in?
“Won’t,” Connor said. “At least be honest about it and say ‘won’t.’ Because we both know you absolutely can come out to your family right now. You could take custody of Katie and find a better job and start an entirely new life, but you won’t, because you’re too fucking scared.”
For the first time that night, I felt rage flicker inside me.
“Don’t you dare make fun of me for being scared. You don’t know the first fucking thing about being afraid.”
“I know I’ve watched you let fear control you your whole life. Watched your father treat you like shit, and seen you accept it, because you seem to think you deserve it for some reason.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I said, my voice stiff and wooden, though every other part of me felt like it was on fire. “Your parents—it’s so easy for you to—it’s not the same as—”
“Yeah, I’m sorry having dead parents has made my life so easy,” Connor broke in. “Sorry being an orphan makes it hard for me to empathize with your desire to protect your abusive father and negligent mother.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Really? Because it sure fucking sounded like it.”
“Connor—”
“No. Honestly, don’t try to make it better.” Connor brushed past me and walked to the back door. “I’d rather end the conversation this way. It’ll remind me why I’d be an idiot to try to fix things again.”
“If you’re an idiot, it’s because you can’t pull your head out of your ass long enough to realize that your way of seeing things isn’t the only right way.”
Connor’s hand closed on the doorknob and he gave me a final look over his shoulder. “You made your choice, Julian. All I’m doing is making mine.”
15
Connor
Look, I know I seem like the asshole here.
Trust me, I get it. There’s a good version of Connor Murphy out there somewhere who wouldn’t have lost his cool seeing Julian’s dad at his house, who could have had a normal conversation with Julian instead of blowing up at him, who could have been hurt and sad without also throwing that in Julian’s face.
But that version of Connor Murphy is someone I’m barely acquainted with.
He shows up when he feels like it, but never when I need him, and he only sticks around long enough to make me feel shitty about all of my choices. Instead, ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m stuck with the store brand version of me who doesn’t know how to hold onto his temper and who lashes out whenever he’s hurt.
I don’t particularly like Store-Brand Connor, but he’s the me who seems to be in charge most of the time, and at his behest, I spent most of my days after fighting with Julian feeling sorry for myself, convinced that Julian was the one being unreasonable and wrongheaded.
But then Organic, Free-Range Connor would swoop in at night right when I was finally about to fall asleep and whisper that maybe, just maybe, I was the one who had fucked up. He’d remind me of everything I’d done wrong in my life since birth, gently point out that I was the common denominator in my life’s string of failures, and then disappear and leave me to stew on that until morning.
It was exhausting, and after a week of it, I felt sick. The vote on the future of McIntyre Beach was in two weeks, and between endless meetings with Tom that Julian kept managing to skip and work at the park itself, I was run ragged. Staying busy helped, in a way, but I felt like I was going through the motions while my brain chewed over the fight endlessly, coming to zero conclusions.
I just wished I were stronger. Or smarter, maybe. Because from the moment I started things up with Julian again, there was only one way they were going to end. I should have seen it coming.
He was never going to stand up to his dad. Never going to come out, never going to do anything to change his life. And while the more compassionate version of me understood why that was—understood that Julian had maybe been hurt too deeply to ever do that—the parts of me that were hurting couldn’t help being angry. And bitter.
It was a mess, being mad at someone I loved. If I were honest, asking Julian to act differently would have been asking him to be a different person. If I loved him—and God knew I’d never been able to