Page 164 of These Secret Years

“No.”

“Do you wish you were straight?” he asks.

My breath comes out noisy and shaky. My head moves on a dizzying swivel. It’s a tiny movement side to side that nevertheless nauseates me. “I wish I wished that. But no. Being gay isn’t really the problem, you know? It’s being alone that’s always sucked.”

“And that’s why you want to come out?”

I find myself nodding.

He whispers, “You’re not alone. Not even close.”

I bow my head and kiss his arm. He hugs me tighter. “How do I get over this?”

“I don’t think you do. I think you learn how to live with it. You go on.”

Is that how he thinks he’s coping, too? “How’s that working out for you?”

A dark, heavy silence follows, and I wish I’d kept my fucking mouth shut, but that’s been impossible since the plane landed yesterday. Sullivan loosens his grip on me, and I let him, waiting until he lies down on the bed to lie beside him. He turns away from me, but I don’t attempt to put my arms around him. “I’m sorry,” I finally say.

“Let’s just get some sleep.”

I tried the thing Sullivan told me to do—feel my feelings, but I wasn’t prepared for how bad that would be. How much like an attack it was. How much guilt I carried or the regrets—like glitter in carpet. The regrets will always be there. I can’t find them all right now, and besides—I’ve got no place to put them. So, I drink to help me not notice them so much.

Also, of note, everyone else is drunk half the time, too.

I don’t remember the funeral with much detail, and I don’t want to. Who would want to remember that? As a point of pride, no one can tell how blitzed out of my mind I am for the three-hour ordeal. I’m as still as I can be. I say as little as possible, move only when I’m told.

Half the USM team is here, including all my coaches. It’s a huge service, but the burial is family and close friends only, so there’s that.

It’s an annoying fact that Sullivan keeps his distance from me for the whole thing. There are members of the press around, not that I was going to let that stop me from talking to him, but my “D-line” sure as fuck does. Every time I so much as glance Sullivan’s direction, there’s Derek or Deandre pulling a rabbit out of a hat or some shit to distract me, and admittedly, I’m easy to distract that day.

My place is with my mom and sisters, anyway. My hand is always tightly grasped by one of theirs.

The one thing I do remember about the funeral with nauseating clarity is Sullivan’s charcoal gray suit. It’s an extremely nice suit, and, while it’s a little snug across the shoulders because he’s broadened out so much, it otherwise fits him like it was custom designed to. I want to rip it to shreds. I’ve seen his mother’s house. I also know he wouldn’t spend the money he earned last year in college sucking fuck knows how many dicks on a designer suit.

Which means it was purchased for him at some point by the one person in his acquaintance who could afford it and expect him to wear it places. Where all has he worn that suit? Did Adrian take him to dinner? To the symphony? Did he dress him up for parties and show him off? Introduce him as a brilliant musician—Just look at this lovely young thing I’ve found. So beautiful. So talented.

“I need you out of that suit,” I tell him on the car ride home.

“Dang, Knight, buy a guy dinner first,” my sister Kat says with a laugh.

But Sullivan’s not laughing. He’s staring at me, puzzled and a little flushed.

“I’m serious,” I say in a lower voice. “I don’t ever want to see you in that thing again.”

He gulps and turns his head.

I take a deep breath. I’m drunk. Too drunk. And I’m being an asshole.

“I just mean⁠—”

“I know what you mean,” he says sharply.

I shut my mouth again.

In my room, back at home, he goes into the bathroom to change clothes. I take off my own suit, too, laying it over the back of my desk chair for now. I put on gray sweats and a long sleeved t-shirt. I knock on the bathroom door when it’s been too long.

“I’m almost done,” he says.