“Can we not be mad at one another?” Calvin begged after Avi left, taking Mitch’s hand into his own and linking their fingers together. It was so unfair, to be put into the position where he was on the offense, despite having no agency in the matter. If there was a victim here it wasn’t Calvin, despite his insistence otherwise, and Mitch had to continue running that mantra over and over in his thoughts. He reconsidered the health insurance thing, wondering if he could just feel it out or rely on Avi’s previous experience to tell him that he was good, but Jodie was going to demand a doctor’s note before she allowed him back in the ring.

“I’m not mad,” Mitch lied. “Hurt, yes, But.” He swallowed, knowing that he would be the villain in how this story would be told, but needing to minimize as much impact as possible. Last thing that he wanted was for Calvin to tell people that he was ‘aggressive’ and that ‘it was probably due to the wrestling’ or whatever other bullshit that he might conjure to gain sympathy points. It didn’t even matter, he wouldn’t ever interact with that social circle once this was dead and buried, but Calvin did not deserve the satisfaction. He wondered if this could be an attempt at getting him to try to plead his case, but that wouldn’t be happening, either. “I think you’re right. We stagnated, and if this is what you feel is the best course of action…” he trailed off, his throat tightening. Logically, all of this tracked. He prepared himself for this moment.

Emotionally, however, he wanted to kick Hot Yoga Guy out of his apartment, throw Calvin onto their bed, and just give in. Take the path of least resistance. Not find out what happened when he went out that door for the last time and into the hallway, leaving this life behind forever. Figure out how to tell Jodie that he had messed up yet again, but this time it would be fine, and then 6 months later try to figure out how to approach her when it inevitably blew up because that was how the cycle went.

They’d been happy, once, him and Calvin. Never a sure thing, but happy. They must have been.

No, this had to be it. Definitive. It couldn’t presumably be forever, it had to be permanent. And that was terrifying. That was the equivalent of staring into the void, to cross the ocean without earplugs and daring to listen to the siren’s song. It was all so unknown, but there he stood, a shell of what he used to be: angry and constantly on the verge of drowning. However, his hands were on the shackles which bound him, and they were about to unlock. So there could be no turning back, only the ordeal of moving forward.

Also, his dick was out of order. There was no bedroom fantasy to fulfill where he could tough it out and fuck through the pain. Blurry memories from months -years- prior rose out of the murky depths, vague in their shape but dangerous nevertheless, and he shuddered as they lingered in his peripheral vision. They were going to kill him if he didn’t take the chance to escape now.

“Then so be it,” he finished the thought, the compulsion to stay and fight gone when the words left his mouth. He had his stuff. He knew full well that this was unsustainable, had ultimately known it since the early days of when they had hooked up. And eventually, he prayed, the agony would settle down. He would look at a picture of the two of them that he had saved and meant delete, and would wonder why he had ever been so desperate to stay together. Selfishly, stupidly, he had never sorted out any kind of plan B, figuring they would be doing this dance forever; relationships were meant to be all work, were they not? It was what he’d been told most of his life. It was what TV and movies and books proclaimed, that you had to have some kind of antagonistic chemistry with the person that you loved.

Perhaps it would simply be better to never love at all, were that the case.

“I’m gonna go,” he announced with no triumph whatsoever. No fanfare. No big fuck you. And though he didn’t want it, he allowed a kiss on the cheek from Calvin.

His stomach churned. This was a mistake. He should fight back. Love was about fighting. They could do this. They could work it out.

“Take care of yourself,” Calvin smiled, and Mitch could have sworn that it was forlorn. He quelled the shivers that threatened to burst from out of his core. There was another man in his bedroom, and he wanted to stay and make a scene, except it was no longer his domain. He was an unwelcome guest.

He wanted to leave. He wanted out. He didn’t want to cry anymore, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t want the isolation and loneliness that had become a daily occurrence in his own home. It sucked. Everything about this was a constant and waking nightmare.

He wasn’t living. He was just killing time.

“You too,” Mitch responded, his voice watery, and he sniffed quietly. Turning heel, one last look was taken around, at the sanitized lack of personality contained within the stark white walls. Three hours away, there was a home. There were people that loved him and never made him feel less than human. That was where he was needed and where he needed to be. Down in the garage waited Avi, who had committed one of the greatest acts of kindness for him after they had only recently met. An entire car that wasn’t his was packed full of all of his stuff, and he hadn’t even been the one to pack it.

That, he concluded, sounded far better than hanging around somewhere that he had never felt that he had belonged.