Page 55 of On Your Knees

“I stayed out of the way. It wasn’t that hard. No one wanted me.”

“That’s a good thing. I mean… in the sense of…” Ethan blows out a frustrated breath, “I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

“I know what you meant. And, yeah, it was a good thing. I was weird, and people don’t like that.”

“I doubt you were weird.”

Because I don’t want to argue about this particular point, I joke, “I read books. That was weird.”

Ethan huffs like I was hoping he would. He lets it go and leads the conversation back to where we are. “So you’d come here?”

“Yeah,” I whisper.

“And not think.”

I could just say yes, could simply agree and let that be the end of it. I could ignore the subtle question that he’s asking: what is not thinking? What’s the shape and feel of it?

But it feels really good that he’s listening to me, that someone, finally, sees. So I tell him, “I would imagine these roots curling around me and pulling me in until I disappeared into the tree and didn’t exist anymore.”

I don’t know if Ethan does it consciously, mimicking the roots as I imagined them behaving, but his arms curl around me, holding me tighter against him.

But he’s not like the tree, still and cold and unfeeling. His body is warm. I can feel his heart beating. I can feel his turbulent emotions. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked about this. He was already upset.

But forcing good things on top of bad things doesn’t make the bad things go away. It only makes them feel worse. You have to give bad things room to breathe, and I feel Ethan doing that behind me.

I hope that means he’ll tell me what happened today with his mother.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t say a word.

EIGHTEEN

Ethan

“Why are you going to church?” Patrick asks, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

“Just am,” I reply, staring at my phone, hoping that Patrick will take the hint and drop it.

He doesn’t.

“In the ten years I’ve known you, you’ve never gone to church. I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

I scroll blindly through my email. “I do and I don’t. And church has nothing to do with God.”

“What’s going on, Ethan?”

“It doesn’t concern you, Patrick.”

Patrick doesn’t let it go. “And Levi is still in the penthouse?”

“He’s fine,” I snap, even though it’s not really true. Levi wasn’t happy about me leaving this morning. He didn’t say much, but I could tell. He doesn’t hide his emotions well. I like that about him, but it frustrated me this morning. Everything is frustrating me.

“Are you?” Patrick asks, his eyes in the rearview again. “Fine?”

“I’m busy,” I tell him and focus on my phone.

“You hate her, Ethan.”