|
That Day, Part 13: Heartbreak I didn’t think things could get any worse. I was wrong. It was the day after I’d been visited by Harvey’s friend Marcus. I was still trying to get my thoughts in order over what I’d learned. I’d hardly slept or eaten a thing, so I was feeling tired and run down and still a bit of an emotional mess. It had been a real effort to talk to Harvey on the phone the night before and not say a word about what I now knew about him. Because I needed to figure out what I wanted to do first. I had spent the morning curled up on my couch, thinking things over. My TV was on, but I was barely paying any attention to the endless parade of banal daytime shows. When it came right down to it, I was still in love with Harvey. The terrible things I’d learned hadn’t changed that. And he had saved my life, had been so good to me. I couldn’t just write off our relationship. I owed it to him to hear his side of things, give him a chance to explain. Maybe there was some innocent explanations for everything, some context that would make it all better. Yes, it was a vain hope, but it was hope all the same, and I clung to it desperately. I’d invite him over for dinner. We’d talk, I’d hear him out, and then… Well, then we’d see how things stood. A part of me wanted to get online, to look up the stuff about Harvey and see it for myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Marcus, it was just a kind of morbid fascination. But I didn’t do that. It still felt too much like violating Harvey’s privacy. Plus, I was afraid of the news articles colouring my perceptions of those events before I had a chance to hear what Harvey himself had to say. I felt a bit better once I’d settled on a course of action and tried to relax and organise my thoughts for my talk with Harvey later. And then my phone rang. I snatched it up and answered without looking at the number, too distracted by my own thoughts. “Hello?” “Oliver.” My father’s voice came through the phone, hard and half-growled. Oh fuck, what the hell did he want? I really didn’t have the energy to have to deal with him right then. “Yes.” I sighed. “What do you want? If you just want to throw some insults at me, can we do it another time? I’m seriously not in the mood right now.” “In future,” Dad snarled, ignoring my comments. “If you have something to say to me, have the backbone to come to say it to me yourself!” “What the hell are you talking about?” I said, confused by his outburst. “I’m talking about you sending your bear boyfriend to harass me in my home!” He said, his anger cold and hard in his voice. “What?” I spluttered. I had most certainly not been expecting this. “I… I didn’t…” “I thought I raised you better than that, Oliver!” Dad was ignoring me, full on ranting now. “I certainly didn’t raise you to be some cowardly weakling who hides behind some perverted brute, sending him to do your dirty work!” “I didn’t send Harvey to do anything!” I snapped back. I could hardly believe I was having this conversation. “Oh, so you just sent him to do whatever he liked?” Dad said. “You didn’t care if he bullied and threatened your father?” “For fuck’s sake, Dad!” I yelled over him. “I didn’t send him!” “You think I’m an idiot, Oliver?” He growled. “You expect me to believe he just magically knew where I lived? You’re the only one he could have got that information from!” I had nothing to say to that. I was still in shock over the fact that apparently, for some reason, Harvey had gone and visited my father… “I don’t know…” I managed to get out. “But I didn’t send him, Dad, I promise you that!” “I wish I could believe that, Oliver.” Dad said, his tone now hard and cold. “But you’re not the good trustworthy son you used to be, ever since you chose to follow a path of perversion and depravity, you…” I hung up without saying another word. I could tell he had been about to launch into one of his long winded anti-gay rants and I didn’t feel like listening to it. As I tossed my phone aside in annoyance, the thought filling my head was: What the fucking hell? Apparently, Harvey had visited Dad. He’d bullied and harassed my father. I tried to wrap my head around the idea. Why the hell would he have done such a thing? Thoughts of my conversation with Marcus came flooding back, him warning me about Harvey’s temper, his violent side… No. I shook my head. I refused to believe that Harvey would just go after my father like that. There had to be an explanation. And… how the hell had he even known where to find him? That was a puzzle for sure. I hadn’t told Harvey. So how had he found out? Cold realization hit me. I remembered a business card for a private detective that had been in my bear’s pocket. Had Harvey hired a private detective to track down my father? It seemed hard to believe, but I couldn’t see any other realistic explanation. So, Harvey had apparently gone to a lot of trouble to find my father so that he could… what? Go threaten him? My thoughts returned to: What the fucking hell? Anger welled up in me. What the hell had he been thinking? My relationship with Dad was already in the toilet, a constant source of pain and misery for me and so he decided he’d go make it worse? Did he even care how much his actions would hurt me? Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t love me and wouldn’t say it if I said it to him. Maybe I was just an infatuation to him, as Marcus had described it. Maybe there was no chance he really loved me. I choked back tears. I was determined not to cry. Not again. At least not yet. My eyes fell on my laptop, resting on the coffee table in front of my couch. And suddenly, I wasn’t so worried about violating Harvey’s privacy anymore. Not after he tracked down and visited my father, went behind my back to stick his muzzle into my private family affairs. I grabbed the laptop and flipped it open, angrily stabbing at keys as I started searching the internet for information on Harvey. A search through the archives of various local news sites turned up all the information I needed to confirm what Marcus had told me. There was an article confirming that a gay officer by the name of Harvey Kemp was facing assault charges after his boyfriend Evan Roberts had suffered a broken arm, broken leg and cracked ribs. Multiple witnesses had reported seeing Harvey standing at the top of the stairs immediately after Evan had fallen down them. I did note with interest that apparently, none of them had actually seen my bear push or throw him down those stairs. But I had to remind myself that didn’t mean he hadn’t done it… I quickly found another article from a few days later, confirming that no assault charges were being brought against Harvey, but that he had received an official reprimand for bringing the force into disrepute and showing questionable judgement. I wanted to believe that he hadn’t actually done it, thrown his boyfriend down some stairs. But then, I would also have liked to have believed Harvey would never violate my privacy and go harass my father, and look how that had turned out. And there were more articles. Like the one about the drug bust, which had happened before the assault. Acting on intelligence, officers had raided a gay bar believing known drug dealers were operating there. Several drug related arrests had taken place. And Harvey had been found hanging out there. The big one was the article about him being kicked out of the police force. It had a big splashy headline: GAY COP FIRED FOR ASSAULTING COLLEAGUE. I skimmed through the details, my mood falling further and further the more I read. Multiple officers had witnessed Harvey launching what was described as ‘an unprovoked and savage attack’ on a fellow officer. Both parties had received scars in the subsequent fight… I sighed. At least I now knew where Harvey got that scar on his muzzle from, why he had part of one ear missing. Did he maybe have other scars from that fight? I mean, I hadn’t seen him naked yet. Could that be part of why he had rejected my advances, that he had more scars he didn’t want to have to explain? The article went on to talk about how a decision had been made not to file charges, but he was being expelled for the incident, for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’. There were several quotes from senior police officials calling Harvey a disgrace and saying how much shame he’d brought down on the force, and how of course, such vicious behaviour was not representative of the police force as a whole. With a cry of frustration, I slammed my laptop closed. It was all true. Harvey had been keeping so much from me, hiding a dark and ugly side of himself, presenting himself as someone he really wasn’t. I felt so hurt and betrayed in that moment. I thought he was such a good guy, I’d fallen in love with him, for fuck’s sake! But it was looking more and more like I didn’t really know him at all, between all this crap about his past and him going after Dad. I needed to talk to Harvey. I needed to have this out with him, find out what the fuck was going on and who he really was… Picking up my phone again, I sent Harvey a quick text message: Come to my place now. We really need to talk. Clutching my phone, I waited for a response as my heart pounded nervously in my chest. The phone beeped. I looked down at the reply from my bear: On my way, be there soon. I steadied myself and sat back down on the couch, doing my best to steel my nerves for the difficult and unpleasant conversation to come… Well, this was probably going to be a difficult and unpleasant conversation. I was sat in my car outside Oliver’s apartment building, taking a moment to build up my courage for what was about to happen. To face Oliver being rightly upset with me about visiting his father. I was sure I could handle this. I’d apologise and explain myself and I was certain he’d forgive me. Right? Of course he would, I told myself. I screwed up, sure. Pretty fucking badly. But we could work it out, and I’d figure out a way to make it up to him. And I actually thought in that moment. It’s not as if there’s anything else bad we need to deal with. Looking back on it, it’s amazing how wrong I was. Eventually, I felt ready to do this, and got out of my car and made my way up to Oliver’s apartment. He opened the door to let me in shortly after I knocked and walked away from it, leaving me to close it myself after I stepped inside. Everything immediately felt wrong. Oliver didn’t greet me, didn’t hug or kiss me. He didn’t even want to be near me, crossing the room to stand away from me, as if wanting some distance between us. He was taking this worse than I thought… He stood staring at me, arms folded across his chest. “Well?” He said. “Anything you want to tell me?” He was seriously pissed off at me, anyone could tell that from his tone, the quivering whiskers, the twitch in his ears. It was horrible, seeing raw anger in his eyes directed at me. “I’m guessing your dad called you?” I sighed. Oliver nodded. “Oh yes. It was crazy, apparently my boyfriend went behind my back, tracked down my father and went to his home to harass and threaten him. Doesn’t that just sound insane?” It most certainly did. I gritted my teeth, as pissed off at myself as Oliver was. But still, I felt a need to set the record straight. “I didn’t go there intending to harass and threaten him…” “But you did?” I bowed my head in shame. “Yeah, I did kind of end up doing that.” Anger exploded out of my badger. “For fuck’s sake, Harvey! Are you trying to make my life more miserable?” “Of course not!” I shot back, stunned he would even think that. “Well, that’s what you’ve accomplished!” He snarled, and I was reminded of his father snarling at me just like that. “You’ve just given Dad a whole bunch of new ammunition to use against me, now that he thinks I sent you there to bully him!” I wanted to snarl back at him, say something in my defence. But I was the one in the wrong here, the one who had screwed up so badly. Oliver had every right to be mad at me. “Oliver, I am sorry.” I said, quietly. “Look, why don’t we just sit down and talk about it?” He glared at me fiercely, yet strangely thoughtful. “Okay.” He said, gesturing to the couch. “You want to talk? Fine. Let’s really talk.” Something about the way he said it felt odd and ominous to me. It started to feel like there was more going on here than I was aware of… I sat at one end of the couch, and he at the other, still obviously keeping distance between us, a fact that made me quite uncomfortable. I had to fix this. “I really am sorry about this. I did it to try and make you happy…” “You seriously thought bullying my father would make me happy?” Oliver was incredulous. “No!” I shot back. “I thought that maybe I could talk to him, get him to see sense and you two could reconcile.” My badger was staring at me in disbelief. “You seriously expect me to swallow that, Harvey? I mean, you met my father briefly in my hospital room. What about that conversation made you think there was any chance of changing his mind?” “It was the other conversation I had with him in the hospital parking lot…” I stopped myself, remembering that I hadn’t told Oliver about that. Fuck. “What conversation?” Oliver demanded. I ducked my head sheepishly, not able to meet his gaze. “It was when I visited you again, I spotted him in the parking lot, about to go in and bother you. I… I convinced him not to…” Oliver’s voice was cold. “So today isn’t the first time you’ve threatened my father.” I was about to defend myself, to say that I hadn’t threatened him that time. Except I then remembered that I sort of had, even if it had been with a restraining order… There was a moment of silence. I wasn’t sure what to say. When he spoke again, it was low and sad. “What else are you keeping from me?” I had no idea how to respond to that. The fact was, I was keeping a lot from him, from the things Hector had said about him, to the horrible shit in my past, and various things in between. It struck me how wrong that seemed. Oliver and I were supposed to be in a relationship, why was I keeping so much from him? That I could answer. It was to protect him. So he wouldn’t get offended or his feelings hurt. And to prevent me from losing him. Because that was an absolutely horrible thought. “So, you just went and hired a private detective to track down my Dad?” Oliver said. “To dig up information about my family for you to use?” I looked up at him sharply. How could he know about the detective? From my look, he seemed to know what I was thinking. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small piece of card. He flicked it across to me. I picked it up and realized what it was. Jacob Corrigan’s business card. How the hell had he got this? “I threw this in the trash.” A moment of anger flared up in me. Had he gone digging through the trash to pry into my private affairs? His explanation was pretty reasonable. “Actually, it fell short of the trash bin. I stopped to pick it up, and then wondered why you had it…” “But you didn’t ask me about it?” A spark of annoyance ignited in me. I hated myself for it, but it remained all the same. “No.” He said. “It was a nice night, and I didn’t want to pry…” “You kept the fact that you knew about the detective from me.” I said, annoyance allowing the words to slip out unchecked. “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.” I felt a pang of guilt as Oliver looked pained at that, and then angry. “Don’t fucking try to turn this around on me! You’re the one who threatened my father today!” “Yeah, and I’m trying to apologise for it and explain what happened!” I shot back. I was really trying not to get too annoyed, but my badger’s attitude and the way he seemed to want to assume the worst was grating on me. “Then explain it to me!” He growled. “Did you hit him?” “No!” “Did you want to?” I hesitated, not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to say anything that would make this worse. But Oliver took my hesitation as confirmation. “You did want to!” A hot flush of shame washed through me. “Yes.” I admitted. I wanted desperately to explain this properly but seemed to do be doing a very poor job of it. “But you don’t understand, he provoked me and I…” “He wouldn’t have been able to provoke you if you hadn’t been stupid enough to go there!” My badger calling me stupid really hurt. “I’m trying to explain…” I said. But he seemed too angry at me to listen to any proper explanation. “So how far did things go? What happened?” It occurred to me that he might be testing me. I didn’t know how many details his father might have given him. Maybe Oliver was seeing if I would lie to him. So of course, I had to be honest. “I… I raised my fist to him… But I stopped myself!” Oliver let out a deep pained sigh and buried his face in his paws. I felt like utter shit for putting him through this. He mumbled something, so low that I almost didn’t catch it. “How long until you raise a fist to me?” The words slammed into me, feeling like a cold knife had been plunged into my chest. Him saying that, even thinking it… it stung so badly. My badger actually thought I might do something like that to him? “Oliver.” I said, reaching out a paw to him. “I would never do that to you. I would never hurt you.” He looked at my outstretched paw, but then ignored it. He looked me straight in the eye, shocking me with the depths of pain and sadness in them. And then he said the last thing I was expecting to hear. “Did you ever say that to Evan?” My blood ran cold, my heart suddenly pounding faster in my chest. And as I withdrew my paw, I only then realized that this was all far worse than I had imagined. He knew about Evan. How much did he know? What else did he know about? How the fuck did he know? All I knew for certain was that I was so completely unprepared to be talking about this right now. “Well, did you?” Oliver demanded. “You know, before he ended up at the bottom of those stairs with multiple broken bones?” Fuck, he knew about that. And then this whole conversation started to make more sense. Put that together with me threatening his father and it started to paint a very ugly picture… “How long until you throw me down some stairs, Harvey?” Oliver was good and angry now, not letting up. “I wouldn’t do that!” I growled out. “That’s not what happened! I’m not like that!” “You’re not?” he snapped, his whiskers quivering. “So you didn’t get kicked out of the police for beating up another officer?” Oh, shit, he knew about that too? I was struggling to remain calm, but it was getting more and more difficult, the anger of my badger coupled with my painful past being thrown in my face was setting loose a whole whirlwind of complicated emotions in me. I was clinging to the hope that if I could just say the right thing, get him to understand, then I could make things better. I could fix this! But that hope was fading. I was getting a painful feeling of dread deep in my gut about where this car crash of a conversation might end up. I took a deep breath, forcing a least a degree of calm into my voice. “There’s more to it than that!” “Did you attack a fellow officer?” He wanted to know. “Yes or no?” “Yes, I did do that…” Pain and shame filled me at having to admit to it. “Please, Oliver, can we not talk about this right now?” “You wanted to talk.” Oliver pointed out, with a sneer that was almost identical to his father’s. I’m sure that didn’t help, him reminding me so much of Edward then, when the argument with the older badger was still so fresh in my mind. “Not about that!” I said, only just stopping myself from yelling. He glared at me for a moment and then said. “Fine. So, since we met, have you slept with anyone else?” Confusion suddenly joined the flood of frustration and shame and pain in my head. Where the fuck had that come from? “What does that have to do with anything?” “You going to answer the question, Harvey?” He said, his expression hard and cold. “I don’t want to talk about that either!” I said, my voice had a growl to it that I hadn’t intended. “So there is someone.” Oliver narrowed his eyes at me. I was about to tell him no, but I realised that would be a lie. It looked like he wasn’t going to let this go, so I decided to just tell him the truth and then try to move the conversation on. “There was this one time with my friend, Marcus…” I admitted, and immediately regretted letting those words out of my muzzle, as the hurt look in Oliver’s eyes broke my fucking heart. He looked like he was on the verge of tears, but was holding them back. “So you’ll reject my advances, but happily fuck your friend.” He said, sadness dripping from every word. To say that I felt like an utterly worthless jerk in that moment would be something of an understatement. I wanted so badly to reach out and hug him, but I was afraid of him pulling away from such a gesture, afraid of how painful that would be. I groped for the right words to help him understand. “It’s not what you think, it was one time and you and I weren’t…” “Don’t try to fucking justify it, Harvey!” He cut me off with a sudden hateful snarl. I tried again, desperation in my voice. “Come on, Oliver, you know me, I’m not… “Do I know you?” Oliver spat the words at me. “It’s looking like I don’t know you at all. Who the fuck are you really, Harvey?” “I’m your boyfriend.” I said, battling against my rising frustration. “I care about you and protect you and…” “Protect me?” Oliver interrupted. “From what? The truth about yourself?” My frustration, at myself for not being are to say the right thing, at Oliver for not understanding and being so belligerent, got the better of me, and I wasn’t doing as good a job checking my words before I said them. “Lots of things. Like from the insults of some fucking wolf…” Oliver frowned. “What?” “That damn wolf who was with Justin.” I explained. “He was talking shit about you…” “That’s the real reason you were tense that night…” He realized. “You lied to me!” “I protected you from having to hear it!” I said, annoyed that he wasn’t looking at it in the right way. “From getting your feelings hurt! “Is that how you see me?” He was looking hurt again, once again making me hate myself. “You think I’m some fragile little flower that needs to be protected from the world? You think I can’t handle someone not liking me? Do you even know me?” “It’s not like that!” I couldn’t believe how he couldn’t see that. A flare of anger rose up in me. “I guess you were full of shit when you told me how strong you thought I was.” He said. And it was my anger that spat out a response before I knew what I was saying. “Well, you are still in the fucking closet!” It was unfair and spiteful, yes, but control of my emotions was slipping away now. He instinctively put a paw to his stomach at the comment, where he’d been stabbed, the arm still in a cast from where it had been broken in the attack. “So much for you being understanding.” I felt like a piece of shit but couldn’t stop myself now. “I understand you being too much of a coward to be who you really are in public.” “I have good fucking reasons for being afraid!” He spluttered. “You remember I was almost fucking murdered for being gay, right?” “Of course I do, I was there!” He almost yelled at him. “I saved your life!” “Does that mean I’m supposed to just shut up and be grateful, let you do whatever the fuck you want?” He roared back at me. “Lie to me, threaten my father, keep things from me…” “I bet you’ve kept things from me too!” I accused. “I mean, how the hell did you find out about Evan?” “I looked you up online!” Oliver said. “Found some very interesting news articles about you!” It was a reasonable explanation, and if I hadn’t been so emotional and out of control at that point, I would have worried about what else he might have found. But instead, I focused on one particular aspect. “So you violated my privacy?” “Not until today.” Oliver explained, his emotions running just as high as mine. “Not until I found out you’d gone behind my back to track down my father and I realized that respecting each others’ privacy is apparently something we don’t do in this relationship!” I should have stopped myself. I should have pulled myself back under control, made more of an effort to be calm and contrite. So many things I should have done in this conversation, but didn’t. The fact was, I think by that point we’d both lost control of ourselves, flinging comments at each other without thinking, letting our emotions control us, making us lash out at each other. The conversation that I’d hoped would be about me apologising for my screw up and making things up to my badger had degenerated into a shouting match of accusations and abuse. It was like an out of control freight train now, careening off the tracks and crashing through various parts of our relationship. “Seems to me there’s lots of things we don’t do in our relationship.” I snarled at him, my angry sub-conscious seizing on something to throw in Oliver’s face in retaliation. “Like not flirt with creeps!” “Richard was not a creep!” Oliver instantly knew I was talking about the lion we’d met at the theatre. “Of course he fucking was!” I spat. “He kept on flirting even after he realised we were together. Something you weren’t in a hurry to tell him about, by the way!” “What the fuck are you accusing me of?” Oliver’s eyes flash with anger, his ears twitching furiously. I held up my paws. “Well, he said he wanted to take you on a date and you just smiled. You failed to mention you were already involved with someone.” “I didn’t get a chance before you butted in with your paranoia and possessiveness!” Oliver said. “And by the way, I was going to choose you over the theatre because of him! That one caught me off guard. “Wait, what?” “He’s a theatre director.” The badger clarified. “I knew if we went to some of his plays, we might run into him again, so I was going to avoid things I wanted to do for your sake!” I found myself focusing on the worst aspect of that revelation. “More things you’ve been keeping from me! How hypocritical of you, Oliver!” He shrank back slightly at that, momentarily hurt. But his anger was soon flooding back as he shot back. “At least I didn’t sleep with someone else!” Caught up in my emotions, explaining that I’d slept with Marcus before we’d started dating didn’t seem as important as striking back. “Maybe you would have given half the chance! I bet you’d just love to have that creep of a lion fuck you!” He scowled at me, ears flat as he glowered at me with hate-filled eyes. “Well, at least I’ll never be a violent thug!” The use of that phrase, that I’d already had hurled at me earlier by his father, brought up a huge well of furious rage in me. “I am not a violent thug!” I growled out. “Would Evan agree with that?” Oliver growled back. And then, in what would forever be one of the worst moments of my entire fucking life, I snapped. “I don’t want to fucking talk about Evan!” I cried out, years of repressed rage and shame and pain over all the crap with Evan spilling out of me all at once. My paws had clenched into fists and in my frustration, I raised them and brought them down hard on the coffee table in front of me. The wood cracked, the sound silencing our argument. Oliver didn’t just flinch, he recoiled in complete horror, leaping up and backing away from me. I looked at him and what I saw instantly killed my anger. He was afraid. There was raw terror in his eyes as he looked at the broken surface of his coffee table, his whiskers were quivering in fear, his ears flat and twitchy. My badger, my wonderful boyfriend… I’d actually gone and made him afraid of me… That thought was like a slap to the face with a sledgehammer, bringing my mind back down to earth with a thud, a sickening feeling of pure unadulterated shame washing through me as the full reality of what just happened sank in. I stared down at my paws, my fists. They were starting to shake. Oh God, what the fuck had I just done? Had I really just shown myself to be the violent asshole he feared I was? I wanted to look at Oliver, to tell him how sorry I was, to beg him for forgiveness. But I didn’t want to see that fear in him again. My throat had closed up and gone dry. I tried to get some words out. “I…” My voice was weak and croaking. “I.. Oh fuck, I…” “You’re not who I thought you were, Harvey.” Oliver said. His voice was cracking with emotion, more pained and sad than I’d ever heard before. “Not even close.” I looked at him. He was hugging himself, arms wrapped tightly, protectively, against his body. I could see the fear was still there in his eyes, now accompanied by agonised sorrow. The fact that I was responsible for that tore at my soul. “Oliver, I…” I wanted to apologise, but no words seemed adequate to fully express how sorry I was. And he didn’t give me a chance, interrupting me, and with a cold dismay, I knew what he was going to say next. “This isn’t going to work, Harvey.” Oliver said, sniffling, choking back emotion. “I… I’m breaking up with you…” The words hit me like a thunderbolt of pain, a jolt of cold agony that ripped through my heart. I couldn’t believe it, even though a part of me had been expecting it more and more as our fight had escalated. “Oliver, please, we can…” “It’s over.” He said, a firmness in his voice that sounded forced. I could see he was shaking. He was breathing heavily, in ragged gasps. “We’re done.” “No, Oliver…” I pleaded. I couldn’t just let it end like this. “Don’t…” “Get out.” He glared at me. When I didn’t move anger flashed in him once again. “Just get out!” I hauled myself up and headed for the door, feeling numb. I couldn’t help but notice that Oliver moved around the room as I went, making sure to keep a good distance between us. Hate surged in me, at myself for handling this all so badly and fucking it up so completely. And there was a flicker of unfair hate directed at Oliver, for not giving me a proper chance to fix this, even though I knew I didn’t deserve one. It was that flicker that drove me to say something as I opened his door to leave. “Fine.” I snarled. “Go curl up in that closet of yours and be alone then.” And then I was out of there, his apartment door closed behind me, cutting me off from Oliver, my now ex-boyfriend. I made my way out of the building, cursing myself for the cruel and unnecessary parting remark, self-loathing crawling over me. I drove home, feeling numb and hopeless the whole way. I was vaguely aware that Chuck was expecting me back at work that afternoon, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t face that right now. By the time I made it to my apartment, the full reality of what had happened was sinking in. Oliver had broken up with me. Our relationship was over. I looked about my home, standing in my living room. Knowing that the badger would never again be here with me made the place seem cold and depressing. I’d also never again see him smile. Feel his paw on mine. Feel him pressed against me as we hugged. Feel his muzzle against mine as we kissed. Hear him laugh. Look into those gorgeous eyes of his and see them sparkle with happiness. That was all over, lost to me forever. My vision blurred as tears welled up in my eyes. How had this happened? How had I managed to so completely fuck things up? Because I was me, I knew, and fucking things up is what I did best. And now I’d gone and fucked up one of the best things that had happened to me in a long time. I desperately wanted to talk to Oliver, to hear his voice. I was missing him so badly already. I even pulled out my phone and called up his number. But I couldn’t bring myself to make the call. Even if he would talk to me, I didn’t deserve to talk to him. I deserved every last shred of the pain I was feeling. Instead, I flung the phone at the wall, with a lot more force than I intended. It cracked as it hit and skittered to the floor somewhere out of sight. All the anger and frustration that had driven the fight with Oliver came back, but now directed solely at myself and my stupidity. I let out an almighty cry, giving voice to the storm of emotions raging in me. “God fucking damn it!” Before I knew what I was doing, I had grabbed the edge of my coffee table and flipped it over in anger, sending it crashing across the room. I lost myself in rage, stomping around the room wrecking things, kicking over an end table, sweeping things off shelves, grabbing and flinging a lamp to shatter against the wall. I brought my fist up to smash a shelf, but suddenly stopped. Sitting on the shelf was a small toy plastic guitar. The sweet, thoughtful, tender gesture it represented brought my rage to a crashing halt, all the energy draining out of me, replaced by an immense and profound sense of loss. Going weak at the knees, I collapsed to the floor, sitting down roughly in the middle of my living room. I’d lost Oliver. He was gone from my life and I had no fucking idea what to do now. My future looked dark and hopeless without him in it. Pain and despair and loneliness washed over me, engulfing my thoughts. I fell onto my side, curling into a ball on the floor and sobbing uncontrollably, tears flowing freely. How had it all gone so wrong? How had this all gone so fucking wrong? I was curled up on my couch, staring at the cracks in my coffee table, reliving the moment Harvey had put them there again and again and again, unable to get the image of his rage out of my mind. Seeing that had scared me more than I would ever admit to anyone. But reliving that horrible moment was still better than thinking about the fight with Harvey, an argument that had gone from bad to worse to absolutely fucking awful. Once it had got going, I hadn’t been able to stop myself needling him and provoking him. I’d been so upset with him about the thing with Dad and the possibility that the nice guy I’d fallen for was just an act. I hadn’t been able to control myself. All my plans about hearing him out, letting him explain his side of things, had crumbled away under the weight of my anger. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he eventually started being just as harsh with me as I was with him, but it still was. It was possibly more evidence that he wasn’t really the nice guy I’d believed him to be. And then his angry side had come out… I hugged myself again, failing to steady my nerves. I hadn’t been able to stop shaking since the fight. Since I’d broken up with Harvey, ended the relationship with the guy I loved. That was what made this whole thing so much worse. I was still in love with Harvey. I couldn’t just switch that off. And that love was now acting as a kind of amplifier, turning my pain at the break up into heart-breaking agony. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to take back everything I said and forgive him for the things he said. I yearned to wrap my arms around him again and share a passionate kiss. I wanted to tell him that I loved him and that we could work things out. But then my eyes once again came to rest on the cracks in the table. And those desires shrivelled up as I relived that moment yet again. I had no fucking idea if that outburst of rage was a result of our fight or him finally showing his true self. But it had freaked me out so much, terrified me so utterly, I wasn’t willing to take the risk, especially with so much evidence pointing to it being a very real part of his nature. I’d had to end it, I told myself. It had been the best, most sensible course of action. I couldn’t be with someone who was like that, could I? But it still hurt. The heartbreak was real and raw and horrible. His parting remark echoed in my head, reminding me how much he seemed to resent me being in the closet. I tried focusing on the bad things about Harvey in a vain attempt to reassure myself that I had done the right thing. There was his paranoid possessiveness, his anger, his closed off nature, his secrecy… …His warmth, his compassion, his thoughtfulness, his glowing smile, his rugged handsomeness, the way he felt pressed against me when we hugged… I stopped myself. I had to stop thinking about him like that. Our relationship was over, and even if I loved him and missed him, I had to accept that. Or at least keep trying until I did. My heart pounding, I forced myself to look at the cracked coffee table again. Forced myself to relive that moment again. It was painful, but it needed to be done. I needed to remind myself that Harvey was not who I thought he was. He wasn’t right for me. Breaking up with him was for the best. But no matter how much sense that made in my head, my heart still ached and yearned for him. I missed him and wanted to be with him again. There was now a bear-shaped hole in my life, leaving me feeling incomplete and so terribly lonely That was when I started to cry. I’d been expecting to since Harvey had left my apartment (Never to return, I reminded myself), but now the tears finally came. Pain, sadness, loneliness, regret, they all welled up and overwhelmed me all at once, mercilessly ripping at my broken heart. I laid down on my couch, letting the tears come, ragged sobs escaping from my throat. I tried to tell myself that I would get through this eventually, I was strong enough to endure it… But that just brought up the memory of Harvey telling me I was strong, believing in me, and that set off a whole new surge of pain and sorrow. That was all over now. I no longer had the bear to believe in me, to bolster my confidence and make me feel like I really could do anything. A huge sense of intense loss joined the other awful emotions that were tearing me up inside. Because it was over. Harvey was no longer my bear, would no longer be there to make me feel better when I needed it. He was just my ex-boyfriend now. Chances were, I was never going to see him again. And as I lay there crying and in pain, feeling empty and alone, I had no damn idea what the hell I was going to do now… To Be Continued… |
Raging Tiger/Kuman the Barbarian/Mitchell and Michael/Going Under/Beware the Transformer/That Day/Working Bears/Heart of a Hero