Pushing the Limits (Secrets Kept 2)

Isaac shoved to his feet. “It’s me, Lane. You’re the first person I ever told. Almost every goddamned secret there is to know about me, you have them.”

I looked up at him, cocked my head. “Almost?” fell out of my mouth, which in hindsight, wasn’t the best word to set free.

Angry fire flashed in Isaac’s eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ. We’re sitting here arguing because you kept your sexuality from me all these years, and you’re really questioning me on what you might not know?”

Well, when he put it that way, I could see why it sounded so bad. When I didn’t answer, Isaac said, “You’re the one who was always so open. You’re the one who talked so easily about his feelings and who looked past my facade to see mine. You found words and emotions inside me I hadn’t realized I’d locked away, you pried every fucking one of them out of me, and then you hold on to this? You kept this from me? Why?”

I stood and walked to the window, looked out at the night, and then Isaac was there, behind me. His reflection watching mine.

“You didn’t want me to know,” he said again.

“Yes,” I replied. I hadn’t. I turned so we faced each other, only a few inches separating us. Isaac’s chest rose and fell deeply, as if his breath was trying to run away from him. “It doesn’t make sense. I get that, but…I let you down that day. When you asked if I was into men and I said no, I let you down, and while my answer felt true at the time, I fucking hate disappointing you. I don’t ever want to let you down, Isaac. I wanted to be attracted to men back then just because you were; because I could tell you needed me to be.”

“So…what? You went off to college and turned queer so your brother didn’t feel so lonely? It doesn’t work that way.”

“No. I went to New York and figured out who I was. Things were never as easy for me here as they were for you. I was the weird, quiet kid. I just wanted to lose myself in my art. And while I had my friends, we didn’t connect on that level. I left, and then I was around so many people who were like me. I wasn’t lonely anymore and—”

“You were lonely? Here with me?”

Jesus. He took the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d done it when his mom died, trying to carry his own pain along with his father’s, and now he was going to take my feelings on too?

“No. That was the only time I didn’t feel that way. It was always different when we were together. Almost like it was always meant to be, like we were always supposed to be brothers.”

Isaac closed his eyes. He let out a deep breath, shaking his head slightly. When he opened them, the wall was between us again. “Yeah, I guess we were, weren’t we? The perfect brothers. You never told me…that you felt lonely. You pushed me to talk, but you didn’t tell me.”

“Because I wanted to be strong for you. You deserved that.”

Isaac turned, walked away, then stopped and braced his hand on the back of the couch, not looking in my direction. “So you went off to college, and there were people like you.”

“I guess I just came into my own. I experienced more life, more diverse groups of people. I experimented with a whole lot of shit I hadn’t done here. Then one time, we were at a party given by an artist I really looked up to. His girlfriend was flirting with me. Freaked me the fuck out at first because she was taken. When everyone left, they asked me to stay, so I did, and apparently they liked to play with other people, men and women, and they wanted me. Initially he was just going to watch us together, but then he asked if he could join and—”

“That’s enough,” Isaac cut me off, still giving me his back. “You fucked a guy and realized you like dick. That’s all I need to know about that. You’re still not explaining why you didn’t tell me.”

“Because I can’t. I don’t have an excuse. I just…” I walked over to Isaac, dropped my forehead against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I miss you. I miss us. Everything feels like a mess right now, even though it shouldn’t. My dreams have come true, but I feel…empty? That’s too big a word, but like I’m not settled, and I think part of that is because of us.”

Isaac tensed beneath me, then turned, making me look up. We were so fucking close, I could feel his breath, smell the salt and leftover sunshine on his skin. Isaac had always smelled like a summer day.