Chapter 2. Chris #5
“Sure.”
“But I need you to answer honestly. And not get offended.”
Mads raises an eyebrow. “That’s not ominous at all.”
“I’m serious.”
He holds my gaze for a beat, then shrugs. “Okay.”
I ask before I lose the nerve.
“Why do you hate me?”
It sounds worse out loud than it did in my head. Too much like an accusation, when what I actually mean is, Why does it feel like there’s nothing I can do to make you like me?
For a second, Mads just stares at me.
Whatever he expected me to ask, it clearly wasn’t that.
“What?” he says, blinking. Then, after another beat, “I don’t hate you. Why would you even think that?”
He sounds genuine. Not defensive. Not like he’s trying to cover up a lie. Just confused and a little offended, as if I’ve asked him why he hates puppies or sunshine.
I shrug, feeling stupid. “I don’t know. You stare at me like you want to kill me.”
Mads goes a little red.
“It’s not an ‘I want to kill you’ stare. It’s a ‘stop ignoring me’ stare,” he says, like this should be obvious. Then his expression tightens again, the frustration snapping back into place. “Which means you still haven’t answered the fucking question. Why are you ignoring me?”
We look at each other across the gap between our bunks. The train rocks beneath us, and a fresh gust of cold air blows through the broken vent, making me shiver inside his hoodie.
I don’t answer fast enough.
“You’re fine with everyone else,” Mads says.
His voice is level, but there’s an edge to it now.
“Sam, Roman, Rami, whoever the fuck else. You talk to them. You joke with them. You sit with them at meals. But with me, it’s like you can’t stand to be in the same room.
” His jaw works for a second. “I’m the only one you avoid, and I don’t get why. Honestly, that kind of pisses me off.”
The blush spreads across my face and down my neck despite the cold.
I clench my jaw and say, “I’ll stop avoiding you.”
Mads looks at me with open suspicion. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a solution.”
“It’s not enough.” His eyes narrow as he studies my face. “I need to know why you did it in the first place.”
My cheeks get hotter. Jesus Christ, he’s going to figure it out. He’s going to look at me sitting here in his hoodie with my face on fire and put it together, and then I will have to throw myself out of that fucking vent and hope the snowdrifts are soft.
“Can’t you just let it go?” I ask, and I hate how desperate I sound.
“No,” Mads says.
Simple. Final.
I let out a frustrated breath and look away, but there’s nowhere useful to look. The broken vent. The snow melting on the floor. My hands clutching the sleeves of his hoodie.
Fuck it.
I could lie. I could give him something easy, something that sounds reasonable and doesn’t expose me.
Instead, I say, “Fine. But you need to swear you’ll keep this a secret.”
Mads frowns, looking even more confused now. After a second, he nods. “Okay?”
“You swear?”
“I swear,” he says, impatience creeping into his voice. “Jesus, Rodriguez, just say it.”
I know he’s not homophobic. Roman is his best friend, and Roman is as out as it gets in this league. Still, the prospect of saying it out loud makes my stomach twist, because once I say it, I can’t take it back.
But if I’m going to explain why Mads has been making me lose my mind for three months, this is the only safe place to start.
“I’m gay,” I say.
The words hang in the cold air between us.
Mads blinks once, then again. His expression doesn’t change much, but his eyes widen a little, and for a second he goes completely still.
Then he says carefully, “Okay. That’s cool.”
He’s waiting. I can see it in his face. He’s waiting for the rest. The part where this explains why I’ve been avoiding him, why I can’t talk to him like a normal human being, why my face is currently hot enough to heat the entire compartment.
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Okay. Here goes nothing.
“And I sort of used to have a crush on you,” I say in one breath.
The compartment goes dead silent.
“That’s why I’ve been avoiding you.”
I keep my eyes on the floor because I cannot bear to look at his face right now. The silence stretches, filled only by the rattle of the train, the whistle of the wind, and the soft sound of Mads breathing three feet away. Every second feels like its own small, precise torture.
Then Mads says, “Used to?”
I look up at him.
He’s still sitting on his bunk, his expression unreadable. He doesn’t look disgusted or angry. He’s just watching me.
“Yeah,” I say, because it’s safer than the truth. “Past tense. Not anymore.”
The half-lie lets me keep one small piece of my crumbling dignity. The crush is very much present tense, has been for months, and shows no signs of going anywhere. But telling him that would be suicide.
Mads doesn’t answer right away. He keeps watching me like he’s trying to decide what to do with the information I just dropped on him.
His eyes don’t leave my face, and I feel every second of his attention like a physical touch.
“Huh,” he says finally.
That’s it.
Huh.