Page 100 of Cherry Picking
I can recall the smile on his face as he held my hand—squeezed my fingers to the risk of losing circulation—and I recall the way it fell, briefly, before a plastic one took place, and he took his hand away.
“We don’t have to,”He’d tell me, and like the coward I am, I always took the out. When it was never an out in the first place; It was Matty seeking reassurance. That I wanted to be public with him.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, because I don’t know what else to say.
“I already forgave you. That’s the thing. All of this … whatever this is living in your head, it’s done. It’s over. The door is closed but you won’t stop jiggling the handle.”
“I came out,” I blurt way too loud like an idiot, but other than a few quick glances, no one pays us any mind. “To my team. To my family.”
Matty’s smile is so big, so genuine, that for a moment that little lick of fear disappears. “Fuck yeah!”
“I have a boyfriend—had, have, it’s unclear—a guy on the team. His names Griffin, and he’s a fucking shit but I … I love him, Matty.”
Our eyes meet, and Matty offers his hand again. This time, I take it.
“You deserve to be happy, Riley.”
“Do I?”
His fingers close over mine, stopping me from yanking away and retreating.
Back when I first joined the Hornets, dating wasn’t on my radar. It was something Matty and I sort of fell into.
Just like we sort of fell into being roommates. And best friends. Lovers who existed under covers and in lingering touches while I went off to practice and he went to rehearsal.
Happiness is fleeting in the sports world. Old wounds wear new paths on scar tissue until they flare up and leave you on the verge of ruin.
We were kind of like that. Puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit but that had been chiseled down to resemble the holes in each other. Only for those parts of ourselves to tear new wounds that we’d patch and mend until more cut through.
Matty was my heart while hockey was my soul.
I needed them both.
That day, I did CPR on my best friend—on the only man I’d ever loved—and when he finally gasped that first clean breath, I should have thought that this is it: this is the man I’m going to spend my life with no matter what anyone else thinks.
That plenty of players balance hockey and love; what’s stopping me from being one of them?
What I actually felt was the burden of our secret growing heavier on my shoulders.
The realization filled my lungs like the water coming out of his.
I could mourn him, but I couldn’t love him.
Not the way he deserved.
“I didn’t love you enough.” I drop my chin to my chest, wishing he didn’t have to hear the words but knowing I need to speak them.
“Bullshit,” Matty bites the word out like a bullet. “And look at me when you talk. You know I lose words sometimes.”
“Sorry,” is all I get out before he continues.
“There is no competition. No measure of love and commitment that says this other guy won and I lost. We fell apart, Riley; that shit happens. You can’t let one failed relationship haunt you for your entire life.”
I don’t know how to stop. How to be okay with being happy.
“We were good. Together. Me and you. You were the first person I ever fell in love with. The first person to accept me, no questions asked. You gave me a place to stay when I couldn’t cut it on my own. You paid for my surgery with your NAPH savings. You loaned me your family, your home, so I could heal. I will always be grateful that I got to have you in my life.”
I grip his hand, hold it hard.
