A pelican glides past, impossibly graceful for something so ungainly. It lands on a channel marker twenty feet away and settles in like it’s planning to stay.
“My father used to say my mother ruined me.” The words come out before I can stop them. “Said she filled my head with fairy tales and made me soft and useless.”
Grayson doesn’t respond. Just waits.
“He called me ‘your mother’s son’ like it was an insult. Like loving stories was a character defect.” I pick at a loose thread on my shirt. “When he left, he told her it was her fault. Said her expectations were unrealistic. Said no real man could live up to the fantasies she’d built in her head.”
“Your father was a jerk.”
“He wasn’t wrong about everything.” I meet Grayson’s eyes. “I did learn to hide. I built walls so high I forgot there was anything behind them. I pretended to be exactly what he said I should be—cold, practical, dismissive of anything that couldn’t be measured or monetized.”
“And then you wrote romance novels under a fake name.”
I almost laugh. “Because I couldn’t stop being my mother’s son. I just got better at hiding it.”
The pelican makes a sound—a low, guttural grunt—like it’s joining the conversation.
“Your mother sounds like a good person,” Grayson says.
“She is.” I haven’t called her in three weeks. Another thing to feel guilty about. “She doesn’t know about V. Langley.”
“You never told her?”
“I rarely told anyone.”
The pelican shuffles on its marker, getting comfortable. Apparently it’s not going anywhere.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Grayson says.
“Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Your father left when you showed him who you really were. Now you showed Jessica, and she left too.”
“That’s not?—”
“And instead of fighting for her, you’re doing the same thing you did as a kid. Retreating and building the walls higher, then telling yourself it’s ‘giving her space’ when really you’re just terrified of being rejected again.”
The words linger as the cord grass rustles. The pelican grunts again.
“When did you get so insightful?” I ask.
“Michelle made me go to therapy.”
I laugh despite myself. “How’s that going?”
“Terrible. I’m learning all sorts of things I didn’t want to know about myself.” He grins. “Highly recommend it.”
We sit in silence for a moment. The tide is still dropping, and the mud banks are starting to emerge around the edges of the channel. We should probably head back soon.
“There’s something else,” I say.
“Of course there is.”
“I didn’t just hide from Jessica. I did to her exactly what my father did to my mother.”
Grayson raises an eyebrow.
“I pretended to be someone I wasn’t. Made her think the real me was shameful, something to be concealed. Let her fall for pieces of me instead of the whole truth.” I grip the wheel, knuckles white. “My father made my mother feel like her love was foolish. I made Jessica feel like I was three different people who couldn’t be trusted.”
