Football and Ballet - Jason Collins Page 0,56

you feel about me or how I feel about you. We can’t be together.”

“We can still be together. We just can’t—”

“You know, it’s funny. I used to think that Dakota was my shadow. That she was the one living on the other side of my mirror,” he cut me off with his response. “But now, I’m realizing that she’s not the shadow. I am. I’m the one who’s going to be living in the shadows forever, with my dance company, and with you, if I don’t find a way to get out.”

“Patrick, please. Just listen to me—”

“Please don’t call me again,” Patrick somberly requested before he ended the phone call.

And then, my world sank back into darkness as I closed my eyes, as I tried to imagine what my life was going to look like without Patrick McEntire.

But everything just stayed so dark.

16

Patrick

I hadn’t seen Hunter for a week.

And I hadn’t talked to him since that late-night phone call, the one where I’d begged him not to put words to what we were both feeling, not to give life to something that would’ve had to live in the shadows until he was ready to be true to himself.

Staying away from him was so fucking hard. I was trying my best to just stay busy, so I wouldn’t have any free time to think about the way my heart ached with how much I missed his company, the way my heart leapt out of my chest whenever my phone rang, hoping that it was him on the other end of the line.

Thankfully, between my time spent at the youth center and my time spent rehearsing for Giselle, I didn’t have a lot of moments to myself, anyway. I’d even picked up extra volunteer shifts at the youth center, which delighted Gretel to no end, just so my days were even more jam-packed with things to do.

It was a strange thing, this recent inability to be alone with my own thoughts. For so long I enjoyed the silence that came between the moments of movement, between rushing around on stage and pushing myself to the brink while in rehearsals or while working out. And now, I could hardly stand to have a single moment of peace, my mind too easily wandering back to Hunter, back to the way I felt in his arms, back to the way his fingers fit so perfectly between mine.

“Are you with us, Patrick?” Isaac’s voice floated over to me as I stood in the middle of the stage. “Or did you have something more important to focus on during our rehearsal?”

Shit.

I was doing it again, letting memories of Hunter distract me from what I needed to be focused on. I’d come into rehearsals half an hour ago, and yet, it was like I’d just arrived, my mind finally catching up with my body.

“I’m with you.” I nodded before glancing around at the rest of my castmates. “Sorry if I’ve held anyone up.”

“You haven’t held anyone up, but only because that’s not what happens during this portion of the show,” Isaac joked, offering me a warm smile.

I faked a smile in return as I heard familiar notes beginning to swim through the theater.

“This is the part where you die, Patrick,” Isaac instructed from his spot at the front of the stage. “So, make sure you die beautifully.”

I looked around me for a final time, taking in the positions of the ballerinas beside me before I moved with the rhythm of the music. I staggered from one end of the stage to the other, giving the impression that I was being cornered, a lost man in a foggy part of the woods.

Playing the role of scared and confused had never been difficult for me, those emotions always lying right below the surface, my insecurities about everything else in my life making for an easy emotional transfer to the stage.

“Good! Good!” Isaac shouted while he loudly clapped. “Patrick, where’s your love?”

My love?

Hunter’s face flashed behind my eyes, nearly causing me to slide too far out of my spot on the stage.

“Patrick! I need you to look like you’re in love!” Isaac shouted again. “You’re heartbroken, remember? Hilarion loved Giselle and now she’s dead. You’re never going to be with the one you love, Patrick. I need to see it in your expression to believe it!”

You’re heartbroken, remember?

You’re never going to be with the one you love.

The words stung in a way that Isaac could’ve never known, and as they sank