Enough
Chapter fourteen
The guilt was a physical thing.
It lived in Andre’s chest, a heavy, leaden weight that made it difficult to draw a full breath. It sat in his throat, making food taste like ash. It followed him to the studio, standing behind him while he stared at blank canvases, the brushes feeling foreign and clumsy in his hands.
Three weeks had passed since the night in Waterloo.
Blake had returned from Melbourne a week ago, carrying the runner-up trophy and a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. He had walked into the flat, dropped his bags, and pulled Andre into a hug that lasted for five minutes.
Andre had stood there, his arms wrapped around the man he loved, feeling like an imposter in his own life.
He had tried to act normal. He had cooked dinner, asked about the matches, listened to Blake complain about the heat in Australia and Doug’s relentless practice schedule.
But the lie was a corrosive acid, eating away at the foundation of their relationship.
Every time Blake touched him, Andre flinched internally. Every time Blake smiled at him, Andre felt a fresh wave of self-loathing.
And then there were Liam and Talia.
They had come over for dinner two nights after Blake’s return.
The evening had been agonizingly tense. Liam had been overly loud, his jokes landing flat, his laughter forced.
Talia had been unusually quiet, avoiding eye contact with both Andre and Blake, her hands gripping her wine glass with a noticeable, awkward intensity.
Blake wasn’t stupid. He had spent his entire life reading the subtle shifts in body language across a tennis court.
He noticed the tension. He noticed the way Liam and Talia left early, citing an early rehearsal.
He noticed the way Andre immediately started washing the dishes, scrubbing a pan that was already clean until his hands were red.
“What’s going on?” Blake had asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Nothing,” Andre had lied, not looking up from the sink. “They are just tired.”
“You’re tired too,” Blake had observed quietly. “You haven’t painted in a week. You barely sleep.”
“I am fine, Blake. Just a creative block.”
Blake hadn’t pushed it. But the question remained, hanging in the air between them, a silent, growing chasm.
It was a Tuesday night, three days before Blake was scheduled to play in the Dubai Tennis Championships. His bags were already packed, sitting by the front door, a familiar, comforting sight that usually signaled the rhythm of their lives.
Andre couldn’t sleep.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the steady, even sound of Blake’s breathing beside him. The flat was silent, the street outside quiet.
The memories of that night were playing on a continuous, inescapable loop in his mind. The smell of the cannabis. The heat of Talia’s skin. The taste of Liam. The sheer, horrifying ease with which he had destroyed everything that mattered to him.
He couldn’t carry it anymore.
The weight of the secret was destroying him, breaking him down piece by piece. He felt like he was choking, drowning in his own hypocrisy.
Andre slipped out of bed, his movements slow and careful. He walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the living room. He didn’t turn on the lights. He sat down on the sofa, pulling his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs.
He buried his face in his knees, and for the first time since that morning in Waterloo, he allowed himself to cry.
It wasn’t a quiet, dignified weeping. It was a harsh, ugly sobbing, his body shaking with the force of it, the tears hot and fast against his skin. He cried for the man he had been, the man Blake thought he was, and the man he had actually become.
He didn’t hear the bedroom door open. He didn’t hear the soft tread of bare feet on the hardwood floor. Suddenly, the living room was flooded with harsh, yellow light. Andre flinched, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes.
Blake was standing by the light switch. He was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants, his chest bare, his hair messy from sleep.
But his eyes were wide awake, sharp and focused, taking in the sight of Andre curled on the sofa, his face wet with tears, his body shaking.
Blake didn’t move toward him. He didn’t offer comfort.
He just stood there, his posture rigid, his jaw set.
“Enough,” Blake said. His voice was low, but it carried across the room with the force of a physical blow. “Enough is enough. What is going on.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.
Andre looked at him. He looked at the broad shoulders, the strong, capable hands, the blue eyes that had always looked at him with such unguarded trust. Tell him, a voice in Andre’s head said.
Tell him and end it. Andre took a shaky breath, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
He sat up straighter, forcing himself to meet Blake’s gaze.
“I did something,” Andre said, his voice trembling. “While you were in Melbourne.”
“I went to Liam and Talia’s flat,” Andre continued, the words tumbling out of him now, a snowballing, agonizing purge.
“Liam had… he had cannabis. We baked it into scones. We ate them. We got very high. Higher than I have ever been in my life. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t feel my own hands.”
Blake’s expression didn’t change, but Andre saw the slight tightening of the muscles in his neck.
“And?” Blake asked quietly.
Andre closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at Blake while he said the rest. He couldn’t bear to see the trust die.
“Talia kissed me,” Andre whispered, his voice breaking. “And I… I kissed her back. I didn’t stop it. I let her touch me. I touched her. We were on the sofa, and I was inside of her.”
The silence in the room was absolute. It was a heavy, ringing silence, the kind that follows an explosion.
“You slept with Talia,” Blake said. His voice was completely devoid of emotion. It was flat and vacantly calm.
“Yes,” Andre choked out, wrapping his arms tighter around his knees. “But… but that is not all.” He opened his eyes. Blake was staring at him, his face pale, his eyes dark and unreadable. The stillness in Blake’s body was more frightening than any screaming or throwing of objects could have been.
“Liam was there,” Andre said, the shame burning in his throat like acid. “He was watching us. He was sitting in the armchair, watching us, and he was… he was touching himself. And when I was finished with Talia… when I pulled out of her… Liam came over.”
Andre swallowed hard, forcing the words past the lump in his throat.
He had to tell the whole truth. He owed Blake that much, even if it destroyed them both.
“He came and stood next to me,” Andre whispered, the tears starting again, blurring his vision.
“He asked if I wanted it. And I… I couldn't reason in my own mind. I took him in my mouth. I swallowed him.”
The words hung in the air, ugly and brutal and impossible to take back.
Blake stared at him. For a long moment, Blake didn’t move.
He didn’t speak. He just stood there, looking at the man he loved, the man he had built his life around, the man he had fought his own father for. Then, Blake took a step backward.
He looked like he had been struck by lightning. His chest was rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths. He raised a hand to his chest, gripping the fabric of his sweatpants, his fingers digging into the cotton.
“Blake,” Andre sobbed, reaching a hand out toward him. “Blake, s’il te pla?t, please. I am so sorry. I was high, I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t,” Blake gasped, taking another step back, putting more distance between them. “Don’t touch me. Don’t.”
Blake turned away, bracing his hands against the wall, his head bowed.
He was taking deep, shuddering breaths, trying to force air into his lungs.
He felt like he was having a heart attack.
The pain in his chest was physical, a sharp, tearing agony that radiated down his arms and up into his jaw.
He closed his eyes, and the images flashed behind his eyelids, vivid and horrifying.
Andre and Talia. Andre and Liam. The three of them, tangled together, while he was in a hotel room in Melbourne, missing the man he loved.
Had he ever thought Talia was pretty? Of course he had. She was beautiful.
Had he ever been attracted to Liam? Yes. He wasn’t blind.
But he loved Andre. He loved Andre with a devotion that eclipsed everything else. When Tyler had offered him an out, a chance to explore a different path, Blake had shut the door without a second thought. Because Andre was his world.
And Andre had thrown that world away for a plate of drugged scones and a cheap thrill.
Blake pushed himself off the wall. He didn’t look at Andre.
He couldn’t. If he looked at him, he would break apart completely.
He walked past the sofa, his movements stiff and angry, and went into the bedroom.
Andre scrambled off the sofa, following him, panic rising in his chest.
“Blake, please. Please talk to me. Yell at me. Hit me. Do something.”
Blake ignored him. He walked to the closet, pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweater, and dressed quickly, his movements precise and efficient. He grabbed his wallet, his phone, and his passport from the nightstand.
“What are you doing?” Andre asked, his voice rising in panic. “Your flight isn’t until noon. It is three in the morning.”
Blake didn’t answer. He walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and stopped by the front door. His tennis bags were sitting there, packed and ready for Dubai. He picked them up, slinging the heavy racket bag over his shoulder.
“Blake, please,” Andre begged, standing in the hallway, tears streaming down his face. “Please don’t leave like this. I love you. I love you so much. It meant nothing. It was a mistake.”
Blake stopped, his hand on the doorknob.
He turned slowly, looking at Andre. Andre looked broken.
He looked small and fragile and terrified.
But Blake felt nothing. The anger, the pain, the betrayal — it had all coalesced into a cold, hard knot in the center of his chest, freezing him from the inside out.
“You love me,” Blake said, his voice a quiet, broken whisper. “But you didn’t love me enough to say no.”
He opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, and closed it quietly behind him. The click of the lock echoing in the silent flat was the loudest sound Andre had ever heard.
Andre stood in the hallway, staring at the closed door. His legs gave out beneath him, and he slid down the wall, his back scraping against the plaster, until he was sitting on the cold hardwood floor.
He sat there for a long time. He didn’t know how long.
The flat was completely silent, the only sound the faint hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the clock in the kitchen.
At some point, the sky outside the windows began to lighten, the deep black softening to a bruised, purple gray.
The first sounds of the city waking up filtered through the walls — a delivery truck rumbling down the street, the distant clatter of Pierre opening the bakery below.
Andre’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out with numb, clumsy fingers.
Talia (06:47): Andre, are you okay? Liam and I are worried. Please text us back.
He stared at the message. He couldn’t respond. He couldn’t form words. He couldn’t do anything except sit on the floor of the hallway and feel the full, devastating weight of what he had lost.
Downstairs, the bakery opened. The smell of fresh bread drifted up through the floorboards, the warm, yeasty scent that had once been the comforting backdrop of their mornings together. Now it made Andre’s stomach turn.
He thought about Blake, somewhere in the dark London streets at three in the morning, carrying his tennis bags, walking away from the life they had built. He thought about the look on Blake’s face — not anger, not rage, but something far worse.
A quiet, devastating resignation, as if some fundamental part of him had simply switched off.
You love me. But you didn’t love me enough to say no.
The words echoed in Andre’s head, a relentless, punishing refrain that he knew would follow him for the rest of his life.
He pulled his knees tighter to his chest, pressed his forehead against them, and waited for a morning that offered no comfort.