This Is Inevitable | #ONC2022

Chapter 6 | This Is A Breakthrough

Twenty more minutes have passed, and we've done nothing but sit in silence. Well, I lie, Tate was humming a song to himself at some point, but one irritated glare from me shut that shit down quickly. I think the song was a Taylor Swift song--either way, it made me feel ill.

Maybe I can simply wait this out. If I just sit here and do not try to initiate conversation, I won't have to share anything else with Tate. Sure, learning about him is interesting and certainly beats sitting here doing nothing, but learning about him means that I would also have to give him information. Talking feels icky. This isn't a movie, and I certainly don't feel like sharing my whole life with someone that I've only ever said awful things to. 

I just don't get it. How is Tate still being nice to me? If I were in his shoes, I'd be facing a corner or taking a nap just to avoid talking (or even looking) to me. I've been a horrible person to him, always belittling him or saying snarky things to Ayisha about him, and yet he's still so annoyingly polite and courteous and--ugh. Ayisha has never taken what I've said seriously, as she thinks I'm pining over him like a bully in highschool, but still. Sigh. I'm not a bully. I'm an adult. 

Did I just say 'sigh' in my head? Great. Now I'm losing my sanity in here.

"So, how did you end up here?" Tate says, cutting me out of my thoughts. I turn to him. He's lying on his back now, arms tucked underneath his head as he stares at the ceiling. I arch an eyebrow. The heck does he mean? 

"I walked through the front doors?"

He chuckles. "No, you idiot, I mean how did some beefy rugby player end up in the corporate publishing industry? No offense, but you would look much more at home on the field than behind a desk."

I pause. "You think I'm beefy?"

Tate smiles, surprising me. "I'm not blind. Don't think too much into it. I'm merely stating a fact. Look at you, your shirt can barely contain all that underneath it."

I don't know what to say, so I lie down next to him. Resisting the fuzzy feeling in my gut, I decide to entertain his question a little.

"It's complicated," I start. He turns to me, waiting. "It's also a long story. Don't know if our situation has earned you the right to hear it."

"I'm just making conversation, Kian. Christ. Besides, does it look like I'm in any rush? It'll make the time go faster if we talked."

"Right." I swallow. 

This is exactly what I didn't want to do. The last time I told someone about who I was, he laughed at me and called me a failure with no real dreams. Spineless. A fool. That person was Amir. It was during my job interview with him. I don't even know why I got the job--I was humiliated. 

"Why don't you tell me about you first?" I say. Deflection, my favourite tool. He sighs, lying on his back again facing the ceiling. Crisis averted. 

He takes a breath before talking.

"There's not really much to say. I was a smart kid in highschool and a smart kid in university. I was loved by my family, parents always so proud of my achievements. But, they also loved the church, a little too much. While my dad was fine with me when I came out, my mother was not. We became estranged. I started working here to help build a life away from her, but to be honest, working here has been awful."

Woah. 

"What do you mean, working here has been awful?" I know full well that Amir may have something to do with that statement, as he's the root cause of a LOT of problems in this place, but I couldn't help but pry. 

He shakes his head, waving a dismissive finger in the air. "Nope. Your turn, rugby boy. C'mon. I haven't told anybody that before."

I swallow. I want to shrink away, melt into the wall to avoid speaking. But, the kind look in Tate's eyes make me feel at ease. They're nothing like Amir's, judgemental and cold. He seems to actually care about what I have to say.