Tharn did not have to leave

Blackmail

Type went to pick up Tar from his house, Tum gave him a suspicious look again but did not prevent Tar from joining Type. Once Tar was settled in, Type headed for the shopping centre. Type wondered what Tum thought of him? Does he imagine that he was his brother's new boyfriend? If he thought so, Type wondered how he would handle it if he found out that he was Tharn's old roommate.

They had just placed an order, when Tar took the floor. Type could see that Tar had been trying to tell him something for a while, but couldn't find the courage to do so. Tar caught his breath, but his shoulders dropped almost immediately:

"Why did you decide to go to a support group? " Was not what Tar wanted to tell him at first, but Type pretended not to notice.

Type went for it, he didn't really want to talk about it, but at the same time he wanted to get it out in the open. Putting words on it might help his heart to understand that there is nothing more to hope for.

"At the beginning of the academic year, I moved into one of the dormitories on campus. My father found it more convenient and hoped I would make new friends. So, I had to share my room with a stranger. I was a little afraid that I wouldn't get along with the person and that it would be hell daily. It wasn't the case, Thar...y roommate was a nice guy and easy to live with." It was only the introduction; he was going to have to talk about his homophobia and then about the feelings between him and his roommate. Was it a good idea to say this to Tar, his old roommate was Tar's ex, after all? However, if he didn't say the name, Tar had no reason to find out, right?

"I... As I told you before, since the attack I had developed a stupid behaviour, I was somewhat homophobic, a lot. When my best friend, who loves gossip, told me that my roommate was gay... it got out of hand, because of me, he didn't deserve it, he hadn't done anything wrong. I gave him a lot of grief, yet when I was sick, he took care of me. If I had been him, I would have left myself alone and gone to live my life normally. I didn't understand his behaviour."

"Another time I had a problem with LGBT+ seniors, and almost the whole campus was against me, I didn't even want to go to class. He was worried about me, and that's when I told him what had happened to me. He listened to me without judging me, he sorts of helped me start to get over it, and we became friends," Type decided to skip the "I'm sleeping with my roommate who is actually your ex" part. If Tar ever found out who his roommate was, he didn't need to know they had slept together.

"I learned... He told me he liked me... that he had a crush on me. He didn't impose it on me, but in a way I'm glad he told me himself, I wouldn't have liked to find out any other way. I was still on the defensive about gays, and I harm him. It hurt me to see him sad, but I was too proud to admit that I was slowly turning his feelings back on him..."

"And I did something stupid, which cost me his presence in my life... I started courting a girl, and I told him bluntly, telling him it was none of his business. I harm him again. Furthermore, I told him I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend. In retrospect, neither he nor she deserved that, I'm the bastard in the story. We were at the restaurant, I was going to ask the girl, but my brain decided to come back at that point to tell me I was doing something stupid, a huge mistake... I quickly went back to the dormitory, to confess my feelings to my roommate. But when I came back, I found him empty of his presence. My roommate was gone, he had gone on with his life and had erased me from it. I can't blame him, I played dumb, and I lost."

"I... I've been thinking about myself, a friend of mine, who doesn't fully know what happened, advised me to see a therapist or go to a support group. I wanted to become a better person, even though he will never know, I wanted to change for him. If one day I meet him again, that he can be proud of what he did to me, that he can see that he made me grow. Even if I doubt, he'll remember me in a few years, I have no illusions, I will only be a part of his life, not something significant."