Austin dropped the joking tone. “Don’t get too hung up on it. You weren’t actually a dick. You had some shitty tendencies during the time we were together, I can’t lie about that, and that’s what led to us breaking up, but to everyone else you were pretty much a star. Everyone loved you. Professors loved you, friends loved you, your parents worshipped you.”
None of that erased the shitty feeling I got thinking about how I could have hurt Austin. “Fuck, Austin. I’m sorry… I wish I knew what I was apologizing for.” Having pain from a past mistake but not fully understanding what it even was felt like its own special kind of hell.
“You don’t have to apologize anymore, Char. We’ve talked about it, we’ve moved on. We’re working on figuring things out in the ‘now’; we don’t have to worry about the ‘then.’”
They were nice words, exactly what I needed to hear actually, but they didn’t ease the rising frustration I felt at not being able to remember. “Did we ever fight? Was it bad?”
“We rarely ever fought. Everything was smooth between us, Char. If we had been a ‘traditional’ couple, then we’d probably be married with our white picket fence and golden retriever right now. Not sure on the kids, but definitely at least a dog. Maybe even two. We’d have it all. Instead, the world decided to push back on our happiness, and we cracked. Your parents weren’t okay with us being together, or you being gay, and the weight of it was too much.” Austin’s smile, even with the sunlight bouncing off him, wasn’t a happy one any longer. There was a sadness in his hazel eyes that stirred something deep in my chest.
Regret. A deeply rooted, poisonous, gnarled and rotten rosebush of regret, planted deep inside me, growing unchecked over the years, digging its thorns into me like anchors.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, but this time I was able to hone in. “For not pushing back on my parents, on the world. For pushing you away instead. I should have fought harder, and the Charlie I am today would have fought harder. I need you to know that, Austin.”
“I do.” He looked to me, his eyes holding the truth in those two simple words. He really did believe me.
“How fucked up is that, though?” I asked, my regret making a hard left into anger. “Being gay meant we needed some amnesia and personal trauma and tragedy to bring us back together again. And even then, shit isn’t guaranteed to be easy for us.”
Austin nodded, his smirk capturing some of that light again. “Yeah, but at least our lives are way more entertaining than any straight guy’s life could possibly be. There’s a silver lining to everything.”
“True, true.” We both laughed. The trail narrowed ahead of us and curved around a moss-covered boulder. A few names had been etched into the exposed portions of the rock.
“Speaking of your parents, though, how are they now? Everything good?” Austin asked. He sounded uncertain in his question, and I didn’t blame him. From what I’d been told, my relationship with my parents had basically been a grab bag of prizes and razor blades.
“They’re good, and I’m good with them, too. I had actually come out to them before the fall, so then I pretty much had to come out again. I had a long heart-to-heart with my mom a few months after I was out of the hospital, and she told me how bad my dad and I fought when I first came out. She said I had done it over dinner one day, when I just burst out into tears over the mashed potatoes.”
“And what did he do?”
“Almost flipped the table. He threw some plates, food got everywhere, everyone was crying and shouting. My mom said that I left and stayed with a friend for a week and that she had never seen my dad that devastated.”
Austin slowed his pace, brows stitching together in concern. “Devastated because you were gay?”
“Actually, no. My mom said he was devastated at how he reacted and how he pushed me away.” The trail opened onto a rocky outcropping that sat like a giant’s throne on the side of the mountain. There was a row of smooth rocks that had been worn down from years of hikers making it to this very spot and taking a seat, which was exactly what Austin and I did.
I looked out on a dreamy view as I continued my story. “I still don’t really know why my dad hated the idea of me being gay. I don’t think I’ll ever know… but I’m ok with that. With where our relationship is at now… I think,”
Austin’s hand was on the back of my neck, applying a comforting amount of pressure before he moved down to the spot between my shoulder blades and rubbed.