Chapter 19 Tobík
The walk to the hotel takes twenty minutes.
The Beltline is bright, the July light already heavy on the trees, the air sitting on my arms the way it has been sitting all summer.
The honeysuckle stretch smells like honeysuckle.
The coffee shop stretch smells like coffee.
I walk past both because the coffee shop is not where I am going and Jordan does not need to see my face today.
The hotel lobby is cooler than the street. The air conditioning finds the sweat on my neck and turns it cold. The doorman holds the glass door and looks at me and his face does a thing.
“Wait! You’re the hockey guy. From the Beltline. My daughter follows your account.”
“That is very kind. Tell her I said hello.”
“She’s going to lose her mind. Can I get a photo later? Before you leave?”
“Yes, before I leave.”
He nods. I walk past the front desk and press the elevator button.
Tomá? opens the door to his room in a t-shirt and shorts.
His hair is pushed back. His eyes are tired the way they get when he hasn’t slept about a specific thing, and I have known his face for twenty-two years, so I know the difference between regular tired and this.
“Come in,” he says. There is no warmth. Just the door opening because his brother is at it.
The room is small. The curtains are half-open and the Atlanta light comes through at an angle that catches the water bottle on the nightstand. Tomá? sits on his bed. I take the desk chair.
“You said call when I’m ready. I’m here instead.”
He crosses his arms. The bracing he’s been doing since I was twelve. He nods once.
“I know you know about me and Damián.”
Tomá?‘s jaw tightens. “I do.”
“I think there are things you don’t know. Things from before any of this happened here in Atlanta.”
“What things?”
“Six years ago you sat on the edge of my bed in Brno. You’d figured out I had feelings for Damián and you told me he’s straight, he’s not into guys. That he was your friend, our family. You told me to leave it alone.”
“I remember.”
“I kept it.” I let the words sit. “Six years, Tomá?. I kept it.”
His jaw moves. Working. “And then you didn’t.”
“Before you say anything about that, I need to tell you what you got wrong. Because you drew a line based on information that wasn’t true. Maybe it was at the time but not now.”
The room is quiet. The air conditioning hums. Tomá?‘s hands unfold. His right hand grips the edge of the mattress.
“You told your gay sixteen-year-old brother that the person he loved was straight and told him to carry it alone. The information was what you knew at the time. And I carried it anyway because you raised me and I owed you everything and sixteen-year-olds don’t argue with the person keeping them alive. ”
It comes out plain. Not accusing. Just true. Tomá?‘s mouth opens. Closes. He stands and walks to the window. He puts his hand flat on the glass and the glass fogs under his palm.
“He told me about the draft party,” Tomá? says to the glass. “He said you almost kissed. He said he stopped.”
“He stopped because he heard you laugh. Not because he wanted to.”
“Three years.” He doesn’t turn around. “You knew for three years and you said nothing.”
“Because you’re my brother. Because the person who kept me alive when Dad died told me to stay away and I owed you that. Because I didn’t know how to tell you the thing you decided for me was wrong without losing you.”
His forehead touches the glass. His voice drops into a register I haven’t heard in a long time.
“Tobík.” His voice is barely over a whisper. “You were sixteen. I was trying to protect you.”
“I know.”
“He was twenty-one. He was my teammate. And you were a kid and I was trying to keep you from getting destroyed. So what was I supposed to do? Let you chase someone I believed was straight, who was my best friend, who would’ve broken your heart?”
He turns from the window. His eyes are wet. “You’re telling me I was wrong.”
“Maybe not at that time. But Damián felt it at that party. He felt it.” I can feel the words opening, the fullness of them, the way they come when I stop holding everything back.
“I spent three years after that watching and hoping and waiting. And the person I trusted most in the world had told me the feelings were mine alone.”
Tomá? sits down on the bed. He puts his face in his hands. His breath comes out rough.
“I didn’t know,” he says into his palms. “I didn’t know about any of this.”
“You couldn’t have. I never told you.”
“You should’ve told me though.”
“When I was sixteen, nothing had happened. And then when something almost happened, I still wasn’t sure. And then I was leaving for Atlanta and I thought the distance would do what I couldn’t. It didn’t. The distance just meant I carried it alone in a different country.”
His hands come down. His eyes find me and the look isn’t anger. My brother seeing that the person he raised grew up while he was looking somewhere else.
“Damián said it was a poor decision,” he says slowly and looks directly at me. “He said it was over. Was it? A poor decision?”
“I think I’ve been in love with him since I was nineteen, Tomá?. All these years later and my feelings haven’t changed. You tell me if that sounds like a poor decision.”
He doesn’t answer. He looks at the bedspread. His thumb traces a line on the fabric.
“I need time,” he says. “I’m not saying it’s fine. I’m not saying I understand.”
“I know.”
He stands. He walks the two meters between us and his arms go around me. His chin on top of my head the way it used to land when I was shorter and the gesture meant I’ve got you. The hug isn’t forgiveness. The holding is older than the argument, older than the line he drew.
He steps back. His hands on my shoulders.
“I love you, Tobíku.” His voice cracks on the name. He covers it with a breath. “I am going to be okay with this.”
“Good.”
I hug him again and head out.
The elevator arrives. The lobby appears. The doorman gives me a thumbs-up in our selfie and then I wave and walk through the front doors and the heat finds me, pressing from all sides.
The walk home takes twenty minutes. The same route, the same green, the same city doing its ordinary things. I told the truth and my brother heard it. It cost him and it freed me and both of those are true.
The door to my apartment opens to quiet. The sunflower from yesterday is in the glass on the counter, still open, petals catching the light.
I put my phone on the counter and the screen lights up and there is a message I missed. From Damián. Sent earlier while I was with my brother.
Two sentences.
The match is tomorrow. Come to the tunnel after.