, a possibility that was infinitely worse. Was he hurting her by not saying something—by letting her think that it was her fault how things had worked out? He wouldn’t know until he knew. So he dropped his elbows to the table, leaned forward, lowered his voice. “I was seeing someone in New York.”
She smiled. “Sounds serious.”
It wasn’t, but I wanted it to be. “We knew when we got together that I was leaving at the end of the season.”
“And you’re regretting that?” she asked.
“It’s complicated.” Eitan felt like he had all those months ago under the hot lights of the New York media. He took a sip of water, slid an ice cube between his teeth for the texture. “His job is in New Jersey, and he doesn’t want to leave. I, uh, sort of went through some stuff in New York. Turns out I’m gay.”
Kiley blinked a few times. Wiped her mouth with her napkin. Picked up her fork and set it back down. “I figured.” Her smile went tight.
“Yeah, I guess we weren’t being that subtle on Instagram.”
She shook her head. A strand of hair came loose from her ponytail, and Eitan had a visceral memory of that happening when they’d dated, of tucking a lock behind her ear and then kissing her on the tip of her nose. A sensation strong enough that he almost missed it when she said, “No, before New York.”
