Derrick once more lapsed into silence, trying to figure out a way through this treacherous situation. He had never come out before. Not to anyone, except maybe Logan, and he found that his stomach had twisted up in knots. It sort of felt like it might actually try to crawl up his esophagus, actually.
“Derrick? What is it? What’s going on?” Jessica sounded confused, but she was still probing him for details. Why had Derrick thought that she would do anything else? He couldn’t just tell part of the secret; if he started talking about it, it would all come out. That was probably part of why he had never told anyone any of it because he had sensed that would be the case.
“Logan,” Derrick admitted, after a long pause where he tried to find a way out of this situation he had got himself into. Then again, he must have really needed to tell someone, because the moment he said even that one word, he felt a little better. A weight that he hadn’t even known that he was carrying had been lifted off of him. “I fell in love with Logan.”
Jessica’s eyes widened, and Derrick instinctively braced himself. What he thought would happen, he wasn’t even sure. He just knew it was probably going to be bad. After so many years of keeping this secret about himself, it was all spilling out. And there had always been more than enough casual homophobia around him that he had internalized some of it.
“Derrick,” Jessica whispered, and Derrick’s shoulders rose back defensively toward his shoulders. “Are you finally admitting it to yourself?”
Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t that. Derrick frowned as he led his own horse into its stall for the night. Jessica tended to her own, but she never stopped looking at him the whole time.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Derrick confessed, and Jessica shot him a little smirk full of mischief.
“You’re bisexual. I’ve known that for years,” Jessica informed him, her voice calm, even as she said the highly shocking words. Somehow, he had never thought that it would go like this if he were ever brave enough to talk to anyone about it. “I’m just glad you’re finally admitting it.”
Derrick sighed and went over to sit on a bale of hay that had been dragged down from the hayloft above. In a few minutes, he would have to make sure that the horses were fed, but right at that moment, he needed a brief break. He needed to think about what she had said to him.
“Bisexual,” Derrick whispered. “I guess I am. I never thought about it before, but yeah. I guess that’s it.” That was why he could have had real, sincere, genuine feelings for Jessica once upon a time, and why he could also fall helplessly, hopelessly, unwillingly in love with Logan.
“Okay. Good.” Jessica dropped down onto the bale of hay beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the problem, then? Is that all it is? Some sort of cowboy internalized homophobia thing?”
Derrick shook his head, mostly just out of amazement that she was taking this so easily. But then, she wasn’t from Kansas. She hadn’t been raised with the same issues that he had, and that had never been as clear to him as it was then.
“No. It’s not that. We were never together, Logan and I, so I don’t think it’s quite accurate to say that he dumped me, but …”
“Oh, honey,” Jessica said, and she wound an arm around his shoulders to give him a quick squeeze, a half hug that felt like a balm to his wounded heart. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
If she had said anything else, Derrick might have shut himself off right then and there. He might have never been comfortable admitting to the things that he had told her to anyone else; he might have spent his whole life trying to hide it.
But she responded perfectly, to the point where Derrick felt the slight sting of tears in his eyes. Tears of relief, more than anything else. It was so good, so damn good, to have her understanding. They weren’t together anymore, he and Jessica, and they hadn’t been in a long time, but her opinion still mattered to him.
So it poured out, all of it. Just a few words, said in a matter of fact voice, at first. But the dam of his emotions gradually sprung leaks, like each word he did say was a brick that had been pulled free. By the end of it, he was speaking fast, the words tumbling over each other so that he was actually surprised that she seemed to understand him at all.
“Wow,” she finally said, when Derrick’s words dried up to a trickle and then stopped completely. “I’ve never seen you have it this bad before, and I used to date you.” She hugged him again, and he turned his face into her shoulder, even though he had to hunch over to do it. It was just so nice to feel like someone cared.
He had isolated himself so much. But then, he had never thought that he was going to stay for long enough to form connections with people. What with one thing and another, he had been here far longer than he had thought he was going to be. So having this physical human contact, it was nice.
“So what are you going to do?” Jessica’s fingers ran over Derrick’s back, and there was something so soothing about it, something deeply relaxing. When was the last time that Derrick had relaxed? He couldn’t even remember, which struck him as a little bit sad.
“I’m going to go back to school,” Derrick said, with a tone of determination in his voice. Just when he was about to add that he didn’t really see any other choice, that he was too miserable being around the man he loved and not being able to have him, he heard the sound of a throat being cleared.
“Good. The sooner, the better,” Logan commented, his voice coldly casual like he was asking someone that he didn’t particularly like about something that wasn’t all that important. Like the weather. Or if they would pass the salt.
Derrick raised his head and looked past Jessica to Logan, but the other man was already walking toward the door, and all Derrick could see was his uncommunicative back and shoulders.
“See?” Derrick asked Jessica, who sighed and shook her head. There was a look of sympathy, close to pity, in her eyes that he would have hated to see from anyone else. Even from her, he could just tolerate it, but it wasn’t his new favorite thing.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why he would act that way,” Jessica replied, and Derrick shook his head. He had no idea either, and it wasn’t like he could exactly ask. Logan didn’t seem to be in a highly communicative mood at the moment.
“He seems pretty upset with you,” someone else said, and Derrick rose to his feet suddenly, glaring at the door. Logan had gone out, and Wyatt had come in. Was it some sort of conspiracy that the world had against Derrick today? That right when he was at his most vulnerable, the last people he wanted to talk to would both walk right into the barn?
Wyatt never came into the barn. In fact, ever since Wyatt had come here, he had mostly been in his old bedroom, presumably working. He rarely even joined the family for dinner, so it had been easy for Derrick, with all the hard work of running the ranch, almost to forget that he was there.
“Shut up. I’m not in the mood,” Derrick told him. And he really wasn’t. But he couldn’t help but notice the smugness radiating out from his brother, the smirk, the glee in his eyes. Even in his misery, he was a little curious. “What’s up with you?”
Wyatt’s oily smirk only widened, and he walked closer to Derrick, who immediately realized the mistake that he had made. He should never have engaged with him, no matter how curious he had been. Ever since Kyle and Malcolm’s wedding, he had been doing his best to stay away from his older brother.
“Logan’s finally seeing reason,” Wyatt commented, with smooth satisfaction dripping from every word. “He’s going to help me convince Malcolm to sell.”
