Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
“Uncle Sergio! Wake up!”
“Oof … morning, buddy.”
“Hiss …”
“Dad said to come get you. Breakfast is almost ready.”
“I bet it is.” Sergio sighs and rolls back over in bed. At this point, after all he’s been through, he’s grown numb to Henry’s pain-inducing wake-up. His feelings of bodily anguish have been replaced by a new form of pain. A pain he can’t simply walk off, as matters of the heart have no legs.
Henry crawls over him, appearing on the other side of the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Sergio says, pushing his face into his pillow.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
Sergio peeks out from where he’s trying to hide. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Do you want me to get Mommy?”
“No.” Sergio pushes his face back into his pillow. Rose is the last person he wants to see right now. A lecture about how shitty he is as a prospect for Jeremy Owens isn’t going to help his plight at all.
“She always makes me feel better.”
“I’m sure she does,” Sergio mumbles.
“I’m gonna go get her!” Henry yells and leaps off the bed before Sergio can attempt to catch him.
Sergio twists in the bed, getting caught in the sheets and blanket. He falls over the edge, landing with a thump, as he calls, “Henry! Wait! No!”
All he hears in answer is little thundering footsteps running down the hall.
“What’s the matter with you?” Adrien asks from the doorway. His arms are crossed, and he’s leaning against the doorframe with exaggerated casualness. “Have a little too much to drink last night?”
“Shut up,” Sergio says, trying and failing to extricate himself from the knotted covers.
“Here.” Adrien extends his hand. “Let me help you.”
Sergio knocks his hand away and manages to get up on his own with more effort than it should have taken.
“I’ve got it,” he snaps and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he rises.
His hair is sticking out in all directions, he has bags under his eyes, and his eyes themselves look, well, manic.
Wild. Like an animal caught in a trap, or bed sheets in this case.
“Henry wasn’t kidding,” Rose says, appearing in the bedroom. She picks up Sergio’s fallen pillow. “Somebody is having a rough morning.”
“Is that what we’re calling this?” Adrien asks.
“Apparently,” Rose says, pulling Sergio’s blanket and top sheet apart. She hands him the latter. “So, what’s the problem? Henry made it sound like you were on your deathbed.”
“I’m fine.” Sergio shakes the top sheet out with a snap and sloppily throws it onto the mattress.
He barely even glances at the bed as he does the same with the blanket.
It’s not like it matters. He’s going to wake up in a perfectly made bed regardless of whether he makes it or sets it on fire right now.
Sergio’s eyebrow quirks up. That second option sounds like a cathartic solution.
Rose and Adrien share a look. “Sergio …” Adrien says slowly, approaching him with caution. “What’s going on? I haven’t seen you like this since …”
“Since nothing!” Sergio snaps, knowing full well that the last time he was in anything that even loosely resembled distress was when their parents died.
A feeling he’s since designed his life to avoid ever experiencing again.
Of course, Adrien would recognize his unraveling and link the two together.
He grabs onto his hair and pulls, keeping himself from looking at either of them.
“Sergio.” This time it’s Rose. Her words are slow and even-toned. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” he snaps again and moves to barge out of the bedroom like a football player charging through the defensive line.
“Oh, no.” Adrien stops him and firmly places his hands on Sergio’s shoulders.
He pushes him towards the bed. Sergio tries to shake loose but fails in his exhaustion.
All of his energy to fight and flee leaves him from the simple touch of his brother’s hands on his shoulders.
“Sit!” Adrien demands when Sergio’s knees knock against the mattress. He forces him down. “Explain.”
Sergio keeps his eyes focused on Adrien’s socked feet. He’s the one person in his life who can see right through him, and he doesn’t need that level of pity right now. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tough shit,” Adrien says, still holding onto Sergio’s shoulders. “Whatever this is, we’re talking about it.”
“Come on, Sergio,” Rose says. She steps close enough that her slippers come into Sergio’s view. “Don’t be difficult,”
“I’m not being difficult. I just don’t want to talk about it.” He tries to stand, but Adrien won’t let him. Slowly, he looks up at his brother, pleading, “Please let me go. You’re not going to understand what I’m going through anyway.”
“Oh, really?” Adrien questions with an intense and disbelieving stare. “You’re my brother. I know you better than anyone. You’re having a crisis of conscience.”
“It’s so much more than that.” Sergio hangs his head.
Maybe when this loop first started, that was the case.
But now, his rough mornings have less to do with feeling guilty about a rude quip in Jeremy’s direction and more to do with him falling in love with the man with no way of experiencing reciprocation without a possibility of tomorrow.
“Look,” Rose says, sitting down beside him. “If this is about last night, all you have to do is tell Jeremy you’re sorry when you see him later. He probably isn’t even that mad. You pissed me off more than you did him, anyway.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Sergio says, clenching his jaw.
She jabs him in the shoulder. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t feel the same if someone insulted Holden. Or Adrien.”
“Don’t be so sure about that last part,” Adrien says. “He takes pleasure in insulting me.”
“I do not,” Sergio says, looking back at his brother.
Adrien stares at him. His lips are in a hard line.
“Okay, fine. But I won’t anymore. Not after today.”
“Pfft.” Adrien scoffs. “The day has barely begun. You’ll find a way to insult me by noon.”
Sergio throws up his hands. “I thought you were keeping me trapped here to make me feel better.”
“We are,” Rose assures. She looks at Adrien, and his eyes flick to hers. “But I’m honestly confused as to why you are in such distress about all this.”
“Because I’m in love with him!” Sergio yells out, annoyed and over this little forced therapy session he’s being held against his will.
Adrien removes one hand from Sergio’s shoulder and holds it to his chest, smirking. “Me?”
“Not you, asshole.” Sergio huffs and rolls his eyes. This is not the time for brotherly jokes. “Jeremy.”
“Jeremy?” Rose says. She leans away. He can feel her eyebrow raising in judgment at him, even though he can’t see it as he’s busy watching Adrien slowly let go of his shoulders, then drop his hands at his sides with a low whistle.
“Yes. Jeremy,” Sergio says, staring at his brother. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Honestly?” Adrien asks, then answers his own question. “Yeah.”
“You’re hopeless,” Rose says. “Utterly hopeless.” She rises from the bed. “Do me a favor, would you? Stay away from Jeremy. He doesn’t need your love. Whatever that even is.”
Sergio slumps further in defeat, knowing that protesting her assertion is a futile effort.
In her eyes, Sergio can see why she thinks his love is not needed in Jeremy’s life.
But she doesn’t know what Sergio knows. She doesn’t know that Jeremy—on good days, at least—returns Sergio’s affections.
Which, if he returns Sergio’s affections on good days, must mean he has some feeling of goodwill towards him even on the bad ones.
Sure, he may not love Sergio like Sergio is one hundred percent sure he’s feeling for Jeremy, but that’s only because he hasn’t experienced a second day with him yet.
He doesn’t wake up each repeated New Year’s Day with memories of who Sergio really is.
Jeremy, same as Rose, wakes up on each version of this day with Sergio’s blunder from the night before fresh in his mind.
Along with the memory of Sergio hitting the proverbial bricks after Jeremy had asked him to put a pin in what they were on their way to becoming four years ago.
Along with only vague knowledge of who Sergio truly is, based on gossip and what he perceives him to be.
None of them knows what he really wants.
Not even Adrien. Because truth be told, Sergio didn’t even know what he truly wanted until recently.
And what he wants is Jeremy. He wants to watch him glide across the ice.
Wants to kiss him not only in the middle of the rink but also on the sofa, in his bed, in the sunshine, rain, and snow.
Wants to hold his hand as they go about their days.
To prepare his tea when he comes home. To watch him show the next generation of figure skaters what it means to carve edges into the ice with joy in their heart and to feel the music one skates to in their bones to make breathing, moving, gliding art.
“Rose,” he says, almost in a whisper, as the air has left his lungs. “I promise I won’t hurt him.”
“Damn right you won’t,” Rose says, crossing her arms and standing above him like a disapproving mother scolding her disobedient son. “Because you’re going to stay away from him.”
“Rose, that’s not fair.”
“I don’t care what you think is fair. Nothing in Jeremy’s life is fair.”
“Now you’re not being fair to him!” Sergio raises his voice. He’s talked to Jeremy. He doesn’t want or need Rose’s protection. “Have you considered what he wants?”
“Of course I have! And it’s not you!”
“You’re wrong,” Sergio says, like it’s a matter of fact.
“No. You’re wrong.”