Chapter 25 Elliot
ELLIOT
Imake it halfway down the block before my legs threaten to give out. Leaning against the cool brick of a building, I take a shuddering breath, trying to steady myself as Julian’s words echo in my head.
“This isn’t a relationship.”
“Words like that have no place between us.”
God, I’m such a fool. After all this time hiding, I finally come out—not just to myself but to my friends—only to fall for someone who sees me as nothing more than an experiment. A year-long fuck toy to be used and discarded.
I flag down a cab and give the driver my address in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine. As we pull away, I watch Julian’s building shrink in the rear window, wondering how something that felt so transformative to me could be so meaningless to him.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. For one pathetic moment, I hope it’s him. It’s not.
Mom.
Perfect. Fucking perfect timing.
My finger hovers over the decline button, but guilt wins out. I haven’t spoken to her in weeks.
“Hello, Mom.”
“Elliot, darling.” Her voice carries that false warmth. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Where have you been?”
Fucking a man in front of Ravenwood’s elite. Coming out to my friends. Falling in love with someone who sees me as disposable, beneath him.
“Work’s been busy,” I manage. “Sorry.”
“Well, I’m calling because I have wonderful news. Remember Caroline Peterson? Judge Peterson’s daughter. She’s divorced now, and I happened to mention you at bridge club...”
I close my eyes as she chatters on about this perfect woman whom she’s determined to set me up with. The irony would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
“Mom, I can’t—” My voice breaks. “I can’t talk about this right now.”
“Elliot? What’s wrong? You sound strange.”
I’m gay, Mom. I’ve always been gay. And I just got my heart broken by the first man I fucked.
“Nothing. I’m just tired. Can I call you later?”
My phone beeps with another incoming call. Julian’s name flashes on the screen.
I stare at Julian’s name on my screen, anger surging through me. Not at him—though there’s plenty of that, too—but at myself. At the years I’ve wasted hiding. At the lies I’ve told, especially to myself. At the life I haven’t lived.
“Mom,” I cut her off mid-sentence, Julian’s call disappearing as I decline it. “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it, darling? You sound upset.”
The words stick in my throat for a moment, years of conditioning trying to hold them back. But Julian’s dismissal has ignited something in me—if I’m going to suffer for being who I am, I might as well stop hiding it.
“I won’t be dating Caroline,” I say, my voice steadier than I expected. “Or any woman. I’m gay, Mom. I’ve always been gay.”
The silence that follows feels endless. I can hear her breathing, slightly faster than normal. A car horn blares outside my taxi window, making me flinch.
When she finally speaks, her voice is nearly unrecognizable. “What did you just say to me?”
“I’m gay.” The second time is easier. “I’ve been hiding it my whole life, and I can’t do it anymore.”
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” The temperature of her voice drops twenty degrees. “After everything I’ve done for you?”
“It’s not a joke. It’s who I am.”
“Who you are?” She hisses the words like they’re poison. “No son of mine is a disgusting faggot. Do you hear me? No son of mine.”
Her voice rises with each word until she’s nearly screaming.
“You’ve always been weak, Elliot. Always. But this? This is beyond weakness. This is perversion.”
Her words hit exactly where they’re meant to—the soft, vulnerable parts I’ve protected my whole life.
“Did someone do this to you? Is it those friends of yours? Those—”
“No one did anything to me,” I interrupt. “I was born this way.”
“Don’t you dare say that!” Her rage explodes through the phone.
“No one is born wrong. You’ve made a choice, Elliot.
A filthy, sinful choice. You listen to me.
” Mom’s voice turns icy in a way that terrifies me more than her shouting.
“If you continue with this... this sick fantasy, I will make sure everyone knows exactly what kind of degenerate you really are. Your gallery? Those high-society clients you’re so proud of?
Gone. I have friends, too, Elliot. Important friends. ”
Each word cuts deeper than the last. I’ve never heard this tone from her—this cold hatred.
“I raised you better than this. I sacrificed everything for you after your father left. Everything! And this is how you repay me?”
My throat constricts. Suddenly, I’m seven years old again, clutching a doll I found in the neighbor’s yard sale, my mother’s fingers digging into my arm as she yanks it away.
“Boys don’t play with dolls, Elliot. What’s wrong with you? Do you want people to think you’re some sissy?”
“Mom, please—”
“Don’t ‘Mom, please’ me. Fix this. See someone. A therapist. A priest. I don’t care. But fix it, or I swear to God, I will make sure you regret the day you spoke these disgusting words to me.”
The line goes dead.
I sit frozen, the phone still pressed against my ear.
Years of therapy, decades of carefully constructed walls—all crumbling under the weight of her rejection.
I built a life inside a cage of her making, contorting myself to fit into a space too small, too wrong.
The bars were invisible but stronger than steel, constructed from shame and fear and her conditional love.
And for what? To please a woman who could withdraw her love so easily? To maintain a lie that was killing me slowly?
I thought Julian had seen through all that. When he looked at me with those ice-blue eyes, I believed he was seeing the real me—not just the parts I showed the world, but everything I’d kept hidden. I thought that maybe, just maybe, he could love that person.
What a fucking joke.
I pay the cab driver and stumble out, barely registering the cold night air as I fumble with my keys. The elevator ride to my apartment feels like an eternity, each floor a painful reminder of how far I’ve climbed in life while remaining trapped in the same emotional basement.
The door clicks shut behind me, and something inside me shatters. My legs give out. I slide down against the door until I hit the floor, my body folding in on itself like I’m trying to disappear.
The first sob rips through me with such force it hurts my chest. Then another. And another. Until I’m gasping, drowning in decades of suppressed pain.
“Fuck,” I choke out between sobs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
My mother’s words twist like a knife in my gut.
“No son of mine is a disgusting faggot.”
All these years, I hid to avoid exactly this. And for what?
Julian’s dismissive tone echoes in my head.
“This isn’t a relationship.”
I wrap my arms around myself, rocking slightly. All my life, I’ve been too much and not enough at the same time. Too sensitive for my mother. Too east side for Ravenwood’s elite. Too gay for the straight world. Too straight-acting for men like Theo.
And now, too emotional for Julian.
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” I whisper to my empty apartment. The tears fall hot and fast, soaking into my shirt collar.
For one beautiful, terrifying moment, I thought I’d found someone who wanted me—all of me. Not just the carefully curated parts I show the world, but the messy, complicated reality of Elliot Chambers.
Instead, I’m back where I started. Alone. Unwanted. A dirty secret. A temporary amusement.
My phone buzzes again in my pocket. I ignore it, letting my head fall back against the door with a thud. My chest aches like something physical has been torn out of it, leaving a raw, bleeding hole where my heart should be.
I don’t know how long I sit there, slumped against my door. Time stretches and contracts like a living thing. My tears dry tacky on my face, salt trails tightening my skin.
My body remembers Julian’s touch, phantom sensations haunting me—his fingers digging into my hips, his breath hot against my neck, the fullness of him inside me.
My skin burns with the memory; each mark he left throbbing with my pulse.
I press my palms against my eyes until stars explode against the darkness.
The physical pain is nothing compared to the hollow void expanding in my chest. It’s like something vital has been scooped out of me, leaving behind only echoes. I press my hand against my sternum, half-expecting to find an actual hole there.
A laugh bubbles up—ugly, broken, verging on hysterical. I clutch at my sides as it turns into another sob.
The worst part isn’t Julian’s rejection. It’s that I still want him. Still crave his touch, his approval, his attention. Still love him, pathetic as that is.
My mother’s words slice through me again.
“No son of mine is a disgusting faggot.”
The slur sinks into my chest like a stone. I hug my knees to my chest, making myself smaller as if I could disappear completely. My entire being shakes with the force of my grief—for the relationship I thought I had, for the mother I’ve just lost, for the years I can never get back.