Chapter 28 #3
Nicholas searched Gabriel’s eyes, maybe looking for some sign that he was exhausted by their life together too.
He wouldn’t find one. Gabriel would willingly live a life riddled with Nicholas’s ire than live a life without him at all.
But he could see how that wouldn’t be an existence Nicholas wanted to survive.
“There’s nothing out there waiting for me.
” He gestured toward the door, toward freedom.
“I know that. But maybe I can make some sort of life for myself, even if it’s a solitary one.
I have to try. I can’t keep being a passive passenger in my life.
Just letting things happen to me, or being scared of not knowing who I am, or terrified of God ditching me. What am I gonna do?”
The question was clearly rhetorical, but Gabriel answered it anyway.
“You can have a full life, Nicholas.”
He barked a joyless laugh. “What life?”
Gabriel stayed quiet.
“Seriously, what life? The one person who I can turn to, who can guide me through this new and scary world, is the one person I need to get away from. I can’t tell anyone what I am, can’t share how being what I am makes me feel…
I’m going to have to keep things bottled up, lie to those around me, and possibly give them up altogether. ”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m not like you, Gabriel!” He shook his head, then whispered, “I can’t live this lie.
It’s too big, too heavy for me to carry.
It’ll consume me. Fester between me and Mateo, Liam, and Sandy…
Anyone I meet. Nothing but loneliness awaits me, but anything is better than the pain of loving you when that love isn’t something I chose. ”
A sea of red flooded his eyes, but his posture remained stoic. Strength in spite of pain, determination in spite of fear.
“I was abandoned by a mother who didn’t want me. Forsaken by a God I worshiped. Betrayed by my body, and by my mind… And then by the man I’d started to trust and care for—when doing either has always been a battle for me.”
A single tear fell, and then another, but his tone remained unshaken.
“You know what I wish?”
“Tell me,” Gabriel breathed, silently promising to make whatever it was come true.
Nicholas closed his eyes, turning wistful.
“I wish I could walk through the world in my truth, however ugly and unwanted that truth is. I’ve never had that before, because my whole life always felt like a lie, always felt empty and wrong.
Like one big missing piece. Do I still enjoy the few things that I enjoyed while living in the dark?
Long walks, riding my skateboard while watching the sun rise, reading from my fire escape, fencing…
I wish I knew the answer to all of that.
I wish I knew if my likes were mine or his.
I wish I could feel confident in my decisions and in my own skin without even trying. Second-guessing myself is tiring.”
He opened his eyes then, brown and warm and hopeful.
“I wish sex could mean something more… More than the heat of an approaching transition. More than sex with strangers to temporarily stifle that heat. More than shame and embarrassment. More than a transaction. Something more than uncontrollable hunger, pain, and loneliness. I want it to mean something.” He fisted his hands in front of him.
“Because it’s never meant anything before.
Not anything good. Not really. How could it, when each experience has been built on a lie, even the ones with you? ”
Gabriel wanted to fall apart where he stood, and not from his own pain—although there was plenty of that.
But because he realized that while he’d understood Nicholas’s anger, he’d never truly comprehended his grief.
All this time, he thought it was the loss of his human existence that Nicholas mourned, but it was never having lived one at all.
“Do you know what it’s like to have failed at everything you’ve ever done?”
Yes, Gabriel thought.
He willed away his own budding tears, not wanting Nicholas to feel an ounce of pity or sorrow for him. He’d do whatever was in his power to help him fulfill every last wish, even if he had to do it from afar.
“I’ll stay another week. Maybe two. To work on my control, and so you can look into the Kyrin situation. But then I have to go.”
“I understand,” Gabriel said with a comprehension and clarity he hadn’t felt before.
Nicholas nodded, turning for the door.
“Nicholas.” His name was barely a sound on Gabriel’s lips. “Do you think you can ever forgive me?”
Nicholas glanced back, and the anguish in his eyes cut Gabriel deep.
“Forgiving you isn’t the problem, Gabriel. The problem is that I’m terrified I already have. I need time and distance. I need the bond broken. Because loving you this damn hard should be a choice, and it’s time for me to decide.”
Gabriel used to believe that Nicholas lived so that he could have Zayn. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that Zayn died so that he could have Nicholas, even if he never got to have him again.
He was sorry, but on the other side of that coin remained gratitude for Nicholas’s existence. It felt impossible to reconcile the two.
Gabriel wanted to catch up to him, to whisper all those thoughts and revelations against the spine of his ear. He didn’t, though. For once in his life, he did the truly unselfish thing. He let Nicholas go.