Page 58 of Flagrant Foul
“He said that? But, I hadn’t even come out yet.”
“He always knew you were gay, Tee, and yeah, he said it in his car on our way home from school. It was the first thing he said. The first thing he thought when I told him. It’s the one thing he’s asked of me. The only thing. And he’s not wrong. He knows me. Knows what I’m like, where I’m from.” His voice goes very, very quiet. “He knows I’m not good enough for you. That I’ll fuck things up and hurt you.”
His words land like heat-treated steel pounding timber.
A hammer beating a nail into a coffin.
“You wanted to know who Nate is to me, Tee… He’s family. He’s the one who knows me and still has my back. The one who knows all the bad things. The one who knows that when I got my first big paycheck, I bought an apartment for my mom here in Tampa, and that I’ve paid it off and furnished it. It’s small, but it has everything she’ll need. It’s not too far from here, and it’s half a country away from my dad. She’ll be safe in it. Nate’s the one who knows that despite how hopeless it is, I call her every three months and tell her about it. I tell her how different her life could be and how much I’ll help her when she leaves.
“He’s the one who knows that she always says the same thing when I ask her if she’s ready for me to come and get her. ‘He’ll change. He's getting better. I love him.’ And he’s the one who knows why I can’t give up on her. But mostly, he's the one I’ll call when my mom finds the strength to remember who she is and leave. Nate’s the one who’ll go to Alabaster with me and get her out of there. He won’t ask any questions. He’ll drop everything and get on a plane and fly home with me, so I won’t have to deal with my dad on my own. That’s who he is to me. What he is. So, it’s not that I don’t want you, it’s that I… I need him in my life.” He bats the back of a bent finger under one eye. “He’s my family. I won’t be okay without him.”
Everything he’s said settles and begins to organize itself into something coherent.
The finality of it is staggering.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say, clamping my lips together to snuff out the sound of my heart breaking. “It’s not what I wanted to hear, and I’m so fucking sorry that you went through that.” A sob rushes to the surface and leaves me, and this time, I don’t fight it. “I understand where you’re coming from now. I didn’t know lots of the things you’ve told me, but I do now. I appreciate you telling me because, for me, loving someone means loving them whole. Good things and bad. Light, happy parts and dark parts too. Love means knowing and accepting someone as they are, not as you want them to be or think they are. And I do, Sev.” My voice cracks and an avalanche of tears begins to fall. “I love you so fucking much, and I’m not going to stop. I’ve tried for years to stop, and it hasn’t worked at all. It’s only made me feel crazy and depressed. So I’m going to keep loving you as you are…” I sniff softly. “But I’m going to respect your decision.”
29
Sev Delorean
Teddyiscrying,andit might be the worst thing I’ve ever seen. His cheeks have gone bright pink and his eyes are bloodshot. His irises are bluer than I’ve ever seen them and laced with a stark vulnerability that reminds me of the way Earth looks when viewed from space. Small and fragile. Beautiful and defenseless.
Tears pool in the corners of his eyes near his nose and overflow when he blinks, spilling down his cheeks in steady, continuous streams. He’s not wiping them away or trying to make himself stop, and that makes it worse.
“I won’t ask you for things you can’t give me anymore, Sev. We can go back to being friends like we used to be in the old days before everything started. I-I’ll keep my clothes on and everything.”
That should be a relief, and it is. It’s a huge relief.
It’s just that I’m wrung out and raw from where the conversation we’ve just had took me. Old, dark places that I spend a lot of my time trying to avoid because italways makes me feel like shit to think about them. It needed to happen tonight, and I’m glad I told him, but I still feel like parts of me have been forced through a sieve.
That’s why the relief feels a little weird.
It’ll feel like normal relief tomorrow, after I’ve had some sleep.
“I’ll move out as soon as I find another place,” I offer. “I can go to a hotel now if you want. It won’t take me long to pack.”
“I don’t want that.” A fresh sheet of tears falls. “I want you to live here.”
He takes my hand in his and stretches it out, exposing my lifeline. I should pull away. I know that, but I can’t. I can’t move a muscle. Instead, I watch helplessly as he leans down, raising my hand to meet his lips, planting the softest, sweetest of kisses on my palm. It’s a kiss that burns more than it soothes, even though it shouldn’t. His face is wet from crying, and when he pulls away, I’m left holding a tiny pool of his tears in my hand.
“I want you to know that I’m your friend too. I might not be what Nate is to you—I get that, and I’m not trying to be him—but I want you to know that when your mom’s ready, Nate won’t be the only one on the plane with you. I’ll be there too.”
There’s a sharp pain where my jaw and throat meet. A muscle spasm or something. It’s bad. It’s so sharp, it makes my eyes sting.
As I take slow, careful breaths to work through it, Teddy slides all the hair ties on his wrist over his hand and puts them in mine. I’m overwrought from our conversation and from him crying and from the muscle spasm. I must be because my first instinct, the one that lurks right beneath the surface, is a crazy urge to argue. To fight. To rail. To give the fucking hair ties back to him. To make him put them back on his wrist.
I manage not to.
Instead, I sit on the couch and watch as he moves around the apartment. He takes the blanket out of the washing machine and hangs it out on the balcony. Then he turns off the lights in the kitchen and living room.
He leaves the table lamp next to me on and says goodnight to me.
I feel obvious, out of place, and wrong.
“Night,” I reply, voice tight.
He makes it to the hallway before stopping, pausing, but not turning to look at me.
