Page 86 of Poetry On Ice
I know he can see my rage and pain because he flinches when he looks into my eyes, but I hope that behind all that, he can see the mountain of compassion I feel for him.
“You’re wrong, Ant,” I say firmly. “You’re not in this alone, and it won’t go away for me if you go away. This is who I am too. And it’s not just who I am. It’s who I want to be.”
“That’s only because you don’t understand what it’s like.”
My anger is quick to flare and quick to die. “Then help me understand. Explain it to me because I don’t understand how you can be this huge presence, this big, in-your-face, I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-people-think-of-me guy, but be completely trapped under this atthe same time.”
He’s quiet for a while, biting his bottom lip, squeezing it together in the middle and gnawing on it lightly. “Okay, here’s the best way I know to explain it. You grew up thinking you were straight, right? Or mostly straight?”
“Right.”
“Well, I didn’t. I’ve known I was gay since I was six years old. I’ve never been confused or even thought I might be attracted to women, and what that means is that I’ve sat at countless tables, on countless benches, and in locker rooms, countless places where I’ve known I’m gay, and no one else has. I’ve heard what people say about people like me when they don’t think we’re listening, and every single time it’s happened, I didn’t just hear it. I sat there, knowing they were talking about me. And yeah, I get what you’re saying. I don’t have the easiest time with people. I don’t particularly like them or being around a lot of them at once, and in lots of ways, I don’t care what they think because most of the time, I think they’re a bunch of assholes anyway. But at the same time”—Ant pauses as if he’s unsure if he can make the next leap required to say what he wants to say, or as though he’s unsure if he should—“everything hurts my feelings. Everything. Really stupid, minor shit that mostpeople don’t even remember, it all fucks me up. I hate it, but I can’t help it.”
I grab him and crush him to me, caging his head in my hands. That’s how he feels? That’s how Ant Decker feels? Not angry or defensive? Afraid of being hurt. Fuck, that kills me more than him not looking at me in the bar did.
“I didn’t know that was how you felt, Ant. I’m sorry. I don’t want that for you. I won’t let anyone hurt you, okay? I’ll keep your secret for as long as you want me to.”
At first, he struggles against the steel grip I have on him. My hands and arms are a confine made of bone, sinew, and skin that he rails against. He fights it until he can’t anymore. Until he’s worn down, eroded, corroded by life and years of hiding, by reality, and mostly, I think, by the fact he’s looking into my eyes and can see how much I mean what I just said.
He drops his head and buries his face in my neck, taking a jerky, uneven breath.
“I’m not crying,” he says. “It just sounds like I am.”
I hold his head tightly, running my fingers through his hair and kissing his crown until he settles.
“That’s not even the main thing. It used to be, but it isn’t anymore,” Ant says, his voice small and childlike. “It’s you, Robbie. Now it’s you. You’reso fucking sweet and so fucking nice, and people are dicks, and I just…can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. I can’t stand it, okay? I can’t fucking stand knowing that if we come out, a fuck-ton of people are going to have shit to say about it, and you’re going to read it and hear it and see it. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want to be the person who does that to you. Please don’t make me be the person who does that to you.”
34
Ant Decker
Robbie doesn’t move. Hejust keeps holding me, his breathing slow and steady as he waits until I go still. When I do, he tilts my face up so he can see me. I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but what I see on his face shocks and surprises me. It’s not the sweet boy whose kisses make me dizzy. It’s not the impossible man who makes my blood pressure spike. It’s the man I see on the ice. A hard, unstoppable force. A boy once called a wrecking ball now grown into a man. A man with split-second reaction times and the ability to make things happen if he wills them to.
A man who’s currently holding me up as my insides shake.
“I’ll never push you to come out, Ant. I won’t ask you to do it or put pressure on you. Personally, I don’t mind if people know about us. I don’t care what they think. I want them to know, and not even for some big, major reason. I just want to be able to hold your hand whenwe walk down the street and not have to let go because someone might see us.
“That’s something I want, but I can wait as long as you need me to because coming out is something that’s yours, and I want you to get to do it on your terms. I want you to do it when you’re ready, and not a second before. I want that for you.
“But know this”—he looks at me in the way that used to scare the unholy shit out of me, and it occurs to me distantly that I don’t hate it so much anymore—“I’ll be by your side when you do. I’ll be there like I am now. Sure. Proud. Because I’m sure and proud of you. I’m sure and proud of myself when I’m with you. And I’m sure and proud of us.”
I start to struggle in his arms, fighting because as scared as I am, I’m sure and proud of him too. But I’m also sure people are assholes, and the thought of someone hurting Robbie and me being the cause, makes me feel like I’m going to be sick.
He subdues me with a little shake that’s just hard enough to remind me that every time I’ve ever bested him, he’s let me.
“Wanna know why I’m so sure?” he asks.
I nod once and breathe through my nose as my eyes and throatsting.
Everything about him softens. His eyes, his posture, the grip he has on me. Even his voice is different now. “It’s because I’ve been in love before.”
Even though I know it makes me pathetic, I don’t love hearing that. I manage not to growl, but a snarl spreads across my face that I have trouble tamping down.
“It’s true, I have, so I know the signs and recognize them. I know what it feels like to fall in love.”
He leans in and kisses me so softly and deeply that my throat stops stinging and my eyes start to water. I hate feeling like this. I never should’ve let it happen. I'd push him away now and get the hell out of his room if it wasn’t for the way he’s looking at me. Like I’m something. Something big and important, that matters to him.
“I know I’m in love with you, Ant. I know it, like really know it.” He sighs gently. He looks intensely vulnerable, heart open and exposed, beating in his chest cavity with no protection, but he doesn’t look weak. He’s laid bare, but unlike me, he accepted his condition a while back, and instead of thinking of it as a weakness, he sees it as a strength. “But also, I know this time it’s different. It’s unlike the other times I fell in love because this time…” He kisses me again, softer. Deeper. “This time, it’s the last time. The last time I’ll ever fall in love. It’s you and me, baby, from now till the end. It has to be ’cause I’ll never feel like this about anyone else.”