Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
DILLON
“ I didn’t know…” The finality of the door to the stairwell slamming shut was like a bullet through my heart. I thought I knew what it felt like to have my heart broken five years ago, but that pain was nothing but a dull echo of what consumed me now.
My heart froze in my chest as I fell to my knees, my hands reaching out to him, my fingers clinging on to nothing but air. “What have I done? What have I done?”
“Hey, Dillon. Come on, man, let’s get you out of here.” I shook my head. I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to exist in a world where he didn’t. It was like he’d died and taken a part of me with him when he ran from me. In the silence he left behind, I finally understood how someone could die while still breathing.
I didn’t want to breathe anymore.
What was the point?
“Dillon,” B growled in my ear as he wrapped his arms around my chest and tried to pull me to my feet. “You weigh a damn ton. Help me get you up. I need to fix your hand again, you idiot.”
“What’s the point?” I rasped. “He left me…” Shame swallowed me whole, and the last remnants of the adrenaline I’d been running on faded away, leaving me hollow and cold.
“I’m not discussing this with you here.”
His words were a harsh slap in the face. “Fuck off, Taylor. Just leave me alone.” I was a piece of shit. He didn’t deserve my anger, but he was there, and he’d take it like a champ.
“No. You’re my friend whether you like it or not, and I’m here for you, no matter how many times you tell me to fuck off. I’m not going anywhere. So shut the fuck up and get your ass on your feet.”
“Fine,” I gritted out through clenched teeth and let him haul me to my feet. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, picking myself off that floor. Letting go of that last lingering connection between us. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see his face, tear-stained and broken.
“Your room or mine?” he asked. His assessing gaze cataloged my face, but I didn’t care if he saw my tears or pain.
“Yours. I can’t go back to mine yet. It hurts too much.” All I wanted to do was go and hunt Jamie down so I could beg him to forgive me for the way I’d treated him. For how I’d lashed out at him. I’d promised never to hurt him. Instead, I ripped his damn heart out and crushed it under my feet. I wanted to smash something to alleviate the rage boiling inside me before it twisted me into something he’d never recognize.
I wanted to do so much but I didn’t know how.
“I know, big guy. The ones that hurt the most are usually the ones worth fighting for.” I didn’t have the capacity to process his philosophical words as he dragged my sorry ass into his room and deposited me on his desk chair. “Sit and stay.”
“I’m not a fucking dog,” I snapped and carded my hand through my hair.
“Then stop acting like one,” he called from the bathroom. The sound of running water and his low hum filled the silence that blanketed the room. Buchanan washed my hand down with a wet cloth, then cleaned the cuts with antiseptic to stop them getting infected, grumbling when he had to pull a few splinters out with a pair of tweezers before wrapping it in a bandage.
“Thanks,” I mumbled and stared down at the floor as I toed a loose bit of carpet. My mind churned, and my heart seethed. I couldn’t see beyond my own failings.
Buchanan cocked his head to the side and folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall opposite me. “Tell me what you need.”
A lobotomy so I could forget him? A time machine so I could go back and undo everything I’ve ever done wrong to him? “A bullet to the brain?”
“Ha fucking ha, Dillon.” He cuffed me around the head and walked over to his closet. “You have two options. Either we talk about whatever the hell just went down, or we drink and then we talk.”
I didn’t like either, to be honest, because the bottom line was they were the same. I’d just take a different route to get there. B was relentless once he got going. He was like a dog with a bone and would hound me until I gave him exactly what he wanted. I didn’t talk about feelings and shit, not really. Not anymore. “ Hargraves don’t do therapy.” My dad’s snake-like voice slithered through my mind like the poison it was. I was tired of plugging the gaping holes in the wall that I hid behind and more than anything, I needed to fix things with Jamie. I just didn’t know if that was even possible.
“I could drink.” B glanced at me over his shoulder, a wicked grin on his face as he pulled out a top shelf bottle of tequila. “Fuck no. That stuff is lethal.”
“That’s the point, my friend. Loose lips sink ships.” He grabbed his laptop and sat on his bed, patting the space next to him. There wasn’t much room on the queen-sized bed for the two of us, but this was something we’d done on many occasions over our time here at Briar U.
“You want to get me drunk and snuggle? You can fuck right off,” I said as I shuffled over onto the bed next to him. I grabbed the bottle from where he had it propped against his leg, opened it, and swallowed the burning liquid down while he found some inane program to put on.
“Give me that,” he griped, ripping the bottle from my hands and swallowing a few gulps, grimacing as it went down. “Ugh. Just because it’s expensive, doesn’t make it nice, does it?”
A laugh burst out of me, and I sighed before taking another drink. We spent the rest of the day passing the bottle between us and when that one finished, we moved on to another. Mixing drinks probably wasn’t the most advisable thing to do in my state, but I didn’t give a fuck. Everything that seemed so important at the beginning of the semester now meant nothing.
“I don’t know what to do, B,” I said, my words starting slurring. The sun had long since set and I’m pretty sure we’d watched every Friends episode once already. It all kind of blurred into the background as my mind kept going over everything that had happened this morning. How if I had done things differently, it could have been me and my little crow curled up on my bed watching shit TV programs. I wouldn’t have cared, because he’d have been with me, right where he belonged.
“Well.” Buchanan hiccuped. “To be able to answer that conundrum, I need to know what happened.” He looked at me over his shoulder and sighed. “The truth this time, Dillon. If you even know what that is at this point.”
I scoffed and stuck my middle finger up at him before grabbing a bottle of beer from his mini fridge. “D’you want one?”
“Sure, another can’t hurt.” He snorted, getting stuck while taking his hoodie off. “Maybe water too.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed two before setting them on the bed next to him. “I can’t fucking believe you’re making me do this shit,” I gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Well, as I see it, Dillon,” Buchanan said as he stretched his legs out in front of him. “To be able to fix this, we need to go back to the beginning.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I focus on peeling the label off my bottle of beer so I don’t have to look at him.
“You’re not that obtuse, Hargraves. Start at the day you met him and end with today. Capiche? ”
“I’m not fucking drunk enough for this conversation,” I grouched, upending my bottle of beer and draining it in one go. The belch that ripped out of me afterward sent me into a crazed fit of hysterics. Maybe the alcohol is going to my head more than I thought. Still didn’t fix a fucking thing though.
“Follow it up with this.” He passed me one of those miniature bottles you find in hotel room wet bars. Without giving it too much thought, I drained it and threw it across the room. I was aiming for the trash, but it bounced off the rim instead. “And this one.”
I rolled my eyes at him, uncapped it, and drank that too. “Anyone would think you’re trying to get me drunk.” I leaned into him and tried to cuff his shoulder with my fist, but somehow ended up catching his chin. Buchanan glowered at me before covering his face with his hand and snort laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Now that we know that you can’t hit for shit, talk.”
“Do I have to?” I whined and it was my turn to get clipped around the head. “What was that for?”
“Stop fucking bitching and whining and talk. I know you want my help, so spill.” Ever the straight talker. Buchanan was right. I wasn’t going to be able to sort out my epic fuck up without help, because god knows I was a useless prick who was only good at hurting anyone I gave a shit about. It’s not like I cared about anyone but Jamie, and as far as I could tell, we were dead and buried under the Arctic Circle.
Throwing my hands up in the air, I mumbled inaudibly under my breath as I tried to gather my jumbled thoughts. “It all started when…” Other than telling Jamie the truth, this was probably the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. It felt like I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun, waiting for the buckshot to hit me in the face. The more I spoke, the easier the words came, and the deeper I looked into our intertwined history, the more I realized just how deep my feelings ran.
We’d been inseparable as children since I saved him from getting beaten up, but I’d been more than a friend; I was his protector. Eventually, I became his person. I didn’t realize it, but every day we spent together, I fell a little more in love with him. Looking back, our love was inevitable, like it was written in the stars we spent long summer nights watching.
Memories, thoughts, and feelings I’d never shared with anyone passed my lips and a slightly hazy B looked at me like he had no idea who I was. As the words flowed, my mind unlocked moments I had shut away and forgotten. As each one pulled forth, it was like a brand on my heart, and another piece of me clicked back into place. I had wiped from my mind how much we used to casually touch each other—holding hands, brushing my thumb over the apple of his cheek, my hand on the back of his neck whenever we watched TV, Jamie wrapped around my back like a fucking koala, his head resting on my shoulder as he whispered in my ear, or how I would stroke my fingers through his hair. I loved how he used to wrap around me at night and rest his head on my chest. The ones that hurt the most and made my eyes burn, were the moments when time suspended as he stared at me with a myriad of emotions playing in his eyes, our bodies close enough to share the same air. It was in those moments he became a part of me, a part that was as vital as my own DNA. That was why it fucked me up so much when he left.
“Then, on his birthday, I told him he could have whatever he wanted.” Emotion burned the back of my eyes as I fought to share one of the most perfect memories with a stranger. I touched my tongue to the back of my teeth and took a steadying inhale. “I was late meeting him down at the creek—practice had run late—and he was sitting there reading like he always did, like the world around him didn’t exist. His hair looked like it had strands of gold woven through it when the sunlight filtered through the trees. Then he turned to look at me, and his eyes seemed to pulse with an emotion I couldn’t name—not then. But now, I realize it was love. He didn’t need words as his actions said everything, but I was too fucking stupid to see it—him—for what it was.”
“Hey, take this.” B handed me a Kleenex, and I looked at him through misty eyes with confusion. “Dude, you’re crying,” he said softly, a smile wavering on his lips.
“Ugh, thanks.” I sniffed and dried my face, but another tear fell as my hands trembled. “He laid himself bare to me that night, and I didn’t fucking see it.” Self-loathing infected every cell in my body. I hated myself and every wrong thing I’d said and done to my little crow. “I called out to him, and this blinding smile illuminated his face as he set his book down and chastised me for being late. I sat astride the log he was on. He turned to mirror me but shuffled closer and put his legs over my thighs. My hands automatically landed on them and god, his skin was so damn smooth. It felt so good under my rough hands and… and…a….”
“Have a drink, Dillon.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, fighting back the urge to cry as I took the proffered bottle of water. It was warm, but it was enough to clear my throat and calm my raging emotions enough for me to breathe.
“What did he ask for?”
“Huh?” My mind was being pulled back to that magical day. The one that started a chain reaction of hurt, anger, and hate. “Oh, umm, he asked for a kiss. It was his first one too?—”
“It was yours too, wasn’t it?” B interrupted, a knowing look on his face.
I shrugged and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand. “Yeah, it was, and it was fucking everything. He was everything. I went home that night on a high I’d never experienced before. I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was how soft and warm his lips felt against mine. But then…”
“Then something happened, and it all went to shit?”
I snorted. Yeah, basically. “I went to his house the day after, and he was gone. They all were. The place was fucking trashed, like they’d been robbed. I was so worried, I knocked on all the neighbors’ doors, but no one could tell me where they’d gone. Five days later, Mr. Abernathy turned up and beat the shit outta me.”
“So that was true, but not the reason why, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah, exactly. He wanted to know where his ‘faggot son’ was, and was convinced I knew because we were always together. But I was just as much in the dark as he was. I never heard from him again. Days turned into weeks, then months, and then years. Before I knew it, five years had passed and there he was. And he looked…”
“Perfect?” The pained tone in B’s voice made me pause. I blinked to clear my vision and saw so much understanding etched into the lines of his face that it stole my breath.
“B?”
“We’re talking about you, not me here, Hargraves.” He wiped away all traces of emotion off his face, but he couldn’t hide what was in his eyes. I didn’t push it. “I get why you were hurt, but what made you sic the team and everyone else on him?”
Humiliation seared through my veins, and heat flushed up my neck. I cleared my throat as it became hard to breathe. “F-fear.” Tears poured down my cheeks, and my chin touched my chest as I buried my face in my hands. I was a pathetic scared little boy. Hate. Fear. Jealousy. Anger. Hurt. “I was scared of what my dad would say or do if he knew I was like Jamie. I-I mean, Jamie never said he was into boys, but everyone knew. It was obvious to anyone who knew him. Well, apart from Mr. Abernathy, but he wasn’t interested in anything other than himself and his next beer. I knew Jamie better than I knew myself. I’d always known, even if I didn’t admit it to myself. I… I should have…” I shook my head. Every word hurt to say, let alone admit. “B-but I thought I-I’d lose my place on the team… a-and I couldn’t lose that too! Christ, we both know how homophobic half the team is. Then there’s Coach. He’d most likely bench me or kick me off the team. Not surprising really, when we’re playing like sad sacks of shit, but?—”
“Dillon, you need to breathe. Otherwise, your anxiety is gonna eat away at you, and you’ll have a panic attack. Come on, man, just breathe with me.” B lifted my hand and placed it on his chest, covering it with his own. “Breathe when you feel me breathe.”
I nodded and choked on a sob that felt like it was gutting me. I hated myself. I hated how I’d let fear rule me. How I’d let it turn to hate. It was easier to hate him than face the truth about myself. If I locked it all away in a neat little box and buried it so it wouldn’t see the light of day, I wouldn’t have to face myself. I let my fucking hate consume me. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone else. A monster. A petrified child. A fake. A fucking fraud.
I was nothing. I deserved all this and more. I didn’t know how to live with myself, let alone face Jamie again. As much as I wanted to fix this, it felt insurmountable. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to try.
“That’s it Dillon. You’re doing great,” B said as my breath hitched in my throat. It burned with every breath. Tears and snot poured down my face as I broke. My walls came down, and I was left staring at what I’d become. Putrid. Rotten to the core.
Sometimes, the lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous of all. They infect your brain and alter reality to fit the narrative your mind created, refusing to see the truth that is right in front of you no matter how much it hurts to keep believing the lie. No matter who is left broken and bleeding along the way. You cling to it—the lie—even as it kills you, because that’s better than being wrong. That’s the destructive power of a lie.
“Do you know why he left now?” B asked softly, hesitantly.
I nodded and curled my legs up to my chest, hugging them tightly to me. “I do… I fucking do, and t-that’s what makes it worse. W-what I did to him, Taylor. I-I fucked up so bad. H-he said that…” My throat closed up the truth, a noose around my neck.
“Shhhh, it’s only me, and I’m on your side here, Dillon, no matter what.”
“”H-he told me… he told…” It was like pulling teeth trying to get my mouth and brain to work together. Every time I tried, my blood grew hotter as my anger rose within me. “He… he told me t-t-that they were… put into… w-witness protection. T-that his dad beat his mum, S-Selene, almost to d-death.” I roared as I pushed through the pain of telling him the truth. “I’m a fucking disgusting person. I make myself sick.”
I threw my legs over the side of the bed and paced around the room, yanking on my hair as frustration made my skin crawl. My heart shattered, sending shrapnel running through my veins. “He was running for his fucking life and had to leave everything he loved behind. And me?” I bellowed. “I was throwing a fit because he left me and didn’t say goodbye. In what fucking world is that a normal reaction? He’s suffered and lived in fear for years. And me? I fucked the prom queen to fit in. Then I had you guys… Gah! Everyone targeted him because I hated him. Because I said so.” My fist broke through the drywall as my temper got the better of me. Maybe if I got myself locked up, then I wouldn’t be able to hurt him again.
“I’m a selfish piece of shit who threw his toys out of his stroller, because I lost my favorite one. I make myself sick.” My other fist went through, and plaster dust filled the air. “He hates me, B. He was crying, and I dragged him off my bed and threw him on the floor and yelled at him.” My legs gave out underneath me, knees smashing into the unforgiving floorboards. The maelstrom of emotion inside me severed that last thread of sanity, and I screamed at the unjustness of it all. I fucked up. I created a lie I told myself and hurt the only person that has ever mattered to me. My heart thundered against my sternum so hard, I was amazed the bone didn’t break. I pounded the floor with my fists until my knuckles were split and bleeding, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I cried because I loved him. I cried because I hated him when he loved me. My body shook as it tore apart, refusing to connect the monster I’d become.
“Hey. Hey, it’s okay, Dillon. I’ve got you.” Buchanan wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his side. The contact grounded me as he soothed his hand up and down my back. He held me until I stopped shaking, until my tears ran dry, and my screams turned to hiccuped sobs. “I’m here, and I’ll help you get him back. I know what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t even notice you exist.” I pulled back and looked at him with wide eyes. His sad smile said so much, and his pain echoed mine.
“Tell me who she is,” I growled and clenched my bloodied fists.
He cleared his throat and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “He is the most amazing person I’ve ever met. He doesn’t see it, but he really is.” He sighed, shoulders slumping. “But he’s in love with someone else, and I’ll never compete against them.”
“Oh, Taylor, I’m so sorry.” His face was a complex mixture of emotions I couldn’t decipher. “C-can I ask you a question then?”
“You already did!” He grinned, lightening the mood.
“Are you gay?”
Buchanan burst out laughing and wiped a tear from his eye as we laid back on the floor. “You’ve seen me fuck how many girls?”
“Yeah, that’s true. So what are you? I know I’m being blunt?—”
“When are you not?” he interrupted with a smirk. “I’m pan. It’s all about my connection with the person. Gender doesn’t come into it for me.”
“Oh.”
“You look so shocked!” He laughed, even though his eyes still drowned in pain.
“You kept that from me?” I grumbled, feeling slightly hurt until he pinned me with a look as he turned to face me.
“You’re really saying that? After all of this?”
“I guess I did,” I croaked. “I told you—I’m a dick. And I guess I feel bad you couldn’t tell me.”
“It’s not like I hide it; I just don’t advertise it. It’s like when I met Jamie at one of the LGBTQ+ events a while ago. I told him to take a chance on you. Even though…” He rolled his lips to stop himself from talking. “Coach will be fine. He’ll support you one hundred percent.”
“Really?” Even though I was emotionally drained and physically fucked—I didn’t even know if I could pass a ball with my hands in this state. Buchanan’s words made me feel lighter. “How? Why?”
“His son, Isaiah, is gay. Coach may have caught us once in a hotel room when we were playing an away game.”
“Ah.” Buchanan looked at me deadpan before I burst out laughing. “Where were you?”
“Oh god. That memory lives in my read rent free. It was horrifying, but fuck was it funny. He walked into his son’s room and found me fucking Isaiah’s face.” He cracked a smirk. “Coach has never been able to look at me the same again.”
“No shit?! That’s… you’re fucking awesome. But how do I fix this?” I asked, running my tongue over my dry lips.
“That’s the hard part. But if you listen, I think we can get him back.”