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The air between us charges, electricity desperate to be funneled somewhere—but it doesn’t feel like the good kind. It feels lost and lonely and dangerously destructive.
“I’ve never really thought about it, to be honest. But I wouldn’t... leave you to deal with it on your own. I take responsibility for my mistakes.”
Pain throbs through my stomach, making my chest tight, and I don’t even know why.
I don’t want kids right now. Definitely can’t afford to get pregnant. So, why does hearing him refer to a potential child as a mistake make something ache deep within me?
Is that how he views me? He once said kissing me was a mistake. Does that mean that what he’s doing now is just atonement for his sins?
Anxiety unravels in my stomach, making me nauseous, so I change the subject. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About... me. The obsessive-compulsiveness. Most people don’t notice; I don’t think Kieran even really knows.”
He stays quiet for so long, I’m sure he’s not going to answer, moving on from the conversation because he’s no longer interested in it. No longer interested in me.
My finger starts its tapping, three consecutive points followed by a three-second break, and then starting all over again, the movement light against his bare chest. No longer interested. Probably wants someone with more experience, someone not crazy. Someone who—
Fingers slip beneath mine, not holding or restricting; his hand rests under my fingers, absorbing the soft vibrations from the tapping. Providing support, not demanding control.
Not this time.
“I was in and out of therapy a lot as a teenager,” he says finally, voice low, as if he thinks someone might overhear. As much as he doesn’t want Kieran to find out about us, I suspect he wants my brother to know about his past even less. “The waiting area at one of the clinics lumped everyone together—the alcoholics, the kids with behavioral issues—like me—and the people with your run of the mill psychological issues.”
Swallowing, my heart aches, slamming against my rib cage. The desire to interrupt, to talk about my own experience in counseling and distract him from what I suspect are painful memories, expands into an overwhelming need, prickling inside my mouth like I’m jonesing for a cigarette or some gum.
Biting down on my tongue, I force the urge away.
“I fucking hated that place. Hated waiting with the people who seemed more obviously sick than me. At the time, this was the only place my...”
For a moment, he trails off, and my mind scrambles trying to fill in the blank, wondering where it could be headed.
“My mother, LeeAnn, couldn’t afford a place any better, and she didn’t bother signing up for insurance because she was too busy getting high. Always too busy getting high.”
His voice grows thick as he trudges through his words. “But therapy was court-mandated after too many incidents at school made my principal suspicious, and alas, this was the clinic I got. The kind of place where the irreparably damaged go when there’s nowhere else to turn. An absolute last resort.”
“Anyway,” he continues. “The place itself sucked, but the counselor I ended up getting paired with, Dr. Schriver, was amazing. She suffered from pretty severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and I think borderline personality disorder, but she never let them hinder her. She was always working to heal—everything you’d hope for in someone getting paid to fix you.”
“I don’t—”
Boyd raises his index finger and holds it against my lips, shushing me. “I know that’s not what it’s for, but when I was a kid, I didn’t know any better. I was looking for a fix, and it never made any sense as to why I couldn’t find it, until I was older and realized some things just stay broken.”
Pushing up, I move his finger and turn my head, trying to make out the contours of his face in the dark.
I can tell he believes it about himself, that he’s destined to keep bleeding from invisible wounds until he dies, and I think back to my words to him at the gala about how people don’t change.
Maybe they don’t—there’s no real way to tell. Maybe who we are isn’t ever set in stone, anyway, and it changes constantly, the way our skin regenerates every seven years.
Maybe it’s circumstance that rewires our DNA, makes us delve from our character norms.
I think circumstances changed my father. I think falling in love is changing my brother—can see it every day that his fears ease, his soul becoming more content with the way life has panned out.
Everyone may still be on edge with my mother’s declining health and the unknown family assailant still lurking around town, but I still see the subtleties.
Maybe the best we can do is evolve our temporary parts and hope that’s good enough.
“You’re not broken,” I say, reaching up to cup his stubbly jaw.
