If things had happened differently a few months ago—if a doctor had happened upon that aneurysm in Leif’s brain and dealt with it before it had ruptured—then Avery’s world wouldn’t have been turned on its ass. I’d have come to Pittsburgh and taken my place on the second line. Leif would’ve continued to be the star center. Avery and I might’ve still danced around each other, letting that mutual crush lead us to something. We might’ve still ended up right here in his bed after some of the most amazing sex I’d ever had.
But Avery never would’ve crashed and burned. I never would’ve helped him out of the bar in that hotel, and he never would’ve called me from a nightclub where he was too fucked up to hook up with anyoneorget himself home.
We might’ve landed here eventually… but not like this.
I closed my eyes and exhaled as I ran my fingers up and down Avery’s arm.
I did love him. I waspainfullyin love with him. And I wanted to believe he loved me the same way.
But I couldn’t shake this fear that the way Avery loved me wasn’t the way one boyfriend loved another.
He’d told me he loved me in the same breath he’d told me how grateful he was that I’d kept him from hitting rock bottom.
What if he’d fallen for me because he saw me as someone who’d saved him? Or worse, because being with me was better than being alone with his grief? Where did that leave us once he’d grieved enough to stand on his own two feet?
Where did it leave us when he didn’tneedme anymore?
My dad had worried for a while that my mom had only stayed with him because she was grateful he’d saved her from herself. Their marriage had been in tatters before she’d finally started getting up from rock bottom, and then it had suddenly been like the honeymoon phase all over again. She’d fallen all over herself to be the wife she hadn’t been while she’d been drowning in a bottle.
One night I’d overheard him saying he wanted to go to counseling.
“Counseling?”She’d sounded gobsmacked, and even a little affronted.“But everything’s going great with us!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,”he’d admitted.“How great will it be when you’re done with rehab, and I’m just your husband again instead of the man who saved you?”
The memory brought a lump to my throat and a sting to my eyes. Their marriage had very nearly collapsed again, this time under the weight of Dad’s fears and Mom’s anger that he didn’t believe she loved him. Counseling had helped them get back on the rails, but that year had been almost as rough on all of us as the last year of Mom’s drinking.
I didn’t imagine Avery and I would be that volatile; we’d only been seeing each other a short while, and he was well into therapy and rehab. It was something we could talk about. We could work it out calmly like rational adults. We didn’t have years and years of addiction and resentment to move past, so we’d be fine.
Right?
But I still couldn’t shake the memory of my parents walking on eggshells that year because they couldn’t figure out where they stood with each other.
Or sneaking up the walk after curfew one night and hearing Dad crying softly on the porch.
Or overhearing Mom on the phone telling a friend that if it weren’t for us kids, Dad probably would’ve left ages ago, and how she wished he would leave because now she was afraid to lean on him.
I swallowed past that lump in my throat and held Avery closer. I wanted to believe that once we talked this through, we’d be fine. Hell, we could talk to his therapist or get a counselor of our own. It didn’t have to turn into a shitshow.
I was just so scared that it would if I brought this up.
The alternative was to… not bring it up.
But then I’d just have to keep gaslighting myself that everything was fine until fear or resentment corroded me from the inside out or Avery finally realized he didn’t need me anymore.
I didn’t mind being my partner’s rock. I loved being someone a partner felt safe enough to lean on when the need arose.
But where was the line between a rock and a crutch?
And if I was his crutch…
Then what happened when he realized he didn’t need to lean? Or when I needed to lean on him?
I sighed into the darkness and kissed the top of his head again.
This isn’t going to end well, is it?
CHAPTER 37
