Who: Sebastian and Ophelia Where: The McCarthy House When: Evening, Monday, Dec 11th Status: Complete
When Hunter didn’t show up for basketball practice on Monday afternoon, Sebastian knew something was wrong. He’d been quiet lately and slightly withdrawn, but Sebastian attributed that to the discomfort of playing on a team torn in two. Things were awkward all around, none of them were playing their best, and no one knew how to fix it. Being united around a common cause might have helped, but they clearly needed something better than winning the game because that wasn’t working. Sebastian had the feeling Hunter was going to quit the team and, when Hunter showed up after practice, Sebastian found out he was right, however that was just the tip of the iceberg.
It was over. They were done. Sebastian had never felt so blindsided by anything in his life. If there were signs that this was coming, he’d clearly missed them. He felt like there needed to be a bigger space between their last ‘I love you’ and ‘I don’t think this is working’, words that left him staring at Hunter in confusion. This couldn’t be happening, not after everything they’d been through, but it wasn’t his choice. It was all he could do to hold himself together till he got to his car. One thing was for certain, he wasn’t going to lose it on school grounds.
Sebastian went straight to his room when he got home, then claimed that he wasn’t feeling well to get out of dinner. It was better to go hungry for a night than to face his father with puffy, bloodshot eyes. Besides, it wasn’t too much of a stretch-- he felt horrible. He knew he’d have to tell them, he’d have to tell everyone, but he wanted to put it off just a little bit longer, till he thought he could do so without breaking down. He’d just recently told them he had a boyfriend, even though they’d been dating for a while, and this made him look fickle. Then again, he should probably stop worrying about other people’s feelings and focus on his own, otherwise he wasn’t sure how he was going to face going to school tomorrow.
Ophelia could tell there was something wrong with Sebastian. It wasn’t like they never spent time alone in their own rooms with the doors closed, but there was something else in the air. Phee had always been pretty empathetic, and when Sebastian didn’t come down to dinner, she knew her instinct was right. It took a lot for him to not want to eat. Maybe he was truly sick, but that was even more reason to check up on him. So once she’d loaded the dishwasher after dinner, Phee went back upstairs, padding quietly along the hallway until she stopped outside Sebastian’s door. She put her ear to it for a brief moment, then knocked gently. “Hey it’s me,” she said through the wood, half expecting to be told to go away.
Sebastian looked up at the door and seriously considered ignoring his sister completely. All it would take was one look for her to know that something was wrong and he wasn’t entirely sure he was up for explaining what had happened. If he ignored her, she would probably just go away. But if he couldn’t handle Ophelia, how was he supposed to get through school tomorrow? He might as well give it a shot and see how much he could manage, or if he should just skip for the first time ever. “Come in,” he said, scrubbing his hands over his face as he sat up. He suspected he looked as bad as he felt, but there was nothing he could do about that except get some sleep and a shower in the morning.
Phee opened the door with a bit of caution and peeked in. Not that she expected him to be doing anything untoward or anything, but still. Privacy meant a lot when you were a teenager. As soon as she saw his face, Phee knew something was really wrong. Their family complexions didn’t really lend themselves to hiding their emotions, and her brother was all splotchy and puffy and just didn’t look great. Her face immediately turned sympathetic and Phee came fully into his room, pulling the door quietly shut behind her. “Hey,” she said gently as she approached Sebastian’s bed. “You okay? What happened?”
“Hunter broke up with me,” Sebastian said quietly, his voice shaking as he spoke. It felt like there should have been some epic fallout to go along with those words, like the exchange after basketball practice wasn’t grand enough to accompany such devastation. Sebastian suspected he was being overdramatic, but that didn’t change the fact that it felt like his world was falling apart. The one spot of happiness keeping him afloat was gone and now he didn’t know how to keep from drowning. “He said… he said it’s not working anymore. He’s not happy. That it’s all too much,” he said, looking down at the bed and doing his best to remain composed.
Phee’s mouth dropped open with shock and her eyes widened a bit. Well that was sudden, wasn’t it? She had thought everything was going great with her brother and his boyfriend, and from the look of devastation on Sebastian’s face, he’d thought so too. “Oh no, I’m so sorry,” she said after a moment of stunned silence. Phee sat down next to him and put her arm around Sebastian’s shoulders, her brows furrowed. “That’s all he said? When did this happen?” He probably wasn’t super excited to talk about it, but she couldn’t help the questions, just trying to understand Hunter’s logic.
“After practice today. He wasn’t there, so I knew something was up, but… I thought he’d just quit the team.” It would have sucked, but he could have handled that. They were a mess for so many reasons and he wasn’t sure how to bring them back together. But this was about more than basketball. “Things’ve been hard, you know?” he said, shoulders slumped over and eyes threatening to tear up again. Most of the time Sebastian knew how he was supposed to behave, how he needed to hide his emotions and mask the pain, but it was hard not to give in when Phee wrapped her arm around him. He leaned into her for just a moment, shaking his head as he tried to recall their exchange. It felt like a blur in his mind, the words all mushing together, making it hard for him to distinguish what Hunter had said from what he’d interpreted it to mean. “There’s been a lot dragging us down-- me coming out and having to deal with that, and then dad being an ass, and then fighting with Kyle, and the team being all fucked up, and… I guess he kind of lost interest. It was… too hard, or something. I wasn’t…” Good enough, his brain finished for him. If he’d just been a little better, maybe things would be different. Maybe he’d want to stay. “And now… now his mom’s getting a divorce, so he’s gonna go back to Portland.”
That was a lot to take in, and Phee looked concerned through all of it, still holding onto Sebastian’s shoulder even when he straightened up again. She’d of course known that their relationship had been through some tumultuous waters, with Sebastian still being in the closet and all ... but she’d thought things were evening out. Apparently not, on Hunter’s end. When her brother got to the bit about the divorce and moving back to Portland, worry popped into Phee’s mind that Jen might go with him. That was selfish and unhelpful though, so she resisted the urge to ask. “Wow,” she murmured, rubbing at Bash’s arm. “I’m so sorry, Bash. All of that really sucks.” It wasn’t much comfort, but she wasn’t quite sure what to say. She’d never seen him so upset about a breakup before, but of course none of them had felt real to him until now. After a moment, Phee frowned. “What an asshole,” she muttered. “Like I mean ... way to just bail on somebody.” She gave a little huff and shook her head.
“No, he’s not, he’s—“ It was such instinct to defend Hunter that Sebastian almost started to before he caught himself. Was he an asshole? He’d been so sweet and charming, but… but how much of what he’d said did he really mean? At what point had he stopped agreeing with Sebastian and just started saying things to appease him? Sebastian found himself questioning everything, unable to tell how much of it had been real and how much was just wishful thinking. “I feel like such an idiot,” he said, closing his eyes as he shook his head. “He said he loved me.” And he’d believed him. He’d fallen hard and fast, with no reservations, trusting that Hunter was honest with him just because he was honest with Hunter. He’d have done anything for Hunter, would’ve modeled his future just to be with him, and now he felt like a fool for it. Luckily, his college acceptance letters had yet to arrive, otherwise he could’ve made an irreversible mistake. “I hate this,” he muttered. “I hate this so much.”
Ophelia’s heart hurt for him, and she gave him another gentle squeeze. “I know,” she murmured. “I hate it for you too.” She hadn’t known they’d been exchanging ‘I love you’s already, but she had to imagine that made it even harder. Phee had a vague idea of how devastated she would be if Greg just dropped her like a bad habit, and they hadn’t even gotten the L-word involved yet. Nor had she turned her life upside down for him and done something as brave as coming out. Sebastian could be intense, that was just who he was, so Phee could slightly understand it being Too Much for someone, but if Hunter had led him on purposefully ... he definitely was an asshole. “But you’re not an idiot, okay? Believing people when they tell you stuff doesn’t make you dumb. It says more about them than you,” she pointed out gently, aware he might not be ready to hear that quite yet.
Sebastian wanted to believe her, but he could only see where he’d screwed up. Everyone had said they were moving too fast, but it had felt so real, so genuine, that he’d seen no reason to hold back. It had felt like it would last forever, but instead they hadn’t even made it till Christmas. Sebastian kept thinking of all the things he might’ve changed, the what-ifs and maybes creating more doubt in himself than in Hunter. He’d failed in some way, either by losing his temper and punching Kyle, or by coming out too soon, or coming out too late, or maybe he’d shown himself to be too weak, especially when it came to how he’d handled his dad. Or maybe he’d leaned on Hunter too much, shared too much with him or wanted too much support. The last few months had been tough, especially with the whole curse-breaking fiasco, but maybe he should have kept more of that to himself. Sebastian swallowed hard and nodded in response, though her words didn’t really make it through. “What am I gonna tell people? They’re gonna notice something’s wrong. I can’t just tell ‘em to fuck off.”
Phee could practically hear Sebastian’s gears grinding. She knew hers would’ve been, going over every possible misstep she’d taken, hunting for something she did wrong and could fix or make up for somehow. They were a lot alike -- they had been raised to be anxious perfectionists, and Phee knew Bash took that seriously. And getting dumped by his first boyfriend was far away from perfection, especially when he’d fought so hard to have it in the first place. Phee made a silent vow to herself not to tell Greg she loved him first. Unlike the rest of it, his question was something concrete she could help with, at least. “Uh, yes you can,” she said, moving her hand to rub at his back. “Unless they’re like, a friend, tell them it’s none of their business. It’ll get around school fast that you guys broke up anyway.” Phee said that part with regret -- it sucked, but that was how high school worked. “You don’t have to talk to anybody about it if you don’t want to. Nobody’s entitled to your private life. Het people do it all the time.”
One of the worst things about a small town high school was that everyone knew everyone else’s business. Nothing stayed a secret for long and gossip spread like wildfire. In some ways, that might work for Sebastian in that he only had to tell one or two people and then let it spread. Phee was right, no one needed to know the details unless he felt like sharing, though the less they knew the more they’d speculate and he hated to think what all they’d come up with. Sebastian closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face as he took a deep breath. This was going to be painful no matter how he looked at it. “I have to tell Mom though. And dad. At least he’ll be happy,” he said, a bitter twist turning on his lips. He hadn’t wanted to endure a family dinner with his parents and Hunter, but he’d have managed if it meant he still had Hunter. He’d have done anything, except if he wasn’t good enough now, he never would be. Even if Hunter miraculously changed his mind, there’d be a cloud of doubt over them. Sebastian would be forever worrying that if he slipped up, Hunter would leave him again. As much as he wanted him back, he knew it wouldn’t be worth it. It would never be the same. “Do you think he’s right?” he asked, face pinched in a combination of pain and contemplation. “Am I… too much?”
Phee nodded a little that their parents would have to be told ... she didn’t like thinking that their father might be pleased with this, but maybe he would be. However, Sebastian was still gay, whether he had a boyfriend or not, and there was no putting that cat back in the bag. She felt some sympathetic anger toward James for making this harder on Sebastian, but it wasn’t like she could do much about it. It just sucked that it didn’t seem like he could lean on their parents for support. So it was up to her and Bash’s friends. His question made her heart hurt, and she gave him a pained look. “No, not for the right person,” Phee said after a moment’s thought. “You’ll be perfect for the right guy. And I know you wanted that to be Hunter, but obviously he’s not the right one. You might be too much for him, but you’re not too much, period. You’re you and you’re perfectly you, and somebody down the line is going to be so lucky to have you.”
Sebastian wanted to be optimistic, but thinking about a future with anybody else felt like a black pit of despair. He’d been so excited about Winter Formal, Prom, Christmas even. At least now he didn’t need to save for a room after the dance, and he supposed he could go ahead and return Hunter’s Christmas gift. He knew he should be hopeful that he’d meet someone else, but there weren’t a lot of gay kids at their school and he’d been lucky that he’d clicked with Hunter in the first place. He was looking at finishing out the school year single, which shouldn’t be all that bad, except now he knew what he was missing out on. And the chances of meeting someone at all, let alone someone who was a good fit for him, who wouldn’t think he was too much, seemed rather slim. “Yeah,” he said weakly, unable to find the faith that he needed to believe her right now. His eyes began to burn and he took a deep breath. “I think I’m gonna… lay down. Maybe go to bed early tonight.” He had homework he needed to do, but he couldn’t have focused on anything else if he wanted to.
She had obviously never been dumped, seeing as how she was in her first actual relationship, but Phee had seen it happen to several friends, and she knew that it was too early for Sebastian to really hear and believe her. It didn’t make that encouragement not worth saying, but she knew she would have to keep saying it for it to really sink in. That was okay, she could be patient for her favorite brother. She kind of wanted to kick Hunter Barrett in the balls at the moment, but that would fade too. Things just didn’t always work out. Maybe easy to say from her mostly-objective viewpoint, but she would be there to remind Bash that his love life was just beginning when he was ready. “Okay,” she said softly. Phee leaned over to give him another side hug, patted him a little more, then stood up. “Let me know if you want me to like, get you anything from the kitchen, okay? Or just come on in and lay around with me if you need company. ... you’ll get through this. I love you.”
Sebastian knew she was right, he would get through this, but in the meantime it hurt like a bitch. He felt unreasonably upset for the length of their relationship, but he couldn’t really change the way he felt, even if he wanted to. None of his friends ever seemed to be this worked up over a girl. They’d been down, sure, but if they’d felt like the world was ending, then they’d hid it well. Sebastian knew he needed to get to that point fast, by tomorrow morning if he could, just to save face. At least he had Phee. “Love you too,” he said, giving her a wan smile. “I’ll let you know.” He didn’t think he could eat anything right now, which meant he’d be starving when he woke up in the morning, but that was the least of his worries. He had to get through tomorrow. And then the next day, and the day after that. This had to get easier eventually.