Page 48 of Hard to Forgive

“Jonas, I promise, I never told a soul. I mean, I told Mariah after we broke up, when I needed someone to talk to about the whole bisexual identity crisis, but I didn’t tell anyone when we were in school.”

I nodded. He wasn’t lying. I could see it in his eyes. He was baffled by the accusation, and I didn’t think he could fake that.

“I ignored you because I didn’t like thinking about what I did. I cheated on Mariah when I kissed you. And I wasn’t ready to accept certain things about myself. I wasn’t ready to admit that I was bi, not to myself and sure as hell not to anyone else. And you were just a constant reminder of it, so I guess I thought if I ignored you, then it would be like it never happened.”

That made sense. I hated that it made sense.

“Did things get worse with Javier? After I graduated?”

I nodded. “If it weren’t for my friends and my mom, I don’t think I’d have survived high school.” It was a soul-shattering confession, one I hated to make. I felt weak just saying the words out loud. “And it left me with some issues. Anxiety issues, mainly.”

“Is that the fist thing?” he asked, looking down at our joined hands.

“It grounds me,” I explained. “The bite of my nails into my hand? It anchors me.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy.” He sighed. “Using pain that way? Isn’t it kind of messed up?”

“Seb hates when I do it,” I admitted. “All of my friends, if they see me doing it, they try to get me to stop and try to get me to use literallyanyof my other coping skills. They just don’t work the same way.”

Silas nodded. “I don’t think I know enough about anxiety or you to have more than the barest opinion on it, but do you want me to try to stop you? If I see it at work?”

“No,” I answered quietly. “That’s not your problem. It’s mine.” He looked like he wanted to fight me on that opinion, but I silenced him with a shake of my head. It wasn’t open for discussion.

We sat there for a long time that night, talking more about high school. He told me about Mariah’s reaction to his cheating, about how his parents handled him coming out, and even about the guy he met in college who had helped him through it all. I told him more about my friends and my mom.

We talked until late into the night, stopping only to eat. Maybe we didn’t get any actual work done, but clearing the air felt good. And by the end of it, I knew the answer to another one of Seb’s questions, probably the most important one: I was pretty sure that I liked Silas Morgan.

16

When I left Jonas’shouse that night, all I could think about was the story that he’d told me. I knew I’d messed up back then, but I didn’t know just how far the consequences reached. At least I understood him better now. I understood why he’d been so difficult to get along with when I started at Brighton. I was just grateful that he’d told me, that he’d let me in.

I hadn’t expected it.

I kept thinking about it all night, despite the fact that there was nothing I could do to make it better. It wasn’t like I could go back in time and fix the mistakes I’d made when I was a teenager. It wasn’t like I could go find Javier and kick his ass for making Jonas’s life so difficult in high school. I couldn’t even do anything about the fact that it had given him some serious anxiety.

A part of me wondered if I should back off, if I should just bury my feelings for him. It wasn’t like I had the right to feel that way after I’d fucked everything up so bad back then, but the idea wasn’t one that I could follow through on. Feelings weren’t something that could be buried. I’d tried for years, and they’dstill reared their ugly head. And now I knew that it had left a trail of destruction in it’s wake.

Nope, couldn’t do that again.

I groaned and flopped back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. I needed to get some sleep, but his words kept replaying through my mind. Even when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed about what he told me. Except in my dream, I hadn’t ignored him. Instead, I stayed friends with him. I talked to him about my sexuality, and even though I still ended the year with Mariah, he didn’t have to go through what he’d gone through.

Hindsight was 20/20 and all that.

It wasn’t my best night of sleep, and I woke up feeling even more exhausted than I had when I’d gone to bed.

“Are you okay?” Isabel asked when I got to work. She was looking at me in that worried way of hers, her dark eyes studying me in a way that made me think of a very gentle mama bear.

“Didn’t sleep that great,” I admitted. “Wanna hit the break room? I’m going to need alotof coffee to get through today.”

“Especially with Mr. Grumpy Pants,” she scoffed.

My shoulders tensed automatically. It felt wrong to call him that now that I knew what he’d gone through, the pain I’d caused him. “He’s not actually that bad,” I told her with a shrug. “It turns out he had some pretty valid reasons for being pissed at me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t excuse how he spoke to me though,” she pointed out.

“It really doesn’t.” I mean I got it. Hurt people hurt people or whatever, but it didn’t excuse it. I was going to have totry to get him to apologize to her again, because I wasn’t sure how to reconcile the fact that I liked him when he hadn’t even apologized to Isabel for how he’d treated her.

Just another item for the ever growing to do list.

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