Riding With Brighton(31)
I flinch and try to feel regret for kissing him and holding him, but I can’t. I can’t regret a minute of this day, not even this horribly uncomfortable, awkward moment.
“I don’t get it,” she says, her hands dropping away from her face. “How can you be gay? When did this happen?”
“It didn’t happen. I mean, it’s just who I am. It’s who I’ve always been.”
“What the hell, Jay? Why would you do that to me? Why would you date me? Why would you let me fall in love with you? Why would you tell me that you love me if none of it is true?” She’s crying, and now I want to go hug her, but with each passing second, I’m thinking the more appropriate thing to do would be to slink off into the shadows.
“I do love you, Sadie. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to be… normal. To be into girls. Until a few months ago, I couldn’t even accept the truth. I was just planning on living the rest of my life in denial.”
“So all this time you’ve been pretending? Every time you kiss me and touch me you don’t even want to?”
“I don’t know how to explain this to you. I love you. I love everything about you. You’re sweet and funny and the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I’ve never loved a girl like I love you. If I could change who I am, I would, in a heartbeat… for you. But, Sadie, I can’t. I don’t want to lose you. You have no idea how much you mean to me. But you deserve to know the truth. I needed to tell you the truth.”
She shakes her head, unable to comprehend.
“Sadie, please,” he pleads.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Jay. I just… I want you to go.”
“Sadie.”
She stands then. “Please, Jay. I can’t… I just need a minute. I don’t want to say something I’m gonna regret, and I need to think so please, just go.”
He exhales a long breath and then stands. I do the same, already making my way back to the sliding glass door. After I open it and head into the house, I turn and look back. He’s holding her, and I hope to God she’s trying to forgive him. I walk to the front door and wait. When Jay comes inside he’s alone, and he looks beat down. I open the front door for him and follow him to the truck.
As I pull away, he’s running his hands up and down his face and through his hair, repeatedly mumbling the word shit. And I’m terrified that we’ve reached the moment.
The moment when he’s realized this is too much to handle. The moment he starts to hate who he is and begins to regret the things he did with me. The moment where he tells me he was wrong and he made a huge fucking mistake and he needs me to pretend like none of this ever happened.
The moment when I become the biggest regret in his life full of regrets.
Chapter Seven
Jay
“DO YOU want me to take you back to your truck?” Brighton asks.
His words force me to open my eyes for the first time since we left Sadie’s house so I can look at him. “What?”
He takes his eyes off the road to glance at me and they look cold, which isn’t a look I’ve seen in them before. “You ready to go back to your truck?”
“Why the hell would I go back to my truck?”
He looks at me again, and this time he looks confused. “Are you having a moment?”
“A moment? What the hell does that mean?” I laugh. “Yeah, I’m having a pretty big fucking moment. I just broke that poor girl’s heart.” I pull my fingers through my hair again. I can’t stand the fact that I did that to her. I can’t stand the way she looked at me. I’m mad at myself for expecting more from her—expecting her to accept me regardless of the fact that I’ve been messing with her emotions and lying to her. “Shit,” I mutter again, leaning my head against the seat and looking up at the ceiling.
Then another thought occurs to me. “And I think I just officially came out of the closet. I mean, you don’t really count, right?” I turn my head to Brighton and can feel the corners of my mouth lifting despite the fact that I don’t feel like I deserve to feel any kind of happiness right now.
He glances at me a few more times before he finally returns my smile. “Shit,” he says as his truck comes to a stop. “I thought you were having the moment.”
“The moment?”
“You know, the one where you decide you’re not gay and you tell me to fuck off and I become your dirty little secret.”
I sit up and furrow my eyebrows at him. “Are you serious?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not an unreasonable assumption.”
“Jesus. So you’re still looking at me like I’m some dumb jock asshole?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “Shit. Yeah, I guess I was considering it. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” I tease. “So what do you gotta do when you say the S word?”
He cocks his head at me. “Wait… are you pissed off at me or not?”
I shrug and enjoy the worried expression on his face for a second. “Naw. I mean, hell, with the shit I’ve been dumping on you today, I guess you could probably expect anything out of me. But not that. I’m not doing the whole secret thing anymore. The dirty part… maybe,” I add as I look out the window and see where we are.