The Art of Moving On | ✔

CHAPTER FOURTEEN; part two

     I lead the way out quietly, thinking things over. We're heading down the hallway, moving slowly towards the exit when I stop, blurting, "I don't want to have secrets from you."

     I don't know when I decided on this. Just now, I guess. I know my words are honest.

     Dres halts, too, turning towards me. "Okay."

     "And I don't want you to have secrets from me, either."

     "Okay," he repeats.

     "I have to show you something."

     I turn around, leading the way back up the hallway. We pass the pool and then a couple of classrooms before we get to a trophy case. The swim team's section is on the left. There are all kinds of memorabilia - team photos, medals, trophies all dating farther back than you'd think there'd be room for. The history of our swim team isn't the notable thing, though. No, it's the framed photo of Gregory, sitting in the middle of everything else, right next to the last medal he'd won.

     There's a plaque that says 'In Memory Of' and the date underneath reads 1997 - 2012. Someone had just replaced the flowers in the case, too. Gregory was our first suicide - our only suicide. 

     Dres shifts and I can tell he's getting ready to say something so I beat him to it. "The reason I didn't want you to confront my teammates is because I was afraid they'd tell you what happened." I pause, my nerves making it hard to find words — the right ones, anyway. If there even are right words to say 'I didn't save my best friend.'  "I was afraid they'd tell you it was my fault Greg is dead, because...it's true. It is my fault."

     I avoid his gaze, focusing on the ground when I say, "He took his life freshman year."

     Dres doesn't say anything, not immediately. I give him a few seconds to maybe process how awful a person I'd have to be to get someone to do that. Finally, I look up, meeting his stony gaze. "I - I never wanted that to happen. I didn't think. I never thought that would happen."

     "It's not your fault," Dres says, tone hard.

     I frown. "How can you say that? You don't even know what happened."

     "Because I know you."

     I falter, overwhelmed by his words. Dres knows me. But he doesn't know who I was - weak, scared, incapable of standing up for myself let alone someone else. I still can't stand up for myself. Maybe I'll never be able to, maybe that's just a part of being me.

     "Yeah but—," I start to say.

     He cuts me off, giving a sharp shake of his head. "I know you, Cas."

     "Dres, Greg and I. We were best friends but we were also... more than best friends."

     Dres nods again, understandingly, and says softly, "Okay."

     "We weren't together, officially, but we were hooking up. Sneaking around, I guess. Neither of us were out at the time. So we kept things quiet. That was the agreement, that nobody would know about us. But then, out of nowhere, Greg came out. Maybe it wasn't out of nowhere for him. But it blindsided me." Dres doesn't say anything, just listens so I keep going.

     "He didn't - he didn't even care that I wouldn't come out, too. You know, he was like understanding that I wasn't ready. But when he came out, lots of kids - in our grade and upper classmen - started giving him shit and if you were friends with him you got caught in the crossfire of it. So he lost a lot of friends. And then he lost me, too."

     I rub at my jaw nervously. "People started talking about us. The same ones who were constantly harassing Greg. They would leaves notes on my locker and say things when we were together. It didn't really matter if we were hiding the hooking up part well or not. They'd decided that I was gay by association with Greg. The more I hung out with Greg, the more of a spotlight there was on my sexuality. So I distanced myself from Greg. I abandoned him and he needed me."

     I take a shaky breath. "The bullying didn't stop after that. I think it got worse, actually, like everyone felt vindicated because Greg was completely alone. And Greg just took it. Until this one meet we had. We had a guy on our team...he got expelled after this but in the middle of our meet, he pants'd Greg. It was the cruelest thing I've ever seen someone do. I mean, the stands were full, a lot of people from our grade were there. It was humilating. That was his last meet with us. He quit the team and then a few weeks later we were pulled into an assembly and they told us...they told us what happened."

     Dres is silent. He must hate me. I would hate me. 

     He holds my gaze, and finally breaks the silence with, "You carrying around the blame for this isn't going to bring him back."

     I'm taken back by his statement. He is too, I think. His expression softens. He seems close and far away all at once.

     He says, finally, "I used to think I was responsible for the men I lost in my squad." Now it's my turn to be at a loss for words. Dres is opening up about his tours. That's big. That's huge. "I may have given orders. I may have been in charge. But I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't detonate bombs. I can only be responsible for my actions, not others. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

     I nod because I do. I hear what Dres is saying. He blamed himself for the loss of his men - for Private Weston, no doubt. I wanted to ask about him. The question burned in me but I didn't want to push.

     "I didn't just come to this realization," he says next. "It takes work. It takes...forgiving yourself. I thought, I think sometimes, that I failed my men. In ways, I had. We can fail and still be the good guys. Ok?"

     "I don't feel like a good guy," I admit, honest and hurting. Dres looks at me openly, seeing more of me than he ever has. He moves, reaching for me and pulling me to him.

     "Greg is not your fault, and shouldering the blame will not bring him back. And allowing your teammates to treat you like their punching bag is not some form of penance."

     I wrap my arms around his back and breathe him in. He smells familiar. He smells like comfort. My nerves ease. "Why can't I just stop feeling like this? Why can't I just turn it off?"

     "Guilt does not work that way," he says, quietly.

     And he is not just talking to me right now. This is us, both of us, from two completely different worlds finding some kind of common ground where I never thought we would. Dres is earth where I'm water. But he had Private Weston and I had Greg.

     We stood there, in each other's arms, bound by our loss.