"Yeah."
"I don't care if you lose every race. I don't care if you quit rowing tomorrow. I don't care about the scholarship or what anyone thinks or—" She stopped. "I care aboutyou. About you being okay. About you being happy."
"Mom—"
"Are you happy, baby?"
The question sat there in the dark car like something with weight.
Am I happy?
"I don't know," I said finally. "I don't think I've been happy in a long time."
"Then that's what matters. Figuring out what makes you happy. Who you are. What you want."
"What if what I want is—" I stopped. The words right there. Right on the edge. "What if it's not what people expect?"
"There's no such thing as what people expect."
"Yes there is, Mom. You know there is."
It was like she heard exactly what I wasn't saying and was leaving the door open for whenever I was ready to walk through it.
"There's just what other people assume. And what you actually are. And you don't owe anyone an explanation for who you are."
I couldn't speak.
The silence between us felt different now. Full. Like she was waiting on the other side of something and I was standing at the threshold.
"Whatever you're working through," she said, "and I know there's more you're not telling me—you take your time. You figure it out. And when you're ready to talk about it, I'll be here."
I know there's more you're not telling me.
She knew. Maybe not the specifics. But she knew something bigger than a breakup was happening. And she wasn't pushing. Just leaving the door open.
The tears were coming harder now.
"I love you," I said. Barely sound at all.
"I love you too, baby. So much."
We sat there in silence for a moment. Me in a parking lot in Ashford. Her in our small house in Brackett Lake. The distance between us feeling both infinite and nonexistent.
"Do you have practice tomorrow?" she asked.
My stomach dropped. The invitational. I hadn't told her.
"Yeah. Early."
"Then you should get some sleep."
"I will."
"Liam."
"Yeah?"
"Whatever happened with Emily—that's her loss. You're a good person. A good man. And someday you're going to find someone who sees that. Who appreciates that. Who doesn't make you feel like you have to be someone you're not."
