would be my fault.” Connor looked anguished. “I was just trying to make it easier.”
“So you just left.”
“What was I supposed to do? Stay on an island where people were trying to frame me for arson and my own family didn’t even want me? Nobody wanted me here.”
“I wanted you.” I pushed up out of my chair, crossed the room to stand in front of Connor. I was shaking, and I couldn’t make myself stop. “And you didn’t give me a choice.”
“Because both options sucked,” Connor exploded. He stood up, his shoulders heaving. “Either you didn’t love me enough to come with me, or you did, and you moved to fucking Tennessee with me with nothing but a high school degree, and in a few months, you hated me because I’d taken you away from them. I left without saying goodbye because it was better for both of us.”
“You thought that made it better? I thought you hated me.”
“I hoped you hated me.”
“Why would you want that? None of this makes sense.”
“Because I knew it hurt. It hurt me to leave, and I knew damn well I was going to hurt you, and I didn’t want you to hurt anymore than you had to. I wanted you to move on. You wonder why I never reached out, all these years? That’s why. I didn’t want you to think about me at all.”
“Well, I spent the past decade thinking about you, and wondering what the hell I did to make you leave. So great job, there.”
“Look, I said I was sorry. I know it was awful, I know I was shitty, and I hated that I was hurting you, but I didn’t know what else to do.” Connor stepped forward, bringing our bodies inches apart.
“Except come back and hurt me even more, apparently. But right, I forgot. You didn’t want me getting attached to you. Once again making my decisions for me.”
“Goddammit, Julian, I did that because I didn’t want to get attached. I did that because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you either, and it’s been more than ten years, by the way. It’s been ten years, ten months, and nine days and every one of those, I’ve wondered whether I made the right decision.”
“You—you counted?”
“I don’t know how to not want you. Do you get that? I’ve never known how. I’ve spent the past decade wishing I could figure out how to move on, and not knowing how. Worrying about your dad hurting you, wondering if you ever thought about me, and knowing it was fucking pointless, because nothing between us has changed.”
“You want me?” I tried the words out in my mouth. They didn’t feel quite real.
“Of course I want you. I never stopped. I didn’t want to be friends when I came back because I don’t know how to be just your friend. I will always want more. Always.”
“What does that mean?” I stared up at him, stunned. “For us?”
“I don’t know that it means anything, other than that I’m just as screwed up over you as ever. Christ, around you I feel ten thousand things a minute and I can’t catch my breath. Tennessee was like one thing every ten thousand minutes. It’s like trying to stand on the ceiling.”
I took one of Connor’s hands in mine. He inhaled sharply at my touch, but didn’t pull away. I brought his hand up between us. Traced my fingers across the back of his knuckles.
I never stopped.
“But if you want me. And I think we’ve established that nothing’s changed on my part. Then can’t we—I mean, what are we fighting over?”
“Because nothing else has changed either.” Connor’s eyes were piercing. “You’re still not out. You’re still waiting. Hiding.” He reached up with his free hand, removed my hand from his. “I’m not saying I don’t want you. God knows I do. But I don’t want to go back to what we were before, either. Sneaking around, hiding what we have like we’re ashamed of it.”
“I’m not ashamed of it. Or us. You know that.”
“Maybe. But in the end, what matters is what we do. Not how we feel.”
“But this doesn’t feel right.” I sounded like a broken record, circling the same point over and over again, but that was how I felt. “This can’t be all we are. I’ve spent the past decade thinking you hated me, and now you’re telling me you never did. I should be happy—we should be happy about that, shouldn’t