A noise escaped my throat even though I was trying my best to be impassive and listen to his story with my head and not my heart. But he was breaking, shattering right in front of me, and that stabbed right into my heart. He was shaking and it had nothing to do with the chill in the air and I could tell the iciness in his stare was going to melt soon and that tears would follow. I had seen many parts of Orlando since we started, whatever it was we had started, but this was him showing me his soul. Uncovered, unprotected and out from behind the shield of fear he normally kept it behind. It was beautiful but also hard to look at.
“On the night he died it had been a bad day. I was getting ready to graduate from school and was looking at different teams I could intern with. I told him maybe it was a good idea to leave Denver, that maybe we should leave and go somewhere that no one knew us so we could be free to be who were. He freaked out and told me he would never leave his family, he would never leave Rule or Shaw.”
The first tear fell but before I could stop myself, I leaned up on my tiptoes and kissed it off his cheek. His hand curled around the back of my head to hold me in place as he rubbed the smooth surface against the dark bristle that decorated my cheek.
“I told Remy that it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Shaw was in love with Rule and that he was breaking her heart by using her to fool his family and called him out for doing it on purpose. Everyone loved Remy. He was the golden child in the Archer family and I knew they would accept him regardless of who he loved, but he refused to see it. He told me I could move wherever I wanted, but he was staying put. I asked him why he didn’t love me enough to be honest about who he was, who we were together.” Lando’s voice broke and caught in my ear and even though I was still mad at him I moved to put my arms around his waist so I could hold him while he got the rest of the heartbreaking tale out.
“He told me he loved me as much as he could, but he loved his family more so I had to take what he offered or leave it. God, Dom, I wanted to marry him, I wanted to have kids with him … do you know what his words did to me? Rule called in the middle of the argument and asked Rem for a ride. They were always dropping things and running off because the other needed something, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I was trying to fight for our future and he was more concerned about Rule.”
No, I didn’t know how that must have felt for him, but I could imagine it felt a lot like what had coursed through me when I saw him wrapped up in the other twin’s arms. It felt like the whole world was ending and like you would never feel anything good again because of it. Whoever coined the phrase “Love hurts” nailed it. It had the ability to hurt worse than taking a bullet and falling off of a goddamn building to the concrete below.
“I told him that even if he couldn’t love me like that, I loved myself enough to know I deserved better than to be a secret, and I told him Shaw deserved more than being his cover-up. I told him if he left, then I didn’t want to see him again.”
He was crying for real now. I could feel the liquid slip between where our faces were pressed together and all I could do was tighten my arms around his lean waist and hold on until the end.
“He told me he always thought I deserved better and left to go get Rule. I never saw him again and when Shaw called to tell me that he was dead I couldn’t even go to the hospital or anything because his family had no idea who I was and I didn’t want to out him after the fact, so I fell apart and no one was there to help pick up the pieces because I’d allowed myself to live a lie.”