Blaze’s POV
I flip through channels without really seeing any of them.
Beer sweating in my hand. Couch cushions molded to my body from hours of the same position. The TV casts flickering shadows across my apartment walls.
Practice was brutal today. Coach ran us through defensive drills until my legs screamed for mercy. Preparing for the Boston game. The game everyone's been talking about for weeks.
I should be resting. Recovering. Letting my muscles rebuild before we face them.
Instead, I'm channel surfing like a zombie. Searching for something to quiet the noise in my head.
Sports network. Hockey highlights.
Boston's logo flashes on screen. Red and black filling the frame before cutting to game footage.
Then his face appears.
Asher. Mid-play. Jaw set with determination. Eyes blazing with that intensity I know too well. Beautiful in that brutal way of his.
The commentator gushes about his recent performance. Statistics scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Goals. Assists. Plus-minus ratings that prove what everyone already knows.
The beast is back.
My thumb hovers over the remote. I should change it. Should protect myself from this particular form of torture.
Instead, I let myself look. Just for a moment.
His skating is sharper than ever. Aggressive in ways that border on reckless. Like he's channeling something dark into every stride.
I wonder if that darkness has a name. Wonder if it tastes like rain and regret.
That was goodbye.
My own words echo back at me. Spoken in an alley with water streaming down both our faces. Meant to be final. Meant to set us both free.
I change the channel. Force my thumb to move even though my eyes want to linger.
A promise is a promise. Even one made to myself.
Some cooking show fills the screen now. Cheerful hosts demonstrating pasta techniques. Safe. Boring. Exactly what I need.
But the restlessness doesn't fade.
It lives in my chest like a second heartbeat. Constant. Demanding. Refusing to be ignored no matter how many channels I flip through.
My mind drifts to other things. Dangerous things.
My mother's Instagram post. The one that started this whole mess. "Our son and his wonderful girlfriend."
Thousands of likes. Hundreds of comments. Family friends congratulating my parents on their son's happiness. Strangers cooing over how cute Sophie and I look together.
A complete lie broadcast to the world. And I let it happen.
I pull out my phone before I can stop myself. Find her contact. Hit dial.
She answers on the second ring.
"Blaze! Honey, I was just thinking about you!" Her voice is warm. Excited. The tone she always uses when she wants something. "How's practice going? Are you eating enough? You looked thin in that last photo—"
"Why did you post that?"
Silence. The warmth evaporates instantly. I can almost hear her recalculating.
"Post what, sweetheart?"
The innocence in her voice is too perfect. Too practiced. She knows exactly what I'm talking about.
"The photo." I keep my voice flat. Controlled. "Calling Sophie my girlfriend. She's not."
"Oh." A light laugh. Dismissive. "I just thought you'd love it! She's an old friend, you two reconnected, and I assumed you were already dating."
"You assumed." My jaw tightens. Teeth grinding together. "You didn't ask."
"Well, I…" She fumbles. Searching for footing she's lost. "I thought it would make you happy, sweetheart. Sophie is such a lovely girl. Your father absolutely adores her."
"Of course he does."
The bitterness bleeds through. I can't contain it anymore. Can't keep playing this game where we all pretend the last nine years didn't happen.
My mother hesitates. I hear her breath catch. The slight pause that means she's choosing her next words very carefully.
"Blaze, I don't understand why you're upset." Her tone shifts. Wounded now. The victim of her ungrateful son's inexplicable anger. "We're just trying to support you. To be part of your life again."
"Support me?" The laugh that escapes is hollow. Broken. "Is that what this is?"
"Of course it is. Your father and I want nothing more than to see you happy. To see you settled with someone wonderful like Sophie."
"Someone like Sophie." I repeat the words slowly. Let them hang in the air between us.
Someone female. Someone acceptable. Someone who fits the narrative they've been constructing since the moment I brought her home.
"You'll never understand what I truly want." The words rip out of me. Raw and tired and so fucking done with pretending. "And you'll never accept what I really am."
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating. Stretching across the phone line like a chasm neither of us can cross.
I wait for her to deny it. To argue. To say that's not true, we love you no matter what, you're our son and nothing could ever change that.
The silence continues. Grows louder with everything she's not saying.
My mother doesn't deny it. Doesn't argue. Doesn't offer the reassurance that any parent should give their child.
Just silence. The same silence I've been drowning in for nine years.
"I have to go," I say flatly. The words taste like ash.
"Blaze, wait—"
I hang up before she can finish. Before she can offer empty platitudes that we both know she doesn't mean.
The phone lands on the couch cushion beside me. Screen facing down. I don't want to see if she calls back.
She won't. She never does when conversations get too real.
The apartment feels emptier than before. Walls pressing in. Shadows deeper. The cooking show still playing to no one.
I drain my beer. Consider getting another. Decide against it.
Drinking alone won't fix this. Won't fill the hollow space where family should be. Won't erase the truth I've been avoiding since that dinner at their house.
They haven't changed. Not really.
They welcomed me back because of Sophie. Because she represents everything they want for me. A pretty girlfriend who might become a wife who might give them grandchildren they can brag about at country club dinners.
The reconciliation was never about accepting their bisexual son. It was about erasing him. Replacing him with a version more palatable to their friends.
And I let them. Played along because I was desperate. Because I missed having parents. Because some pathetic part of me still craves their approval.
Asher would understand. He's the only one who ever really understood.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it. Brings with it a wave of longing so intense it takes my breath away.
I reach for my phone. Scroll to his contact before I realize what I'm doing. Thumb hovering over the call button.
One tap. That's all it would take. I could hear his voice. Tell him everything. Let him be the one person who actually sees me.
But I said goodbye. I promised myself I was done chasing someone who couldn't let himself be caught.
I lock the phone. Toss it aside.
The TV drones on. The apartment stays empty. The restlessness refuses to fade.
I sit in the silence. Let it swallow me whole.
This is what moving on feels like, I guess. This hollowness. This constant ache. This desperate loneliness that no amount of family dinners or friendly faces can touch.
Sophie texts. Something about dinner plans. I read it without responding.
The night stretches ahead. Long and empty and full of ghosts. I flip back to the sports channel. Boston's logo appears again.
This time, I don't change it.