Unsteady

32 | Lifeboats and Parachutes

I've felt a lot of things. Happiness. Sadness. Anger. Disappointment. Illness.

But betrayal? I've never felt such a thing. 

I've never felt that ache in my chest like my heart is fighting to break free, desperate to find another body that's better off. It's not that same pain you get in your stomach that's weird and different; that tells you you're in love. This feeling is unlike anything I've ever experienced. 

It hurts.

"Maybe he'll come around," Simon breaks the silence.

"Why?" I grumble, pulling out blades of grass, ripping them apart, and repeating the cycle. "It's over. He won't come back now that his father knows. He'll just do what he did to Hunter. He'll sweep me under the rug like I never even existed." 

I throw the handful of grass into the wind, and they float along in the breeze until a nearby car travelling down the main road in front of us whisks them away. 

"Besides, now that his dad knows, he'll send him away."

I don't think I'll ever be able to wipe that look on Nick's face from my memory—that look of horror after I kissed him as if he'd seen his future flash before his eyes. The way he glanced over his shoulder at me when his dad was dragging him away...

"How could Frankie do this?" Bobbi seethes, pacing back and forth from where I'm sitting on the grass and Simon in his wheelchair. 

She rakes her hands through her hair. "I can't believe I didn't see this coming. She asked me about this shit and I told her to keep her nosy ass out of it."

"Don't blame Frankie," I grumble back. "We should've told her about us from the start."

"Because of Nick's brother?" Simon asks.

"Especially because of...that."

Nick has always been too good to be true. People who look too perfect are usually the ones with skeletons in their closet if not an entire graveyard. How could I have been so stupid to think I could make this work with him? How could I actually think I could be okay with having to sit in that closet with him?

I exhale heavily. "I should've said that I didn't want to date someone who isn't out from the start."

Bobbi sits down next to me and takes my hand. "It'll be okay, Ollie. We'll find you someone else. Luke would know someone who is so openly gay he'd make Elton John look straight as a stiff board."

I just want to be alone. I just want to cut myself out of reality and sit in the darkness where I can't be hurt. I want to sit in the Empty alone—no doctors, no friends, no romantic interests that are about as seaworthy as post-iceberg Titanic.

No Nicholas Beauregard.

"Ollie!"

I look up.