Sasquatch to the Moon

23: Sorry

uh, sit down, get a drink, maybe alcoholic, maybe not, this is long and very emotional. 

HÅKON

Rocket sucks in a long breath. "Håkon?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you ready for this?"

Are you ready for this? 

"What?" I look up at him, his eyebrows are pinched in the middle, a hand on my back, rubbing across my shoulders. I try to figure out what he's trying to say but his face is mostly blank. 

"Me." He mumbles. "Are you ready for an actual relationship? Not just a hookup, not just another thing you're ignoring because you can't handle yourself?"

"Why?" I stand up, he's staring at me.

"I don't think you are."

"What? Rocket-" I start to panic, reaching out to take his hands but he pulls them away. 

"Be honest with yourself, Håkon, please." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I like you. I like you a lot. Hell, you've been in dreams of mine because I like you so much. But if you're just going to hurt me because you're barely okay with being you, I want to step back now before all this 'like' turns into love."

"Rocket, I-I," I stutter and he doesn't look at me. "I could never hurt you. I want to get better, I just don't know how, and you're the first thing that might be a how, and I-"

"I don't want you to hurt me, Håkon, and I know you don't want to either, but you've made it really clear that you hate the part of yourself that's attracted to me, and that won't end well for either of us."

I take a long minute, my head starting to hurt with the pressure of the tears building behind my eyes. "I can't do it on my own. I need help, I need you."

"I get it." He drags his hands through his hair, setting all of it away from his face. "I understand that you need help to accept that part of you, that you're going to need me, but," He drags his hands down his face, hiding from me. "If I'm dating you and you're barely okay with the part of you that even likes me like that, you're going to hurt me. You're going to hurt me."

I'm chewing my lip to keep from crying. "I'm sorry, Milo, I-"

"It's fine. Rex. It's fine." He's struggling. "We can't date. Not now."

"Milo-"

"You know I'm fucking right." He pulls his hands away and I watch his determination flicker. "You know that if we fall even harder for each other, we'll shatter each other's hearts. You know that the only way this is going to work with us is if you can handle what you feel."

"I-" I'm watching him push the heels of his hands into his eyes, stepping away from me in my own kitchen. I'm panicking worse than I ever have. I just got something I never want to let go of, I just got a taste of what I've always wanted and now he's telling me he wants to back away. 

"You struggle to even say the word, okay, I know what you feel. I know what you feel. I know how fucking much you hate that part of you. I know how much you wish it wasn't there. I know the hours you've probably spent crying over it. I know the shit it's done to you because it's done it all to me. I stared my father in the eyes as he shredded my family because of that one part of me. I watched my mom struggle every single day to keep us floating and keep me in hockey because of that one part of me. I watched Kelly cry for days because of that part of me." 

He's welling up and I hate that I'm doing this to him. "I know about every single day that I spent trying to force myself into liking girls, trying to convince myself that it was all my imagination, that maybe I could put my family back together, to tell my dad I was just fucking faking it. I know that your fucking parents shattered every once of liking you had for yourself just because of that part of you. I know you watched them tell you over and over that it was just a choice, that they wished you weren't gay. I saw it in my mom's eyes too. I saw her wish over and over that I wasn't who I am so that she could go back to the only home she ever knew, with the guy she fell in love with, with Roman and her friends and her parents."