CATALYST

DAVID

      I didn't sleep at all.

      All night I lay there, my body still sore, my mind a jumble of anger and frustration and hurt, my heart splintered into bits.

      He said no. He was leaving. He didn't want me enough to stay.

      How could he do this to me? How could he make me fall for him this way, turn my life upside down, make me doubt everything I believed in and wanted and worked for, and then walk away?

      He was acting like a child, wanting all or nothing. It wasn't that simple. He didn't get it. He didn't know how hard it had been for me to ask him not to go. He didn't know what it had cost me. I'd had to admit to myself that I wasn't strong enough to bear the punishment I'd brought on myself, that I was weak weak weak, that I wanted what he made me feel more than I wanted to be straight.

       Part of me knew I was being a selfish prick. That asking him to stay was a short-term fix to a long-term problem, a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. It would make me feel good temporarily, but what about the future? What if I never got him out of my system? What if things between us only got better? Or what if I met the right woman, the one who could make me fall for her, the one who could do for me what Travis  could? That was still a possibility, wasn't it? So I should be glad Travis had left. He'd saved me the trouble of breaking things off later.

      Because all the reasons we couldn't be together still existed. I didn't want to be gay. I wasn't. It was just him. This was simply a roadblock on the way to the right kind of future. A test. I'd always been good at tests, and there was no reason I couldn't pass this one. I'd had my fun, my fling, my side trip, and now it was done.

      But I punched my pillow a few times and buried my face in it, full of rage. I wished I could scream. I wished I could tear myself limb from limb. I wished I could drink myself into a stupor so that I wouldn't feel this hopelessness, this loss, this fear that I'd never be happy no matter what I did.

      It was fucking hell. But I deserved it.

     

      * * * * * * * * *

      I dragged my ass out of bed around five the next morning, skipped the gym, and got ready for work. I was bleary-eyed and exhausted and still sore as fuck. But the memory was worth it—I hadn't changed my mind about that.

      My anger from the night before had mellowed somewhat, but the despair remained. I figured I'd throw myself into work and try not to think about him leaving my house for the last time. Try not to remember all the things he'd said last night. Try not to see his point of view. But it was impossible.

      You're still intent on a wife and kids.

      I don't want to be your temporary toy.

      I don't want to live two lives.

      I'm not going backward.

      I've never felt like I was good enough for you. I know that I'm not. This feels like you're agreeing with me. And that hurts.

      Sitting at my desk behind my closed office door, I closed my eyes and slouched in my chair. Fuck. I'd hurt him. It wasn't true, what he'd said, but I knew it looked that way. Of course he was good enough—more than good enough. Too good. He deserved someone who could accept him, who could share one life with him, who could love him the way I wanted to, but couldn't. Openly, fully, unconditionally.

      It killed me to think of him with someone else. Those hands on someone else's skin. That laugh in someone else's ear. That endless enthusiasm for life brightening someone else's day.