Coming to Terms ✔️

15: Coming to Terms

The thumbnail was of Xavier standing on railroad tracks with his back to the camera.

I couldn't bring myself to click on it, afraid of what it might be about. There was no way he made an entire video about coming to terms with his sexuality. I shook my head. No, that would be outrageous.

My fingers reached for my messaging app to ask for an explanation, but I stopped myself. Watch first, ask questions later. So with butterflies making cocoons in my belly, I pressed play with shaky hands.

Soft music flowed from the speakers, igniting a sentimental feeling to the video from the start. The black screen faded into old footage, with a timestamp from twenty-three years ago in the corner and fuzzy static all over. It showed a baby, sleeping soundly in a bassinet, swaddled in a powder blue knit blanket.

Then he began to narrate, his fluid voice coaxing me to listen over the soothing soundtrack. "I never knew who I was meant to be. I still don't. My life has been a never-ending freight train, never ceasing or slowing, never giving me a second to catch my breath. It won't stop to let anyone off. It won't hit the brakes for anything in its way on the tracks. It just keeps going."

I held my breath. It showed Xavier standing in the middle of the railroad tracks facing headlights approaching in the distance. Far away enough to give plenty of notice for him to jump out of the way. His footsteps moved in slow motion, one in front of the other.

Then another old home video played, a young baby Xavier perhaps walking for the first time, waddling towards his father, who I'd never seen before but I could recognize instantly. A spitting image of the Xavier I knew today, down to the crooked nose and down turned eyebrows. All the while, he was speaking.

"My parents were junkies, my new family put everything on pause to bring me into their home, I no longer lived with my own mother. I stomped down cities every time I walked. I resented myself. It was all my fault. Everything was my fault."

My heart sank as it shot back to the train, growing closer. He was walking with his arms out, holding his balance while a train flew towards him with no regard. And then we were back to a young Xavier, learning how to skateboard with a helmet three times too big, Dayla's hands on his waist with a proud smile on her face. His arms were stretched out in the same way.

"When I put together that I might be gay, I knew that was it. I was destined to be nothing but a failure. Everything I should have done right, turned out wrong. I couldn't even love properly."

The train was too close now. It was on the verge of hitting him and all I could do was sit still and watch. Of course, I knew he didn't get flattened on the tracks since he was well enough to send me this video file. But my heart pounded in my chest, wanting to scream for him to move.

Then we were back to little Xavier. He was maybe six, missing his front teeth as he walked through a rampantly blooming garden, his hands full of flowers. He reached up and picked a beautiful pink lily, adding it to his bundle and grinned at the camera.

"It was the hardest pill to swallow. I couldn't love men on top of everything else that was wrong with me. I was supposed to make things right for myself. To marry a girl and have kids that I loved more than my parents loved me. To create a life and a future made of so much more than what I had."

Back at the tracks, in slow motion, Xavier turned around to face the camera with a small smile. His body silhouetted by the headlights of the train that was about to take him away.

"I denied it until I was blue in the face. I thought it was over. I thought I had nothing left."

And then the screen went white. And his words were silenced. And I waited with my breath hitched in my throat for what was coming.