Page 94 of Making It Burn

Hey, remember how you said my father would surprise me?Well, I’m gay and in love with Beau Thatcher, and I just ruined everything because I’m a coward.

I laughed bitterly and took another drink straight from the bottle.My phone buzzed, and my heart leaped—Beau—but it was just a work email.Something about some fucking stupid depositions being rescheduled.

I set the bottle down and dropped my head into my hands.

This was it.This was how I was going to lose him.Not with a bang but with silence.With me sitting alone in my apartment drinking expensive scotch while the best thing that ever happened to me slipped away because I was too fucking scared to fight for him.

I can’t keep loving someone who won’t let me.

“I’m letting you,” I said out loud to the empty apartment, my voice rough.“I’m letting you, Beau, but I just don’t know how to show it.”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it?Beau was tired of my hiding.Tired of being my secret.Tired of waiting for me to be brave enough to choose him publicly, not just in private.

And I couldn’t blame him.Weeks of stolen moments in supply closets and keeping a careful distance at work.I’d taken everything he offered while giving him nothing in return except anxiety and uncertainty.

Beau deserved better.

He deserved someone who would kiss him under the mistletoe without hesitation.Someone who would hold his hand at office parties.Someone who wasn’t ashamed.

I wasn’t ashamed of him, but I was ashamed of myself.Of my fear.Of my inability to be honest about who I was.

My phone buzzed again.Another work email.This one from Patsy’s assistant about a meeting tomorrow at ten.

Tomorrow.Tuesday.Another day of pretending everything was fine while I was falling apart.

I looked at the bottle of Macallan, then at my phone, then at the empty apartment around me.

This was my life.This was what I’d chosen.Safety over honesty.Comfort over courage.Fear over love.

And it was going to cost me everything.

* * *

Tuesday morning, I showed up to work with a pounding headache and the grim determination of someone who’d decided that if he was going to be miserable, he might as well be productive about it.

Beau had called in sick.Again.

Lisa told me when I asked—casually, like I was just a concerned colleague—and her expression made it clear she knew exactly why Beau wasn’t there.

“He’s fine,” she said, her voice cool.“Beau just needs time.”

“Right.Of course.”I nodded as if that made perfect sense.“If you talk to him—”

“I’ll tell him you asked.”She walked away before I could say anything else.

So, Beau was avoiding the office.Avoiding me.Taking sick days rather than face me across a conference table.

I couldn’t blame him for that either.

The morning dragged.I sat through Patsy’s meeting barely hearing a word, responded to emails on autopilot, reviewed documents without retaining anything.My mind was somewhere else entirely.

I can’t keep loving someone who won’t let me.

At lunch, I grabbed a sandwich from the café downstairs and ate it at my desk, not wanting to risk running into colleagues who might want to make small talk about the party.The last thing I needed was someone asking me about the mistletoe incident with a knowing smile.

I was halfway through the sandwich when voices drifted from the hallway outside my office.The door was cracked open, and I heard two women talking as they passed.

“—so awkward,” one of them was saying.A paralegal, I thought.Jennifer?Jessica?“I felt so bad for them.”