Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 104305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Just like that, he stopped talking. Simply stopped. As if that was the end of the story. I knew better than that.
Remembering how they met was one thing, but not dealing with the rest…
I prompted him with, “You met and fell in love. You were supportive of each other… Sounds perfect.”
He twisted his head and his dark brown eyes bore into me. “It wasn’t perfect.”
No relationship ever was, but I was trying to get him to continue.
Even though I knew there was a lot more story to be told, if this was all he’d give me today, I’d take those crumbs and hope he’d open up more later.
This could very well be the beginning of us sharing our lives with each other. Both past, present and future. Even if only as friends.
Of course, I wanted more but I wasn’t sure if Chase would ever be ready for that.
“I’d never been with anyone else.”
Whoa. That was one confession I hadn’t expected to hear. “No one?”
He shrugged. “I’d kissed some men…” Then shook his head. “No, not men… boys in college before I met Thomas, but that was all. It never went further than making out, but those kisses helped confirm I was gay. When I met Thomas, I knew right from the beginning he was ‘the one’ and it felt right to take it further. So… we did. Along the way we became inseparable and also learned from each other, fell deeply in love and eventually… got married. It should’ve been perfect.”
“No matter how good a relationship is, Chase, it will never be perfect. My suspicion is that if a relationship seems perfect, then it’s most likely fake. That couple is hiding something. We all have our ups and downs. We all have our bad days. No matter how much we might love someone, plenty of moments will exist where that other person disagrees with, annoys or frustrates us. It’s only human nature.”
“Of course we had our bad moments. We were both passionate and we tended to argue over stupid stuff. But we didn’t hold grudges and typical disagreements weren’t our main problem.”
“What was?”
When he scrubbed his hands down his face, I figured we were getting to the part that would be the most painful. I was tempted to find a roll of duct tape and seal my mouth shut so I wouldn’t say anything that would stop him from talking.
When Timber ran up the steps, he came to me first for a quick scratch under the chin and then moseyed over to Chase to sit between his legs. The man buried his fingers in my Shepherd’s thick double coat as he scratched, causing Timber’s eyes to half-close in pure ecstasy.
Was I a little jealous of my dog? Hell yes. Not because Timber wanted another man’s attention but because my dog was getting the physical attention I longed to get from Chase. But petting my dog when I was unsettled always seemed to soothe my soul and I didn’t want to deny the same benefit to Chase.
Brushing his fingers down Timber’s neck and back, he turned his dark eyes to me once more. “What I’m about to tell you goes no farther than us.”
I nodded, mentally bracing myself.
His Adam’s apple jerked up and then fell when he swallowed hard. “I need to hear you say it.”
“What you tell me won’t go any farther than my ears.”
He stared at me for a few seconds and when I nodded to reassure him, he returned the nod. Turning his attention back to my dog, he continued. “Thomas had always struggled with depression. At first, he hid it from me. He was worried I wouldn’t want to be with him if he was taking meds to control it. Basically, he was embarrassed. But then that embarrassment, or his shame of not being ‘normal,’ all stemmed back to how his parents treated him. They would not accept that he was gay. They would also not accept that he struggled with depression. They thought he’d snap out of both.”
“Impossible.”
I hated hearing stories about parents who were unaccepting of their own child. I’d been one of the lucky ones. It was a good reminder for me to call my parents later and thank them for being so understanding. They had no idea how easy they made my life by simply loving me unconditionally.
“Right. But no one could tell them that. They were uber-religious and he knew they wouldn’t accept him like that. So, he faked being straight until he met me. He never let anyone see the real Thomas. He unwillingly had to play a ‘part’ to survive. It wasn’t until after we fell in love that he finally began to shed some of the shame that had been deeply ingrained in him. He wore it like a cloak no matter how much I tried to help him remove it. Even so, I was there for him and supported him accepting himself, too.”