Without A Doubt

Chapter 42.

Liv and I stayed in the kitchen talking for a good while. I told her everything. I started from the beginning and told her about the first time Jackie came onto me in the locker room. I told her how it took me by total and utter surprise. Because it did. I never expected Jackie of all people to come onto me. If I could go back and stop myself from letting anything happen I would. I had been hollow for so long I didn't expect to fall for Liv. I didn't think I'd ever love someone as much as I love her. I didn't think it was possible for me to love again.

I then told Liv about the night of Carters concert. I told her how I had to leave because Jackie was drunk at a party and I couldn't just leave her there. I told her that nothing happened that night, but that yes Jackie was the reason I left that night. Looking back, I wish I would have just stayed with them. I told her too that that was the night Emma found out, not that it was completely relevant.

As I continued I told her about the tournament. That memory in particular was painful. As I told her about how Jackie and I were in the locker room I could see Liv's face change. I could see the sorrow in her eyes. They changed because now she had the whole story. Her side of the story from that day and now mine. I could only imagine how she felt. I tried to understand what she was feeling but it was hard. I put myself in her place. I had kissed her. I gave her that spark. I made her hope in me. I showed her the most genuine parts of me, and that terrified me. Then the next thing she knows I have a hickey on my neck from what she assumed was a random girl. Only to find out that it wasn't a random girl. It was someone on my team who I see every day who I was messing around with.

I've never been good at feeling. Emotions are hard for me. They always have been. Sometimes I could empathize enough to comprehend what other people are feeling, but to feel them for myself hadn't happened, not in a while. When Liv walked away from me in the hallway I felt so many emotions that they manifested themselves into tears. Ever since then everything just hurt. Breathing was hard. Trying to move on hurt. Thinking about her hurt. And there were so many more emotions than it just hurting, I just can't put them into words. So now that I'm here, sitting in front of her, feeling everything she felt. Knowing what I put her though, it killed me. I now understood what she was feeling when she yelled at me at Archers. Before now I never knew what she would feel. When I was debating all those times as to whether or not I should tell her about Jackie I could never understand what she would feel if I told her. I knew that I couldn't tell her, but it was because I'd hurt her, I was scared she'd leave. And I know that sounds like a fucked-up thing to say but it's true. I was scared for me. Not for her. I told her that. I told her exactly what I felt, and what I was thinking. I told her how fucked up I was after freshman year. How I just became hollow.

Of course, after I mentioned freshman year she started asking me questions. This was a hard story to tell. I didn't just come out freshman year, I fell out of the closet on my face. I told my parents when I was in middle school. That wasn't easy. My parents love me and they eventually became supportive of me, but it was a rocky start. Freshman year though, that was even worse.

Freshman year I met a girl name Jenny. I had never dated a girl before. Even though my parents knew, no one else did. Jenny was the first person I ever cared about. And not just in a crush way. She was my friend. Probably the first best friend I'd ever had. As the year went by Jenny and I got close. In private Jenny would act like we were dating. We never talked about what it was we were doing though. She was the first girl I ever kissed, and I fell for her. I completely disregarded my own feelings and buried them so far down just so that I could keep her. So that I could take care of her. I wanted nothing more than to make sure she was okay. I would run to her any time she needed. I did absolutely anything I could to make sure that she was happy. I listened to her cry about not wanting to be gay. I was there as she cried and screamed at me saying it was my fault that she was like this. That if I had never come around she wouldn't have to feel the way she did. I buried the way I felt. I hollowed myself so that I could do everything in my power to make her happy. One day at a track meet she and I snuck off to the high jump mat. There was no one there because field events had already ended. We were sitting behind it, and we thought we were hidden enough. We ended up losing track of time because we were talking. As we were talking I got the impulse to kiss her, so I did, and she kissed me back. That was until we heard