“I’d like to tell you about it some other time,” Blake says, gently enough to be infuriating. “Some time when we’re in person and I can re-introduce you to Shira and Felix.”
The world shifts again. This time I don’t even bother to stop it from spinning. “You’re—” I don’t even know the word. Or I do: one of the ones Brad is still so fond of. Ones that people hurled at Blake until he put away anything other than baseball. Ones that I told myself they’d never have a chance to throw at me.
“Yes.” Blake has iron in his voice. “I am.”
“Fuck.”
“Took time for me to admit.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “And a lot of therapy.”
“Do Brad and Barb know about that?” Becausetherapywas high on the list of things that neither of them approves of.
“They should. I invited them to a few sessions.”
“Did they go?”
“You know the answer to that one, Bray.” He shifts the phone again. “Do you want to come?”
Right now, it feels hard enough to tell Blake these things, let alone some stranger. “Not really.”
“Yeah, I don’t like doing it either. But it feels better, you know? Half the time when I’m telling my therapist about something Brad did, she just goes,Well, that’s fucking unacceptable. Hazards of a Boston therapist, I guess.”
I can’t help it; I laugh. “She sounds cool.”
“After that night when I got you out of jail, I made a list. Therapists in Atlanta with no ties to the church who specialize in substance use. I could find ones who’re also queer friendly if that would help.”
“You made a list?” My throat goes tight again. “Why?”
“I hoped one day you’d call me and ask for it.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “You’re right, you didn’t.”
I pull down the blanket from the back of the couch, the one that smells like Savannah’s perfume and the expensive stuff Asher uses in his hair and pretends he doesn’t. They could be here right now. We could be together right now. All of us. Happy in the way I can hear threading through Blake’s voice.
We could be like that if things were different, maybe.
If I was different.
“I didn’t ask you for the list. Could I have it anyway?”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Savannah
“So Ms. Burke…ordo you go by Mrs. Forsyth?” Monet, the financial aid counselor, asks me. She’s an older woman with slate-gray hair and an attitude like she’s seen almost everything and knows how to handle it. I like her immediately.
“Savannah’s fine.”
Monet skims over the paperwork that Forrest walked me through while I filled out, telling me it was like a tax form until I confessed I’d never filled one of those out, either.
“I know my situation is a little unusual,” I say.
“The good news is that, because you’re married, your parents’ income and assets aren’t counted against you in your financial aid calculation.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“You’re still married, correct?”
