23: Sorry

uh, sit down, get a drink, maybe alcoholic, maybe not, this is long and very emotional.

HÅKON

Rocket sucks in a long breath. "HÃ¥kon?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you ready for this?"

Are you ready for this?

"What?" I look up at him, his eyebrows are pinched in the middle, a hand on my back, rubbing across my shoulders. I try to figure out what he's trying to say but his face is mostly blank.

"Me." He mumbles. "Are you ready for an actual relationship? Not just a hookup, not just another thing you're ignoring because you can't handle yourself?"

"Why?" I stand up, he's staring at me.

"I don't think you are."

"What? Rocket-" I start to panic, reaching out to take his hands but he pulls them away.

"Be honest with yourself, HÃ¥kon, please." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I like you. I like you a lot. Hell, you've been in dreams of mine because I like you so much. But if you're just going to hurt me because you're barely okay with being you, I want to step back now before all this 'like' turns into love."

"Rocket, I-I," I stutter and he doesn't look at me. "I could never hurt you. I want to get better, I just don't know how, and you're the first thing that might be a how, and I-"

"I don't want you to hurt me, HÃ¥kon, and I know you don't want to either, but you've made it really clear that you hate the part of yourself that's attracted to me, and that won't end well for either of us."

I take a long minute, my head starting to hurt with the pressure of the tears building behind my eyes. "I can't do it on my own. I need help, I need you."

"I get it." He drags his hands through his hair, setting all of it away from his face. "I understand that you need help to accept that part of you, that you're going to need me, but," He drags his hands down his face, hiding from me. "If I'm dating you and you're barely okay with the part of you that even likes me like that, you're going to hurt me. You're going to hurt me."

I'm chewing my lip to keep from crying. "I'm sorry, Milo, I-"

"It's fine. Rex. It's fine." He's struggling. "We can't date. Not now."

"Milo-"

"You know I'm fucking right." He pulls his hands away and I watch his determination flicker. "You know that if we fall even harder for each other, we'll shatter each other's hearts. You know that the only way this is going to work with us is if you can handle what you feel."

"I-" I'm watching him push the heels of his hands into his eyes, stepping away from me in my own kitchen. I'm panicking worse than I ever have. I just got something I never want to let go of, I just got a taste of what I've always wanted and now he's telling me he wants to back away.

"You struggle to even say the word, okay, I know what you feel. I know what you feel. I know how fucking much you hate that part of you. I know how much you wish it wasn't there. I know the hours you've probably spent crying over it. I know the shit it's done to you because it's done it all to me. I stared my father in the eyes as he shredded my family because of that one part of me. I watched my mom struggle every single day to keep us floating and keep me in hockey because of that one part of me. I watched Kelly cry for days because of that part of me."

He's welling up and I hate that I'm doing this to him. "I know about every single day that I spent trying to force myself into liking girls, trying to convince myself that it was all my imagination, that maybe I could put my family back together, to tell my dad I was just fucking faking it. I know that your fucking parents shattered every once of liking you had for yourself just because of that part of you. I know you watched them tell you over and over that it was just a choice, that they wished you weren't gay. I saw it in my mom's eyes too. I saw her wish over and over that I wasn't who I am so that she could go back to the only home she ever knew, with the guy she fell in love with, with Roman and her friends and her parents."

"Milo-"

He knots his hands in his own hair, letting out one sharp sob. "It's fucked with me every single day of my life and I wished every single day that it wasn't part of me. But you know what I did, HÃ¥kon Rex?" He turns to me, harsh anger behind his tears. "I woke up one damned Tuesday morning after sobbing my eyes out the night before and I decided that I wasn't going to let it fuck over my life. This is me, HÃ¥kon! I'm fucking gay and I can't do anything about it. I can try and try and try but just like you, I can't fucking change that about myself. It's fucked up every goddamn thing I've done but I live with it because I know one stupid fucking day I'll fall in love and maybe all this hurt and all this pain and everything I've ever been through to get there will suddenly fucking pay off."

"How?" I rub a tear off my cheek with the heel of my hand. "How are you so fucking hopeful, Milo?" How can he stand there and tell me he's hopeful for his future with it when it's shredded every damn day in his past?

"Because when life strips you bare of everything else; when it tears you down and doesn't fucking let you breathe, the one thing you can always look toward is hope. I don't fucking know anything in my future. I could get hit in the chest with a puck and die tomorrow and I'll have never fallen in love, I'll have never gotten my moment, but I'll get to say that I didn't give up." He's breathing hard. "I know it's going to be worth it, it fucking has to be. I haven't been through all this fucking shit for it to not work out."

I slide down the cabinets, sitting on the floor and covering my head with my arms. "Milo I'm so sorry." I take a long shaky breath, pushing it back out again forcefully, trying my hardest to breathe correctly. "You had it so much worse than I did. I'm being a fucking baby about just my parents not accepting it, I-"

Rocket puts his hands on my knees, sitting down across from me, he thinks about it for a long moment, watching me try to gain my composure. "We aren't the same person, HÃ¥kon. We're nowhere near the same person. Pain isn't a fucking scale, okay, there's no worse and there's no better. There's just hurt."

We sit there for a long while, crying on our own sides of the little aisle in my kitchen, backs against the hard cabinets. Milo calms down faster than I did.

I take a deep shaky breath, trying to get my breathing to even out. I take another, a third. When I've finally calmed myself down enough to breathe normally, I ask him a question. "When did you find out?"

"About what?" His voice got hoarse, deep. His voice is wrecked and I feel awful for it.

"That you were gay." My throat closes around the word but I force myself to finish it.

"I was twelve, hockey locker room." He lets out a small breath and I catch a weak smile. "He was one of my friends and I knew I felt something weird around him but I didn't put a pin on it until that single day." He sets his head on his forearms, looking at me, his eyes are red and puffy and it's making them shine. "You always remember the first time you get an actual erection."

I choke on that one, but he shrugs.

"Hyrek was about two years older than me, I was playing up, he was a big fourteen-year-old. I, uh, it was after a game, you know where it goes after that." He shrugs. "I went with it well, asked my mom if that was normal and she got a little worried but I shrugged it off. Hyrek was probably my first crush after that." He takes a deep breath. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, when did you find out."

"I guess I kind of always knew." I set my head in my hands. "I had a crush on this intern teacher in first grade, Mr. Karlsson." I pause for a couple of moments. "I was always oddly fascinated by boys in general, not in a weird way, just differently."

"I know what you mean." It's comforting. Someone else finally knowing what it feels like.

"I didn't even know what being gay was. I was eleven, it was after dinner. Isa was doing homework and I started rambling at my mom, asking her if boys could kiss boys like boys kiss girls. It was the day after Wilhelm had his first kiss on the playground. I didn't understand what I was talking about, but I knew I wanted to kiss Wilhelm."

Rocket stays quiet, watching me fight off tears for the third time in the last twenty-four hours.

"I just asked. Just once. I told them I kind of wanted to be who Wilhelm kissed next. He was trying to kiss every girl in the grade." I stop talking for a moment. "She first asked me if I wanted to be a girl. I said no, I didn't understand what she meant. She asked several other questions I don't remember, then left. She talked with my dad in the kitchen for a while as I did my homework. Then they both came back."

Rocket takes one of my hands, his thumb rubbing slowly across the backs of my knuckles.

I wipe my eyes with my other hand. "Then they started talking. Told me that feeling like that about Wilhelm wasn't normal. That it was bad. That they didn't accept it. They talked for a long time, all I understood from it was that they weren't going to love me if I wanted to kiss boys." I choke over it. "So I forgot about it. I cried for a long time and I forgot about it. They started shoving sports down my throat. If I wasn't doing something for a single minute they pushed me to do something else. Hockey was my clear favorite and they supported it completely. It's a miracle I didn't burn out."

Rocket nods, his thumb still working my hand.

"I started understanding what I felt in ninth grade. Wilhelm was a sixth-grade crush, but things had changed. We were best friends at that point. I started feeling that way about someone else. Nils was a year older than me, played on the nationals team. He was big and cocky and he frustrated me because I knew that what I felt wasn't just the want to be better friends. It was a different urge."

I take a deep breath, my chest shaking. "At that point I had done the research, I had figured out what I was, how different I was. Nils frustrated me because he was flirty, he had a dirty mouth and an easy way of toying around with girls. We became good friends because I liked him, mostly my own initiation, but I slowed it down, started keeping distance again because of how much I hated the feeling I got when I saw him."

Milo stays quiet, urging me to go on.

"I covered up what I felt for Nils with Svea. She was sweet, innocent, carefree. I watched it disappear over three years, maybe it was growing up or maybe it was me. I'm starting to think it was me. I was a shitty boyfriend and I was using her to appease my parent's constant nagging about girls. Every day was a reminder that they knew and they hated it."

I'm watching the other side of the room, a dent in the floorboard. "I got to the draft and came here. Twenty-eighth overall, but a big guy and one of the first defensemen in the draft that year. They called me up quickly. I went home in the summer and met Leif. He was my first in several ways, but I didn't treat him well and he didn't treat me well either. To him I was a professional athlete he could use to get off. I came back to hockey after that summer, nineteen and ready for another season. He called it off and I was fine with it. I met Fen, I'd be stupid not to get a crush on him, and that was my second season. Fen and Greenie were a godsend. My first friends here. Wilhelm and I keep up but it's different now."

Another deep breath. "My third season was uneventful. I was 20. The next few after that, same thing. Two years ago I met Antoni, a french guy in Sweden for his college abroad visit. Again, we used each other, mistreated each other, and hooked up. Then this summer, Fynn. He was the worst of all of them, didn't bother to even ask how my day was before begging me. I gave in. I had just watched Fen fall ridiculously in love and I was frustrated in the way you think I was."

He laces his fingers through mine, watching me think.

"Then I got back here. You got up on the stage and cracked a stupid and gay joke with Steph, madly confident for your first day with people you've never met before. I'll be honest, I thought Steph was going to be the one that snagged my eye, but for whatever reason, it was you. I knew that Steph was unattainable, you as well, but, something about you just took a hold of me." I don't dare make eye contact with him. "I fell for you, hard. I saw myself opening up to you in a way that scared me just a little, but I was more excited than scared for some reason I couldn't understand."

He's breathing gently, across from me, his fingers still in mine.

"Then that night at the cabin happened, and before that, I had thought there was no chance. Then you broke down in front of me. I thought I had hurt you, you know? I know I'm cold. I know I rub off as an asshole, hell, I didn't think you liked me, but then you told me about yourself, something you hadn't told Steph, and I, I don't know what I felt. Honored. And it's stupid that I'm saying this because it's probably just your personality, but I was exhausted and confused and, again, honored that you had told me something that personal to you."

I pause, but the honest look on his face urges me on. "I realized that of everyone that I've talked to like that, Fen during his drama with Nico, Finnican all the time, Wilhelm once or twice, Greenie once or twice. None of them have gone for a hug. Fen rambles on and on and on in German, which I barely understand. Finnican just sleeps it off. Greenie lets hell loose on a punching bag and then eats. Wilhelm, I'm not sure anymore. But you're the only one that's hugged me. It, for such a small gesture, made me feel useful, not just a wall to rant at. I felt needed. You hugged me and I couldn't get over it for days."

"Really?" he whispers.

I nod. "It made me feel useful."

He doesn't respond to it, so I'm forced to keep talking.

"I didn't expect you to break down. I knew about your father but you act so unbothered and fun all the time that I didn't expect it to be in your head." I mumble. "Then we went drinking, I couldn't get over how you looked, Milo, I'll be honest, that was one of the most intense nights of my life because of how my body reacted every single time I saw you. I hated it at first, but every time you grinned at me, hell, you could've been making fun of me. Every time you looked at me, you let your eyes drop, just for a moment. I could barely keep a grip on myself."

I stop talking for a moment, but he's still not responding. "I thought it was just blind hope that maybe you felt something for me. Something like how much I was into you. Then you broke down for me again, about you and Steph. I saw how much you care about him and it, I don't know, I just, I fell harder for you. You were drunk, hazy drunk, but you put your fingers on my lips and told me to call you Milo. That you missed hearing it. You called me HÃ¥kon and I could barely function. I got you outside, you weren't having a good time after what happened with Steph."

I force myself to take a break, just in case he wants to add anything, but he doesn't. "Then you blurted it out. We were standing on the curb, it was freezing cold and you were hugging me like your life depended on it. It was one sentence in a ramble, but you said it and I swear my world stopped. Everything was frozen for a moment, then you leaped off me and my heart shattered. You asked if I was going to beat you up for being who you are and in that moment I knew how big of a deal telling me was. You put your life on the line. I didn't understand much of what else happened that night. I remember being uncomfortable on the couch so I came to bed with you."

"That was only six days ago." he breathes. "I can't believe that was only six days ago."

"I know," I mumble. "I got into bed with you. It was stupid. I knew what I felt for you and I knew I'd want to be near you, I don't know why I came to bed with you, but I did. And it was just as stupid of a decision as I thought it was going to be. I woke up with you pressed head to toe against me."

I take a deep breath. "Then you tripped up the stairs and came out to me again and you started talking about girls and I really tried to deflect every question while trying to make it as clear as I could that I was into you without saying it, without even telling you I'm not into girls."

I set my chin on my knees. "And then yesterday happened. You called and I put down every single thing I was doing because I'm crazy about you and I didn't want to miss a single moment I might have with you. I got to your house and you started on the girls again. You said that your type was me, that he was on the team, taller, shy. I didn't know, but I was pretty sure it was me. I didn't want to ask, but I thought I knew. So I told you who I was into and then about your eyes. Right to you. I didn't think I'd be able to say all of what I felt about those two stupid amazing eyes out loud, but I did. And then you kissed me. And you kept kissing me. I couldn't think straight and I'm telling the truth when that's the best I've felt in years."

I take a shaky breath. "Then you made me think about all of it, what it all meant, I got such a good reaction out of Isa, I won't be able to thank her enough. You let me take a nap on you, and then you were back at it with the cocky comments and I knew in that moment I'm going to be absolutely wild about you."

He laughs a little. "Then it was three am and your mouth was all over me."

I nod. "Then it was three in the morning and I was horny and into you and your mouth was on me and I was in complete disbelief, utter euphoria. I finished embarrassingly fast and then told myself that if this wasn't the best oral sex you'd ever had then I'd try the hell again."

He lets his head drop backward, laughing. "God I wish you did try again. I can't tell you how fucking insane that whole thing was."

"Good to hear it." I snort. "Then this morning, we went out together, totally went out together. I've never been on a date with a guy in my life, and it was you. And we took pictures with a fan and then you kissed me on camera and god I've-"

I make sure he's looking at me. "Milo, I'm being completely honest here, and it's not because I want you to change your decision right now about not being with me until I get myself together, but." I take a deep breath. "These last two days? These two days have been the best days of my life. I've been alive for twenty-five years and hated myself for all of them. Then you showed up and for one little split second, I felt what I've been dying to feel. Like I fucking mattered. Like I fucking matter. To someone, to anyone. Like I'm not worthless. Like I'm not just therapy. Like I belong somewhere. I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me in the last two days, Milo. I don't know if I can even explain how you've made me feel."

"To feel like you matter, like you belong, it's one of the best things out there. I know what you're talking about." He nods.

"Steph gave that to you. I know."

"I'm so sorry that the first time you've felt like you belong somewhere was twenty-five years into your life, HÃ¥kon. That's awful. That it took you twenty-five years to feel like you matter for two days. Not even for two days." He stands up, pulling my hand. "Stand, come on." I get up, shaky in the knees. He pulls me into a hug, my head in his neck. He's rubbing my back, up and down.

"Never forget that you matter, HÃ¥kon." He breathes against my ear. "Never forget that you belong with us, that you'll always have a home with us. Maybe you've never had a good home, a place you can be you, all of you, but I want to help you find that. But most of all? I never want to see you forget that you matter. I never want you to forget that you matter. Say it. I want you to say it."

"What?"

"That you matter."

I nod. "I matter." He smiles against the side of my head, starting to rock both of us. Foot to foot, moving me gently in the kitchen.

"Again, come on."

"I matter."

"Is it making you feel better?"

"A little."

"Good. Tell me again."

I smile into the crook of his neck. "I matter."

***

Let's go out in flames so everyone knows who we are

'Cause these city walls never knew that we'd make it this far

We've become echoes, but echoes are fading away

So let's dance like two shadows, burning out a glory day

silhouette - aquilo

***