Chapter 21 The Letter #2
“No,” I say, too fast. “I mean, I guess it’s predictable? Like, at least when the other skate drops, you’re not surprised.”
She writes something in her notebook. I crane my neck to read it, but she’s got her game tight, hand blocking the margin.
I keep going, because silence is the enemy.
“I think the weirdest part is, everyone on the team is suddenly my best friend. Even O’Doul, who once tried to pants me in the parking lot, now wants to know my pronouns, like that’s going to keep the world from imploding.”
She waits for me to finish. It takes me another minute of spiraling—Maya, the press, Tommy’s weird attempt at a pep talk—before I run out of fuel.
Then she goes in for the kill.
“Have you told him?” she asks.
It’s so off-topic, it takes me a second to figure out who she means.
She leans forward, elbows on the desk, pen still. “Not hinted. Not joked. Have you actually said the words?”
I stare at my hands. The left one is picking at the callus on my thumb, the right one is squeezing the life out of the couch cushion.
“No,” I say, voice so small I want to punch myself. “I haven’t.”
She lets the silence stretch, then: “Why not?”
I chew my lip. “Because I’m the sub, Doc. Always have been. The extra. The replacement. You don’t get to ask for what you want, you just get what’s left.”
She sits with that, then says, “What if you didn’t have to be?”
That stops me.
I look up. Her eyes are so steady it’s like looking at a level.
“I don’t know how,” I say.
She leans back, hands open. “Try. Say it now, the thing you want to tell him.”
I feel my face go red. “You want me to…like, roleplay it?”
She shrugs, like, why the hell not.
My voice comes out weird, rough, but I say it: “I love you, and I fucked up, and I should have told you before everything got so bad.”
She nods, like it’s the most normal thing anyone’s ever said.
“Good,” she says.
I laugh, but it’s not funny. “Now what?”
“Now you say it to him,” she says. “And if he doesn’t say it back, you still said it.”
I want to argue, but the weird part is, I feel lighter.
Session ends and I stand, hands already in my pockets, ready to run.
She stops me at the door. “Ash?”
I turn, expecting more homework.
“You don’t have to wait to be picked.”
I nod, throat tight.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll try.”
She smiles. “I know you will.”
I walk out of her office into the colorless corridor, feet moving faster than my brain.
And for the first time in a long time, I know exactly what I need to do.
———
The hardest part is my hand.
I haven’t written more than a grocery list since high school, and after two pages my left wrist is cramping like I ran a marathon on just that muscle.
The pen keeps slipping, leaving veins of blue across the table, my palm, the front of my shirt. If they ever do a DNA test, they’ll find out I bled this shit out.
The kitchen table is a demolition site, shredded notebook pages, the dregs of three different mugs, one Pop-Tart chewed halfway and then abandoned for being too much effort.
Every draft ends up balled and banked off the trash can, but most rim out and end up on the floor.
I keep starting the letter the same way. “Dear Darius,” which sounds like the beginning of a funeral speech, but I can’t make myself say “hey man” and not mean it.
The first try was three sentences and the word “fuck” used as a verb, noun, and an adjective. That one went straight to the garbage.
The second started with an apology, and by paragraph two, it was just a list of all the ways I’m broken.
Third attempt was more honest, but halfway down the page, my brain short-circuited and I drew a little hockey stick instead of writing “I’m sorry.”
I stare at the blank fourth page for fifteen minutes, thinking about how Maya would tell me to just say it, just go for broke, like when you’re down two goals and the coach says, “What do you have to lose?”
So I just start writing, not caring about the penmanship, or if it makes sense, or if I end up confessing to every sin I’ve ever committed.
I write about the gym, the runs, the first night I realized I liked the sound of his laugh, even when it was at my expense.
I write about the time he showed up at my apartment with a bag of tacos and ate them in perfect silence, like just being there was enough to fix anything.
I write about the way he played in net, how every movement was a fuck-you to entropy, how he never looked scared, not even when the puck was a blur and the air stank of sweat and adrenaline and maybe a little bit of blood.
I write about the book, the Borges, how it still sits on my nightstand untouched, because if I finish it, that’s the end of the story.
I write about the first time he touched me, the way my whole body lit up like a house with every window thrown open.
About the night on Alki Beach, the sand in my shoes, the way the city looked from across the water, and the way I kissed him first, even though I knew I’d fuck it up.
I write about Vincent, because I have to, about how it felt good to be seen, even for the wrong reasons.
How the more I let myself be used, the less real I felt. How I wanted to matter, but not like that, never like that.
I write four pages, front and back. By the end, the lines all slant down and the ink is faded because I cried at some point and smudged everything with the heel of my hand.
It looks like the letter of a madman, but at least it’s mine.
I sign it with my number, #72, and then just “Ash,” because if he doesn’t know by now, he never will.
I fold it in quarters, wipe my nose, and realize it’s 2:07 AM. The city is silent, except for the sound of a distant train and the constant, low-grade pulse of my own heartbeat in my skull.
I drive to his apartment, every red light a referendum on my courage. My hands are shaking so hard the letter flutters on the dashboard like it wants to escape.
The building is quiet. No cars, no doormen, no light in the lobby. I take the stairs, not the elevator, because it feels less like I’m being delivered and more like I’m making a choice.
I get to his floor.
I stand there, heart in my throat, staring at the door. I almost knock, but I don’t trust myself not to break down and say all the wrong things.
So I slide the letter under his door, the four pages curling in slow motion, and walk away before I can change my mind.
By the time I get back to my car, my shirt is wet with sweat and my hands smell like ink.
I sit behind the wheel, not starting the engine, and just breathe.
I don’t know what comes next. For once, I don’t care.
I did the thing.
Now it’s his move.
———
When the text comes in, I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the pop of blue ink smeared on my wrist. The clock says 6:44 AM, but I haven’t slept. I watch the phone for a long time before picking it up.
“Can we meet? The bench.”
Just that. No punctuation, no “please,” no hint of how much is riding on it.
I dress in the first clothes I find, jeans from the floor, hoodie from the chair, shoes without socks.
I walk out into the cold without checking the mirror, the four-day stubble and red-rimmed eyes a badge of what I’ve been through.
The city is dead at this hour. The only movement is the wind, and the joggers who can’t wait for sunrise to punish themselves.
Elliott Bay is a mirror, flat and black, the sky above it a gradient of gunmetal to bruised purple.
The bench is at the far end of the path, its wood slick with dew, the metal arms cold to the touch. Darius is already there, hunched in a bomber jacket, the hood up, hands jammed in the pockets.
He looks like hell.
Not in the tired way, but the way a statue looks after someone’s tried to smash it and failed.
He’s holding the letter, the pages folded and refolded, creased to the point of transparency.
He looks up as I approach, and for the first time in weeks, he meets my eyes and doesn’t look away.
I stand in front of him, heart running wind sprints. My hands want to stuff themselves in my pockets, but I force them to hang at my sides.
He taps the letter against his knee, the corners tattered, then says: “I read it. All of it.”
His voice is low, rougher than I remember.
“Didn’t think you’d answer,” I say, because deflection is still the only thing I know.
He shrugs. “Didn’t think you’d write.”
The silence drags. I sit down on the bench next to him, careful to leave a space between our legs. The wood creaks under the weight.
He unfolds the top page, hands shaking just a little. “I fucked up,” he says. “I have to say it out loud, or it doesn’t count.”
I want to make a joke, but my throat is locked.
He keeps talking, voice monotone. “Vincent told me you were… He said you were connected to some white supremacist thing. Sent me a photo. Said you knew about the shooting before it happened. That you—” His jaw clenches. “That you were one of them.”
I stare at the water, at the blurred city skyline beyond. My stomach flips, but the anger is clean, bright, easier than fear.
“You believed him?” I say, and it comes out hard, sharper than I meant.
He nods, slow. “For about a week, I did. And I’ll carry that for the rest of my life.”
I let that hang, because there’s nothing else to do.
He looks over, and his eyes are wet, but he doesn’t blink it away. “I’m sorry, Ash. I should have come to you. I should have trusted you.”
I want to yell, or cry, or just punch him in the arm for being such a dumbass, but all I do is shake my head. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
He swallows. “I was scared. Not of you. Of what it would mean if I was wrong. And the thing I'm most ashamed of is this, it was easier to believe the lie than to risk finding out it was true. Easier to shut down than to come to you and ask. That's the part I'll never forgive myself for.”
He sets the letter down between us. “You said in here that I made you feel like you mattered. But I’m the one who needed that. I never said it, because I thought I had to be the strong one.”
I pick up the letter, flick through the pages. “I wrote you four pages about how I feel, and you haven’t said anything about that.”
He smiles, weak. “Every word. I feel every word.”
The air is wet with the promise of rain. The fog is burning off the bay, slow, and the sun is trying to punch through, not quite making it.
He puts his hand on the bench, palm open, waiting.
I don’t take it, not at first.
“I’m still pissed,” I say.
He nods. “You should be.”
“But I don’t want to do this alone anymore,” I say, and the words almost break me.
He looks at me, really looks, and his face is stripped down to the bone.
He slides his hand closer, just a few inches. “Can I…”
I grab it before he finishes.
His hand is warm and callused and shakes when I squeeze it.
We sit there, not talking, watching the water and the city and the world that just keeps going, no matter what. The pain is still there, but it’s different now.
Not a hole, but a bruise, already starting to heal.
After a while, he says, “You ever want to skate together again?”
I squeeze his hand, let the hint of a smile break through. “Only if you promise not to let me win.”
He laughs, just once, and it’s real.
We sit on the bench until the sun is up, until our hands go numb, until it feels like maybe, just maybe, the world is something we can survive together.
No happy ending. Not yet.
But this is enough.
For now.