Chapter Sixteen
Seth
One thing I should have seen coming: Troy wasn't about to abandon his online friends just because he moved in with me.
That was three weeks ago, and now, my pulse jumped any time he picked up his phone.
I sat at my laptop, Discord pulled open.
I could see the flashing dots, indicating Troy was typing, and when I looked over my screen, he was—in fact—seated in a chair across the room, phone in hand.
“So, I’ve moved in with this guy,”
I took a sip of my soda. I really should’ve told Troy everything already, but now, I felt like I’d gotten past some point of no return and couldn’t go back.
And he’d just moved in with me. This was his home now.
If I told him, he'd be furious. And he'd be right. Then, he’d either be upset and leave or he’d stay, and it would be so, so awkward for both of us.
“Oh?” I typed.
For now, I was stuck. It wasn’t as if Godofdiscord could suddenly fall off the face of the Earth after chatting with Troy online for going on a year now. God, I really was living up to that cursed username.
After a few seconds, “Yeah, and it’s pretty nice, actually. I appreciate that he doesn’t mind me bringing my junk assemblage stuff in and leaving it out everywhere.”
My eyes trailed to Troy’s current work-in-progress, which graced the corner of the room. The shining metal was bathed in the orange-red light of the sun setting over Bluehaven. It was pretty, really.
“And I think that maybe I’m being unfair to him,” Troy continued.
I winced and lowered my head behind the computer screen. Troy wasn’t being unfair. He’d been great. I was the one who kept lying to him and stringing him along.
“We’ve had sex, and I’ve moved in with him. We’re practically…I don’t know. It’s complicated because I’m not technically out, and I feel like I’m being unfair.”
If only he knew. Troy keeping that particular secret, about being gay, was perfectly understandable. I knew a lot of people who stayed in the closet for a while, mostly because people could be complete jerks.
The only reason I kept this secret was because I'd dug myself into a hole too deep to climb out of gracefully.
“I don’t think that’s unfair at all,” I typed. “I’m sure the guy understands just fine.”
I glanced up, across the room. Troy’s eyes snapped from his phone and met mine, and my pulse quickened.
He knew. He’d figured me out. I braced for the explosion, every nerve on edge.
After what felt like a lifetime, Troy looked back down at his phone.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief. So, he didn’t know.
But I was going to drive myself crazy worrying that he knew.
Really, I ought to just tell him already.
That would be so much stress off my shoulders.
But every time I thought about telling Troy the truth, I couldn’t help but think that I’d just be trading my stress.
Really, I should have told him the truth long before I asked him to live with me.
But then, he probably wouldn’t have agreed, unless you’d lied and pretended that you’d just found out. You’d have felt guilty doing that, and eventually, you’d have to admit it anyway.
Troy continued on his phone, and I watched the small dots moving on my screen, indicating he was preparing another message. Would it be too obvious if I closed my laptop and disappeared at exactly the same time Godofdiscord did? Probably.
But that was assuming a lot. That was assuming Troy would somehow draw the connection between Godofdiscord and me, and that wouldn’t be possible unless he already had some idea of what I’d done.
“But what if he doesn’t?” Troy’s message popped onto the screen. “What if he doesn’t understand?”
A lump formed in my throat. This was going to blow up in my face some day. But maybe Troy could…get in a more financially stable position or something before that happened. Or maybe if I had more time to think it over, I’d be able to come up with some better way to tell him, so he wouldn’t hate me.
“He will. I promise,” I replied.
But no matter how much I understood, there was no way Troy could understand what I’d done. Because it was wrong, and even though I wanted to believe this was a necessary deception, I didn’t really believe that. I was man enough to know I’d screwed up.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I typed. “I’ve got to go now.”
I closed the window but left the laptop open, feigning I was still working on something.
Troy uncurled from the chair and crossed the room. I watched him as he stood before the window, my eyes tracing the lines of his broad shoulders against the setting sun. “What are you working on?” Troy asked, glancing over his shoulder at me.
“Nothing,” I replied.
That was truer than I meant. I just had an empty tab up and hadn’t even bothered to pull up a fake website.
“Just browsing.”
I was so far in over my head, and damn if I didn’t just keep digging deeper and deeper.
But Troy smiled and nodded, blissfully oblivious.
How long would that last, could that last?
I swallowed hard. There was no point in asking Brandon for advice.
I knew exactly what he’d say. “I told you so,” coupled with a little, “you have to tell him as soon as possible.” Like I don’t already know that.
I am the choir he would be preaching to.
I just have to quantify “as soon as possible”.
This was getting absurd. Yet there he was, framed in the dying sun, the sky bleeding pink into purple, and he had never looked more heartbreakingly handsome. All my words died in my throat. Of all the mistakes I’d made in my life, this had to be one of my worst.
Life went on. I sat, sometimes just a few feet away from Troy, messaging him.
And he messaged me back. We went on like that, Troy none the wiser.
He went to work at the shop, and I went about my daily routine, getting up early and going to the gym before returning home.
I’d grown bored, I realized. I needed another project, something to distract me.
But I didn’t know whether I felt bored because it had been a while since Brandon’s movie and I was in need of another project, or if it was that my guilt over Troy seemed so all-consuming that it felt like I had too much time and nothing to do.
Despite having several vehicles, certainly more than most, I usually walked to and from the gym, especially if the weather was cooperative.
I pounded up the steps, stowing my headphones into the pocket in my shorts.
When I finally arrived at the apartment, Troy was still there. He sat in his usual chair, flipping his phone between his fingers. “Hey,” he said, glancing at me.
“Hey, yourself.”
Troy tilted his head back and watched me for a long moment. “Enjoy your morning?”
It felt like a calm before some storm. A chill raced up my spine. Before Troy even opened his mouth, I knew my day of reckoning had come. I deserved every word he was about to unleash.
“When were you going to tell me?” Troy asked, his voice quieter and harsher than I’d ever heard.
I straightened my back and leaned, curled my fingers around the countertop, as if that would better help me brace against the argument that was coming.
My excuses rose in my throat but refused to exit.
It was as if I knew I’d screwed up so badly that my body refused to accept the excuses pouring into my head.
I swallowed hard. “Tell you what?” I finally managed, choking on my own words.
Stupid question. Only one thing I’d done could’ve made him this angry with me, and it was the same thing I’d agonized over for weeks.
There wasn’t any point in me trying to claim my innocence, but some part of me still desperately wanted to cling to the farce that I had no idea what I’d done wrong, to the hope Troy was bothered by something else.
Maybe my own paranoia was just making me read too much into the situation.
He climbed to his feet and crossed his arms. “You know what!” Troy snapped.
Was there any point in continuing to play dumb? I glanced around the living room and the dining room counter. My laptop had been moved; I saw that now. “You were on my computer?”
Troy’s jaw clenched. “Don’t try to distract me. I had more of a reason to be in your laptop than you did for lying. My phone was dead, so I thought I’d borrow your laptop. You never said I couldn’t, but you know what? That was really stupid of you if you were going to try and cover something up.”
“I didn’t want to hide it from you,” I said.
But I felt the dread of all this descend on my shoulders as if it was a physical weight. No excuse I offered would be enough. Anything I said would show I was a coward and hadn’t trusted Troy. It would show I’d kept this charade going much longer than any decent person would have.
“I’m sorry,” I said eventually. “I just—”
“How long have you known we were friends online?” Troy cut in.
“A while,” I admitted, “But we weren’t friends, then. Not in real life. And I thought that if you knew, you’d feel betrayed. So, I didn’t tell you.”
Color rose in Troy’s face, and his eyes glittered.
I didn’t think he’d clobber me or anything, but I’d never seen him so pissed.
How was I supposed to react to this? Usually, people weren’t really mad at me.
Sure, sometimes they were irritated. I’d probably taken five years off Brandon’s life with my constant annoyances, but it had never been anything like this.
“I feel betrayed now!” Troy retorted.
“I know,” I replied, trying to sound appeasing, “But I was going to tell you.”
“When? After we’d been living together for months and you decided you’d had your fun for long enough?”
Troy ran his hands roughly through his hair and paced in front of the sofa, his steps disproportionately loud. I remained quiet and watched him cross the floor, back and forth, like you’d see a lion in a too small cage.
“Well?” Troy asked, his attention snapping to me once more.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was waiting for the right time, but the longer I held off, the harder it all seemed to do. I just felt like there was never going to be a good time.”
Troy shook his head. “I told you everything,” he hissed. “Things I never told anyone else, and then you had to go and pull some stupid crap like this? Don’t you get it? I trusted you!”
He looked at me with such intensity that I felt as if he might actually look through me and down into my very soul, and I doubted he would like what he found. I froze like a deer stuck in headlights.
“I—I know you did. I didn’t…and that was part of what made it so hard. I didn’t want to break that trust or hurt you. And I didn’t think you’d ever trust me if you knew,” I said.
“You’re right. I don’t trust you,” Troy said. “I’m going to pack my things, and I’m going to leave…now! And I’d prefer that you either stay away or at least shut up while I’m doing it.”
“Where will you go?”
“None of your damn business, Seth. Or should I call you Godofdiscord?”
His words cut like a knife, but I deserved every slice. I couldn't blame him for refusing to share anything with me now. “Do you want me to give you some money? For a hotel or something? Since you can’t—”
Troy barked out a sudden, bitter laugh. “You can’t fix all your problems with money. I can’t believe you think that would fix anything!!”
I nodded and swiped my keys off the counter. “I’ll see you around?” I offered.
“I hope not.” He disappeared into the guestroom, and I let out my breath in a loud huff. This unfolded exactly as I'd feared. It might have hurt less if every bit of it weren't my fault.
I headed out and climbed into the elevator, and as the doors closed, it felt like the end of something wonderful.