12 — Honesty
“He's in love with you, and you're just letting him think he’s always just one more dinner away from finally getting that kiss. It's not fair to him.”
A month later, and hours after another private dinner with Johnathan — the fifth in that span of time — Daelus and I were sitting in his chambers on the upper floor of his estate. Heavy snowfall had halted the rail lines, so I had de-manifested from my studio flat and projected myself there.
Jonathan, likewise snowed in, was sleeping in a guest room downstairs. He had seemed dejected at being banished to that lonesome chamber.
It had gone too far. Daelus and I needed to talk. I needed to look myself in the eyes and hear the words with my own ears.
Daelus bargained with me. “He's not doing anything he doesn't want to do and has never told me what he's after so I don't see the harm—”
“Daelus, he fully believes that you're just as into him as he is with you. He absolutely expected you to invite him into your bed tonight. He thought the halted rail lines thing was a ruse.”
“Well, it’s logical, isn’t it? We both know the line that runs to my estate can’t handle heavy snow. And, I had you check—”
“He heard what he wanted to hear! Logic doesn’t factor into it!”
“So why doesn’t he just ask? Why not tell me how he feels? Then we can speak plainly about it.”
“Daelus, he thinks that saying it out loud will spoil the game you’re playing. He’s enjoying what he thinks is you playing hard to get. He's imagining a fictional version of you that is exactly who he needs. You need to snap him out of it. It's not fair to either of you for this to go on. Fuck. It’s not fair to me. I have to watch.”
“But I enjoy his company. I don't see why—”
“You two are misaligned. It's imbalanced. He's giving you something that you don't want and you're turning it into something that he doesn't understand. It's not healthy.”
I sighed. Both of me did. We were frustrated. The affections were worse than just unrequited — they were undeserved. I wasn’t the person that Johnathan thought I was. I was a fake; an imposter. Maybe telling him bluntly would mean we could go on being just friends, or maybe he’d never speak with me again. Maybe I’d deserve it if he didn’t.
“Ok. I'll tell him I'm just not attracted to men
—”
“No, that's true but it's a cop out. Tell him the truth.
All of it.”
Okay, not all of it, just the parts about him. Some secrets still needed to be kept. One difficult conversation at a time.
Daelus set his jaw, and said it. “I will tell him that even if I was into men I'd still not feel that way about him.”
“Good, now try it without sounding like an asshole.”
We took a deep breath together and tried it again.
“Johnathan, I've thought about how I feel and what I need and I feel tremendous friendship and kinship with you, but I don't yet know what I am searching for in terms of romance or love but I know I haven't found it yet.”
“We'll workshop it,” I said, mulling it over, wondering if we needed to be more direct after all. We had all night to sort it out. Tomorrow morning over coffee was the only sensible time to have this conversation. We couldn’t wait another day. It would hurt, but the sooner it hurt, the sooner he could heal from it.
The hardest part would be getting Johnathan to actually listen.