Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“I would never think otherwise.”
His words settled in my chest. He didn’t doubt what I said, didn’t doubt I could have been in love at sixteen. Goddamn, he was special. “We hid it. No one knew but my grandma here. You would have loved her.” I wished Griff could have met her. She was the best person I knew. She and my dad hadn’t been close. Once he graduated college and started making money, he liked it too much for the simple life Grandma had always lived and loved. “Anyway, we used to sneak out to this old, abandoned hunting cabin to be alone. We played it off like we were just best friends when we were around other people, but Doug had been my whole damn world. Made me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. I think I said that already.”
I couldn’t even remember. Not at this point.
“Even though neither of us was out, I was basically in the closet for him. My family didn’t give a shit; they were too busy to care. His dad would have, though, and he would have wondered about Doug because of me. There’s no way he would have accepted it, and because his dad wouldn’t, his mom wouldn’t have either.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll never understand it. How does someone hate love?”
Turning my head slightly, I looked at him. “Sometimes I don’t understand you. You have so much to give.” Griff shouldn’t be alone. Griffin deserved better, he deserved more.
“What happened with Doug?” he asked rather than replying to that.
I looked away again. “Me,” I said simply. “We had a plan. We were going to go to California together for school. They’d think we were going as friends, but we’d get to be together, ya know? I had a photo of us together. It wasn’t anything big, but I was kissing him on the cheek and Doug was smiling. We were eighteen, just a few weeks from graduating high school. Our housekeeper found it, and Doug freaked out. He was scared to death she was going to tell someone. He was pissed at me for keeping it and not hiding it better. I was angry that we were fighting over it. It was a heat-of-the-moment thing where I let my emotions get the better of me. I said some shit I shouldn’t have about coming out and hiding for him. I told him I wanted to come out, that I was tired of hiding, even though I don’t even know if that was true. I told him I shouldn’t have to be in the closet because he was.
“We were up at the cabin. Doug left, and he was so… Christ, Griff. I’d never seen him so upset. The second he pulled away, I knew something was wrong, that I should have stopped him, that I shouldn’t have said the things I did.”
My vision was blurry, the fire just a ghost swimming in tears in front of me.
“Fuck.” I wiped my eyes. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry for feeling something.”
Maybe I didn’t, but I did have to get this out before I lost my nerve. Then I could lock it all away again. “He got in a car accident—ran straight into a tree. I’ll never know if it was on purpose or not, but regardless, it happened because he was upset with me. I waited for him at the hunting cabin for hours. I didn’t know what happened. I had to hitchhike to town, and then I found out about the accident. He was in a coma. I didn’t leave for school. I stayed and mourned him every fucking day, while hoping and begging that he would open his eyes again and come back to me. The whole time, no one could know about us. I had to keep pretending he was my best friend and that we hadn’t had plans. Had to pretend we didn’t want to live together and be together and travel the world. We were going to go backpacking in Europe and fix up old houses in our spare time. He liked that shit, but his dad wouldn’t have allowed a career in it. I used to teach him. He was a mess at it at first.” Shit. I was smiling. How could I be smiling? “But he got better. He hadn’t been used to working with his hands, and I liked to get him dirty… But yeah, I pushed too hard, and I lost him. Lost the person I loved, and then had to pretend I didn’t love him.” There was nothing like that feeling. It felt like a lie, like a betrayal of who we were.
“Jesus, and then when I left like that…”
“Not your fault. How could you have known?” I wiped my eyes again and leaned back in the chair, my arms along the armrests.