Out of the Ashes (The Game 5)

At the same time, I knew deep in my core that Kingsley Madden was the best thing that’d ever happened to me. I’d never loved anyone so hard, so painfully, so completely. He made me wanna throw all my kinks in a box and send it to the other side of the world where they couldn’t remind us of how incompatible we were.

It wasn’t fair. If God was real, he was a mean son of a bitch to waste our chemistry. Our memories—Christ, how could I let go of all our moments together when I wanted the opposite? I spent every night reminiscing and bawling my eyes out.

I got on the Metro and contemplated going shopping, but I “Ugh”d at the thought that followed. Bunch of people, stores, not having Lee there… I guessed I wasn’t going shopping. But I needed something. I had to distract myself.

I scrolled through my contacts and stopped at Franklin.

I was still struggling with what he’d told me yesterday.

My stomach tightened. Fuck Lee. He’d ruined my friendship with Franklin. He’d turned it into something dirty, something I had to defend myself because of, and it made me hesitate. Perhaps I shouldn’t… Goddammit! No, I had absolutely nothing to feel bad about. I was texting Franklin. His life had changed just yesterday. Or the day before; I didn’t remember, but he’d told me yesterday that he’d asked his wife for a divorce because he was “unsure about his sexuality.”

I was missing a whole lot from that story. Nobody divorced their partner—after, what, twenty years?—because of uncertainty.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen the divorce coming, but I’d thought it was going to take more time. He’d been unhappy for years.

The part about him possibly being queer was more of a thorn in my side. I knew I’d been in denial. I’d used Franklin’s status, his marriage to a woman, as my strongest weapon in my defense to Lee. I’d been so adamant. No, fuck you, I haven’t been cheating on you. He’s fucking straight! Yet, after hearing Franklin express that he was “unsure,” I was like…yeah. That made sense.

I’d known without knowing.

Franklin responded to my text and was happy to meet up for coffee in half an hour.

It made me smirk a little to myself, because of course he was happy to meet up. In some cases, he was a child. He would postpone work and get out of meetings if I wanted to meet up. Or so I’d discovered. “I can do that later,” he’d say with a dismissive wave of his hand.

I just hoped it didn’t backfire on him one day. I understood what he was going through; I understood the principle. He’d told me he’d woken up one morning to realize nothing in his life belonged to him. It was how our friendship had begun. I’d pressed carefully when he’d hinted at not feeling well, and after that, the confessions had tumbled out over a cup of coffee. His friends were just the husbands of his wife’s friends. His company was run by others. He had no hobbies he truly enjoyed. The radio stations in his car were ranked after his wife’s tastes.

Ex-wife-to-be.

Now he was ditching everything and everyone—except for his daughter—to find his own way.

I took a sip of my tea and paused at a photo from our last camping trip. Lee was so fucking gorgeous in flannel. A living, breathing fantasy. And he was happy out in nature. My experience with wilderness before him was the park I had to go through to buy ice cream where I grew up. But Lee had made me fall for it. Back then, we could be sitting on the couch, discussing what we were gonna do that weekend, and then one of us would say, “Or we can just fill our backpacks and go.”

An hour later, we’d be on the road.

Usually to Shenandoah, but sometimes the Catskills or Adirondacks. Just him and me. And if I got him drunk, he’d sing. We’d never once brought any of my guitars; it would’ve been too much to lug around, but he didn’t need strings. His voice was fucking amazing. It reminded me of Patrick Droney, actually. Shit. No wonder I was drawn to that damn artist. He also sang as if his heart had been broken.

Lee was everywhere.

He was in that picture too, poking at the fire that’d been dying because of rain. Countless little embers flurried in the darkness of the photo. He had a furrow between his brow because we’d just had a fight. Come to think about it, this was where our underlying problems began to surface. Years of never being one-hundred-percent satisfied with our dynamic started taking its toll, and the price was steep. I’d caught myself being bitchy for no reason. He’d grown…quiet. That camping trip was supposed to set things right.