continuing in the theme of self-improvement
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Part Two: Sure Of You, or How To Get Your Heart Broken
By Candle Beck
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
And wow, that didn’t take very long at all.
Mulder was alight with fury, his hands knotted in Zito’s shirt, shoving him against the wall, his fists pressing like nails into Zito’s chest. They were two inches apart and all Zito wanted to do was get away from the other man.
He knocked Mulder’s hands away and pushed off the wall, half his body slamming against Mulder’s as he put a few feet between them. For some reason, the space between them didn’t help at all, didn’t make anything better. Mulder was still glaring at him, rage making his hands shake, and force of the man’s anger was no easier to withstand from three feet than it had been from two inches.
“I didn’t . . . I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was saying,” Zito replied, his own voice sounding foreign to him as he crossed his arms over his chest, unconsciously shielding himself, hanging onto his elbows, cutting his eyes away from the other man.
Mulder’s jaw tightened hard and he spat out, “Yeah, well, the fucking *reporter* knew what you were saying! And now everybody else in the country does too!” He scoured his hands over his face, pressing his palms briefly against his eyes, and when he took them away, Zito was vaguely surprised to find himself not set on fire by the way Mulder’s eyes were blazing.
The story had broken that morning, a week after the night Anthony Pearl had found Zito alone in a bar and drunk enough to let fly the apocalyptic secret that had been held like something fragile and precious between the two pitchers for half a season. The Bay Area Sports News had run it on the first page, the huge gaping letters of the headline shouting out from newsstands, “The Secret To Their Success,” with an old photo from last year’s postseason of Mulder and Zito in each other’s arms after a victory, Mulder’s hand on the back of Zito’s head, Zito clinging to the material of Mulder’s jersey, both of their faces wide open with joy, laughing like they would never stop.
Zito hadn’t remembered much of the night until he saw it painstakingly recapped in the paper. He had had a faint recollection of talking to someone named Earl in a bar, something about being left-handed and Baltimore and names that kids call each other on playgrounds. He didn’t remember that Earl’s name was actually Pearl, or that he was a reporter, or that he had told the reporter things he had never intended to say out loud. Once he saw the story, though, and read through it enough times to have it memorized, it all came back in a shocking, devastating rush, and he was overcome with the panicked, futile desire to turn back time, take it back, draw himself away from the sickening drop that yawned in front of him.
ESPN had picked it up by the time the first SportsCenter of the day ran, six o’clock in Bristol, three o’clock in Oakland, just in time for the entire ballclub to hear about it before they showed up for batting practice.
No one had said much, at least not to the two of them. Every time Zito walked in a room, the place went dead silent, letting him know what the topic of conversation had been. The other players had avoided his eyes, dressed so quickly in the locker room that they went out to field with half-buttoned shirts and unbuckled belts, like after two years of never thinking twice about changing in front of him, they were suddenly scared he would jump them in the shower.
They’d been called into Billy Beane’s office, but the GM hadn’t asked for anything then, saying simply, his words clipped and sharp, “We’ve got a game tonight. I want to see you both right here first thing tomorrow morning, but for now, the only thing that matters is winning tonight.” Beane had arrowed them both with a warning finger, pointing first to Mulder, then to Zito, “And if either of you says one word to the press today, I mean *one word*, then you’re benched for the rest of the season. Are you clear on that?”
They’d both nodded stiffly, and Zito had skittered a glance over in Mulder’s direction, but all he could see was the tension strumming out of the other man, the muscle twitching in his jaw, the way his eyes glittered hard and cold like pieces of quartz crushed up in the concrete of the sidewalk.
On their way back to the clubhouse, Zito had tried to catch Mulder, putting his hand on the man’s arm. “Mulder,” he began, having absolutely no idea what he was going to say, just wanting Mulder to look at him again.
Mulder had jerked away like he was burned, and spun to pin Zito with his eyes, snarling, “Get the fuck away from me,” his voice bleeding disgust and something that sounded very much like hatred, terrifying Zito, and then Mulder stalked off, leaving Zito frozen and stunned in the hallway, feeling like he’d been punched in the chest.
And now they were in the hotel room Zito had fled to after driving down his street and seeing the knotted vulture camps that the reporters had staked out in front of his building, all of them laying wait for him to come home, just as they had pounced on him the second he had left the clubhouse that evening.
After the twelfth time he tried to call Mulder’s phone, the other man finally picked up, harshly growling, “The fuck do you want?” and Zito had barely been able to fumble out the words, “We need to talk,” and the name of his hotel before Mulder slammed the receiver down hard enough to sound like a gunshot in Zito’s ear.
He hadn’t expected Mulder to show up, but twenty minutes later there was an impatient rap at his door, and when he checked the peephole, he saw the other man standing in the hall with his shoulders pulled up and his eyebrows clenched down, scowling at Zito through the wood.
Zito didn’t manage to get through the first few words of his shattered apology before Mulder’s anger got the best of him and he threw Zito up against the wall and demanded to know what the fuck he thought he had been doing.
All Zito could say in the face of all that blind, suffocating rage was, “I’m sorry, man. I swear, I’m so fucking sorry, I was . . . I was so fucking drunk.”
Mulder turned away, like having to look at Zito was more than he could bear. “I’ve been drunk. I’ve been drunk and stupid and yet I’ve never ruined anyone else’s life. So, fuck you and your fucking excuses.”
Zito pulled his hands through his hair, feeling out of his body, feeling like he was fracturing, splintering into a million pieces, and he couldn’t believe any of this was happening. “I . . . I haven’t ruined your life, come on, man, don’t say that. This . . . it’ll blow over, Mulder, it’s not forever.”
Turning back, Mulder stared aghast at the other man. “Oh, you think so? You think this’ll just go away and people will forget?”
Zito shrugged, staring down at the floor. “Yeah. Eventually. They’ll give us hell for a little while then they’ll move on to something else.”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Mulder sneered. “Tell me something, you hear a lot these days about Albert Belle having been one of the best hitters in the game? ‘Cause most of what I hear is about him corking his bat. *This* is what people remember, this is the stuff that sticks. So now it doesn’t matter what either of us does for the rest of our careers, it doesn’t matter if you pitch a perfect game or I strike out twenty-five men, the first thing people are gonna think of when they hear our names is that we’re fucking faggots.”
And Zito knew he shouldn’t say it, knew it was suicide, but he couldn’t help it. “But we *are*, man. Pearl didn’t lie, he didn’t make anything up. He got everything right, everything he quoted was something I said. People think we’re sleeping together because we are sleeping together.”
Mulder scoffed a cruel, humorless laugh, “Not anymore, we’re not,” and that hit Zito like a physical blow. Mulder continued, “You think it matters that it was true? You really think that’s gonna make it okay with me? You’re so fucking stupid.” He snatched up a copy of the paper that was on the dresser. “And besides, the story’s not true, most of it’s bullshit. Maybe Pearl got everything right, but you sure as shit didn’t.”
Zito’s throat felt thick and dry, and he rasped, “What do you mean?”
Mulder punched his finger at the story, reading, “‘Despite Mulder’s protestations, Zito remains convinced of the other man’s feelings for him, “He’s totally, out-of-his-head, stupid in love with me.”’” Mulder raised his fierce eyes to Zito. “You really think that’s how it was?”
The pain in Zito’s chest was this huge thing, this immense pressure that crushed the air out of his lungs and flattened his heart, and he would have given anything in the world not to hear Mulder deny the quote, but he couldn’t stop it, he was helpless, hopeless.
At Zito’s shaky nod, Mulder flung the paper at him, the fluttering gray pages exploding against his body. “Don’t fucking flatter yourself,” and Zito closed his eyes, unable to believe that he could feel pain like this. “You were there. You were fucking easy. You think I’d risk everything I’ve earned for you? You think you and I were gonna be some kind of queer pioneers in major league ball, and that eventually we could retire and move to the Castro or something? Fucking deluded.”
Zito collapsed back against the wall, trying to breathe steady and even, trying to hold himself together. “Please . . . please don’t say that. Please don’t do this.” He was aware that his voice was edging very close to pleading, but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care.
“You did it, man. It’s done.”
Zito raised his eyes, taking in the whole long sweep of Mulder’s form, and there was no part of him that could conceive of never getting to touch Mulder again, never getting to feel the give and take of his body, never getting to see Mulder smile at him like Zito was something beautiful and good enough. “We . . . we’ve got to go through this together. It’s gonna be so awful, I know, and I’m so sorry, please, you gotta believe me, man, I’m so sorry, but we can’t do this alone. *I* can’t do this alone. If . . . if I can’t be sure of you, if I can’t feel you there beside me, I don’t . . . I, I can’t . . .” He trailed off, his voice cracking and choked in his throat.
Mulder’s eyes, the dark changeling eyes that Zito had loved to watch shift and twist colors in the heartbreaking motion of the night, were flat, emotionless, like he was looking at nothing that had ever mattered, nothing that had ever touched him, or made him laugh, or caused his breath to come short and gasped with joy. “I’m done going through things with you. I’ll be going through enough hell because of you, why would I want to be your fucking pillar of strength too?”
‘Because you are,’ Zito wanted to say, but he knew it wasn’t true anymore. Instead, he said raggedly, “But we’re gonna be there together whether you want to or not. Tomorrow, with Beane, and for all the rest of it, they’re gonna go after the two of us, so we gotta stand . . . stand up. As one.”
His face all contorted and mean, Mulder shook his head, biting off his words short and bitter. “Maybe you’re gonna stand up, but you’re gonna do it without me. You wanna know what I’m gonna say to Beane tomorrow? And to any reporter who asks me to comment?”
Zito desperately did not want to know, but he couldn’t seem to make himself make a sound or move to stop the other man’s words.
“I’m gonna tell them it’s a fucking lie. Every word of it.”
Zito lost his breath, barely able to whisper, “What?”
Mulder nodded, fire and all hell in his glaring face. “I’m gonna tell them you’ve got some perverted crush on me, that you made a pass at me awhile ago and I told you no fucking way, and this is your way of getting back at me.”
“You can’t. You . . . you won’t, you can’t,” Zito stuttered.
“The hell I can’t. You thought it was gonna be tough being one of only two ballplayers in the game who were openly sleeping with a teammate, wait ‘til you have to do it on your own.”
Zito was shaking his head, and he didn’t realize he was speaking out loud until he heard the faint echo of his words calling back to him off the window glass. “No. No, no, no.”
Mulder just glowered at him, his hands on his hips, all his muscles pulled tight, and there was soft triangle of skin where his shirt collar was thumbed open, the dip at the base of his throat, where a pulse beat quiet and steady, something that Zito had once felt on his tongue, resting his fingers there and keeping time by the even rhythm of Mulder’s heart.
“Don’t do this to me,” he said, his voice faltering, shredding along the edges of the words. “Mulder, I don’t . . . I don’t know if I can . . . I don’t think I’ll be okay if you do this to me. I can’t, I can’t imagine never getting to wake up with you again, I can’t imagine losing you.” He took a breath, trying to steady himself, trying to be stronger than he was, and he was trembling as he said, “I love you, man. I . . . I love you.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of fucking good that’s done me.”
Somewhere in Zito’s mind, Mulder was laughing. Somewhere in Zito’s mind Mulder was happy, and hanging on to him in the night, and closing his hands in Zito’s hair, and counting Zito’s ribs one by one, climbing his fingers up the ladder of Zito’s bones. Somewhere in Zito’s mind, everything was okay, and Mulder was making him believe that Zito was all he needed.
Here, though, in this airless hotel room, Mulder was moving towards the door, and Zito could only ask helplessly, “Where are you going?”
And Mulder turned just before he reached his hand for the knob, saying coldly, “I don’t want to look at you anymore. I can’t stand the sight of you. I’ve never wanted to hit anyone as badly as I want to hit you right now, so you better let me go.”
Let him go? Let him go? How do you let someone out of your heart?
Zito breathed out the other man’s name, and Mulder put his hand up on the wall, his fingers spread out, bracing him, and he wasn’t looking at Zito when he said, “The story, in the paper . . . it said I was everything you were ever sure of. Is that what you told him?”
Zito nodded, all the words he had ever known vanished from his mind, and though Mulder didn’t look up, he seemed to have seen the affirmation, continuing, “Well, I’ve never been sure of much, but I was sure that you’d never do this to me. I was sure you’d never destroy everything I’ve ever cared about, even if it was an idiotic drunken mistake. I was trusting you with something that I didn’t even trust myself with, not really. My . . . my whole life . . .”
Mulder sighed, a deep, aching exhalation, and he tilted forward slowly, resting his forehead briefly against the doorjamb, his eyes closed and his wild, destructive anger sinking away into something low and infinite, something that sounded like despair. “I was sure of that. And now I can never be sure of you again.”
Then Mulder raised his head and pulled the door open and left, without another word, without a single backward glance, and Zito felt the chill creep of numbness stealing over his body, and he fell back against the wall, sliding down until his folded legs were up against his chest, his forehead pressed to his knees, and he was trying to hold himself together, trying to hold on to the empty nothingness of his body, his heart, his soul, trying to stay numb for as long as possible, because he knew that in a few seconds, this was going to hurt like hell.
To be continued . . . in part three.