Chapter 45
“Danny,” Diane says as soon as he walks back into the house, “what’s going on?”
Danny doesn’t want to be rude to his mom, but since the other option is having a breakdown in front of her, he’s going to go with pretending he didn’t hear that question. “Buddy, come on,” he says, and Buddy hurries after him up the stairs, into his bedroom, and straight under the covers.
With Buddy snuggling against his face, he can’t see anything, which is fine by him. Instead, he runs his fingers through his good boy’s fur, listening to Buddy’s gentle panting and the sound of his own stomach growling—he definitely should have listened to his mom about eating a real breakfast.
But he’s not going back to the kitchen now, because then she’ll ask him even more questions, and he can’t answer any of them.
There’s only three people he can talk to about this—the fact that his relationship with Sasha just imploded so horrifically, it made his high bar routine in Rio feel like a cakewalk—and one of those people is an ex he hasn’t seen in over a year, so really, it’s two. Two people in the whole fucking world.
He sniffles, wedging his phone into the cuddle and debating whether to text Matt or Emily first. But Matt sucks at texting and isn’t going to be here for another two weeks, so Emily it is.
With a single thumb, he types out: I think i broke up with sasha.
The words stare back at him, just like Sasha had when Danny said I love you, and suddenly he can’t bring himself to hit send.
If he does, then he’ll have to explain what happened, and he doesn’t know what happened.
One night, Sasha was falling asleep in his arms; the next, he was shouting at Danny on the beach, his face twisted in something almost like hatred as he accused Danny of not taking gymnastics seriously enough.
This is why you never win medals at Worlds. And this is why you failed at Rio.
Danny’s trying to ignore the part of him that’s been wondering ever since if Sasha was right, if he really is slacking on his training.
Because, well, maybe he hasn’t been as excited about gymnastics as usual lately, and maybe he’s been spending more time chatting with Coach Garrett than he should.
But the way Sasha had looked at him, as if he didn’t even like him anymore…
the way he’d brought up Rio, when he’d been there holding Danny afterwards…
And that wasn’t even the worst thing Sasha had said.
“Danny?” There’s a quick warning knock, and Danny has about two seconds to wipe his face before his mom opens the door. “I made some chicken salad. Why don’t you come down for lunch, you didn’t have a good breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry,” Danny says, his stomach making the loudest noise at that exact same moment.
Diane raises her eyebrows and waits.
Ugh. Fuck. Fine. He’s going to have to do this sooner or later anyway, so he might as well get it over with.
He’ll just… make up a story. A fight about, like, a girl or something.
Because no matter how desperately he wants to tell his parents the truth, he’d promised Sasha he wouldn’t, and he can’t go back on that promise. Not now. Not ever.
He owes Sasha that much.
“Okay,” he says with a sigh, pushing back the covers and peeling himself away from Buddy. “I’m coming.”
It’s his own fault for freaking out at Sasha earlier that morning.
He’d been waiting until the last minute to head downstairs, since there was no way he could act like everything was normal with Sasha in front of his parents; the plan was to pretend he’d overslept, then rush out the door without having to talk to them.
If his mom hadn’t come up to scold him for letting Sasha order an Uber, he wouldn’t have known Sasha was leaving until it was too late.
It fucking hurts that Sasha would have slipped off like that, as if Danny wasn’t even worth a goodbye.
He shouldn’t have lost his cool, though, and made Sasha cancel the ride.
Not only had he gotten his parents on his case, but he’d also realized, as soon as he sat down in the car, that there was nothing left for him and Sasha to talk about.
Because Sasha had made it so clear, over and over again, that he didn’t see a future with Danny.
That he didn’t love him. That he didn’t even like him all that much, if last night was how he really felt.
And apparently Sasha didn’t have anything to say to Danny, either.
Not “sorry.”
Not “goodbye.”
Not one single word.
*
When he walks into the kitchen, a chicken salad sandwich is waiting for him at the table, along with his mom and his dad.
“Hi, honey,” Diane says brightly, as if she didn’t just march up to his room and order him down here. “Come sit with us for a bit.”
Yeah, this isn’t lunch. This is an interrogation.
They almost let him finish his sandwich before they roll up their sleeves, Diane starting in first. “Danny, what was going on this morning? With you and Sasha.”
Danny doesn’t trust himself to meet her eyes, so he looks down at Buddy, who’s hovering by his knee and gazing straight into his soul. At least the only thing Buddy wants from him is chicken.
“Nothing was going on.” He swallows, wondering if he was imagining the way his mom said you and Sasha. “We just… got into a stupid fight. It’s fine.”
For a moment, the silence in the kitchen could drown out the Pacific Ocean. He doesn’t see so much as feel his parents exchanging looks, and he swears they’re reading each other’s minds, quietly deciding their next plan of attack.
Then Diane reaches over, placing a soft hand on his arm, and fuck. That’s her kill move, and he falls for it every time—especially when she says his name the way she is now, like he’s a little kid again and someone’s hurt his feelings on the playground.
“Danny, honey… I saw you kissing him.”
Once—at Danny’s very first college meet—the high bar broke in the middle of his routine, right as he was about to throw his biggest release.
In less than a second, something that had been solid fucking steel in his hands snapped, just like that, and suddenly he was hurling through the air, realizing he had no idea where the ground was and no control over whatever happened next.
That’s exactly how he feels now, his world tilting underneath him as he stares at his mom, not even daring to look at his dad.
“What,” is the only thing he can say.
“Last week.” Diane squeezes his arm, gently, more like a press of her thumb. “I was coming up with the laundry…”
Danny remembers shorts and shirts scattered on the stairs, his mom’s bright red face as she scrambled to pick everything up.
Her weird insistence on folding his clothes after, sitting on his bed and telling him how much she liked Sasha, and how important it was to have a friend…
or a romantic partner… who could balance him out.
She’d hugged him hard before she left, whispering that she loved him, and he doesn’t know how he’d missed it.
A whole week ago, too—shit, is that why she’d put Buddy and Luna in their rainbow bandanas?
And said all that stuff about supporting Brian and any other family members who weren’t ready to come out yet?
He’d argued so much with Sasha afterwards, and he hadn’t even needed to—
Oh, fuck.
Sasha’s going to be so mad at him. He’d made Danny promise, and it hasn’t even been three hours since they maybe broke up and Danny’s already ruined it and—
Nope, this is way past fuck now.
Technically, it’s not his fault his mom found out (well, okay, he should have been paying more attention when he’d kissed Sasha, but in his defense, both of them had thought his parents were downstairs).
After Matt, Allie, and Emily, though, he’s not sure Sasha would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Then he realizes Sasha’s probably never going to talk to him again anyway, and that loss tightens in his ribcage like a screw, turning and turning until he can’t breathe, his eyes watering from the pressure.
He tries to blink back the tears, because he’s not going to cry in front of his parents, he’s not—
But then his mom says, “Danny, it’s okay,” and Buddy hooks his chin on Danny’s knee, staring up at him with wide, sad eyes like he knows something’s wrong—
And Danny fucking loses it.
He bursts into loud, racking sobs, his shoulders shaking as he hunches over, trying to hold what feels like a river’s worth of tears in his hands.
It hurts so much, and he can already tell this isn’t the kind of pain that goes away—not like a rip from the high bar, stinging for a few days and then forgotten about once the skin heals.
No, this is the kind that stays, raw and open.
“Oh, honey!”
He hears a chair scraping backwards across the floor, and then his mom comes swooping in—but Buddy gets there first, planting his paws on Danny’s lap as he starts licking him all over. Diane has to tell him to sit three times before he backs down, finally letting her through.
“It’s okay! We love you!” Diane wraps Danny up in a hug, which feels really nice even though he can’t stop crying. “And we love Sasha, too, we think you’re perfect for each other! We’re so excited—and we’re not upset at all—you know that, right? Remember how happy we were for Brian?”
Danny’s sobbing so hard, he almost throws up his sandwich.
“Diane, I think something else is going on,” Andy murmurs.
“What do you mean? Danny, what’s wrong?”
It takes Danny several seconds to pull himself together, to find both the words and the oxygen to admit, “We kind of broke up.”
Yeah, this really wasn’t how he’d imagined coming out to his parents.
“Oh, no—I’m so sorry!” Diane exclaims, her arms tightening around him. If it weren’t for her and Buddy—who’s successfully reclaimed the real estate on Danny’s lap—he probably would have slipped off the chair and curled up in a ball on the floor. “What happened?”