Chapter 49
Jamie
I've been sitting on the floor with my back against the bed for two hours. Not the bed. The floor. The bed has Rhys on it still in some way I can't currently deal with — the indent, the smell, the evidence of a person who was here and trusted me enough to stay — and the floor is just the floor.
I've been on the floor for two hours and I've written and deleted fourteen texts and called none of the people I should have called and stared at my phone like it's going to tell me what to do and it hasn't told me anything.
A knock on the door, fast, repeated a couple more times. Forcefully. I stare at that spot on the bed for a second. Then I get up and open the door. Blake looks at me the way he looked at me in the kitchen — arriving at conclusions he keeps to himself. He's in his jacket, hands in his pockets, calm.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
I step back. He comes in. Looks around my room once. Sits in the desk chair like he's been here before and turns to face me.
I stay standing.
"I'm not going to tell you what to do," he says.
"Okay."
"I want to talk."
"Fine."
He folds his hands in his lap. Looks at me with that patient, unhurried quality that I'm starting to understand is just how Blake operates — he's got all the time in the world and he's decided to spend some of it on this, because he cares about Rhys.
"How are you?" he asks.
"Fine."
"Not fine," I finally say.
"Okay. What's going on?"
I drag a hand through my hair. "I don't—" I stop.
"I woke up and I couldn't—" I stop again.
"I care about him. I care about him in a way I don't know how to handle and every time I've felt something I couldn't—when the answer has been to shut it down before—" I press my hand flat to my sternum.
"I don't know how to do this without losing myself. "
"Who told you caring about someone means losing yourself?"
"My father," I say.
He nods once. "Do you want to know about Rhys?" he says. "When he first got here."
"He told me some of it."
"Some." Blake looks at his hands. "He got here in September with four bags and someone who has decided they're fine and needs everyone to believe it.
" He pauses. "Couldn't eat dinner. I made breakfast on day three without being asked because it was the only thing I could offer that he couldn't avoid.
He sat at the counter and ate and stared at the wall and I could see how hard he was working just to be here.
" Another pause. "He didn't sleep for two weeks.
I could hear it through the wall. Just awake. All night."
My jaw is tight.
"He built himself back," Blake says. "Everything you see — the way he jokes, the confidence, all of it — he built that from the ground up after someone tore it down and left him in the dirt.
" He looks at me. "He let you in. You understand what that means for him?
After everything? That is not a small thing.
That is the biggest thing he's done since he got here. "
"I know," I say.
"Do you know why he did it?"
I don't answer.
"Because he trusts you," Blake says. "Not blindly.
Not stupidly. He knows the difference now.
He's had to learn the hard way what it looks like when someone isn't going to choose him and he looked at you and decided you were different.
" He stands up. "I don't know what your father taught you about yourself.
But whatever it was — Rhys looked at you and decided your father was wrong.
" He moves toward the door. "He's not going to chase you.
If you go quiet long enough he'll close the door on you and that's it. "
He stops at the frame.
"He still has nightmares about Eldridge," Blake says. "The things that happened there that he doesn't talk about. He'll carry that forever." He looks at me over his shoulder. "He opened up to you anyway. That's who he is. That's what you'd be walking away from."
He leaves.
I stand in the middle of my room.
For a long time I just stand there.
Then I sit on the edge of the bed.
Pick up my phone.
Find his name.
Press call.
He picks up on the second ring.
"Hey."
Careful.
Like he's not sure what version of this call he's getting.
"Hey." I close my eyes. "I'm sorry I left."
"Okay," he says, unsure.
"I need — I can't see you right now. I need some time." I pause. "But I didn't want to just say nothing. You deserve an explanation."
A pause.
"Okay," he says again.
The line is quiet.
"Can we just talk?" I say. "Like this. On the phone? I can’t say what I have to say in person, it’s too much for me right now."
A longer pause.
Then, quietly, "Yeah. We can do that."
It starts slow. He tells me about the shower at Eldridge. About the marker. About his coach and the student services suggestion. About the night he had nobody to call. Everything in full detail.
I don't say anything while he talks. I stay on the line and let him say it all. Neither of us says anything for a moment after.
Then he says, "Your turn."
"My dad died in September," I reveal.
The line goes very still. "Right before you transferred here.
" I put my hand flat on my knee to stop it from shaking.
"Liver disease. He drank his whole life — not the loud kind, not the falling-down kind.
The controlled kind. Composed. Nobody ever knew because he never let anyone see it.
" I pause. "He died on a Thursday. Went to practice Friday. I never told anyone."
"Jamie," Rhys says.
"I'm not—" I stop. Start again. "It's been weighing on me.
Since September. I've been carrying it and not looking at it and I think—" I exhale.
"I think that's part of why I ran this morning. Everything just got too close at once. I haven’t faced it, and because of that, he’s in my head now, more than ever before. "
"He was mean when he drank?" Rhys asks carefully.
"Not mean the way people picture it. He never yelled. Never made a scene." I grip my knee. "Composed. Like I said. He hit me the way he did everything else — measured. Exact. Like it was a decision he'd already made and was simply carrying out the punishment."
Rhys says nothing. He's letting me find it at my own pace.
"He always suspected," I say. "About me.
I don't know when he knew — maybe always, I don't know.
Feelings. Problems. Whatever he decided was wrong with you.
He didn't discuss it. He just — responded to it.
" I press my hand harder into my knee. "With me it was always the ice.
Any time he saw something he didn't like.
Any time something slipped through that I didn't catch in time. " I stop.
"He'd take me to the rink. Really late or really early.
Empty. Just us. And he'd put a bucket of pucks at center ice and he'd stand at the boards and he'd make me shoot until I couldn't lift my arms. And when I slowed down he'd beat me.
" A pause. "He never thought of it as hurting me.
I think he genuinely believed he was fixing something.
That if he just pushed hard enough it would go away. " I exhale.
"It didn't go away. I just got better at hiding it.
And eventually I couldn't tell the difference between hiding it and it actually being gone.
He'd lock me in my room after. Days sometimes.
Except for hockey. Always hockey. Like that was the thing that was going to save me.
" A long pause. "He never mentioned it afterward.
Just put it away. That was the whole lesson.
You don't talk about it. You work until it's gone. And if it's not gone you work harder."
"Jamie," Rhys says. His voice is rough.
"I'm not saying this for—"
"I know why you're saying it." He pauses. "I know."
I close my eyes.
"I care about you so much," I say. The words come out stripped of everything except what they are. "I don't know how to do that without losing myself. My father spent my whole life making sure I didn't know how to do it. And I—" I stop.
I drag a hand over my face.
"I spent years thinking if I worked harder he'd love me. I thought if I won enough. If I was tougher. If I never complained. If I gave him exactly what he wanted, eventually he'd..." My voice catches.
I can't finish it.
"He didn't."
I close my eyes.
"And now you're standing here asking me to do something I've never seen done right. I've never had it. I've never watched two people choose each other and stay."
My throat burns.
"I wish he had loved me, Rhys."
The words leave me before I can stop them.
"I wish he had loved me enough to teach me how."
I can't breathe for a second.
"I wish I was better at this. I wish I knew what to say. I wish I wasn't so fucking scared all the time."
A long pause.
"I wish I was stronger for you."
The confession hangs there.
Raw.
Humiliating.
True.
"But I'm trying."
My voice breaks.
"God, I'm trying."
I press my eyes shut.
"Please believe me. This is me trying."
The line is quiet for a long time.
"Okay," he says finally. Barely above a whisper.
"Okay?"
"Yeah." A breath. "Okay, Jamie. I’m trying for you too."
Neither of us says anything for a moment.
"I'm not going anywhere," I say. "I need you to give me a little time to figure out—"
"I know," he says.
"I'm going to figure it out."
"I'm not asking you to be different tomorrow, Jamie. Just don't stop trying."
I believe him when he says he knows.
That's the part that scares me most.