Page 41 of Yard Sale

I nodded, then remembered he probably couldn’t see that. “Anyway, I think part of my thing with Leon was me coping with the grief in a really, really bad way. He was all walking red flags. But around the time we moved was the time my dad took the coaching job, and that’s when a position opened up for the Sports Gazette. I’d wanted to be some kind of journalist since I was a kid. I always figured something to do with nature or anthropology. I spent a gap year taking photos all around Canada and really enjoyed it.”

“So why get stuck in a smelly-ass hockey locker room?” Tiago asked.

I burst into laughter. “I don’t know. At the time, I thought the universe was sending me a sign. I mean, the Gazette office shared a building with Leon’s department, so his office was right by my desk. It seemed like…”

“Kismet?” Tiago offered. “Is that the right word? I didn’t actually go to college.”

I snorted. “Kismet works, but I don’t actually believe in that. I think I was just telling myself it was meant to be. But, like I said, Leon was all walking red flags, and he treated me like shit most of the time.”

“Why did you stay?” Tiago asked.

I winced, but it was a fair question. “I was lonely and hurting. And he could be so fucking nice sometimes, especially when he thought I was reaching my breaking point. And in the back of my head, I knew the way we were was kind of fucked-up, but I wanted to believe I was special to him. Like I was worth changing for.”

“Let me guess,” Tiago said flatly, “you were one of a dozen?”

“Definitely more than a dozen,” I confessed, my stomach twisting on itself. “I didn’t find out until well after I signed my contract with the Gazette. Luckily, it wasn’t a long one, and I didn’t mind having them on my resume. But after we broke up and I packed all my shit and moved out, I still had to see him all the time.”

“Well, fuck,” Tiago breathed.

I burst into laughter. “Couldn’t have put it better myself. So yeah, I was a huge dick to everyone around me, and part of it was on purpose. I was hurting, and I think I just wanted to be mean. I thought maybe it would make me feel better.”

“Did it?”

Biting my lip, I fought off a small sigh. “Not when I was mean to you. But I was in over my head so far, I didn’t know how to stop.”

“Is that why you wrote that last article?”

This wasn’t the first time he’d brought that up, and when we hit the next light, I turned to look at him. “I don’t understand what you mean. I printed exactly what you said.”

His brows flew up. “I’m not talking about you quoting me. I’m talking about you implying that I’m using my injury as an excuse to quit hockey because I don’t think I can hack it as a totally blind player.”

Tiago’s words rang out in the silence of the car, and I hesitated for so long that I nearly missed when the light turned green. I hit the gas on autopilot as I tried to process what he said.

“Tiago, if that’s what you got from the article, then I’m sorry. But that is not what I wrote.”

I could all but hear the tendons in his jaw creaking with tension. “I know I don’t have a fancy education, and I know that my eyes are shit, but I can still read, Aravind. I’m not taking meaning from your words. That’s what you literally wrote.”

He must be losing it because I didn’t say jack shit about total blindness. Maybe he was just projecting his own fears and reading what wasn’t there because I never would have been such a dick.

I fought off a sigh as I turned the corner onto Quarter Moon Drive. There were only six houses, and I could see his at the end. “I don’t want to fight about this.”

He said nothing as I pulled up to the curb and got out. “Thanks for the ride,” he snapped.

“Tiago, wait!”

He was halfway to slamming the door shut, but he managed to catch it with his arm. He poked his head back in but said nothing.

I swallowed thickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Yeah. Okay. Have a nice vacation.” Then he did slam the door, and I was too much of a coward to call him back again as he ripped his bags out of the back seat, then made his way to his front door.

The only thing I did do was sit there and make sure he made it all the way inside before hitting the gas, turning the car around, and getting the hell out of there.

It wasn’t my fault he regretted his words, damn it.

It wasn’t my fault he was feeling insecure.

If only that made me feel better.