Chapter 50 #3
The past year has been a challenging one.
A year of highlights, deep despair, and waging an internal war over who I was and what I thought I wanted to be.
Mason, you are my oldest friend, and Bri, my newest. I love you both with a deep-seated ache that keeps me up at night and kidnaps my daytime thoughts.
Working with both of you, seeing you almost every day, was joy and wonder and everything that made my heart happy when what I yearned for couldn’t fill it.
My darling Bri. Bubble. All that is good and honorable, and right.
I’m entrusting one of the most precious things to me into your care.
It growls and snarls sometimes, usually when it is hungry or needs a bath, so be mindful to feed and water, and exercise it daily.
Truthfully, all he needs is you, Sabrina.
You need each other. Before either of you roll your eyes, understand that as the other, weaker Hynd leg to the tripod we were, I saw it all.
The love you both have for each other should not be tamed anymore.
No more lies, no more masks, no more hiding in the darkness when the world needs to see you both bright in the light.
Mason. I’ve spent half my life loving you. I watched you shed gangly limbs and develop the body of a man. Watched you run the very first razor down your cheeks and throat until you said, fuck it, no one should shave every day. And that made me love you more.
Under different circumstances, in a different world, and perhaps a decade in the future, there might be a safe harbor for us to shelter in.
Our families and our legacies meant we could never do that.
I realize now with the fortitude of hyndsight—yes; I spelled it like that on purpose, Bri, before you analyze my elite education and find my vocabulary lacking—that I was slowly starving my soul.
Remaining tethered to unrequited love, I do not recommend.
I’ve removed myself from the equation, knowing that time and separation will allow my heart to grieve privately and one day, perhaps, it may be fortunate enough to be claimed by another.
No hatred was involved in my decision-making. I ask that neither of you feel that way either. I hope in time that you will come to see my separation as a natural, progressive step. A necessary one for all of us.
Mas, don’t waste time or resources looking for me.
I’ve been guided by experts in cyber intelligence and private investigations.
I’ll start over with a clean slate and no ties.
Please know that my choice will not be forever.
One day, I’d love to share a meal with you or watch you raise remarkable children blessed with the best of your combined DNA.
Until then, know that I will forever love both of you from the safety of afar. Forge your love for each other, please. There is no one I trust more with either of you than the other.
Love each other for yourself, for the other, and for me when I couldn’t.
Love openly and honestly and frequently.
Make love. Make memories. Make babies. One day we will find our way back.
Until then, know that from afar, you will be in my thoughts and wildest dreams of a handful of noisy kids with dark hair and kind eyes.
Of hairy dogs that eat chips off the floor and faded death metal concert T-shirts, and questionable sweatpant stains.
Love is love until love is loss. To find each other, you needed to lose me.
Xo T
Tears track down his cheeks and disappear into his thick scruff.
He blinks repeatedly before folding the page and placing it on top of the torn envelope.
In swift and silent movements, we meet each other in the space beside the table, each of us clinging to the other and drowning in heavy, choked sobs.
We held each other for minutes, desperate for solace.
He smells just like I remember. Masculine, woodsy, with a hint of salt and citrus. Fuck, I’ve missed this man.
My fingers fumble with the cellphone buttons. Bringing up Trystan’s details, I hit call and wait. The automated voice tells us that the phone has been disconnected. Fuck. He left. He did it.
Trystan had sacrificed himself. He loved Mason with a ferocity so pure and steadfast, first as an exploring teen and then a deeper love that came with respect, understanding, and maturity.
They couldn’t come out as gay or bi to bigoted families and in an industry where any deviation from social norms isn’t embraced; they’re crucified.
Trystan knew I loved Mason and entrusted me to continue to do so.
All our prior conversations seem to click into place like the last few puzzle pieces.
Cal Vincent, with his dark, wavy hair and dimpled smile hidden under three-day-old stubble, was almost a dead ringer for Mason Mercer.
In Cal, he had tried to replicate the love of a man he had been intimate with, only to be shut down and almost shut out.
Mason had broken his nose after all, to keep their secret safe.
To the world and to Magnus, Trystan was kept on as an EA because he knew his shit.
Mason hired Trystan when his own father set up restrictive covenants on a trust he’d never see a penny of as a gay man.
Mason protected Trystan from Magnus. He protected him from his own father, and he protected him from the media.
The one thing he couldn’t do was love him back; not in the way Trystan needed.
Not in the way he deserved. Trystan loved Mason enough to let him go.
Now Mason and I need to do the same for him.