“Okay, for one”—she shovels a bite of pancake into her mouth, her next words slightly garbled—“please don’t discuss banging and my brother. For another, nothing about you and Damon can compare to the awful shit that Hiller did.”
My teeth clamp together, and she curses softly.
“Damn,” she says again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s—” I shake my head. “I’m fine. It’s in the past—” But even as I want to push out the rest of the half-truth, the words stopper up in my throat.
“Yeah.” She sighs. “That doesn’t work all that well for me either.”
I hate that she knows that.
Almost as much as I hate the fact that she can see right through me.
“What does?” I ask.
“What?”
“What works for you?” I ask. “I did the therapy thing. I’ve put in the work, and sometimes…” I sigh and shrug helplessly.
“Sometimes it’s there anyway,” she murmurs, sitting back in her chair, pushing her pancakes away. “Truthfully?”
I nod.
“For a long time, nothing helped. Especially when Damon was serving time for me.”
Damn. “Shit, Kylie,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have brought this up?—”
“No.” Her eyes are damp and she shakes her head, her hand finding mine. “This is good. I hate pretending everything is perfect all the time.” A long, shaky breath. “Because, truthfully, even after Damon’s sentence was up and he was going back to living his life, I still wasn’t ready to get out there.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She exhales, sits back. “Because even though it took time, even though it took alongtime, I can tell you that it eventually changes, that life gets better, becomes normal again. Yes, there are blips were the memories pop up, the grief takes over, but they…fade, I guess. Or maybe it’s that I’ve become stronger, so they’re easier to deal with.”
My lungs spasm. My eyes burn.
But I think about my childhood.
I think about Beth and John and the years after.
I think about sharp pain growing dull and achy, slowly, incrementally, day by day byday.
I nod. “You’re right,” I whisper.
Her smile is sad, but her eyes tell me enough.
She knows I’m telling the truth when I agree with her.
“But you know what makes everything get better faster?” she asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “What makes it better faster?”
She shoves my plate toward me. “Pancakes. But also”—her expression softens—“having someone to talk about it with.”
Now I knowshe’stelling the truth.
Because the dark secret that had been eating away at me for so long is out in the open—or well, it’s not completely hidden any longer. It’s not just me sharing with my therapist. Kylieknows and Damon knows, and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst if my truth was out there in the world. Maybe people wouldn’t look at me like I’m broken.
Because I know that Kylie isn’t. She’s so damned strong, it fills me with pride.
