The Embrace of Evergreen (Unexpected Love #2)

Ethan

Ethan

God, how can it still hurt this much? How can it still feel like I just lost my entire family yesterday, even though I’m sitting here a decade later, in my safe place surrounded by nature, tightly clutching Blue’s strong, callused fingers? I’ve never told anyone what happened or why I left. I’ve never had anyone to tell. Now that I’ve started, I want Blue to know everything. I don’t want to be so alone anymore. He’s here, sitting by my side and listening and letting me cling to him the way Jordyn let me after Mom died, and for the first time since I lost Jordyn, I want to trust that at least one person in this whole wide universe might actually want to listen to me. That there is just one person who doesn’t make me feel like I’m a burden when I’m not hiding behind my mask of thoughtful professionalism.

“Jordyn didn't mean to hurt me. I know that. I know he meant it when he told me that he loved me, too, and intellectually, I understand why he didn’t want to come out. Our town was small and behind the times, and I'd never even heard the word gay used in person unless it was flung as an insult. When I told Jordyn that I wanted more, we weren't kids anymore. We were adults, and we were strong. I’d thought that we could be even stronger together. I really believed that as long as we had each other, it would be okay. But he held my hands and smiled sadly and told me that while he loved me and he'd always have a place for me in his heart, he wasn't ready to take that step. That he didn't think he'd ever be. That he wasn’t gay, he was bi, and that he'd decided being with a man forever wasn't his future. He planned to build a life with a woman one day. He was sure he'd fall in love with one at some point. I don’t know if it works like that, but everyone’s journey is their own. I know that. I knew that even then. If he wasn’t ready or didn’t feel strong enough, it wasn’t my place to press him, but it just felt like I wasn’t enough.I was so angry at him at the time, so heartbroken that even after seeing what losing Mom did to me, he took his love from me as well.”

I can’t stop the way my breath seems to catch in my lungs or the tears that have found their way down my cheeks. I don’t even try. I know that Blue isn’t judging me. His thumb is sliding gently along the side of my hand, and his stormy eyes are soft and glistening as if he’s holding back tears as well. As if he cares enough about me to share my hurt.

Blue doesn’t look at me like he knows I'm lonely and confused and just a little bit desperate to belong.He doesn't make me feel like I need to smile more and ramble less and hide everything that makes me, me, behind thick steel walls because who I really am is too dull or introverted or anxious.He doesn't look like he's trying to find a way to extricate himself from my company.He listens when I talk and he laughs like I'm funny and he smiles like he's happy I'm around.I feel seen and heard and wanted, actually truly wanted. I feel like I might actually be worth keeping around.

“Ethan…I don’t…I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you. I wish there was something I could do to help. I wish there was a way to go back and tell that kid that he’d make it through. That one day, you’d be a kind, handsome businessman who travels the country helping people everywhere you go. That one day, you’d learn how to blow a glass vase and spend your Friday nights at drag karaoke surrounded by friends who love you and your weekends wandering the woods and enjoying the peace they offer.”

The sob that tears its way from my throat is harsh and loud and it seems to hover in the dense, humid air surrounding us for a moment before it’s swallowed up by the forest.

“I can’t…I don’t…”

My eyes fall closed, and I focus on the warmth of Blue’s thigh against mine, the texture of his fingertips, the scent of pine and ferns and redwoods, and somehow, it all hurts just a little bit less. I’ve spent my life alone, hiding and pretending that I don’t want more, that I don’t want connection. Most of the time, I’ve hidden my longing to belong even from myself. I’ve taken Jordyn and my parents and my past and boxed them up tightly, refusing to look back, refusing to recognize just how devastatingly empty my life has been. Blue knows who I am now. He knows my past and my secrets and my desires. He knows that I’m shy and awkward and just a little bit strange, and yet he’s here. He’s holding my hand and he’s listening and he’s saying the kind of sweet, heartachingly supportive things that no one ever says to someone like me. And somehow, with Blue at my side, fourteen years of loss and loneliness isn’t quite so heavy a burden as it was a moment ago.

“Thank you.” It comes out as a strangled whisper, but it’s the best I can manage as I try to weather the chaotic emotional storm that’s still rolling through me like a hurricane.

The smile he offers me is a soft, tender thing that warms my soul and makes me wonder why in the world I thought I’d been okay without friendships for so long when clearly this is more important than almost anything in the world.

His smile falters for a moment, and I can tell he’s trying to find the words to say something he’s afraid might hurt me while I’m so vulnerable.

“You said earlier that your dad is alive but that you don’t talk?”

That is how our conversation started, isn’t it, with me telling him that I don’t talk to my dad very often. As emotionally strung out as I am after letting my entire painful history fall out all at once, now that I’ve started, I need to finish. I want him to know everything, to know all of me. I think that he’ll stay. He didn’t see me as broken even when I told him how I struggle with sex and romance, and I don’t think he’ll see me as broken for this either. He might, and I know that I’m taking a risk by opening up to him, but even though I spend my entire life anxious and worrying that other people are judging me and viewing me as awkward or less than, I don’t feel that way with Blue.

“Ya, he’s still alive, but I don't really know him after all this time, and he doesn't know me. In hindsight, I think it’s largely my fault we’ve grown so far apart, or we at least share equal blame. When my mom died, in a way, it felt like I'd lost my dad too. We'd never been overly close, but he was kind and loving and supportive, and I don't think anything would ever have changed that. We probably could have clung to one another and weathered the storm of her loss together, but then I lost Jordyn, too, and it was just too much. Everywhere I looked, every single inch of my home and town and the forests that had always been my haven reminded me of someone I'd lost. My parents had been so happy together, so in love. They ran the business together and cooked and laughed and loved, and then it was gone, and seeing him without her was like seeing a soul torn in half.”

Blue’s hand has turned over at some point, and his fingers are clutching mine tightly as I spill my soul to him and the trees and the universe, and it feels…okay somehow. For the first time in a very long time, I’m al lowing myself to feel whatever messy emotions arise instead of locking them away and covering them with work and schedules and routines, and it’s actually tolerable.

“I wasn't going to survive there. His grief was swallowing him up, and it felt like we were clinging to one another so tightly that we were going to drag each other down and drown together. So I left. I ran as fast and as far as I could and tried to save us both with distance and silence. I suppose, in some ways, it worked; I'm still alive. Though I'm not really sure I've been living, and I find myself wondering a lot these days how different things might have been if I’d have stayed.”

“You were a kid, Ethan. A scared, hurt, lonely kid.” Even though Blue’s voice is harsh and thick with emotion, it’s still kind, still supportive.

“I know that, and I know he’d have done everything he could to help me through. I know he’d have put my well-being over his own, but I just…I needed something more, something new and untainted by death and loss and hurt. I’m not sure that really makes sense, I guess.”

“It does.” Blue glances away. “I know what it’s like to need to run, to escape.”

I want to know why he knows what it feels like to drown in sorrow. It’s the second time he’s said there was something he needed to escape once upon a time, and I want to know what hurt him, but he asked about my dad, and I have to push through before the spell that’s fallen over us and allowed me to bare my soul to him disappears.

“I told Dad that I just needed some time on my own, and for a while, I kept him updated with my location and work info. He pushed for more at first. He tried, he really did, but every time he reached for more, I pushed him further away. I was a child, but I was a man, too, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he pushed too hard. He’d lost the love of his life, and he didn’t want to lose his son too. I did what felt right to me at the time, but I didn’t really realize what I'd done until we were basically estranged.”

“Ethan…you did the best you could. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.” Blue’s grasp on my fingers has softened, and his thumb is sliding along the side of mine once more.

“I know, but I hurt him when I left. He lost her, and then he lost me too. In a way, I did to him what Jordyn did to me. It was just so hard to hear how much he was hurting when we talked. His voice would crack every time he told me he was proud of me for finding my path but that he missed me and wished I'd visit. Eventually, I stopped answering his calls.We texted for a while after that, but then I'd see the dots, and I'd know he was watching for mine, and I felt so guilty that I stopped texting too. I wrote him a letter, and he wrote in return. We write a few times a year these days. It gives me time to process and think about what to say. He always sends pictures at Christmas and a card on my birthday. He doesn’t push anymore, doesn’t ask me to come home.”

I tear my gaze away from Blue’s; the emptiness that always burns in my chest when I think about my dad hurts too much as it is. I can’t handle seeing my pain reflected in his pale-blue eyes.

“A couple of years after I left, he found a man on the side of the road with no memory, and he took him in. I was happy when he found Namid. He’s around my age, and he was found with nothing, and nobody ever came looking for him. Dad needed someone to care for, someone less shattered than me who could love him back, and they’ve built a sort of family without me. I know he wasn’t trying to replace me or anything. He tells me he loves me in every single one of his letters, and I know that he does. Sometimes I think I might want to try again, to try having a family. It’s just been so long, you know? He has his life, and I have mine. What if he ends up hating the man I’ve become? Then I’d lose even the idea that there might still be a place I belong.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

Blue shifts at my side and pulls me into his arms before I even realize what’s happening. It’s the second time he’s called me that this afternoon. Gabriel is always using pet names, but Blue never has, and I’m worried they’ve slipped out because he pities me, but with his warmth wrapped around me, it’s hard to care why he’s doing it, even though I don’t want his pity.

“I know that I’ve only known you for a few months, but you are such an amazing person. You work so hard, and you’re so thoughtful and caring. You already have a place that you belong.”

I mourn the loss of his strong arms and his chest pressed up against mine as he shifts back away from me, but the sense of loss is short-lived when his eyes are so close that I can see the small flecks of gold that dance across the blue.

“I don’t know your dad, but it sounds like he knows how special you are, and I imagine that he would be thrilled to be more involved in your life. But even if you give it a try and it doesn’t work out, you already belong here with me and with Gabriel and our friends. You have since we first met you. You’ll always have a family here with us.”