Twenty-One #4
He shrugged with that rueful little smile of his. “Not at the time, but in hindsight . . .”
Almost I tugged on that thread because we also needed to talk about what we were, but not while his smile was fading and he’d just downed half a bottle in one go.
“I know what you think,” he said, folding his arms and leaning back against the bench, his hair lit to brilliant gold by the pendant lights overhead.
“About my parents. And you’re right. I know what they do, though it’s taken me a few years to really see it.
They’re like good cop, bad cop, right? Dad calls and berates me, then Mom calls with reassurances that he just wants the best for me because he knows I can do better.
God, it’s exhausting. You heard him after Queen’s. ”
“Yeah, I did.”
“I wasn’t sure why I let you in at the time, but in hindsight I think I wanted you to know, like maybe if you saw what he was like you wouldn’t think so poorly of me for not coming out.
Or perhaps it was just a pathetic cry for help, I don’t know.
What-ever it was,” he hurried on so I couldn’t reply, “it helped having you there. I’d never heard the way he sounded to other people before.
He’s always been like that, so it was just normal – not good, I knew that, but fine, whatever, the kind of shit I could let slide off my back to keep the peace like a coward.
Until you were standing there listening, and I didn’t want to anymore. ”
“You’re not a coward, Miles,” I said, and because I could still remember how the words had felt to hear, I added, “That’s a trauma response.”
His eyes widened, and I hoped he felt the words carving space in his chest as his had carved space in mine.
He swallowed another gulp of beer. “That makes sense, I guess. Dad caught me with a guy once, only once, when I was sixteen. ‘Not my son,’ he said, like a command to the universe that had to be obeyed. Mom gave me the talk, said it would be fine if he didn’t have to see it, didn’t have to know, after which even she acted like it was something I could just .
. . wash off. That’s when Tina earned her stripes as the family peacekeeper.
The shield behind which everything I did got hidden from them.
God only knows how I would have survived without her. ”
He was spilling words now, letting out hurts as they bubbled to the surface. Any questions I had could wait because he was finally letting me in, and the best thing I could do was drink the bad beer and let him talk.
“You know, after you came out, I listened to those early press conferences you gave at least half a dozen times,” he said then, shocking me enough that I almost choked on my drink.
“They used to piss me off so much. Not just because some of the reporters were weird about it, but because at nineteen you were everything I wanted to be and wasn’t.
You were already going deep at big tournaments, you seemed so sure of yourself, and now here you were being eloquent and honest about something I was hiding.
I couldn’t come out and I wasn’t winning big matches.
Back then, even my confidence was all show.
I had to grow into myself, while you came out already fucking swinging. ”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him it wasn’t all true, but I had been stupidly sure of myself once. Besides, how he’d experienced it was more important than any truth.
“You came out to be honest to yourself and because you owed it to others,” he went on.
“I knew our situations were different, but I felt like a coward all the same. So, when you called me a coward after that match in Paris, you were talking about privilege, but you didn’t just sting my tennis pride, because in another way you were entirely right. ”
“Fuck,” I breathed. “I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t to know.” He shook his head.
“You thought you were alone and I’d never given you reason to think otherwise.
I’m not trying to make you feel bad, just being honest because that’s a thing I do now, apparently.
So, yeah, while we’re at it, finding out my whole team had passed around pictures of me giving head and were all homophobic shits was a punch to the gut and I’m not okay, but I will be because fuck them.
That I’m pretty sure I know how they got those pictures only makes it worse.
As does the length of time I’ve been trusting them with my career and my body. It’s so fucking embarrassing.”
Miles downed the last of his beer and all but slammed the bottle onto the bench. “There. Is that enough not being all right for you? Will you fuck me now?”
I set my unfinished beer beside his and slid my arms gently around him.
He stiffened, bristling like my softness was too much to bear in the wake of such honesty.
For a moment, I thought he would pull away, until he sank his chin onto my shoulder and, like a man letting go a breath so large it had been doing the work of his bones, slowly wilted into my arms.