41: What Could I Do?

i'm just gonna say this: this is 5k words. I'm trying not to break 100 chapters so this is all one piece. If i was still at like, idk, thirty chapters, I would have broken this into two segments because this is an exhausting length.

HÅKON

I wasn't lying when I told him he gave me bad ideas. Lots of them. A whole array. An entire setup of shitty decisions.

One of which I was hoping would happen tomorrow but appears to not be, from the looks on my parents faces when I show up at noontime to help my dad disassemble some remaining things from the wedding.

"Before we start,"

Haha, fuck.

My dad keeps talking. "We want to ask about the boy you brought home."

I tighten up my posture, slipping my hands into my pockets to fiddle with the little slip of paper he left in my sleeve last night. "What about him?"

They take a moment but my mom continues. "He's your..." She makes a face. "lover. Isn't he?"

I consider for a moment. I could deny it, keep going in a weird situation with them not knowing the first thing about me and living peacefully, being able to come back for family functions albeit awkwardly, but there. Or I could be honest. Or I could come out to them.

"And?" I manage.

They stare blankly at me and I catch that they didn't get what I meant.

"So what if he is, I mean, it doesn't really bother you." I try to come up with something to say. "It's not like you're going to care if I told you I think your relationship isn't right, so why would you be able to weigh in on mine?"

"Because," my dad takes a deep breath, ready to gaslight the shit out of me. "Because our relationship is allowed and yours is not."

"It's legal," I mutter. "It's been legal since the 80s. Even before that it's been allowed here. And it's been proven countless times that the one phrase that says it's a sin is just a mistranslation."

"Mistranslation or not, it's still not natural." Dad tries with me.

"Homosexuality has been recorded in almost every living species." I stare directly at the floor, too scared my voice is going to break over itself out of nervousness. "Just say you're homophobic and be done with it."

"So what if I am?" Dad starts. "It's not right, it's not natural, it's not normal, it's simply something you're doing as a passing interest to get a rise out of us."

I mentally shake off my nerves. I ignore that these aren't just random other hockey players but in fact my parents. With one, almost monumental deep breath, I work up the courage to do anything in this situation. "I've been gay since the second I started breathing, you wanna tell me when this passing interest is going to stop? It's been 26 years!"

"It's a mental illness!"

"It's just another thing about me!" I shout back, eyes closed, pretending this is just someone random, faceless people I'm yelling at for no reason. "Just like my height or my eye color, I'm just gay and that's that."

"But it's in your head and you can change that! Why haven't you changed that! Do you want to be a disappointment? Do you want to go to hell?" His voice is shrill, too harsh, too much of a lot of things and it's cutting through my thin veil of imagination. I'm not quite as strong at imagination as Milo.

"Because you can't change it?" I stare blankly at the floor.

"Yes you can." My dad slaps his hand on the table and I step backward, looking up, image broken.

"Dad, look at me." I try to keep calm. "Look at me and think about it-"

"I'm not listen-"

"If someone came up to you, could you make yourself attracted to them!" I shout over him. "If a man came up to you could you make yourself sexually attracted to them! You can't! Because you're straight! I can't do it with girls because I'm gay."

"Everyone fucking can!" He shouts. "You just have to follow God and choose the right path!"

In fear, I burst out laughing. "Well then you're fucking gay, Dad!"

"I am no such thing!" He's red in the face. "You're choosing a sin and you're proud of it and I forbid you from doing it further or else I will-"

"Will what?" I take another step backward, back hitting the plaster, adrenaline making my body vibrate. "I'm 26. I've been on my own and not legally or financially tied to you for eight years. I'm not afraid of severing the rest of my ties with you. Milo's done it, he'll be there for me if I do. So will Isa. To be fair you've done nothing but make me miserable in my own skin for the past 26 years so honestly it's not the worst decision I could make." My voice is shaking over itself, almost hysterical.

They seem wildly offended by that. Can't imagine why.

"We raised you." Mom manages. "We've done everything for you."

"Yeah," I shrug. "You raised me and that was the job you took on when you had kids. You signed up for that when you had unprotected sex." I breathe, trying to control the way I'm shaking. "I mean I know for a damn fact I wasn't even supposed to exist but you took on my existence and that made me your job for eighteen years."

"You're so privileged to have that upbringing and you can't even see it."

I breathe out, controlling my voice. "Yeah, and? You can be raised in a perfect situation and still be abused."

"We never abused you! Where is this coming from? Toughen up, no wonder you're a fucking-" my brain hazes over it, slipping into fight, flight, and freeze, another rush of adrenaline going through me. "You're so goddamn soft!"

I stand, hands sweating, in solid disbelief that he just uttered that word. "You- you gave me the silent treatment for-for six weeks because I failed a math quiz in primary school." I mumble. "You didn't let me come to dinner for a month when I didn't make that one team. You-"

"That was punishment."

"I was nine!" I shout. "I was fucking nine! I didn't fucking know that's what that was! I was eleven when you told me for five hours that I was a plague to the fucking Earth for wanting to kiss a boy, you told me I was going to hell for it. Who the fuck tells an eleven year old that they're fucking forever damned? It took me 15 years to feel anything again and when I did it was him!" I shout. "I don't give a fuck what you say to me about this and frankly if you don't accept me for it I'm more than happy to step out that door and never come back. He might be just as new to everything as I am but he loves me so much fuller than you ever did."

"Who said we didn't love you?" Mom raises her voice.

I throw my hands up. "I don't fucking- I don't-"

"So you're in love. With a man." Dad crosses his arms, leaning forward on the table, wood creaking with the weight.

"Yeah," I admit. "Yeah, I am. What you say can't change that."

"You're done," Dad says. "You're done with hockey. You're coming home, for at least a season, you need to learn-"

"I'm twenty six. I make my own decisions and I'm not quitting hockey just so you can tell me over and over again that I'm going to hell for loving another man."

"You listen to me." Dad points his finger, shaking, red in the face, clearly holding himself back. "You listen to me and you do as you're told. This has gone on too long. Look at you. You speak with an American accent and you swear like one of them. You are not the boy I raised you to be and that man I raised is sure as hell not the one telling me he's sleeping with another man."

I back into the door, stopping moving for a quick second, dropping my head back against the wood.

This is it, huh?

"No," I say up at the ceiling.

"What did you say?"

"No."

"I'm not letting my son rot in hell because he wanted to make a scene and go around being violated by other men."

I sigh, unhooking my teeth idly, notching them back into position. Honestly I'm not even sure they know I'm missing them. I unhook them again, tongue dragging along my upper jaw. I click them back in, then unhook, remembering the way he smiles at me when he sees I don't have them in, the way he likes it when I'm confident about it, the way he managed to make me feel alright that I don't have them, the way that feeling warmed me up on the inside all the way to the tip top of my head. I click them back in.

"I don't care about heaven and hell," I mutter under my breath. "If you must know, I'd much rather burn forever in hell knowing I loved him as strongly as I could in life than go to heaven pretending I never did." I click the teeth out again, knowing I'm wearing out the retainer but it might be time to retire it completely, might be time to move on, to stop hiding from that. "That's the thing, though, I don't even know if it's real."

"Of course it's real."

"No, no," I sigh. "No I have no proof of it, you have no proof of it. What I do have proof of, though, is that I love him, is that people like me are real and normal. So make your choice here, are you more afraid of hell than losing me?" I run my hand through my hair, scratching the back of my head, kind of glad I don't look like them. I was never happy with that as a kid, I was the one that got all the recessive genes, the nose nobody had seen before, the different eye shape, the different skin tone. I hated it because it alienated me. Now, I couldn't be happier with the way I look. "Are you more afraid of some unproven God, some book of fables, some unproven location full of lava and fire, then letting me walk out that door and never come back to this house, never show up to another family gathering, not be invited to my wedding, not have me pay my respects at your funerals, letting me leave? Tell me what you're picking."

"You can't just- you can't just have us make that decision, that's preposterous, that's-" Mom splutters.

I slide down the wall, sitting on the floor. "I'll wait. I'll wait as long as I have to, but I'm either walking out of here today and going home with a family or I'm walking out of here today and going home without one. You keep me or you keep your beliefs about me."

"We can't make that decision, there's ways to have both you and-"

"Not with the way I've been treated," I shake my head, knitting my fingers together. "You don't get to make me leave parts of me at home when I come here any more. You know, I might even come out down the line, and then somewhere on that path, someone in this town might come to the realization that the Rex family doesn't see HÃ¥kon anymore because he was gay. You know they don't look upon homophobia fondly in this country. You know you'd get blacklisted from things if someone found out you were too cowardly to change your beliefs to allow for your son to still be yours." I narrow my eyes up at them, unhooking, rehooking, unhooking, rehooking. "Or, on the other hand, you might get to final judgement and they might look at you and send you right to hell, right alongside me, because how dare you allow your son to be gay? That's a sin, of course." I tap my head back against the wood, letting them sit there at the table and watch me go through this whole maddening process I've been through far too many times. "You might get to judgement and they might pin the blame on you that you didn't force me to choose being with a woman."

"Shush, HÃ¥kon."

"No, I've been through this in my head so many times, you deserve to struggle with it too." I tap my head back a couple more times, tap tap tap against the wood. "Or, or will they send you to hell because you didn't love your son for who he is? Do you think they judge you more based on your adherence to the fucking book than to your love of everyone around you? Milo and I talk about this a lot. His dad disowned him when he came out, he was 13. He moved to Canada, didn't speak a word of english but made it alright, I played against him in the IIHF and then we landed on the same team. But his dad disowned him because he was just like you two." I close my eyes, fiddling with my fingers just like he does. "I really do love that boy, you can't take that from me. You might tell me I'm going to hell and you might try to force me to quit hockey, you might disown me right here and now and honestly it wouldn't change much, I'd still be gay. I'd still wake up tomorrow in love with a man. I'd still, down the road, only be into men. Sucks for you guys, because I know you're against that, but, you can't change it."

They're talking softly between themselves and I'm just sitting there, hands shaking, head full of fuzz. My whole body feels too light and too heavy at the same time, my skin is crawling under itself, things are too loud in my head, around me, all over the place.

I decide to interrupt my own thoughts.

"Did you know that my first weekend in Regina, I wasn't invited to do anything with the team? They didn't even add me to the group chat until December. Did you know I scored my first NHL goal in my first game? It was a wild night, but it was fun. Did you know that last summer, when we won the Stanley Cup and I was allowed to have it for my little period of time I said no? I didn't know what I'd do with something like that for a week. I was here when it was supposed to happen and I didn't even know if you guys knew I'd won, I dunno. I guess I just didn't want the attention from it."

I sigh, running my fingers through the side of my remaining short beard. "Did you know that in my second season I got two teeth knocked out on the side? I fight a lot and now I'm better at it, but I fight a lot, and I got hit in the face just a little wrong too many times and he broke two of my teeth clean in half. I still remember the feeling of pulling them out, wakes me up from a dead sleep sometimes." they're not paying attention, they're discussing between themselves. "Did you know that I broke my wrist three years ago? Snapped it on one side, I've got a metal post in there keeping my bone where it is, sometimes it hurts a little when the weather gets warm."

They're not paying attention, I'm just talking at a wall, it feels kind of good, to be honest, to finally tell them anything even if they're not paying attention. "Did you know that I have a little form of albinism? The only reason it wasn't caught is because my vision is good. You guys could've picked up on it if you had looked at me for more than 10 minutes when I was little. You can see it in old photos, I'm a little too light to fit in with you guys. Milo thinks it's beautiful. He thinks I look like a forest spirit." I feel my little heart flutter and my eyes sting. "He says a lot of stuff like that, actually, tells me all the time how good I am, that I'm good at hockey even when I'm having a bad day, that I'm good at cooking even when I burn something, that he loves my eyes and my hair and he even likes my teeth, it feels good, you know."

I sigh. "I didn't really think people liked anything about me, that I was just there because I had to, because I served a purpose on the team. And then he comes along and he tells me, before I fall asleep almost every night when he's not too tired, that he loves me, endlessly."

I drop my head, blinking hard. "He spends time when I get into a fight cleaning out my stitches so I don't have to. I cut my cheek open at the end of the season, got clipped in the facemask with the puck, broke the plastic, sent it into my cheek. It's still a little red but it's mostly gone because he sat with my head on his lap, helping me replace the butterfly stitches when I was too tired to do it myself."

I sigh, running my finger over it. "I don't think you guys pay attention to my career much, I remember how you told me in my first season how it took too much time to watch my games so you just looked to see if I scored or not. You don't even text me to congratulate me anymore, but I always kind of assume you know at least a little bit. I got knocked out last season, flat out, had to be taken off the ice, bad concussion, all that. I got one call that night and it was from Isa and Leo, they wanted to know if I was alright. I was, I'm okay, I toughed it out like you told me to, Dad. Still feels weird, though, that with both Leo and Isa working so much every week, that they still manage to find time to sit down and watch my games, even if they have to record them to play them back later."

I unhook my retainer for the last time, slipping out and setting it in my palm. "It's only an hour long. But it's okay. Milo takes care of me now. His mom is scary but she's nice and she always watches, especially when Milo is in goal. I can practically hear her yelling from halfway across the rink through 20,000 people. He's her whole life, it hurts a little, on the inside, but recently she's been letting me in a little more. I didn't think getting hit with a wooden spoon would feel so loving, but it just meant she saw me as someone close enough to her to smack with a spoon for trying to eat cookies off the pan too soon."

I run a hand through my hair. "I wanna be a Dad someday, maybe when Milo and I are older we'll move to somewhere in the Czech Republic or in Canada and we'll adopt kids. After I get some counseling, of course, but I want to coach a little league hockey team and show them all my best tricks and tell stories about my time in pros. I want to give someone a good life, you know? I have a lot of expendable wealth, too. I make 11 million dollars a year for breathing. I'm making a disgusting amount of money just sitting here. He did the math for me as a joke one night, rather tipsy, I think the number was thirty thousand in a day just from keeping myself alive. Of course, you guys don't really know American money, and I do have to pay taxes on it, about half, but it's still too much for me to live and die with."

I slip my retainer into the pocket on the side of my shorts, letting it rest there against my thigh. "I think he'd be a good Dad, he's sweet and funny and cuddly but at the same time he knows when to be mature about things, even if sometimes he doesn't. Of course, it would be a linguistic mess, I'll probably end up learning Czech at the same time as he learns Swedish and we both know English, of course, so the poor kids would have to learn three and separate between them, because I'm not doing to them what you did to me, not teaching the second language because it wasn't 'useful.' It is. Even if you only use it once, it's important to have that skill somewhere."

I try to come up with more shit to talk about idly before they tell me to get out. "I kept the beard this year." I start. "I always liked how I looked with it but I was too scared to change anything, worried that someone would point it out. I want to change stuff about myself, all the time, but I'm scared people will say something. This year I didn't shave it after we were done with playoffs. You guys normally call it unprofessional and like I'm poor or something, which, is insensitive, but that's why I kept it shaved this long." I sigh. "Maybe this whole thing will let me grow into who I want to be, who I wanted to be when I was little. Maybe if I'm not so scared of what you guys are going to say about stuff I'll actually change things."

"I want to get a stupid tattoo, just to see what happens. I was thinking about a little Sasquatch on my hip with a flag. White for now, 'course, because I don't want to out myself in the showers down the line, but when I retire or when everyone knows, maybe I'll fill it in with a little rainbow. Think about it, a little Sasquatch with a rainbow flag. Maybe he'll be standing on the moon with the Earth way in the background. I'll call it 'gay Yeti conquers the world' or something dumb. That's my nickname, you know, Yeti. I like it, it's better than listening to people butcher my name and it's fun and short and makes me feel like a big and cuddly cryptid. Milo said that line, big and cuddly cryptid. Every time I think about it I smile a little."

I'm running out of things to talk about. "His eyes are green, I don't know if you noticed that, bottle green. They're gorgeous. He only drives a stick shift, he's got a nasty old run down chevy s10 from 2009 that he still drives, it was his first car. He drove it in Flint, then in Boston, how he parallel parked that in Boston, I don't know, and now he still uses it in Regina. It's a shabby car for someone that makes four million dollars a year, but I swear he loves that thing like a son. It's got these stupidly uncomfortable cloth seats and sometimes he tosses a bunch of blankets in the bed and we go bundle up and drive out to the middle of nowhere and stargaze. Fun fact, he loves that car so much that he has a second one that he keeps in the parking garage and parts out when the first one starts falling apart. He wouldn't let you pry that s10 out of his cold, dead, hands."

I look up, they're still discussing. I press my boundaries, knowing my voice blends into the background very easily. "Sometimes we hook up in the bed on the nights where we go stargazing. It's one of my favorite places, the middle of nowhere, under the stars, huddled in so many blankets it's hard to tell which one is which. He's got this tonneau cover that's so frustrating to unroll and reroll but it covers up everything back there so it doesn't fly out on the highway. I can't wait until we're both back in Canada at the end of the summer, it's one of my favorite things to do with him, hose out the bed, grab the blankets, go for a drive. He lets me put a hand on his thigh as he drives because his is busy with the shifter. It makes me feel endless. Makes me feel like even after we die and our bodies blend back in with the Earth, the cells that made us up will always remember that type of love. Maybe, in a couple million years, one of my carbons will bond to his and somewhere, wherever I am, whatever happens to my conscience, I'll get a little flutter in my chest."

My Dad is suddenly standing in front of me, I look up, sighing. "Did you decide?"

"Yes."

"Cool," I mumble, suddenly wary that I'm not wearing the retainer.

"You're still our son."

It comes as a bit of a shock to my system. "Under conditions that you're going to ignore the fact that I'm gay or without that fact."

"Ignoring." He nods. "We cannot alter your decisions but we don't want to lose you."

"Great." I stand up, stretching. "I'm going back to Canada. I'll see you if you decide to come visit or if not, next summer."

"Are you-" Dad leans in a little. "Hold on."

"What." I cross my arms. "Am I what?"

"HÃ¥kon, what happened to your teeth?" He seems absolutely terrified, worried, all that.

"My teeth?" I act like I'm considering it. "Oh? The ones I lost five years ago? Those?" I hook my finger in my cheek and pull it back. "Gone, would you look at that. Huge, gaping hole, where they were. This one is chipped, too," I point at my bottom tooth. "If you look here, this is where I got hit in the face with a shard off my helmet earlier in the season." I point at it. "And this cut in my eyebrow is from another fight, so's this-"

"You said you weren't fighting!" Dad exclaims, clearly horrified.

"Hm." I do remember saying that, purely out of fear, but I said it. "So, this has been great-"

"You're not going anywhere just yet." Mom stops me. "We want to know how long this has been going on."

"With Milo?" I ask.

"In general."

I stare at them for a couple seconds. "I was... born... with it?"

"No, acting on the urges." Mom says it like it pains her.

"Oh, um." I'm 26 now, I was 19 at the end of the first season, that was the summer with the french foreign exchange student, so that was 7 years ago- god was that really seven years ago? "Seven years."

"Seven?"

"Yeah,"

"So your relationship with Svea..."

"We were really just friends."

Mom shudders at that, looking away.

"So, this has been a good chat," I slip my hands into my pockets. "But, I'm going home now, if you have anything more to say in person, you can say it, other than that, remember that I exist every once in a while and call me-"

"Would you stop victimizing yourself over this?" Dad suddenly says. "Every other thing you say is 'if you remember I exist' or 'if you'd paid attention to me' or 'if you cared about me.' At this point you're just making that up in your head to try to get us to pity you. We do care about you. You just make it worse on yourself by not reaching back toward us. Us 'ignoring' you is entirely your fault because you don't try to do your part and meet us in the middle."

I stare at him, watching the features on his face stay firm in their expressions. His hard stare on me is giving me the urge to shudder and cower but I don't. I can't. I can't let him do that to me anymore. "Reach you in the middle? I gave up, don't you realize that? Didn't you notice? I left a message on this damn answering machine every single day my entire rookie season and you didn't hear a single one. I stopped fucking trying. So yay, you picked me over your beliefs but I'm not expecting you to actually start trying to make me your son." I let out a little nervous laugh. They're both just staring at me, watching what I'm doing, keeping it catalogued in their huge mental files of me. The stuff in there is probably all somewhat outdated "favorite sport: soccer. Relationship: Svea, 1.5 yrs."

"Did you know, every year we have a mother's day road trip where we invite the moms to come in a big group and watch a game, go on the plane with us, all of it, it's a big deal, a huge tradition even. I begged you for six fucking weeks beforehand when I was eighteen to show up to this. You ignored it and then made up some shitty excuse. You know how awkward that shit is? To be the only guy on the whole fucking trip who doesn't have family there for him just because his mom had church group she didn't want to miss? I've asked every damn year and every damn year you come up with something and I'm the guy without parents there. This year it was two of us and Ukko's mom only didn't show up because she's fucking dead. You wanna know how fucking horrible that is? Every year when they ask where you are and if you're okay and I have to answer that you've got something going on over here? Mom you don't have a fucking job, you don't do anything. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to come for one damn weekend."

I turn to Dad. "Even fucking better, there's a Dads trip too, which you were in Canada for. You were in fucking Toronto when I was there for that fucking trip, you could've stayed just a little and shown your face at least fucking once for maybe even the team dinner and that's it but you didn't. You told me you were tired and then you went back to your hotel and, I don't know, I don't fucking care, even. It was just me and Milo on that trip. Even Steph's parents show up for him and they're just the same as you guys."

They're watching me like they didn't know but I know they did. I sent them all the information they needed about this and they still ignore it every year.

"So no. I'm not meeting you halfway because I've been going your distance too for my entire life. I'm sick of doing stuff for people that don't care. If you want to be part of my life again you're going to have to work to be in it instead of just telling me you're okay with me being gay. I don't give a fuck if you think it's a lot of work or if you think it's inconvenient. You have my full permission to keep this up but I refuse to spend my time and my energy trying to get you to make it look like you care about me."

"We do-"

"Stop fucking saying that!" I shout. "Stop fucking trying to convince me you do! Shut up shut up shut up! If you do, if you care about me so much, if you love me like you're fucking supposed to because I'm your son then fucking act like it! Fucking act like it! Same thing with fucking Isa! You couldn't even pretend to be happy at her wedding even though she's been in love with Leo since she was 17. Leo is the nicest man I've ever fucking met and you just sat there and didn't participate and barely even clapped because you don't, what, you don't like him? You didn't let her go to her favorite college choice because it was the same one as his, you didn't let her wear fucking shorts until she was 16 because you thought it made her look like a fucking whore, and then you don't like the one person that actually loves her because what, because you thought they were having sex? Nobody fucking cares! If she was ready for it and so was he that's good enough! You knew I was having sex and you didn't care because I was a boy and then you turn around and shame her to the point where she moves in with him at 18 because she did? What the fuck type of parents are you? At this point you're fucking lucky we both are still in contact with you."

They're staring at me, just staring.

"Isa's off on her honeymoon having the time of her life with Leo but I know for a fact that somewhere in the back of her mind she's remembering looking over at the entire section that held our family and expecting you guys to look like you were happy to be there on only getting a few claps in return. You fucking suck. You know that? You're fucking awful."

"Well if we're so aw-"

"Don't fucking gaslight me." I snap. "Don't even fucking think about it."

They both stop and stand there for a few seconds.

"Just," I run a hand through my hair. "Just try to keep in contact with me. I don't care whether or not you show up to that shit, it doesn't really matter all that much to me. Just call every once in a while. I'm not reaching out your way so it's up to you this year. I'm leaving tomorrow night. If you need me between now and then I'll be at the cabin." I sigh. "I'll see you next summer."

They watch me back out the door and walk down to the driveway. Blindly, I get into the car they have spare here, and crunch over the gravel.

I stop twenty minutes down the road, pulling off by a lake and then setting my head back against the headrest.

***

again yeah it's long as hell

whoopsies

anyway

-rabid

(also don't ignore how many banging lines i had in here like c'mon i can't get over 'id rather go to hell' and all that *chefs kiss* been thinkin' about it since august)